The Gaza-Jerusalem conflict is a ‘grey rhino’ story

UNTIL violence exploded across Israel and the Palestinian territories this week, this conflict was all but absent from the international headlines. It had been brewing for the best part of the past year, and now we have the likelihood of another deadly war in Gaza and a third Intifada, or Palestinian uprising.

The new Gaza-Jerusalem conflict is a prime example of a “grey rhino” in the news agenda. A grey rhino is a term first coined by the financial journalist Michele Wucker. It is something between an elephant in the room, the huge presence everyone knows is there but tries to avoid, and the black swan — Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s concept for the world-changing outlier everyone has failed to spot.

The grey rhino, says Wucker, is “the metaphor for the one big obvious thing that’s coming at you …either you get trampled or get out of the way — or hop on the back of the rhino and use the

crisis as opportunity.” There is quite a herd of grey rhinos out there, but few are cropping up in the news. They should be.

Most colourful is the tension caused by Chinese fishing fleets claiming territorial rights across the Pacific, off Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. More than 200 Chinese vessels, escorted by gunboats, crowded a small area of

Philippines waters last month. A repeat this month brought a ripe objection to Beijing on Twitter from Manila’s foreign minister, Teodoro Locsin. “China, my friend, how politely can I put it? Let me see … O … GET THE F… OUT.”

It didn’t make headlines in UK. Yet it is precisely into this mayhem of clashing fishing fleets guarded by Chinese gunboats, plus random claims to Pacific atolls, that the task force led by the UK’s brand new aircraft carrier Queen Elizabeth is about to sail. What the Royal Navy’s role will be in this sea of troubles is far from clear.

Across Africa now, the grey rhinos are rumbling with rumours of wars old and new. In Yemen there is more war. The Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile threatens a water war involving Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia. Libya, Tunisia, Chad, Mali and the Western Sahara are roiling.

When the grey rhino charges, get out of the way before it’s too late. But it’s the business of news to alert the world first. ⬤ Robert Fox is the Evening Standard’s defence editor