By Alexander Smith - NBC News
Missiles exchanged by Israel and Palestinian militants.
Death and destruction in the impoverished Gaza Strip.
Terror in the Israeli streets as rockets light up the night sky.
And an eventual ceasefire that calms the violence, until it erupts again the next time.
It is a dark and familiar cycle that has haunted the Middle East for decades and haunted successive US administrations.
But this time, President Joe Biden has said he believes there is "a real opportunity to move forward" for Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace.
This is a great proposition that would require moving forward on a seemingly insoluble problem with ancient roots and a litany of current complications.
"We've been in this situation before - it's like 'Groundhog Day,'"
said Yossi Mekelberg, senior research consultant at Chatham House, a think tank in London.
However,
some experts see a ray of hope this time.
Biden and his team are viewed by many internationally as more competent and level-headed than their predecessors in the Trump Administration, who broke with decades of US foreign policy
by recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel
and approving Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
[Biden demands of Israel an immediate and "significant decrease" in violence leading to a ceasefire in Gaza]
"Biden has a secretary of state, Antony Blinken, who really understands the conflict," Mekelberg said.
"And he has his special envoy, Hady Amr, a guy who understands the ins and outs of the country more than most."
Experts in the region also have the feeling that
pressure from progressive Democratic lawmakers
to examine Israel's actions
has influenced Biden's thinking.
More than 100 Israeli missiles hit Gaza hours after Biden and Netanyahu spoke
May 18, 202100: 38
"With key voices from the Democratic Party challenging pro-Israel hegemony within their own party, the political landscape in the United States is gradually changing," Fawaz Gerges, professor of international relations at the
London School of Economics
, said in an email
.
Pro-Palestinian activists have also found hope in the
international expressions of support in the past two weeks
and in the criticism of Israel that was growing internationally even before this latest conflict.
[Israel bombards Gaza with new airstrikes despite Biden joining in ceasefire calls]
In April, Human Rights Watch released a comprehensive report claiming that
Israel was guilty of "apartheid"
(segregation) in its treatment of Palestinians within its borders and occupied territories.
Israel
vehemently rejects this characterization, and considers
Gaza to be a hostile territory ruled by Hamas
, which both it and the United States classify as a terrorist group.
Following the resumption of fighting on May 10, protesters protested in world capitals and were joined by social media celebrities and high-level soccer stars in solidarity with the Palestinian cause.
"We don't deserve this": the harsh testimony of a Palestinian girl who dreams of becoming a doctor in Gaza
May 18, 202100: 39
These protests have been amplified by a
more unified voice from the Palestinians themselves
, some of whom took to the streets of the occupied West Bank and cities across Israel to protest what they see as an untenable and unbalanced situation.
"The Palestinian cause is alive and well," Gerges said.
"The world has come to see the futility and unsustainability of the status quo," he added.
[Israeli bombings kill 8 children and demolish another building in Gaza: it was the headquarters of media such as AP and Al Jazeera]
However, many observers are skeptical that this time it will be different.
The ceasefire following the Gaza wars of 2009, 2012 and 2014 allowed for a fragile and uneasy peace for a few years before fighting flared up again.
Decades of peace talks, sometimes mediated by the United States, have consistently failed to find a solution.
The failure of the Oslo Accords in 2000 plunged the region into years of struggle.
Palestinians rescue a survivor from the rubble of a residential building destroyed after the deadly Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City, Sunday, May 16, 2021.AP / Khalil Hamra
"This round of violence and its aftermath will likely follow the same pattern as the previous three," said Greg Shapland, associate member of Chatham House.
"That is to say: large-scale attacks by both sides will cease, probably for several years, but there will continue to be occasional breaches of the ceasefire," he said.
[How did the last crisis between Israelis and Palestinians arise?]
The recent wave of clashes between Arabs and Jews within Israel has been the most serious outbreak of intercommunal unrest since then.
For some, this suggests that the timing may not be so ideal for a renewed push for peace that returns the thorniest issues - as always, Jerusalem being the most fundamental - at the center of the debate.
"Unless the causes of the violence are addressed, a new round is expected in a few years," Shapland added.
"Ordinary citizens on both sides, but especially in Gaza, will once again be the victims," he
said.
Similarly, Gerges doubts that much will ultimately change "in the short term, given the
asymmetry of power between Israel and the Palestinians
, and the
prevailing US support for Israel."
Israel and Hamas celebrate ceasefire as victory, as US offers aid for Gaza
May 21, 202102: 09
Experts like Mekelberg believe that Biden can help steer major short-term victories toward de-escalation: stopping the eviction of Palestinians from East Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, and addressing the issue of Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank.
"It is not about justifying what Hamas is doing, but about not giving them the excuse and the pretext to become the defenders of Jerusalem," he said.
"It's about being smart, not always being right."
Another thing is that the president has the will to get involved.
The Middle East is not considered one of Biden's foreign policy priorities
, far behind China, Iran, global warming and the international response to the coronavirus pandemic.
["I wouldn't give him everything he wants": Biden doesn't rule out meeting with Kim Jong Un but sets limits]
"Do you want to invest time in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?"
Mekelberg said.
"In the end, one way or another, it's going to mess him up."
Who can sit on the other side of the negotiating table is also a complication.
The latest conflict came amid a
power vacuum in Israel
, where the fourth elections in two years did not result in a majority, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is on trial for corruption.
In the Palestinian Authority, the first elections in more than 15 months were recently postponed.
President Mahmoud Abbas, whose Fatah party controls much of the West Bank, blamed Israel for refusing to allow voting in East Jerusalem.
But many Palestinian voters denounced the delay as an excuse to avoid the elections, which Abbas looked like he was going to lose.
Fatah's rival Hamas may be further bolstered by a campaign that began with rocket attacks aimed at making Israel pay for its treatment of the Al-Aqsa mosque, which is housed in a sacred precinct for both the Al-Aqsa mosque. Muslims as well as Jews.
[They rescue a 6-year-old girl trapped in the rubble of a bombing in Gaza]
"Confronting Israel has made the Islamist organization a power to be reckoned with and earned it popularity and respect in the eyes of Palestinians and Arabs / Muslims," Gerges said.
"It is seen as the vanguard of the Palestinian resistance against the Israeli occupation."
Given that Netanyahu relies on the support of the political far right to stay in power, both factions appear to be moving away from the central terrain necessary for a grand deal.
"Ultimately, Hamas and Netanyahu justify each other's existence," Mekelberg said. "Its existence is based on confrontation, not cooperation."