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Edan
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No. The Arab nations have rarely cooperated together, and when they have, it's usually been because they were attacking Israel.
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Edan
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quote:
Originally posted by ThePantaloonDog
No, the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the creation of the modern Middle East by Britain and France (without Israel of course) are the causes of the problems in the Middle East. Not only did Britain and France create states that are fundamentally unstable (see Iraq) but also placed inept rulers who were seen by the Arabs (correctly) as puppets of the West. |
Yep. What he said.
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Ozz
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Canada
Mar 2002
time: 05:26
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Yes, Israel could have been established in other locations the British offered them a homeland within the
empire in various locations ie Cyprus, Uganda, Kenya etc. Some like cyprus were a mixed bag of people, the
African locations had no peopleThe Jews turned them all down for religious reasons. (it had to be Judea).
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Sandman
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Sinister Penguin
Aug 2001
time: 05:26
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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.
Last edited by Sandman on 12-03-2003 at 03:58
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Buck Birdseed
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Khoon Ki Pyasi Dayan (1988)
Nov 2000
time: 05:26
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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?
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Knight2003
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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.
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GePap
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of the Big Apple
Nov 2001
time: 23:26
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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.
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yavoon
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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.
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12-03-2003 03:01
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