The Middle East

The Middle East has been the scene of constant conflict since the end of World War II, centered on Israel and its Arab neighbors Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, and the Palestinians. Since the late 1970s, however, the Arab-Israeli conflict has shared center stage with the Persian Gulf, beginning with the Iranian hostage crisis and continuing on to the near-renewal of war between the United States and Iraq in 1998. This paper will examine those two conflicts and the attempts to end the discord.

The Middle East served as a superpower playground for four decades, with the U.S. and Soviet Union using money and arms to acquire influence. America served as Israel's benefactor, while the Russians supplied Syria, Iraq, Egypt, and Libya. Defeats in the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War prompted Egypt to abandon the military option and to pursue diplomacy instead. The resulting Camp David accords in 1978 returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt. In return, Egypt recognized Israel and became America's second-biggest beneficiary of aid. (Hourani, 1991).

Meanwhile, revolution gripped Iran, long one of America's strongest allies. Islamic fundamentalists took power and hostages, and by the early 1980s they were exporting religious fervor to places such as Lebanon. Most of these events occurred against the backdrop of the Iran-Iraq War, which started in 1980, and despite huge casualties for both, dragged on until 1988. The Lebanese civil war started in the mid-1970s, with Christia

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raught with problems. Security dominated Israeli thinking, and as such, they only agreed to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank city of Jericho (Aruri, 1998). The Israelis viewed the movement of troops as a "redeployment" within the West Bank, while the Palestinians saw a "withdrawal" from the entire West Bank, which would constitute most of the Palestinian state. The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and bombings by Hamas also affected the implementation of the accords. Rabin led the Labor Party, and as prime minister he brokered the 1993 deal with Arafat. Rabin had been a decorated military man, so he enjoyed a great degree of credibility among even those Israelis who opposed the peace accords. Rabin's death left Shimon Peres, widely considered a "dove," as prime minister. The right wing said Peres could not be trusted with Israel's security; to prove his credentials, he delayed scheduled troop withdrawals in response to Hamas bombings (Aruri, 1998). Peres still lost the election, and Benjamin Netanyahu took office in June, 1996. The peace process has been stalled (or backing up) since. Netanyahu has exploited Israeli ambivalence to push a conservative agenda, helping to disillusion Palestinians already dis

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