Once again Israel and the Palestinians of the Gaza strip are on the brink of outright war. The Palestinians are sending rocket missiles over the border into the Jewish state and Israel is responding with air strikes by its air force.
This is delivering a casualty imbalance. Israel has the fire power and a much higher ratio of men, women and children are being killed in the densely populated Gaza strip and neither side is prepared to call it quits and negotiate a cease fire.
This " hot spot " in the Middle East has been a war zone from the day the world body - the United Nations - granted the Jewish people a homeland they claim was granted them by God according to the bible. The only problem was that Palestinian people already lived there and suddenly the same piece of land was in dispute by two tribes.
The answer was clear. It needed to be divided into two states, which hopefully could learn to live in peace with one another. Both sides rejected that solution and Israel has successfully won several shooting wars with its Arab neighbours.
Several times it looked like a solution could be found, but in every case the negotiations failed because one side or the other dug their heels in and refused to compromise. Slowly, but surely the Israeili government has been encroaching on territory claimed by the Palestinians for their state and the laws in Israel make Palestinians second class citizens.
The problem is that Israel is the strongest military power in the Middle East. The Jewish lobby in America has ensured it has been supplied with state of the art weapons, including a nuclear arsenal. It seems that Israel is hoping that putting sufficient pressure on its Arabs will convince them to move out and seek a new home in Syria or Iraq.
The Palestinians see hope because Israel is suffering political uncertainty with its prime minister facing criminal charges and having repeated elections that do not deliver a stable government. In fact Mr Netanyahu may be about to take the country to a fifth election this year to try and solve that impasse. This shooting war is taking attention away from his political troubles.
Basically, this Israel/Arab conflict can be sheeted home to the United Nations decision to grant a Jewish homeland in Palestine. That same United Nations should step in and make a decision on a Palestinian state which Israel would be forced to follow.
Unfortunately, that solution is impossible. World politics is hopelessly divided and both sides have their supporters. It seems to be too late to put divided states in place with the combination of undivided world opinion.
It seems that Palestine is to remain a poisonous realm of hostility that will remain a flash point for the rest of this twenty-first century.
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