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So, which year do we find ourselves? The White House occupant, following an extended period of tacit encouragement, has finally intervened to end an military campaign from Israel that has reduced extensive sections of a urban center in the region to rubble, causing many thousands dead and generating international condemnation.

The campaign has followed a succession of attacks on Israel. Presently, facing demands from the US administration, the prime minister of Israel, a rightwinger with a gift for popular speech and an intense sense of Zionist historical purpose, has consented to a truce.

Historical Parallels

The year is not the current year, but 1982. The location is not Gaza City, but the Lebanese capital. The American president is Ronald Reagan, not today's leadership.

Exist many differences between the situation in the Lebanese nation over four decades ago and what has happened in Gaza in the recent period. The October attack of last year, which killed over a thousand and included two hundred fifty captured, bears little comparison with the comparatively limited activities of the Palestinian leadership in the year or so before Israel's invasion of Lebanon.

Remarkable Resemblances

Some are uncanny. The president ultimately contacted the counterpart, telling him that events in Beirut was "a catastrophe" and indicating the relationship between their countries could be seriously harmed if the violence persisted.

At that time, similar to current times, the conflict developed in immediate coverage on millions of screens. Many reporters entered the capital to document for the initial instance an Middle Eastern conflict without censorship by either side.

Results and Outcomes

What happened after the communication from American leadership and the truce in Lebanon is instructive. The liberation movement, its factions and representatives were dispersed across multiple countries and a multiple nations.

Washington then withdrew multinational troops – a breach of the understanding with Arafat. Bashir Gemayel, the country's freshly appointed head of state and Israeli-supported figure, was assassinated by Syrian intelligence.

Middle Eastern Changes

Comparable developments occurred across the rest of the region. By the conclusion of that decade, the more secular and modern approaches that had looked to deliver the promise of a changed reality in the regional countries a decade or so earlier were undermined.

The results of this became very clear, almost immediately

Across the region, Israel and the America now encountered opponents who were significantly more intractable, deadly and capable than the progressive groups and patriotic organizations of the past.

Western Response

Among Western nations, the outcomes of this were unexpected. During the 1970s, international experts and government representatives had tried to analyze what caused militant radicalism.

Subsequently, in the beginning of that decade, this ended. Government officials in the America, the Britain and elsewhere were ceased being concerned in "underlying reasons" of violence.

Modern Parallels

Last week, accounts show that present administration communicated to government representatives that Israel could not oppose international consensus and recognized national hopes for a independent nation.

Similarly was an echo of 1982. In the aftermath of the armed entry of Lebanon, past government told the nation that the capability of its defense establishment alone could not "achieve just and lasting peace" and acknowledged "legitimate rights of the Palestinian people."

Yet a US-led regional peace plan intended to answer those complaints went nowhere. Abroad, Palestinian leadership looked on helplessly.

International interest in the Middle East decreased. The nation resisted any concessions. Later, there was the initial uprising, and the establishment of new resistance movements.

• The repetitions of history present sobering lessons for contemporary diplomatic initiatives
• Permanent settlements require confronting fundamental problems rather than short-term truces
• Area politics continue to develop in complicated and often unpredictable ways