Students of International Relations members Discussion Club Debates at a meeting examined the historical background of the Middle East conflict
The Middle East has always been surrounded by controversy and conflict. The reasons for this are, first of all, its unique geographic location and, second, its rich natural resources, particularly the oil reserves. Major players have always been keen to ensure stability in the region and to establish their own control over it. This concern has reflected on the politics within the region, both inside one single country and on an international basis. The ultimate political goal has been the resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The West has often seen this conflict, or more precisely, its solution as key to smoothing out its relations with the Arab world. Indeed, Western interest in the Middle East is enforced and supported by the cultural, historic, and religious ties that can be found in this region.
The elusive peace in the Middle East is what many politicians and scholars would like to develop a first-rate strategy for. The Middle East conflict is one of the most protracted and complicated conflicts on the world stage. It has deep historical roots stretching back for thousands of years. Some of these approaches already form an integral part of peace negotiations, while others are still being tested by experts. Preliminary conclusions are made on the possibility of translating the approaches considered into a policy.
The seeds of the conflict belong to the remote past. Thousands of years ago, a small nation of Jews, which lost its bellicose spirit, was turned from a small Middle Eastern province into a world center of a religion that has become a dominant world religion. Christianity and Islam saw the world as divided into either believers or non-believers. The Judaic religious doctrine allows non-Jews to exist but in no case dominates them. This was the target of the founding fathers of Israel: to establish a state for the Jews free from the historical humiliations suffered by the Jewish people over the centuries. The way of founding the state was connected with the colonizing profit, which was in the tradition of the times. Since the Second World War, there has been a constantly growing pressure of world public opinion to find a solution acceptable to the Jews and the local population.