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THE MIDDLE EAST IN CRISIS in 2001 WHAT DOES THE FUTURE H

At no time since Israel was proclaimed a sovereign and independent state more than half-a-century ago has the future of the Middle East looked so bleak and deadly. Since new violence erupted last October between Israel on the one hand and the Palestinians on the other, a new intifada has evolved on a sustained basis. Thus, crisis management has replaced conflict resolution as the prevailing approach for dealing with trouble in this chronic hot spot (Simon, 2001, p. 31).

An underlying problem is the Palestinian unwillingness or inability to ôabandon à its founding claim à that Palestinians displaced by Israel in 1948 be allowed to return homeö (Zakaria 2001 2). Of course, Israel similarly has steadfastly refused to recognize the right of return for Palestinians û about one million of them, in all û following their own latter-day diaspora. The inescapable irony, of course, is that the Jews who founded Israel led the longstanding battle to right the wrong of their diaspora by the ancient Romans nearly two thousand years ago (Zakaria, 2001, p. 3).

Mounting tensions between Israel and the Palestinians of adjacent Gaza and the West Bank led to the first Arab uprising, or intifada, of 1987. It reportedly ôcaught [PLO leader Yasser] Arafat off guard,ö and may have sparked his long-postponed decision to start serious negotiations, which led to the Oslo accords of 1993-95 (Zakaria, 2001, p. 3). Arafat has had a choice ever since between sticking to the demand for return as opposed to settling for getting Israel out of the occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank. The first is evidently not going to happen, as Israel remains adamantly opposed. However, the second might just be in the cards û if Arafat could be convinced to pursue that option.

So far, however, according to leading scholar Fouad Ajami, ôÆArafat has not told his people, ôÆöI bring you peace but the dream of Palestine is gone.ö [Instead], he [ha...

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THE MIDDLE EAST IN CRISIS in 2001 WHAT DOES THE FUTURE H. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 11:37, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1701936.html