We’ve been trying to bring peace to that region for decades…seems like some progress is made, then one of the sides violates it, and back to Square 1. It’s obvious that Arabs, Palestinians and Jews will NEVER reach any long-lasting peace - if you ask me, they actually LIKE killing each other, religions aside, so why doesn’t the U.S. basically say. “O.K., go ahead and annihilate the other side - you’re on your own until you get sick and tired of wargames.”? Also, since war has been force-fed into all of the combatants, how would they really adjust to a lasting peace, anyways?
The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is a really, really, really big deal in the Middle East. If the US were to become isolationist and basically give up all interests in that region, walking away from the conflict would of course be a realistic option.
However, the US has considerable interests in the region: oil, terrorism, and, of course, good relations with a number of countries including Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi, and even Lebanon – though some relations are better than others, of course. While Arabs overwhelmingly view the US as too close to Israel, there is also a widely-held belief that only the US is capable of acting as a broker to peace talks. At least, that is a strongly held belief by Arab governments – it’s quite common for Arab governments to view the US differently than the man on the street.
Furthermore, there has been progress over the last several decades. While the issues are still extremely difficult, I don’t see how anyone cannot acknowledge that the situation today is better than it was in the 1950s, 1960s, or 1970s, if for no other reason than Arab armies aren’t about to try to invade Israel again. Had the Dope existed 30 years ago, the idea that Israel could be at peace with most of its neighbors would probably be a pie-in-the-sky idea. Moreover, the Palestinian establishment as well as Arab governments have endorsed a two-state solution, either explicitly or implicitly, which has replaced the goal of destroying Israel altogether.
And having been to the region several times, I can say that most on either side of the issue don’t “like killing each other.” There are extremists on either side, but I’d say the vast majority want peace. The problem is that both sides have a pretty different picture of how that peace would work.
The British didn’t manage it. We won’t accomplish it. There will always be war in the region. We can only moderate the problem.
Your premise suggests that the U.S. has actively been involved in trying to get a peace accord there, but that is simply not the case. After the 2000 election, the U.S. essentially ignored the situation, ultimately leading, in some peoples’ views, to the inflamed passions of the area that may have led to the 9/11 attack, and to the Islamic militancy re-awakening worldwide (clearly, exacerbated by our invasion of Iraq). That is a HUGE issue that remains a significant sore point for many people around the world. That you cannot please EVERYone goes without saying. But there should always be the belief that the moderates of the world outnumber the fanatics, and therefore, the U.S. is obligated as the putative leader of the free world to do everything possible to effect some sort of solution.
Moved to Great Debates.
samclem GQ moderator
As CC says, we haven’t consistently tried. And it’s hard to argue that we are for peace in the Middle East when we start wars there ourselves. Not to mention propping up dictators, funding terrorists, etc ( and yes, I know America isn’t alone in this ).
As for why we haven’t given up altogether, I think we don’t like to admit that there are situations that we can’t do much about. Peace in the Middle East is going to be established by the people of the Middle East, if it ever is; not by us.
The current situation was created by Wilson and imposed imperialist divisions of the region into political units that were engineered to prevent the existence of one of history’s heavy-hitters, political unit {whomever controls the resources of the Middle East} post- WWI. The situation was aggravated by Truman’s introduction of Israel.
It’s a historic cross-roads, with a melange of groups that have opposed each other time out of mind, passing around which one was king of the hill. The WWI division was intended to prevent any one being dominant, which was mainly a standard state of affairs for most of the region. OPEC screwed the pooch with Wilson’s plans, but them’s the breaks.
As to creating peace in the Mid-East: Sure the US can! Go in as a hostile invader and watch Israelis fight shoulder-to-shoulder with Palestinians! Otherwise, it’s not a question of peace, but of future generations not continuing what has effectively become blood feuds. Americans- and other Westerners, I suppose- don’t grasp the fact that history doesn’t start for people in other parts of the world as soon as they become culturally aware. The Irish might understand- I’m killing you because you killed my father, whom you killed for killing your father, but your father was nothing to me and that was so long ago in the past it lacks relevence, all that matters is that you killed mine.
It’s not . .rational, it’s more clannish. Don’t try to think of it that way.
I agree-I see nothing but endless war. Question: Which country will host the AD 2108 Palestinian-Israel Peace talks? (Theme " A Century of Talk!") 
The Israeli-Palestinian problem is an eminently rational one. It’s a fight over land and resources, as well as internal power struggles over leadership. That doesn’t mean it’s easy to solve, but it will never be solved if people go into it assuming the Israelis and Palestinians aren’t rational people or aren’t guided by the same motivations as everyone else.
Why do those damn arabs keep causing so many problems, it’s been nothing but centuries of problems from those pesky arabs!
That is the main problem in my opinion. Thses problems are not because of the people who happen to live in the midle east…it’s as much a culture war are a war of misunderstanding. I don’t have the answer, but I know when I listen to people talk about living in Gaza, or Iran, or Iraq - these sociological divided go back centures - we’ll before the US, or Brittain even existed IIRC.
Why does Wilson get such a bad rap? The United States was essentially disengaged from the Middle East during the 20s and 30s. It was the United Kingdom and France that was most responsible for the division of the region following the Great War and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.
Marc
It was divided up according to Wilson’s plan- one of the few features adopted after Versailles. By splitting up the Ottoman empire and “apportioning” it to the colonial Western powers, he hoped to effect a quick recovery from the war.
Also, I never said the Palestinians and Israelis weren’t rational, I was pointing out that claiming it’s about land and leadership is an oversimplification. We’re talking about nationalism and clannish revenge- the same thing happens in Ireland. I’m going to kill you because you’ve been killing my people- of course, you’re killing my people because people like me kill your people.
Generations have now been raised to view the conflict as one of vengeance, so far removed from the instigators that even if heirs of the instigators, they do not feel they have in any way inherited responsibility.
Wait… hasn’t Northern Ireland been on a very good track since the Good Friday Agreement? Like with the PIRA decommissioning its weapons? And the whole ending of British military operations in July of last year? That really isn’t a good example of “people being raised to like killing the other people” if the violence essentially ends after years of tough negotiation. Actually, it is a great example of how things that are waived off as intractable ethnic conflicts are often really about solvable political issues.
It needs one phone call from the President telling the Israelis to evacuate West Bank settlements by next Thursday. Nothing more.
Hence the interest groups in the US, set up specifically to forestall that one phone call.
I think it is pretty simplistic to argue that the US has consistently tried to broker peace in the region. As others have pointed out, we have fought two major wars in the Middle East since the 90s.
That and the 100 percent backing of Israel over the Palestinians. That is not a popular position in the middle east.
There are a bunch of different things going on:
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Regardless of what people think about the current war in Iraq, Gulf War I had to be done. Saddam Hussein was a literal Hitler figure that planned to blaze through Kuwait and the into Saudi Arabia and beyond. His 4th most powerful military in the world was stopped cold which didnt leave the general public the idea that the situation was as dire as it was. If Hitler was stopped in his crusades within a week, people would probably be bitching about what a waste it was too. I won’t comment about the current Iraq war but the first one set the stage.
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The U.S. has some strange allies in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia is about as anti-western as they get yet they are still a close Alli. The U.S. will protect Saudi Arabia at all costs not just because of the oil but because of the weird relationships that have been built up.
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Israel - There are a few things on there. There is a strange coalition of U.S. pressure to support Israel. The Jewish community obviously wants to have it protected but many powerful Christians do too as the seat of the Holy Land. Political hawks just see Israel as the only open window into controlling the Middle East western style. Israel isn’t a pure Alli to the U.S. however. They have spied on the U.S. and they are a nuclear power (related to the statement before) and they have their own, divergent goals.
What you end up with is a jigsaw puzzle of conflicting goals and strange alliances that can’t be resolved the way they are now.
Partly because then someone would be bound to step in and say to one side “hey, now those dumb fat yanks are out of the picture, we’ll give you a hand annihilating the other guys, if you’ll do us a favour or two”. And someone else would make the exact same offer to the other side. And the whole thing would spin round and round just as badly (or maybe even worse), but with the Russians, or Chinese, or Iranians, or whoever pulling the strings instead of the US.
Unless you’re suggesting that the US should not only disengage, but also enforce a total blockade of the entire region - a proposition which has its own problems, to say the least.
At least the Irish seems to have made some sort of accord with the English - you don’t hear of daily bombings in Belfast like in the '70’s; I don’t think that there’s been one full week that you can point to Mid-East Peace…