Untangling the Middle East by Ori Z. Soltes

Author:Ori Z. Soltes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2017-03-12T05:00:00+00:00

PART FIVE

CROSS-REGIONAL ISSUES AND THE FUTURE OF THE MIDDLE EAST

13

THE LARGER ARAB CONTEXTS OF PEACE AND WAR

Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that the Israel-Palestine problem were solved; that a pair—or better, a trio—of secure and viable states were to shift into place side by side, and even that their interface evolved in a positive and productive manner for all three of them. What then, of the region overall?

To repeat an important mantra: the situation in the Middle East is more complicated than Israel and Palestine, Israel and the Arabs, or the complexities of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. It includes the ethnic struggle between Arab and non-Arab entities, as in Iraq versus Iran, Syria versus Turkey, even Egypt versus Jordan or Libya—to say nothing of the Kurds within Iraq, or the Kurds within Turkey, in which last case neither side is Arab—or the Arabs in the Sudan. It also involves intra-Arab conflict between Islamic and Christian populations, as in Syria and Lebanon, or intra-Islamic conflict between Sunni and Shi’i populations, as between Iran and Iraq.

These issues are also interwoven with socioeconomics, as in the objection on the part of some of Usama Bin Ladin’s followers to the ongoing impoverishment of so many Saudis while an inner circle continues to swallow up billions in oil revenues. And the region is defined by complex governance politics. Even within the limited context of the Palestine Liberation Organization, we see this in its range of different suborganizations. Beyond the PLO are more than a dozen other Palestinian liberation organizations, and the PLO, while it has become virtually synonymous with Fatah, is dominated by but not limited to Fatah.

Some of these organizations are Muslim; some are Christian. Some seek a peaceful solution to their conflict with Israel; some simply and unequivocally want Israel destroyed. The identifying nomenclature of Palestinian organizations has shifted in the last decades and the last few years (the Fatah-dominated PLO became the dominant component of the Palestinian Authority in the wake of the 1993 Oslo Accords, but the PA is not merely a continuation of the PLO or of Fatah). This shifting nomenclature is particularly apparent where the more distinctly anti-Israel groups, such as Hamas and Hizb’allah, are concerned.

Jordan has in important ways removed itself from engagement with the Palestinian problem, first by the conflagration of Black September in the early 1970s and later by the peace treaty with Israel in the 1990s, in which the Hashimite Kingdom renounced all interest in the West Bank. In both cases, King Hussein was trying to lessen the sense of threat to his throne deriving from the ethnic matter of his non-Palestinian family ruling over a Palestinian population. Israel inherited the problem on both occasions. When the PLO and its entourage relocated to Lebanon after Hussein drove them out of Jordan, Lebanon became a locus of anti-Israel activity and ultimately the object of Israel’s problematic 1982 invasion.200 And the West Bank Palestinian problem remains both unsolved and one that is essentially an Israeli problem now that Jordan has extricated itself.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.