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Essay / paper - 1005
In a region filled with unrest and conflicting geopolitical motivations, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains the largest in the neighborhood. Coincidentally, the area of interest is located around one of the few holy sites on the planet, for Muslims, Christians and Jews. Needless to say, opposition to Israel being solely a Jewish state has led to backlash and subtle chaos in the region. Before Israel became a state, Palestine had been official sovereignty for almost 400 years. Until 1948, Palestine was officially annexed and transformed into a Jewish state called Israel. In this essay, I will discuss and trace the origin of the conflict between Jews and Palestinians, and why both groups may have a long future ahead of them. I will argue that the Arabs view Israel as an illegitimate state and a combination of cultural and religious opposition to the West and will prevent any progress from occurring. Ties to Israel, for both Jews and Muslims, date back centuries before Christ. Both origin stories of the two religions place significant emphasis on the region. In Islam, the Prophet Muhammad is said to have spoken with Allah and received the fundamentals of the Islamic creed in the holy city of Jerusalem. For the Jewish people, this holy land also symbolized the “promised land” and is the precursor of religion. Therefore, this region symbolically constituted the foundation of both religions. Before World War II, Jews were widespread throughout the world, primarily inhabiting Eastern and Western Europe and America. Western European Jews led a stable life and freely practiced their religion until Nazism. Eastern European Jews historically lived difficult and troubled lives, having been forced to live among papers, this represented Western imperialism and the negation of outside cultures. Most importantly, Israel was the only democracy in the Middle East. This notion threatened Israel's neighboring countries, as democracy was unfamiliar in the region. In Arab eyes, democracy contradicts the majority of principles on which Middle Eastern countries have spent thousands of years structuring their lives. Relations between Israel and the Arab world seem to have dragged on for decades. Fundamentally contradictory ideologies have hampered efforts to advance society in Israel, which will prevent any development from occurring. By brokering peace efforts between Israel and the Arab world, only in a utopian society, one would think that these problems could be resolved. This is why the development of relations between Palestinians and Israel seems inconceivable..