Yes, the Saudis tentatively agreed to allow a limited Jewish state before the western powers screwed them over at the end of WW1. And Jews lived peacefully with Arabs for centuries before the huge influx of European Jewish emigres in the early 20th century increased tensions.
I’m also talking about various Palestinian organizations who have agreed to acknowledging Israel. But again, that doesn’t fit the blood-thirty Arab narrative of some, so they get ignored, no matter what they say or do.
Again, the people in the middle east are the primary victims and few people are actually doing them much good.
And this one with no real travel budget, if I remember correctly.
Also Arabs that are currently in power have very different take on the religion than what existed like… 60 years ago i think? They used to be more relaxed on many stances until hardline zealots started fear mongering and taking over the region. I am not an expert but current tensions and conflicts seem more related to the last century than anything to do with the last millennia.
There’s also likely some recent shenanigans to do with Israel as well, but i’m not very familiar with the intricacies of the region.
Of course the region has been in conflict for thousands of years. It’s one of the natural crossroads of Earth, and has been contested by all the major powers of the Mediterranean world – Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Turks, Crusaders, plus all the rest that I’m forgetting right now.
But you’re blatantly wrong if you think the present-day trouble in the region is somehow ages-old stuff or happening “just because” the people of the region are inherently fractious and warlike. AFAIK, it’s pretty much all rooted in specific 20th and early-21st century events, starting with the fall and partition of the Ottoman Empire at the end of WW I which set the stage for all sorts of geographic and ethnic conflicts, and ending, for convenience’s sake, with W.'s disastrous invasion of Iraq and all the poisoned fruit that piece of stupidity led to.
Edit: @anon61221983 – do I remember even vaguely right, that the rhetoric about the Crusaders wrecking the region and making the West and Islam implacable enemies is pretty bunk? ISTR that it was the Mongols who really smashed the Medieval Middle East up, but blaming Mongols is pretty pointless today, while the Western Europe is still very much there and a big, juicy target.
Bringing a wet tissue to a gun fight.
Well at least Kush seems to get along well with that MBS fellow.
You need to check yourself, yo. Condescending to members in good standing will not gain you any points here.
You do know there is around 60 Israeli laws that make Arabs 2nd class citizens in Israel?
Then of course there is the Occupation of the West Bank & the siege of Gaza.
Yeah, the US and Soviet conflict really helped to discredit more secular leaders and drove the empowerment of more religious parties.
I think you could argue that, but they also created a more interconnected network across the Afro-Eur-Asian continent… but then the black plague more easily spread and created more divisions. So that interconnection and then division eventually did lead to new powers rising up, including the Spanish, Italian city-states, and the ottomans.
Thank you. I was pretty sure I was simplifying things too much, hence the question. And yeah, good point about how everything leads to everything else in history.
all the world used to be a cock-pit with feuding tribes. It’s not as if the middle east is any different in that regard.
Where it does differ is the colonial shenanigans from western europe in the 19th and early 20th century. Though it doesn’t differ that much from other colonial areas where the current chaos is about comparable. Large parts of africa are about as fucked up as the middle east, though you tend to hear less about it (probably because brown and less americans/europeans with family over there).
It’s all cause and effect!
History is just one damned thing after another.
– Arnold J. Toynbee (attrib.)
But, but… MUSLIMS! They’re different! /s
I’d say that the Ottoman were relatively effective at holding off Europeans for much of it’s history, even into the tumultuous 19th century. They did better than the Chinese did in early 20th at least.
I’d also say that we tend to hear more about conflicts as opposed to the successes, too, which gives us a very distorted picture of the continent.
Those shoes… those hats… shudders!
The bicycles!