Ralph Alvaro

International Foundations 203 (Middle East)

Hello, everybody! I know you are all wondering what your tithing money has been paying for in
regards to my education here in Rexburg. With that in mind, I would now give you a taste of what I have learned
so far this year in my Middle East class. I will now begin detailing the all-encompassing and, at times,
heartbreaking Arab-Israel conflict, which surprisingly did not flare up until the early 20th century.
In order to properly understand each ethnic group's claims to the former Canaan, we don't need to
look further than Genesis chapter 15, which states that God promised Abraham two things: that his seed would
number as the stars, and that his seed would receive the Holy land of Canaan, which is understood to cover
much of today's State of Israel as well as the West Bank and Lebanon. Now,
Abraham had two sons, one with his wife Sarah's handmaiden, whose name is Ishmael, whose birth was
recorded in Genesis 16. Ishmael and his mother were later cast out by Sarah and had to flee unto the wilderness.
Today, Arabs claim that Ishamel is their forefather. Later on, in Genesis 21, Sarah bore Abraham a son of her
own, whose name is Isaac. Isaac went on to have a son named Jacob, who God blessed and named Israel. The
modern day Jews claim a heritage that traces all the way back to Jacob.
Now, Abraham and the promise God gave him manifests itself in the fact that both Arabs and Jews
number “as the stars”, with the Jewish population numbering about 13 million and the Arab population
numbering at about 400 million. The second promise manifests itself in the significant presence of both Jews and
Arabs have to this day in the former Canaan. Now, the problem lies in the question of inheritance of Canaan
itself. The conflict between Arabs and Jews have a link with the promise made to both Ishmael and Isaac as sons
of Abraham. Co-existence of the two claims to Canaan is deeply seared, especially in the minds of
orthodox/conservative viewpoints of religious Jews and Arabs, who have written evidence in their holy writs of
their claim to Canaan.
After the fall of the Ottomans, the European powers of Great Britain and France divided former
Ottoman territory amongst themselves. French holdings now included Lebanon and Syria, while the British took
control of Iraq and Palestine, which covers a significant portion of Canaan. Meanwhile, another trend from
Europe began to drastically change the ethnic face of Palestine. Many Jews, called Zionists, saw the future of a
Jewish state as needed to secure political stability of all Jews, who were scattered all throughout the world. Led
by mostly secular Jews, Zionism was looked upon by Orthodox Jews as suspect because Orthodox Jews believed
that the gathering of Jews in Canaan can only happen with God's command. Nevertheless, Jews from all over
began pouring in to Palestine, quietly buying land and putting down roots. Arabs, who have held Palestine for
ages, began seeing the Jews as a threat to their livelihood. It did not help that Britain's Balfour Declaration of
1917, which was a contradiction in itself, promised both a Jewish home land in Palestine as well as protections
against discrimination for non-Jews already living in Palestine. A weakness in the Balfour Declaration was that
both Arabs and Jews focused on only the part favorable to their specific interests, thus mirroring the twofold
promise to both Ishmael and Isaac. British duplicity in playing Jews against Arabs triggered widespread
resentment and hostility between the two groups.
As a result of Western guilt regarding the Holocaust as well as well-established Jewish lobbies in
both Britain and the United States, the Jewish State of Israel was created in 1948. The lack of a parallel state for
Arabs as well as perceived favoritism towards the Jews left many Arabs in the cold. Subsequent settlement
expansionism undertaken by Israel since 1967 further encroached upon established Arab communities in Gaza,
the Golan heights, as well as in the West Bank. As a result of persecution as well as the rise of extremists who
tied their radical view of Islam along with political considerations, Arab terrorist groups began their rise in
presence all throughout Palestine. Resentment towards America for Cold War considerations, unconditionally
supporting Israel, notwithstanding the settlement issue, also arose. The answer now lies in the question of how to
reconcile the conflicting claims in the region, and what role, if at all, the US could play in making it happen.
That is what I believe is the most interesting and gripping tale in the story of the Middle East.