Outside Powers' Influence on the Resolution of the Arab-Israeli Conflict since 1948

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Outside Powers' Influence on the Resolution of the Arab-Israeli Conflict since 1948

Since 1948 many countries became involved in the conflict, namely

Britain, France, the USA, Russia and the UN. One of the main reasons

for this was oil in the Middle East and interest from France and

Britain. The USA and Russia were involved because of the Cold War

conflict.

Britain's early actions didn't help peace as most agree that Britain's

actions led to the 1948 War of Independence; and agreement with the

Jews. When Britain needed help in WW1 the promised to help back the

Jews and Arabs but the British could not satisfy both.

In 1946 too many Jews were beginning to move in, as any Jew in the

world was welcome. Britain decided to restrict Jewish entry, which was

met by Jewish rioting. Attempting to bail out of a difficult

situation, Britain asked the help of the UN and quickly pulled out,

leaving behind a mess.

Britain's next main incentive to get involved in the Middle East was

the Suez Canal on the Mediterranean Sea. In 1956 Britain attacked

Egypt with the help of France after Nasser of Egypt reclaimed the Suez

Canal. Israel did well militarily and more hatred was stirred between

Israeli and Arab neighbours.

I think Britain's input into a peace resolution in the Middle East was

very poor and if anything, made things worse.

After Britain backed down with angry Jews, the UN stepped in to

attempt to control the situation with a compromise. They introduced a

Palestine partition to keep peace. In my opinion this was a very naive

action because previous events had shown that many Arabs and Israelis

had an 'all or nothing' view on the conflict and were not willing to

compromise.

Predictably, the division didn't work because the Jews provocatively

called their part of the division Israel. Because of this the Arabs

attacked but were defeated and the Jews ended up gaining more land and

many Palestinian refugees. These refugee camps were a prime source for

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