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So, what time period is this? An American leader, after months of quiet support, has finally intervened to halt an offensive by Israeli forces that has reduced large areas of a urban center in the region to debris, leaving numerous individuals deceased and generating global outrage.

This military action has been preceded by a series of assaults on Israel. Currently, facing demands from the White House, the Israel's leader, a conservative politician with a gift for popular speech and a strong feeling of historic Zionist mission, has agreed to a truce.

Historical Comparisons

The time period is not the current year, but 1982. The city is not the Gaza Strip, but the Lebanese capital. The president is Ronald Reagan, not today's leadership.

There are significant distinctions between the situation in the Lebanese nation over four years past and current circumstances in Palestinian territories in the past two years. The Hamas raid of last year, which resulted in over a thousand and included 250 captured, shows limited similarity with the somewhat modest actions of the Palestinian leadership in the year or so preceding Israel's invasion of the Lebanese nation.

Remarkable Resemblances

Certain parallels are striking. The US leader eventually made the call the Israeli leader, telling him that the situation in Beirut was "a catastrophe" and saying the diplomatic ties between their states could be seriously harmed if the fighting carried on.

During that period, comparable to present circumstances, the conflict unfolded in real time on global media. Hundreds correspondents entered the capital to document for the first time an Arab–Israeli war without censorship by the combatants.

Aftermath and Consequences

The events subsequent to the communication from Reagan and the halt in fighting in Beirut is educational. The liberation movement, its divisions and representatives were dispersed across thousands of miles and a dozen countries.

Washington then withdrew US-led peacekeepers – a violation of the understanding with Arafat. Bashir Gemayel, the country's freshly appointed leader and Israel's chosen ally, was assassinated by Syrian intelligence.

Area-wide Shifts

Similar patterns emerged across the rest of the region. By the conclusion of that decade, the increasingly non-religious and progressive ideas that had seemed to offer the hope of a changed reality in the Arab and Islamic worlds a decade or so earlier were undermined.

The consequences of this became very clear, in short order

In various nations, the Israeli state and the America now confronted adversaries who were considerably more unyielding, dangerous and effective than the progressive groups and nationalists of the past.

Global Approach

In the west, the results of this were unexpected. During the that decade, global observers and government representatives had tried to analyze what generated militant radicalism.

Then, in the start of the eighties, this stopped. National figures in the United States, the UK and additional countries were no longer interested in "fundamental sources" of violence.

Modern Parallels

Recently, sources suggest that today's officials informed Israeli counterparts that the country could not confront global opinion and recognized Palestinian aspirations for a state.

This also was an parallel of historical precedent. In the consequence of the armed entry of Lebanon, past government told the Israeli government that the power of its defense establishment alone could not "establish just and lasting peace" and recognized "legitimate rights of the Palestinian population."

Yet a internationally-backed regional peace plan meant to answer those complaints went nowhere. Abroad, Palestinian leadership looked on impotently.

International interest in the region waned. The nation rejected accommodations. Later, there was the initial uprising, and the establishment of additional militant groups.

• The patterns of the past offer serious lessons for contemporary resolution attempts
• Lasting solutions require addressing fundamental problems rather than brief halts
• Area politics continue to evolve in multifaceted and frequently surprising ways