The Middle East Crisis

The Middle East Crisis

Just like countries in Latin America, Asia and Africa, the Middle East has always been a subject of continuous dominance by the world's major super powers (Mohammed, 1995). Compared to the aforementioned regions, the Middle East not only occupies a vital position with regards to world relations, but is also immensely endowed with enormous reserves of oil. Throw in its geographical location into the mix, and what you get is a region that is of strategic importance. Until the First World War, most of this region was under the leadership of the Ottoman Empire. When this empire collapsed, Britain and France curved up the region, and arbitrarily formed new states (Gregory, 1992). They also established monarchies which aided their motive of imperial domination. This paper will examine some of main threats to stability, unity and independence of States in this region during and after the two world wars.

The Israeli State

According to Gregory (1992), the British government in 1949, which was by then ruling Palestine as a colony under the mandate of the League of Nations, promised the Jewish people that it would create a homeland for them in Palestine. They at the same time reassured the Arab leadership that they will never acquiesce to such demands by the Jews (Gregory, 1992). When the State of Israel finally came to fruition, this brought great instability to this religion that persisted to this very day. The Israeli state has been caught up in five wars with the Arabic nations of Middle East: the first war was when it was first formed with the Arab states in 1948 to 1949; then there was the martial venture perpetuated by the Britain in collaboration with France against Egypt in 1956; Israel then fought Egypt and Syria in the 1967 war; She then fought Egypt again in 1973; this was preceded in 1982 by the invasion of Lebanon (Mohammed, 1995). Since then there has been constant squabbles between the Arabic countries and Israel with Israel constantly bombing Palestine and Lebanon. Iran has refused to recognize the Zionist state, and this has increased tension in this volatile region.

The Struggle of the Palestinians

Israel was established as a theocratic state. This implies that it is organized and run on religious values and ideologies. This philosophy has led to another contentious issue in this region. Consequent to the Arab-Israeli war of 1967, the Israelis occupied a part of the state of Jordan known as the West Bank and the Gaze Strip which initially belonged to Egypt. Since then, Israel annexed the areas and set up Jewish settlements there. Parts of the 1.6 Million Palestinians living there were resettled while others opted to stay, and this is where the problems began.

The theocratic nature of Israel's governance dictates that only the Jewish people have a right to citizenship. This second-class treatment of the Palestinian people has led to a burning desire by all Arabs to see the emancipation of Palestine. The domination of these people in the occupied regions, in concert with the dreadful environment where the Palestinians are still living in etc, is a wound in the flesh of the people in Middle East. This has led to continuous tension and escalation of violence and this destabilizes unity and stability in this region.

The 2003 U.S invasion of Iraq

The American invasion of Iraq in 2003 has been widely attributed to a coup in which a handful of individuals exploited the trauma caused by the vents of September 11th attack to seize control of the American foreign policy and convince George Bush to implement their plans to eliminate a president of another sovereign country. The invasion and subsequent invasion of Iraq has been a painful issue to most people in the Middle East and it has brought along instability and disunity in the region. It also affected the independence of one country in the region.

The Arab spring

This was a radical evolution that spread in parts of the Arab world and Middle East. It included a spate of protests and street demonstrations which began in December 2010. Arabic rulers in Yemen, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia were wounded out of the office thanks to this massive uprising which was mostly staged by youths. Major protests also o erupted in Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain and Lebanon. These demonstrations brought about leadership changes in most of these countries. What was initially seen as inconsequential demonstrations have had major impact in a region that has predominantly had leaders who have held onto power for very long time. Maybe with a new cadre of leaders with unique leadership styles, this region will be transformed into a stable place.

Decolonization of the French empire

On the eve of the Second World War, The republic of France was controlling a vast colonial empire comparable only to Britain's empire. Its empire was twenty one times larger than France itself, was two times more populated and was second in size to Britain's empire. Even though the French had protracted