No amount of airstrikes will end the conflict between Israel and Hamas

Editorial: The peace process cannot make much progress without the United States intervening

Mourners attend the funeral of Israeli Arab Khalil Awaad and his daughter Nadine, 16, in the village of Dahmash near the Israeli city of Lod (AP)

The eruption of anger and violence that has threatened civil war in parts of Israel and Palestine was both sudden and, paradoxically, long coming.

The immediate cause looks to have been Israeli military action against Palestinians in the al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem, as well as demonstrations by militant Israelis. Hamas has launched hundreds of missiles indiscriminately at Israel. Israel has taken out a senior Hamas commander. The city of Lod is in flames. Claims and counter-claims about terrorism and about who provoked who continue to rage, as they have done so often in the past.

Perhaps the nascent intifada will soon, almost literally, burn itself out; perhaps it might persist into the kind of lower-level persistent conflict that has prevailed in past uprisings. Both sides are vengeful enough to make the escalation of fighting still more intense. It might be confined, or not, to particular areas where Israeli Arabs and Israeli Jews live in proximity, as in Lod.