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So, what year is this? The White House occupant, after months of implicit backing, has finally intervened to stop an military campaign from Israel that has reduced swaths of a city in the Middle East to rubble, resulting in many thousands killed and sparking worldwide anger.

The campaign has been preceded by a succession of strikes on the Israeli nation. Presently, facing demands from American leadership, the Israeli prime minister, a conservative politician with an aptitude for appealing language and an intense sense of historical Jewish national duty, has consented to a ceasefire.

Past Echoes

The era is not the current year, but 1982. The location is not present-day Gaza, but Beirut, Lebanon. The US leader is Ronald Reagan, not the current administration.

There are numerous variations between what happened in the Lebanese nation over four in the past and current circumstances in the Gaza Strip in the past two years. The October attack of last year, which killed 1,200 and saw numerous captured, shows limited similarity with the relatively paltry efforts of the Palestine Liberation Organization in the period before the Israeli incursion of the Lebanese nation.

Striking Parallels

Some are uncanny. Reagan finally made the call the prime minister, stating to him that what was happening in Beirut was "a catastrophe" and explaining the relationship between their states could be significantly impaired if the conflict carried on.

At that time, much as today, the conflict played out in real time on millions of screens. Numerous reporters entered the city to report on for the initial instance an Middle Eastern conflict without censorship by either side.

Subsequent Developments

The situation after the call from American leadership and the ceasefire in the city is instructive. The liberation movement, its divisions and leaders were spread across vast distances and a multiple nations.

The US administration then pulled out international forces – a violation of the agreement with Arafat. The elected leader, 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 late seventies, the more secular and progressive ideas that had seemed to offer the promise of a different tomorrow in the regional countries previously were undermined.

The outcomes of this became very clear, almost immediately

In various nations, the Israeli state and the America now confronted enemies who were significantly more unyielding, deadly and effective than the progressive groups and nationalists of previous times.

Western Response

In the west, the consequences of this were perverse. During the 1970s, western analysts and government representatives had tried to analyze what generated militant radicalism.

Subsequently, in the beginning of that decade, this ceased. Government officials in the US, the Britain and elsewhere were no longer interested in "fundamental sources" of unrest.

Modern Parallels

Recently, accounts show that today's officials told Israeli counterparts that the state could not oppose international consensus and acknowledged national hopes for a independent nation.

This also was an repetition of historical precedent. In the wake of the Israeli invasion of that nation, previous leadership told the nation that the capability of its military alone could not "achieve enduring settlement" and recognized "proper claims of the Palestinian people."

Yet a American-sponsored comprehensive agreement intended to resolve those complaints failed to progress. Abroad, Palestinian leadership looked on powerlessly.

International interest in the region diminished. The state opposed compromises. Later, there was the first intifada, and the creation of additional militant groups.

• The cycles of history provide sobering lessons for contemporary resolution attempts
• Permanent settlements require dealing with underlying issues rather than short-term truces
• Area politics continue to change in multifaceted and frequently surprising ways