‘The Times of Israel’s Avi Issacharoff was attacked while covering protests in the West Bank on Friday.’

I feared I was going to be beaten to death by Palestinian masked men | The Times of Israel

This represents a small part of a much larger picture; another new piece of the jigsaw but one that only adds to the scene, never coming anywhere near to completing it. Each image is left to embed itself as best it can upon a background of hatred and fear fashioned over far too many years, years filled with unremitting conflict and tension.

Perhaps if, just for a moment, we could all glimpse the entire panorama, that epic montage which will eventually be depicted here, we might gain some sense of whatever outcome awaits. What then might that future hold in store for all of us?

Do we see a region convulsed in constant battle, a never-ending saga out of which come death, destruction and despair as the most well known of its exports?

Will some final status agreement be reached wherein all sides can maintain an uneasy coexistence but with little prospect of lasting peace?

Or are there object lessons to be learned here? Can we be instructed by the terrible toll that this episode, now generations old, has taken on an area of the planet allotted a share of human suffering and failure far exceeding that of other places?

It may be that we have yet to see the ‘big’ picture because so many of the ‘little’ ones are constantly competing for our attention. But when we do, will we understand then the purpose and reasoning behind so much of what has happened?

And what may yet happen if that understanding is not forthcoming?

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