Why cant the Middle East just chill out?

3ntranced@lemmy.world to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 132 points –

I didn't used to understand foreign involvement in wars, like the whole America-Vietnam shenanigans. But I can see why after watching this Israeli Palestine Conflict since birth.

But now it's like watching two children fighting over who's sandcastles can be built in the sandbox. And what do we do if children can't learn to share? You take away everything and no one is happy.

So is that what this is going to come to? Do adults need to intervene to quell the infants?

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About 70 years ago European leaders decided the best thing to do with the Jewish people was give them their own country...

So they picked the holy land of three main religions, kicked out everyone that had been living there for centuries and made it a religious ethnostate.

Surprisingly the people who lived there weren't happy to be victims of an ethnic cleansing.

Picking virtually any other place on the globe and it probably would have worked itself out by now.

Cynics think that was intentionally. It's the perfect lightning rod for attacks against "the west" and the hostility leads to plenty of proxy wars while avoiding actual war in Europe again after WW2

It started even earlier, after the ottoman empire fell/dissolved, British and French diplomats basically drew lines on a map Scramble for Africa style and created new countries out of nothing.

That created tons of tension already.

Yeah, they broke up Africe with no regard to how many distinct cultures there was.

They looked at that giant ancient landmass and legitimately went "they're all Black, it doesn't matter".

The area has been a hotbed for 5000 years. The west didn't help, at any point, but conflict in the middle east is as old as history itself.

There’s also a belief among some Christians in the US (including many political leaders) that a Jewish state was necessary for the second coming of Jesus to occur. Why they’re in a hurry, I don’t know.

As one who was raised Evangelical Christian for the majority of my childhood by a devout and Republican parent, I'm pretty sure it's just a death cult.

They live their whole lives only preparing to die.

They forsake and forego a lot of random stuff in favor of rewards after death.

And if they think it'll get them any bonus, they don't care if they take everyone else with them, hence the Republican Evangelical politicians generally trying to supply the ingredients for the battle of Armageddon to happen.

Tldr; I think it's greed typical of those who would fully knowledgeably choose to be a Republican combined with the beliefs of an Evangelical trying to cash in on rewards asap, in the way a Republican typically does.

Good analysis. I guess it's deep in the conservative 'F everyone else' mindset.

There has been conflict there for centuries. It was predominantly Jewish people 1500 years earlier when they were forced out. One of the main reasons it was selected was because it was not heavily populated and that at one time it was a Jewish region before they were invaded. The history goes back millenniums.

Theyve been fighting for more than 70 years. Its fun to blame Europeans, but its not their fault.

It actually started with WW1 when Britain promised both Jews and Palestinians their own state if they overthrew the Ottomans.

Before that, Ottoman rule was oppressive to both groups relatively equally for a few hundred years.

WW2 and the whole holocaust thing just turned it from a small problem into a big problem, as millions of European Jews sought a safe haven outside of Europe, leading to the creation of a religious ethnostate in 1948.

So yeah, Europeans definitely are to blame, but Arabs and Palestinians aren't innocent either. They rejected a perfectly adequate solution by the UN in 1947.

They rejected a perfectly adequate solution by the UN in 1947.

I mean... adequate to who?

At what point did the responsibility switch?

I don't think they ever did, its always been their own fault.

Whose?

The people who live there. I thought that was pretty clear.

The people who live there. I thought that was pretty clear.

Their fault for living there?

For warring for millenia. Are you trolling or just not getting it?

Palestine wasnt involved in any war when they had their land taken