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So, what time period are we in? An American leader, after months of tacit encouragement, has finally intervened to end an offensive by Israeli forces that has reduced extensive sections of a city in the Middle East to rubble, leaving many thousands killed and prompting international condemnation.

This military action has come after a sequence of attacks on the Israeli nation. Presently, responding to pressure from the White House, the Israeli prime minister, a rightwinger with a talent for populist rhetoric and a strong feeling of historic Zionist mission, has consented to a halt in hostilities.

Historical Parallels

The era is not the current year, but the early 1980s. The urban center is not Gaza City, but Beirut, Lebanon. The American president is Ronald Reagan, not the current administration.

We find many differences between what happened in the Lebanese nation over four years past and recent developments in the Gaza Strip in the past two years. The October attack of last year, which resulted in 1,200 and involved numerous captured, shows limited similarity with the comparatively limited activities of the PLO in the period preceding Israel's invasion of Lebanon.

Remarkable Resemblances

Certain parallels are striking. The president ultimately made the call the counterpart, stating to him that the situation in Beirut was "a holocaust" and explaining the diplomatic ties between their countries could be significantly impaired if the conflict carried on.

During that period, similar to current times, the fighting played out in real time on millions of screens. Numerous reporters flew into the city to report on for the premier occasion an regional battle without media restrictions by either side.

Aftermath and Consequences

The situation following the conversation from Reagan and the halt in fighting in the city is educational. The liberation movement, its groups and representatives were scattered across vast distances and a various states.

Washington then withdrew international forces – a violation of the arrangement with Arafat. The Lebanese president, the country's freshly appointed leader and Israeli-supported figure, was killed by Damascus operatives.

Middle Eastern Changes

Comparable developments occurred across the wider Middle East. By the conclusion of that decade, the more secular and modern approaches that had seemed to offer the hope of a changed reality in the Middle Eastern nations a decade or so earlier were discredited.

The consequences of this emerged rapidly, almost immediately

Throughout the area, the Israeli state and the America now faced opponents who were considerably more unyielding, deadly and efficient than the leftists and nationalists of previous times.

International Reaction

Among Western nations, the consequences of this were counterintuitive. During the that decade, international experts and officials had attempted to comprehend what led to armed fundamentalism.

Afterward, in the early 1980s, this ceased. National figures in the US, the Britain and other nations were no longer interested in "fundamental sources" of unrest.

Contemporary Echoes

Recently, sources suggest that present administration told Israeli counterparts that the country could not oppose international consensus and admitted territorial ambitions for a sovereign entity.

This too was an repetition of that earlier period. In the consequence of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, earlier administration told the Israeli government that the power of its defense establishment alone could not "establish enduring settlement" and recognized "justified demands of the Arab residents."

Yet a US-led regional peace plan intended to address those complaints stalled completely. Abroad, political figures looked on impotently.

International interest in the region waned. The nation opposed compromises. Later, there was the first intifada, and the founding of further armed organizations.

• The repetitions of the past offer sobering lessons for contemporary resolution attempts
• Lasting solutions require dealing with fundamental problems rather than temporary ceasefires
• Local circumstances continue to evolve in multifaceted and often unpredictable ways