Gaza: no lessons learned

The swift descent into a new Gaza confrontation says that leaders on both sides of the divide, including in the US, have learned almost nothing from past tragedies, writes James Zogby

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/News/330/21/Gaza--no-lessons-learned.aspx 

The escalating violence between Israel and Gaza should remind us of old lessons that still need to be learned and new realities to which attention must now be paid.

First and foremost among the old lessons is the fact that the successive waves of violence that have characterised the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have produced nothing but more death and destruction, more suffering and insecurity, and more anger all round. Every attack or assault that was intended to “teach a lesson” or “exact revenge” only laid the predicate for the next attack. And so it has gone for decades. The lesson that should have been learned, and apparently has not been learned, is that just as violence will not end the occupation, neither will violence put an end to resistance to the occupation....READ MORE