By the year 1948, there was a massive amount of tension that had built-up in the Middle-East. This tension had in fact originated 19 centuries earlier, and had started due to the differences in both religion and nationalism between the Jews and Arabs. After the Romans gained control of Judea, this caused the diaspora of Jews to all the parts of the world. Eventually, the majority of Jews did return back to the region, after the official establishment of the state of Israel, and this led to the Arab-Israel War of Liberation, in which surrounding Arab states, such as Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Jordan attacked Israel in order to regain this land, which originally belonged to Palestine. The Arabs were defeated, and this increased the nationalism amongst them in order to get revenge, which eventually led them to 3 future wars of the Suez Canal Crisis of 1956, The Six-Day War of 1967, and the Yom Kippur War of 1973. These 3 wars were of significant importance as this was the first time in which major Superpower involvement was seen. These superpowers, being the USA and USSR, were interested in the Middle-East, primarily due to its strategic placing, as well as its natural resource of oil. These factors forced the superpowers to get involved in the region, and this involvement eventually led to war by proxy, within the region. Even though the wars were fuelled by the superpower interests, the large amount of Arab Nationalism also led to the wars against Israel, from 1948 till 1978.
The 1948 War of Liberation was the first war that sparked off the Middle East conflicts, and created a foundation for numerous other wars to follow. This Middle-East conflict did eventually get involved within the global cold War, however it was far different, a...
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... also due to the recurring sense of Arab Nationalism that in fact fuelled the Middle-East Conflicts.
Thus, it could be shown that the Middle-East conflict in fact was fuelled by both Superpower interests as well as concerns, in the region. The USA and USSR were both interested in increasing their individual spheres of influence in the region, in order to gain a bigger foothold in the Middle-East, as well as in turn possibly gaining the main resource of Oil. It was also due to their concerns towards each others actions in the region, which led them to support their respective allies, which in turn led to the direct influence of the Cold War in the Middle-East. Therefore, it was due to the full extent of involvement of the Superpowers in the region that led to the prolonging of the Middle-East Conflict from 1948 till 1978.
Imperialism, Colonialism, and war had a huge impact on the Middle East, and it can also be thought of as the source of conflict. According to the map in Document A, it shows that the size of the Ottoman Empire grew smaller after the first world war, along with this change came new boundaries. These borders were created by the victorious European countries that won World War I, and made different ethnic and religious groups separated and grouped together with others. Great Britain's took over Palestine mandate and developed the Balfour Declaration that promised Jews support in making a home in Palestine. Most of the Palestine land was populated with Arabs. As soon as Jewish immigration increased, so did the tension between the two groups because each felt like they deserved the Palestine land. Zionism began early in the history of Judiasm and it was the movement for the Jews to establish a home in Palestine, and return to their holy land. During the Holocaust, six million Jews were killed and the deep-seeded hatre against them increased
The story begins by Shlaim breaking down the conflict into four periods: the Ottoman, the imperial (British/French), the Cold War (US/USSR), and American (present day). He then traces how these foreign powers have shaped the region and intruded in the relations among the local states. He argues that the post-Ottoman syndrome refers to the inability of the Middle East countries to achieve peace following the onset of imperialism.
The relations between the U.S and the Middle East are strained at best. The troops deployed in the area face constant threat of attack by a militant group. These broken relations between the U.S and the Middle East started over 50 years ago, with the Iran Hostage Crisis. Root causes of the crisis were many. One was U.S greed over oil in Iran. The second, the coup in Iran organized and funded by the CIA. The U.S dependence on foreign oil is another cause of the problems. Lastly, should the U.S stop moving into other countries sovereign lands and trying to “Prevent the evil of communism”, the nation would not have so many problems around the world. This worry was even shown in Iran (Kinzer, 10). While often blamed on radicals, the strained relations between the U.S and the Middle East are a direct result of a poor US foreign policy.
This marked the beginning of the Palestine armed conflict, one of its kinds to be witnessed in centuries since the fall of the Ottoman Empire and World War 1. Characterized by a chronology of endless confrontations, this conflict has since affected not only the Middle East relations, but also the gl...
Israel’s involvement in war is not a new phenomenon. Military conflict has been true all through the history of the Jewish nation. In biblical times the Jewish people were continually engaged in military conflict, often times the aggressor, as Yahweh called them to fight in order to settle in the “promised land” (Joshua 8:1-2 New International Version). The children of Israel’s first military conflict came in 1445 B.C. against the Amalekites during the time of the exodus from Egypt (Exodus 17:10 NIV). Over the next two centuries, the Israelites conquered most of the land now known as Israel battling many different tribes in what was almost constant military conflict (NIV). The tribes of Israel were unified by the establishment of a monarchical system headed by Saul in 1020 B.C. (Benhaim np). David, the second king of Israel created a c...
Yapp, Malcolm. The Near East since the First World War: A History to 1995. London: Longman, 1996. Print.
Prior to and after WWI the world saw a rise in nationalistic sentiments. The Middle East was not immune to this new ideology. Although Arab Nationalism had a start in the Ottoman Empire, its rise among the masses did not begin until after WWI. While a total rise in Arab Nationalism became apparent on the Arabian Peninsula, a separate nationalist movement began in Palestine as a way to combat a unique and repressive situation. In Palestine the British mandate, along with British support, and the world's support for Zionist immigration into Palestine, caused a number of European Zionists to move into the country. These factors created an agitated atmosphere among Palestinians. Although there was more than one factor in creating a Palestinian-centered Arab Nationalism, the mounting Zionist immigration was among the most prevalent of forces.
Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signified, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold but not clothed." There was never a war that this idea can be more correct applied to than the Cold War. According to noted author and Cold War historian Walter Lippman, the Cold War can be defined as a state of tension between states, which behave with great distrust and hostility towards each other, but do not resort to violence. The Cold War encompasses a period from the end of the Second World War (WWII), in 1945, to the fall of the Soviet Union, in 1989. It also encompassed the Korean and Vietnam Wars and other armed conflicts in the Middle East and Africa, that, essentially, were not wars for people but instead for territories and ideologies. "Nevertheless, like its predecessors, the Cold War has been a worldwide power contest in which one expanding power has threatened to make itself predominant, and in which other powers have banded together in a defensive coalition to frustrate it---as was the case before 1815, as was the case in 1914-1918 as was the case from 1939-1945" (Halle 9). From this power contest, the Cold War erupted.
With the shock of two destructive world wars and then the creation of the United Nations, whose aim is to preserve peace, it is unconceivable for these two nations to fight directly in order to promote their own ideology. But the US and the USSR end up to be in competition in numerous ways, particularly in technological and industrial fields. In the same time they start to spread their influence over their former allies. This phenomenon have led to the creation of a bipolar world, divided in two powerful blocs surrounded by buffer zones, and to the beginning of what we call the Cold War because of the absence of direct conflicts between the two nations.
Leenders, Reinoud. "Regional Conflict Formations': Is the Middle East Next? ." Third World Quarterly 28.5 (2007): 959-982. JSTOR. Web. 5 June 2011.
The pro-Israel intervention represented the US foreign policy reaction when the violation to regional stability was committed by Israel. The cases discussed above were evaluated against the US reaction to Israel’s regional behaviour; in terms of whether the Israeli behaviour served or hampered US interest in maintaining regional stability and whether or not the US opposed Israel when it acted in ways that the United States deemed undesirable. It was concluded that, as a general rule, Washington was ready to intervene to address any violation to the status quo in the Middle East system except when this violation was committed by its regional surrogate. Israel had contributed directly in destabilizing the Middle East system (pushing the system out of its equilibrium point) in several cases, four of which have been discussed above. These crises, in spite of their negative effect on regional stability, witnessed minimal US reaction.
These territories in the Middle East were and still are major influences on the contention in the Arab-Israeli conflict. The conflicts leading up to the events during the Six-Day War was caused by the severe increase in tension between Israel and the neighboring Arab states during the mid 1960s.
that resulted in the tension between the two superpowers and how it came. to be on a global scale, and how it became one of the main factors. the long-lasting cold war. Firstly we will examine why the cold war can truly be a global war and then why it can’t be. To look at why the cold war can be fought on a global scale in terms of the economics and politics....
Initially and primarily the US’s influence in the Middle East was to prevent a hostile power from gaining control over a vital resource. With the outbreak of the 1973 Arab-Israeli conflict, the perception of oil as a strategic commodity surfaced. The Arab states cut off all petroleum deliveries to the United States and forming cutbacks to other countries. At the same time, the Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries (OPEC) announced a rapid increase in the pr...
only ended with the help of the United Nations. To end these conflicts in the Middle