The Arab-Israeli Conflict
The conflict between Palestine and Israel goes back thousands of years and has led to a number of drastic consequences, affecting peoples and current events all over the world to this very day. One reason for this is geography; Israel is situated in the centre of the Middle East. Also, the Middle East also possesses much of the planet's oil, an economic necessity in today's society. Faith has also contributed to the international interest of this very public conflict for approximately half the world's population adheres to religions born in the Middle East. The Middle East shares a deep and intense history, which has often led to controversy and heated tensions among dissimilar groups. The conflict between Israeli and Arab is both symbolic and substantial, and has drawn repeated military and diplomatic interventions. These, in turn have distorted and aggravated the situation and have resulted in a variety of consequences for the governments and persons of many countries all around the world. Issues at stake include sovereignty, resources, labor, trade and security, and quite importantly questions of justice, human rights and political freedom. The Arabs are a people united by a common language, history and culture. Althou
Israel, for example, was spending almost a quarter of its wealth on the military at a time when funds were urgently needed for housing, industry, agriculture, education and welfare. Israel's dependence on the US had increased but they were proud to admit military success when the port of Elat, subjected to an Egyptian blockade before the war, had been reopened to trade. The Yom Kippur War during October 1973 impacted Israel's western allies. Although conflict between the Arabs and Jews began much earlier, the modern Arab-Israeli military conflict started on the day of Israel's foundation, 14 May 1948. The war had serious consequences for Israel. Airplanes and airports were the primary targets having hijacked many airliners and demanding ransom as well as holding hundreds of passengers hostage. After some military success, Israel expanded its borders feeling more secure behind easily defensible frontiers - the Suez Canal, the River Jordan and the Golan Heights. The United Nations estimated that 750,000 Palestinians fled from Israeli rule during 1948-9. In 1993 the United States brokered an historic agreement between Arafat's PLO and Israel. The situation in the Middle East was further complicated when Britain, eager for support against Turkey in the First World War, promised both Arab independence from Turkish rule, which would have enabled Arabs and Palestinians to establish their own nations states, and a Palestinian homeland for the Jews. In the north, Israel's frontier was divided from Syria by the Golan Heights. Some found new homes and work, but many settled in the vast refugee camps established along Israel's borders. And the Arab oil producers found that by crippling the world economy they were destroying the basis of their own prosperity. This obliged both countries to increase spending on armaments and military aid more than they would have wished and may, ultimately, have hastened the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. Israel came into being with no fixed boundaries.
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