WW I was over a hundred years ago. My point stands that only considering 15 years is a very myopic view on the region.
Can THIS conflict he traced back to biblical times? (By the way, it may even be selling yourself short to stop at Moses… but that leads to the question of how back do you draw the line of relevance…) no of course not. Realistically, while I’m inclined to look back to the late 1800s and early 1900s, there’s no one alive today that was alive at that time. 1 or 2 generations later can you expect everyone to forget the events of the past? Maybe not.
It’s a really classic example (maybe THE classic example) of violence begetting violence. Unfortunately the violent tendencies and hatred are institutionalized. It’s clearly not an easy problem to solve, but I’m fairly certain that violent terrorist attacks against civilians is not in the running for a solution.
EDIT: just to add, going back a thousand years takes us to the time of the crusades, during and after which there were Arab attacks driving out non-arabs… and Arab attacks against other Arab factions (not blind to the fact that all Arabs are not a monolithic group).
Going back a little further you have a history of violence and discrimination against the Jews and Arabs (and pagans and other people) by the Roman’s. You can see how hard it is to find a stopping point in the history of violence in the region.
So yes while the CURRENT conflict probably only tracks back a hundred or so years, the history of conflict in general in the region goes back thousands of years (probably 4 thousand years but im not sure there are even stories, much less even somewhat reliable historical accounts that go back much further than that).
Yes, this is a region that has been fought over since the dawn of human history. It’s centered between the various cradles of human civilization - Sumeria, Egypt, and Greece, so it would have been a strategic location militarily and economically. Jaffa is a port that dates back to biblical times, and during the height of the Roman Empire, Judea would have been a vital trading post on the silk road. It’s where monotheism began, so it holds great cultural significance as well. With the discovery of oil it became an indispensable ally for the industrialized world in a region destabilized by colonialism and the fall of the Ottoman Empire. It truly is a prize to be won, and has been for thousands of years.
However, Israel is not a center of trade in the globalized economy under American hegemony, and perhaps as our dependence on oil wanes, its military/geopolitical significance will dissipate. The only remaining reason for conflict will be the Al Aqsa Mosque sitting atop the Jewish Temple Mount.
WW I was over a hundred years ago. My point stands that only considering 15 years is a very myopic view on the region.
Can THIS conflict he traced back to biblical times? (By the way, it may even be selling yourself short to stop at Moses… but that leads to the question of how back do you draw the line of relevance…) no of course not. Realistically, while I’m inclined to look back to the late 1800s and early 1900s, there’s no one alive today that was alive at that time. 1 or 2 generations later can you expect everyone to forget the events of the past? Maybe not.
It’s a really classic example (maybe THE classic example) of violence begetting violence. Unfortunately the violent tendencies and hatred are institutionalized. It’s clearly not an easy problem to solve, but I’m fairly certain that violent terrorist attacks against civilians is not in the running for a solution.
EDIT: just to add, going back a thousand years takes us to the time of the crusades, during and after which there were Arab attacks driving out non-arabs… and Arab attacks against other Arab factions (not blind to the fact that all Arabs are not a monolithic group).
Going back a little further you have a history of violence and discrimination against the Jews and Arabs (and pagans and other people) by the Roman’s. You can see how hard it is to find a stopping point in the history of violence in the region.
So yes while the CURRENT conflict probably only tracks back a hundred or so years, the history of conflict in general in the region goes back thousands of years (probably 4 thousand years but im not sure there are even stories, much less even somewhat reliable historical accounts that go back much further than that).
Yes, this is a region that has been fought over since the dawn of human history. It’s centered between the various cradles of human civilization - Sumeria, Egypt, and Greece, so it would have been a strategic location militarily and economically. Jaffa is a port that dates back to biblical times, and during the height of the Roman Empire, Judea would have been a vital trading post on the silk road. It’s where monotheism began, so it holds great cultural significance as well. With the discovery of oil it became an indispensable ally for the industrialized world in a region destabilized by colonialism and the fall of the Ottoman Empire. It truly is a prize to be won, and has been for thousands of years.
However, Israel is not a center of trade in the globalized economy under American hegemony, and perhaps as our dependence on oil wanes, its military/geopolitical significance will dissipate. The only remaining reason for conflict will be the Al Aqsa Mosque sitting atop the Jewish Temple Mount.