Problems in the Middle East Post WWII

The Creation of Israel The discovery of the Holocaust created great sympathy for the Jews. Many western countries wanted to create a homeland where they could settle and feel safe. Palestine was selected as that official home. The problem was that there were hundreds of thousands of Arabs living in Palestine and they naturally believed that the land was theirs by right. They as the Jews, had lived there for more than a thousand years. Jews believed that Palestine was the ‘Promised Land’ of the Old Testament and that therefore they had a right to settle there. Friction had soon developed between them and the Arabs. In the 1930s there had been a civil war between the two groups. The British had tried to solve the problem but in the end only managed to make the situation more difficult. They appeared to make promises to both sides, which they could obviously not keep. Eventually they had been forced to give up. In 1947 the United Nations was faced with having to come up with a solution. The United Nations recommended dividing Palestine between Arabs and Jews. The plan was published in November 1947. The Arabs immediately rejected partition.

The Straits of Hormuz In 1988, Iran attempted to sink US Naval ships by putting mines all across the Strait, in retaliation the US engaged the Iranians and sunk multiple ships. Hostilities grew and oil tankers from all nations were targeted. In the end America leaves a naval fleet in the Strait to protect the flow of oil. To this day shots are randomly fired at US ships crossing through the Strait and it serves as one of the catalysts of hate between Iran and America.

The USS Vincennes Incident *On July 3rd, 1988 Iran began to fire on the USS Vincennes in the Straits of Hormuz. Throughout the day, the Vincennes took fire from smaller jet planes launching from Bandar Abbas Airport (it was a dual citizen and military airport) The Vincennes misidentified the passenger jet for a fighter jet and opened fire, critics claim you can’t misidentify an extremely large passenger jet for a small fighter jet, but the US Navy claims from a distance with limited technology size cannot be judged as well as they claim multiple attempts were made to contact the plane and warn it of a strike. It fired two surface-to-air missiles, killing all 290 passengers and crew members on board.

OPEC – Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries Created in 1960 at a conference in Baghdad Iraq to control the flow of oil between the middle east and the rest of the world. This group also includes members from South America and Africa. Based on the global economy, prices for “crude” (oil) are set by the barrel. Then gas companies purchase the crude and refine it to gasoline. To recover their costs, gas companies elevate the price and ship it to local gas stations around the world Many of the OPEC members have ties to terrorism and have been accused of not only funding terrorism but engaging in economic warfare against the west

Collective Punishment Unlike the western world, many places in the Middle East and Asia believe in “collective punishment” or the notion that your entire village and/or family are punished for the actions of one. One of the main problems with CP in the Middle East is that all sides of the argument are using CP but denouncing it when the other side uses it.