🔗 Share this article

So, what year do we find ourselves? A US president, following an extended period of quiet support, has finally intervened to halt an Israeli military offensive that has transformed extensive sections of a city in the Middle East to rubble, resulting in many thousands killed and sparking global outrage.

The campaign has followed a succession of attacks on the Israeli nation. Now, facing demands from American leadership, the Israel's leader, a rightwinger with a talent for appealing language and an intense sense of historical Jewish national duty, has approved a ceasefire.

Historical Comparisons

The year is not the current year, but four decades ago. The location is not present-day Gaza, but Beirut, Lebanon. The US leader is Ronald Reagan, not Donald Trump.

We find numerous variations between the situation in the Lebanese nation more than four decades ago and what has happened in Palestinian territories in the last 24 months. The October attack of recent times, which killed over a thousand and saw numerous seized, differs significantly with the somewhat modest activities of the Palestine Liberation Organization in the period before the Israeli incursion of Lebanon.

Uncanny Similarities

Several similarities are remarkable. The president ultimately made the call the Israeli leader, informing him that events in Beirut was "a catastrophe" and saying the relationship between their countries could be gravely damaged if the conflict continued.

In 1982, comparable to present circumstances, the conflict played out in immediate coverage on millions of screens. Many journalists traveled to the city to cover for the premier occasion an Arab–Israeli war without information control by any party.

Subsequent Developments

The events subsequent to the call from the US president and the halt in fighting in Beirut is revealing. The PLO, its groups and officials were spread across vast distances and a multiple nations.

American leadership then pulled out multinational troops – a violation of the understanding with the Palestinian leader. The elected leader, the nation's newly elected president and Israel's preferred proxy, was assassinated by Syrian intelligence.

Area-wide Shifts

Comparable developments occurred across the rest of the region. By the late seventies, the more secular and modern approaches that had looked to deliver the hope of a changed reality in the Arab and Islamic worlds a decade or so earlier were undermined.

The consequences of this were quickly apparent, very quickly

Across the region, Israel and the America now confronted opponents who were considerably more stubborn, lethal and capable than the leftists and nationalists of the past.

Western Response

Among Western nations, the consequences of this were counterintuitive. Throughout the that decade, western analysts and officials had sought to understand what caused violent extremism.

Subsequently, in the early 1980s, this stopped. Political leaders in the United States, the UK and elsewhere were lost interest in "underlying reasons" of conflict.

Contemporary Echoes

In recent days, reports indicate that current leadership informed Israeli counterparts that the state could not oppose international consensus and acknowledged national hopes for a state.

This too was an echo of that earlier period. In the consequence of the Israeli invasion of that nation, previous leadership told Israel that the power of its military alone could not "establish just and lasting peace" and accepted "proper claims of the Palestinian population."

Yet a US-led comprehensive agreement intended to answer those grievances stalled completely. From exile, Palestinian leadership observed helplessly.

International interest in the region diminished. The state resisted any concessions. Later, there was the major unrest, and the founding of new resistance movements.

• The cycles of history offer sobering perspectives for current diplomatic initiatives
• Lasting solutions require dealing with underlying issues rather than brief halts
• Local circumstances continue to change in multifaceted and sometimes unexpected ways