preview

Peace in the Middle East Essay

Best Essays

Peace in the Middle East

There will never be peace in the Middle East. The idea of peace in a certain region is a silly notion. What region has truly ever known peace? Allow me to rephrase my thesis: There will never be peace in the Middle East as long as western powers intervene into Arab affairs. It is common knowledge that throughout history western powers have colonized, occupied, and exploited indigenous people in the name of national interest, national security, and manifest destiny. The Middle East is not exempt. It started with British intervention into Egyptian affairs, controlling the Suez Canal in the name of national interest, then the deposing of an elected government in Iran to stop the western-controlled oil companies …show more content…

Take, for instance, colonial Egypt, specifically the Suez Canal. This particular canal is worth a great deal to all of Europe; it creates a passage from the Mediterranean to the red sea, and from the red sea, to India and the orient. In 1882, during an Egyptian Civil war, Britain took control of the canal to preserve national, European, and western interests. This action sent the message that your own natural resources do not belong to you, they belong to us, the world, the empires, the superpowers, and the west. The real conflict surrounding the canal didn’t occur until Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized it in 1956. After the nationalization, a coalition of troops from Israel, the United Kingdom and France invaded the Sinai Peninsula, stopped only by a UN resolution that established the first UN peacekeeping force, an affront to Egypt’s national sovereignty. President Nasser expelled the UN forces in 1967 and re-took the Sinai, and the Egyptian army took up positions along the border of Israel, whom they perceived as a western power. Israel retaliated in the six-day war and re took the Sinai, the Egyptians blockaded the canal until after the Yom Kippur war, in which Egypt re-took the Sinai once again only to have Israel drive them back. This is a classic struggle for self-determination, against the west, and only one example amongst many that outlines the early struggles of the Arab world against western imperialist

Get Access