Goatfell - in answer to your first question - all depends what the schools are being used for. The ones the Taleban are blowing up and closing are only guilty of educating children including girls which the Taleban take great exception to. Hence the blowing up of schools, the murder of teachers and pupils, throwing acid in the faces of gitls on their way to, or from school.

In answer to your second, Israel and Syria have been negotiating through intermediaries for years. Since 1973, apart from the attack on Syria's secret nuclear facility Israel and Syria have co-existed in peace albeit that Hamas has its headquarters in Damascus and that Hezbollah are supplied and backed by the Syrian regime as well as by Iran.

The Lebanon has been a complete and utter mess since the early 1970's after the Palestinians who were thrown out of Jordan lifted and shifted themselves to Lebanon and created and armed state within a state. Subsequent to the civil war Syria occupied Lebanon for 27 years, they only withdrew and complied with UN resolutions calling on them to withdraw after the US invasion of Iraq and the removal of the only other Ba'athist ruker in the region. Assad took note and saw which way the wind was blowing.