Middle East

An Opinion on the Middle East

One of the most tragic aspects of the Middle Eastern conflict is the level at which the powerful parties completely define what is known about the nature of the conflict and who is at fault. The cycle of violence will likely continue as the dominant parties, Israel, USA, and Western Europe refuse to acknowledge in any concrete way the nature of the crisis. Information is so skewed in the American press that the American public has no objective understanding of the region.
Causes of conflict in the Middle East can be found in the Israeli mindset that can justify dehumanizing Palestinian’s, Islamic Fundamentalism’s resulting response to Israel’s actions, and the effect petroleum dependence has upon the governments of the Western Nations. Someone once said that money has a corrosive effect on democracy.
The Palestinian/Israeli issue and violent Islamic fundamentalism are symptoms of a greater problem, the value of oil. Oil is the main engine of destabilization in the region. If oil were to cease flowing out of the Middle East much of the Worlds economies would suffer catastrophic contractions. Middle Easterners have been cursed by being born over a sea of oil that Western nations need to keep their economies going.
If a complete disruption of oil flow out of the region occurred the Western response initially would take on a military face. A response that would have little or no positive effect indeed it is likely that a humanitarian crisis would result. Depending on the level of consensus that would gel between governments regionally and internationally it could either spin out of control into a world war or be the beginning of a substantial reevaluation of positions regarding the region.