My guess is that if one were to conduct a vox pop on the streets of any capital in the world, the answer to the following question would be pretty uniform: What is the Middle East conflict? The answer would either be the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinians or Israel and the Arab world.
And that unanimity is something that clearly needs addressing, and correcting.
First of all one has to define the geographical boundaries of the Middle East. As far as I am concerned it spreads over three continents: from north-western Africa and Morocco, eastwards to Iran and Afghanistan and up as far north as Turkey. So the Middle East is far more than Israel, the Palestinian areas and the surrounding countries – Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.
To speak of the Middle East conflict as being something between Israel and its neighbors is a naïve portrayal of the region. There are so many conflicts within this very complex part of the globe. There are disputes over land, oil and water, over religion, race and ethnicity.
Starting in the West, Algeria and Morocco have been at loggerheads over territorial issues for years. Rabat is also involved in a land dispute [1] with Spain. Within Morocco there are insurgents or terrorists trying to destabilize the regime of King Muhammad VI.
In Egypt, the Christians in the south maintain they are subjected to attacks and they are seeking an independent Coptic-Christian state. Muslim extremists in Egypt are also crying foul and wish to see the removal of President Hosni Mubarak by any means at their disposal.
Just look at the international headlines regarding Sudan.
Jordanian rebels frequently threaten to topple the Hashemite ruling family and its minions. The country has been beset by numerous riots, both in the capital, Amman, and in smaller cities, particularly in the south.
If you think Lebanon has returned to its 19th Century status as a Middle Eastern idyll, you could not be further from the truth, and it has absolutely nothing to do with Israel’s sojourn in the country. Lebanon is perhaps the most factionalized country in the Levant and indeed the entire MidEast. Bombing attacks are frequent, with the heads of rival political parties and militias often the targets. Furthermore, Lebanon is as much occupied as the Palestinian areas, and some jurisprudents would argue even more so.
The way that Turkey and Iran signed a pact in August pledging never to allow the establishment of a Kurdish state is the oppression of a people which believes it has every right to self-determination. The Kurds have been subjected to attacks on both sides of the Turkish-Iranian border, and of course in Iraq. Turkey, which claims to be a democracy, seems to have no problem with labeling Kurdish groups as terror organizations and dealing with them with something of an iron fist.
In Iran voices of freedom are repressed, even stamped out. Student demonstrations have achieved little other than limited international media coverage. Citizens who have tried to run for parliament on democracy tickets have had their candidacy rejected time and again by unelected religious officials. Foreign journalists are abused in Iranian jails. It appears as though the country is about to pose the latest nuclear threat to world stability.
Do not think that the countries of the Persian Gulf and Arabian Peninsula are free from insurgencies and rebellions. Just look at the ongoing exchange of Al-Qa’ida captives between Yemen and Saudi Arabia.
Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria.
The majority of regimes in the Middle East are based on dictatorships for two reasons:
1. There is a fear that democratization will lead to their removal, something that could not be tolerated by the incumbents; and
2. The leaders believe that only through physical strength or the threat of military action can rebels be kept at bay.
And so, to speak of the Israeli-Palestinian war as if it is the Middle-Eastern conflict, the battle that consumes the entire region, is entirely incorrect. In fact if you compare life in Israel and the West Bank to that in certain other parts of the region, it is actually a rather peaceful place.