Is the cause of the majority of Middle Eastern conflict due to creation of Israel?

[Sandman]

There could possibly be a united Arab state, encompassing the entire Arabian peninsula. It would probably be a monarchy, given that it was likely to be set up by Britain.

[Sprayber]

I always wondered if Arabs would have spent more time and energy against Russia or India or maybe Iran if not for the presence of Israel. Anyone have any ideas on that?

[Buck Birdseed]

Now, I personally am a great fan of 19th-century Nationalism. I know, it's unfashionable these days to support that blatant creation of national myths, the oft-associated xenophobia, the lack of plurality. But I think Nationalism has done more than perhaps any ideology to break yokes of imperialist oppression, to preserve the richness of whatever cultural and lingual heritage we've got left, to fight for the rights of minority groups and in the long run to create viable, modern, multicultural states.

From the myriad of such ideologies that emerged from that century, I really don't think you can single out Zionism, in either a positive or negative way. Sure, it mythologised about a common Jewish identity that may not have existed, but no more so than other Nationalisms mythologised about common German or Hungarian identities, and if people felt at home within it, who can blame the ideology itself? And sure, it lay claim to lands it didn't at that moment posess, but borders are fickle things and practically every strip of land is claimed by more than one culture in any case- the demands for an Israel were, in the light of the day, no more extravagant than those for a Slovakia or Lithuania.

So no, it is not the ideology of Zionism in itself or the creation of the state of Israel that is really at fault. Yet I still balme Israel, or rather the policies of the Israeli government, for having created a large portion of the violence.

Around the time of the first world war, many of the positive aspects of Nationalism started to ebb out, and some of the nastier sides started to manifest itself. The problem, a bit like that of liberalism a decade before it, is that once the initial goal (in this case creation of a free state for the ethnic group) is achieved, the ideology kind of eats itself. In a lot of cases, what was formerly the fight of a weak, oppressed group for survival against a mighty imperical overlord becomes, by nearly the same token, a fight by an overlord itself. No regime was more brutal than the Hungarian one in repressing ethnic minorities after Hungary was given nation status back in 1867, Romania's fight for freedom became in the interwar years a total blanket percecution of ethnic Hungarians within its borders.

Once a group gains the upper hand, the Radical, freedom-seeking left-wing sentiments turn, by pure self-interest, into reactionary, anti-freedom right-wing ones. In europe today you can observe an almost startling split among the remaining nationalisms where those that dominate a country are incredibly right-wing (including fascists like the Lega Nord in Italy or the Front National in France), while those that are still in a weaker position are all left-wing, more or less (look at Basque, Breton, Scottish nationalists). As a result, those governments that want to create peaceful, inclusive societies that are not extreme-right have been forced to abandon Nationalism as the leading ideology of the state. It can still be there, in the background, supporting a common identity and preserving cultural heritage, but it can't be allowed to be the ruling principle lest it does precisely what Nationalism was designed to fight, denies a lot of people their freedom and participation in forming the cultural makeup of the state.

Unfortunately I think this is where Israel's problem lies. Israel has, like the aforementioned Romania, become the Imperialist state it was set up to fight, to the extend that it openly supports colonialisation efforts (like Turkey did in Cyprus or the Soviet Union in Estonia) in order to extend its cultural borders and lay claim to even more land. It conducts a regime of brutal repression and violence against another, conflicting Nationalist group, over which it has near-total dominance, with positively fascistic curfews, GDR-like border posts and camp-creation. It routinely kills hundreds of politically unsuitable civilians by the standard fascist excuse of "keeping the security and stability of the state intact" (as used by everyone from Pinochet to De Klerk).

And, in all this, it maintains that exactly the same kinds of values that it itself echewed when its state was formed 55 years ago in the hands of the Palesitinans are unjustified, and terrorism, and need to be fought- not unlike what the British would have said about Zionism in the interwar period. How's that for irony?

[Knight2003]

The region was a violent area far before the modern nation of Israel was created in its midst. It was conquered by the Assyrians, Mesopotamians, and Babylonians to name a few. The most likely explanation for its ancient value that sparked such violent conflicts is its value as a trade region where far east meets west. Today, even without Israel, its oil fields would be reason enough for greedy men to kill for it.

[Urban Ranger]

Yes it would be a safer place, if the Brits would only have left it the way it was before they came. Not artificially cutting up the places into bits, like Iraq, Kuwait, and Israel.

[Caesar the Great]

honestly i think a lot of the world would be better off if a lot of these british colonies never got their independence

[Berzerker]

But the question must be asked: Would the Middle East be a safer, better place if Israel was never created as a state.

Safer there or safer here? We'd be safer, but removing Israel via hypothetical wouldn't mean a safer ME. But we picked up Britain's fumble and now we're getting tackled. What amazes me is that Hamas and these other Palestinian groups haven't been targeting us since the 60's and 70's. We picked up France's fumble in SE Asia and we got tackled there. We have this stupid habit of picking up loose footballs fumbled by the colonial powers of Europe and then we wonder why (or worse, don't care) these indigenous peoples who were under the thumbs of France and England don't embrace us as we go in to bail out the Europeans. The Pentagon Papers explains SE Asia, but that wasn't an isolated policy. Of course, pointing out the immorality of the Republicrats will only get you labeled as "anti-American" or "hate America" or "blame America first" as if America = the Dems and Repubs and to hell with the rest of us.
Quite an arrogant attitude...

[GePap]

Would the ME be safer? The bloodiest conflicts in the ME since 1915 have been between Arab or Arab v Persian (the civil war in Algeria has claimed more lives, probably the civil war in Yemen killed more people, the Iran-Iraq war was certainly the bloodiest). Now, would some areas, like Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine be richer (for the Arabs at least?) yes, but conflict between tribes, between factions of Islam, between socialist, communists, Islamists, liberals would have all still happened. So overall, no, the ME might be less in the news (though, thanks to crude, still key), but not so much better off.

[ThePantaloonDog]

Pan-Arabism would never work even if Israel never existed. Its one of the constant failures of Western diplomacy to think of Arabs as one people, one culture, and one religion. ARabs having been fighting amongst themselves over a number of arguments the most prominent being the Sunni/Shi'ite conflict. Even without these religious problems the Arab world has been divided between tribal lines. If yo want to rule an Arab country you have to line up all the local tribal leaders so that your supported. Something the Heshimites (sp?) and Britain learned the hard way. This is why there are autocratic leaders in the ME, its hard to hold a country together unless you have a dictator willing to crush dissent.

The Arab world has serious problems facing it espieciely as the its population explodes and begins to chafe under the autocratic rule of many countries. Right now there are democratic reforms going on in many of the Persian Gulf sheikdoms but these are generally small countries with a relatively homogeneous population (in terms of tribes and religion). The only way the ME can have long term stability would be a major culture change where tribal and religious differences no longer affect politics such as the Enlightenment in Europe.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Caesar the Great
honestly i think a lot of the world would be better off if a lot of these british colonies never got their independence

The US, to name 13...

[Ramo]

Israel wouldn't have made much of a difference for the Middle East. After Britain gives the region independence, Palestine would be partitioned among the states in the region, just as the smaller version did. And inhabitants of the region would be oppressed by the states that partioned the region, just as it happened in our history. And you'd see states at clonvlict with others in the region for simple power (Syria-Lebanon), ethnic rivalry (Kurds-everyone else), Sunni-Shia rivalry (Iraq-Iran), and Islamist-Secular rivalry (Iraq). So, no real difference considering the nature of the region.

[Sirotnikov]

The Pantaloon Dog followed by GePap and Ramo present the opinions I hold best.

[yavoon]

some of you are too obsessed with the idea of cutting up a region causing so much conflict. lots of places have been arbitrarily cut up after war and they don't suicide bomb buses.

it appears only when you cut up places with fanatically fundamentalist religions based on oppression and hate that you have issues.