The Reasons Behind the Difficulties of Bringing Peace to the Middle East

For ages the Jewish population did not have a place to call home. They had been wandering around deserts, were once slaves in Egypt, but didn’t have any land to their name. Following the Holocaust, after many Jews had been persecuted by Hitler and the Nazis, a good portion of the overall amount of Jews in the world let alone Europe had been exterminated. As a result, Harry Truman and the UN suggested Israel, a homeland for the Jews. Tensions had been growing throughout the beginning of the 20th Century regarding the Palestinian area in the Middle East. This area was off to the side of Asia, near Africa. When the Jews and Arabs were offered part of this land, war broke out and still continues today. Even though a war happened as a result

The Middle East supports three major religions; Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. All three have a tie to Jerusalem as a Holy City. These religions don’t get along very well because of their differences, but they also have some unseen similarities.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the one of the world’s oldest conflicts, and it is still an ongoing problem in the world. Zionists and Arabs: two groups with conflicting beliefs who both claim Israel as their own. In wake of the Holocaust the U.N decided to gift the Jews a homeland for the lives lost in the genocide. In 1947, the U.N Partition divided the land of Israel (Historic Palestine) into two separate states: Arab and Jewish. Since then, the state of Israel has been the center of conflict between the Arabs and the Zionists. As time passed the Zionists gained more land from winning the Six-Day War, and consequently the Palestinians had to live as refugees in other Arab countries. Additionally, more than 75% of the land belonged to

Often called “The Crossroads of the World”, the Middle East stands between three continents: Asia, Africa, and Europe. Over thousands of years, migrating traders and conquerors crossed this region and spread the ideas, inventions, and achievements of many civilizations. It is an incredibly important part of the world with rich history, important resources, and deep religious and cultural traditions. However, in the past decades up to today, the Middle East has been consumed by conflict and chaos. Although different circumstances surround each issue, religion, terrorism, disputes over the control of natural resources, and weak governance primarily allow conflict to persist in the Middle East.

Many Palestinians are religious, and when the Israelis seized their homeland, they took away many of their sacred sites. Palestine is home to a multitude of sacred sites such as Jerusalem. As you can see by the changes from Document 1 to Document 2, in the span of about sixty years, Palestine has endeavored many changes. Palestine originally was composed of predominately Israeli occupied territories, but that fact is not correct today. Both, Jews and Muslims find Jerusalem sacred, which could lead to future problems. When attempting to establish a peace settlement, there will be vast conflict about it; neither group of people would be willing to give up such a holy city where so many vital biblical events have occurred. Religion is extremely powerful and important in places such as these, so it would be difficult and highly unlikely for one group to compromise. If anything, this may result in further violence. Thus, people’s religion contributes a large factor to the reason why there is a small chance for a peaceful settlement between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

Despite current misconceptions of the tensions between Muslims and Jews, the current political conflict began in the early 20th century. The Palestinians, both muslims and christians, lived in peace for centuries. Control of the city had historically, since 637 AD, been under Muslim control with guarantee of Christians’ safety, right to property, and right to practice religion. The collapse of the Ottoman Empire led to European nations colonizing many of its former lands, and the British gained control of Palestine. Social and political issues prompted European jews to flee from political unrest from their homes in Europe, and migrate to Palestine. Seeing the influx of Jews as a European colonial movement, the Arabs fought back. The British couldn’t control the violence, and in 1947 the United Nations (UN) voted to split the land into two countries. The continued political unrest in the Middle East is the cause of United States involvement.

Palestine has a long history of being ruled by different empires, all of which followed different religions. Its culture has been exposed to the influence of the Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Ottomans and a few others. It is in the heart of the Middle East and it houses the three major monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; Judaism being one of the oldest religions, dating as far back as 2000 BCE in Canaan. Christianity, which then took into Judaism’s steps spread more vigorously and was more recently “recognized in New Testament studies” (Yencich 120). Then many years later came Islam, which had its own peak as well. These three monotheistic religions seem to echo each other’s tales, ideals, and values. The conflict between the Arabs and the Israelis over this Holy Land has been going on for years.

The big question we ask ourselves today is, will Israel and Palestine ever agree to stop fighting? The conflict between Israel and Palestine has been traced all the way back to 1948 through 2005 in The Israel Palestine Land Settlement Problem, written by Charles Rowley and Jennis Taylor. However, this conflict did not end in 2005. This article was written in 2006, so anything within the last 10 years is not included. The conflict between the two counties still continues to this day and still remains a major problem. Israelis and Arabs have been fighting over Gaza on and off for decades now. The three issues laid out in this article are the four major wars that took place, the refugee problem, and the conflict between religions. It concludes with the road map to peace. Throughout his whole book, The Israel-Palestine Conflict, Gelvin speaks of the same historical events that occurred between Israel and Palestine, while the article reveals there are still other conflicts, the land settlement problem has been the major conflict between Israel and Palestine since 1948.

4838). This partly due to the biblical centrality ofJerusalem and its uniqueness in a great number ofaspect All followers of the afore mention religions share the religious impulse for this holy place. however, their expressions of the regard are "shaped in limited paradigmatic ways that are hemselves informed or shaped by cultural, intellectual, and symbolic context"(Firestone, 2000 o. 4838). The current lamentable situation with Jerusalem is largely due to the over one he most contested piece ofreal estate in the history of humanity-known lo the Jews as the Temple Mount and as the Haram el-Sharif to Muslims (Hassner, 2003. p. The testimonies o ll without exception participants of the peace negotiations over the issue prove that because ot unsolved questions of the Temple Mount and the possession of it. the attempts to achieve peace n the Holy Land have consistently failed. The Temple Mount symbolizes both Jewish and Palestinian nationalisms. In the Jewish radition, the Temple Mount is known to be the holiest

Many of us take for granted the ability to travel “large” distances in a relatively short time-span. As a result, we often think nothing of the luxuries that we indulge in every day. Things like near-instantaneous transportation manage to make light of realistic conceptions of distance and space. However, to people like Monzer Omar, these “cognitive distances” differ greatly from that of our own. To Omar, his arduous 25-day journey from Izmir, Turkey to Germany may have seemed to stretch to the ends of Earth. Obstacles such as smuggler theft, uncompromising governments, and a series of unfortunate events make a few hours in a plane to us seem like an excruciating journey for Omar.

The ethnic conflict in the Middle East dates back to biblical times as both the Israeli and the Palestinian nations claim territories in the area of Palestine from over two thousand years ago. Because of the religious significance of many of its sites to both religions and nations, Jerusalem is by far the most heavily disputed area. After World War II, with the help of Britain from the Balfour treaty, the Jewish state of Israel was founded in Palestine. The Jewish people were in dire need of its own state for the purposes of stability and protection. The formation of the state led to six wars between the Israelis and their Arab neighbors. Up until the Madrid Conference held in 1991, Egypt was the only Arab state to meet and negotiate peace with Israel. They had

The conflict between Israel and Palestine is just one of the many facets that have shaped modern day politics in the Middle East. It is a conflict rooted in generations of violence, discrimination and prejudice that is complicated by a history older than any of the modern day superpowers. Ever since the creation of the state of Israel by the 1947 UN partition of Palestine

After more than 50 years of war, terrorism, peace negotiation and human suffering, Israel and Palestine remain as far from a peaceful settlement as ever. The entire Middle Eastern region remains a cauldron waiting to reach the boiling point, a potent mixture of religious extremism, (Jewish, Christian and Islamic), mixed with oil and munitions.

 This conflict is among Jews and Arabs. Palestine for the Arabs is a land whose Oil has been cultivated by them for generations. Israel, as later called by the Jews, is a land of inspiration that is destined for them, since many Jews had been living in Israel and emigrating previously (Fraser,1). This shows the Socio-Political and religious roots of the conflict. The Arabic population is currently located in Jerusalem, but the Jewish Population in Israel has a strong desire of relocating to Jerusalem someday, and have been fighting for this to happen

In Israel Jews and Arabs have been in conflict for hundreds of years because they both share religious grounds in Israel. Since the founding of Israel in 1948 there has been continuous conflict between Israel and Arab