446 • 21 THE WAR ON TERRORISMIsrael's preoccupation with security emanates from the Jewish preoccupa¬
tion with survival, always present but intensified since the Holocaust, and
the Palestine National Charter continues to call for Israel's destruction, de¬
spite numerous pleas to revise it. The Palestinians' fear of Israeli coloni¬
zation is part of a greater Arab anxiety about Western imperialism, now
enhanced by the American invasion and occupation of Iraq. Only a series
of concessions by both Israelis and Palestinians will bring peace. Only if the
two sides come to realize the crushing costs and horrible consequences of a
protracted and untrammeled war will they stay their extremist tendencies.A PARTING MESSAGEIn reading the Middle East's history from the rise of Islam to the present,
you may have noticed how much of your attention has been focused on
confrontations, especially on wars. When you survey the history of any re¬
gion or country, you risk getting bogged down in its struggles and ignor¬
ing its cultural achievements or the everyday lives of its people. In this
book the closer the past has moved toward current events, the more we
have told you about Middle East conflicts: the US versus the USSR, oil
producer versus consumer, Islamist versus secularist, Christian versus
Muslim, Shi'i versus Sunni, and Arab versus Israeli. Map 21.3 shows the
Middle East's countries with their internationally recognized boundaries;
it does not show which lands are really being governed by which states.
Consider, for example, the Golan Heights, the West Bank, and the Gaza
Strip under Israel's rule since 1967, or Lebanon occupied by Syria since
1976, or Iraq occupied by the US since 2003.
Writers of textbooks often make lists in order to concisely convey their
ideas. Our last one sums up what we see as the main causes of Middle East¬
ern conflict: (1) the incomplete transition from communities based on reli¬
gion and obedience to divine law to nation-states enforcing human-made
laws to increase their security and well-being in this world; (2) the resulting
belief on the part of many Middle Eastern peoples that their governments
are illegitimate and not to be willingly obeyed; (3) the quest for dignity and
freedom by highly articulate peoples (or nations) who have endured cen¬
turies of subjection and are determined never again to lose their indepen¬
dence; (4) the involvement of outside governments and individuals who do
not recognize the hopes and fears of Middle Eastern peoples and, in the
worst case, play on them to serve their own needs (as we see in the Iraq
War); (5) the growing concentration of highly destructive weapons in
countries that are both volatile and vulnerable; (6) the rising need for food,