Why The Middle East Conflict Continues To Exist

[Joel Bainerman]

For more than 75 years, western diplomats have been coming up with “peace initiatives” to solve the Arab – Israeli conflict. Yet they always fail. Why?

What keeps the Middle East conflict going? If we are going to devise a solution, we must first understand why the conflict continues to exist. To do this, we have to view the situation from the top down, rather than from the bottom up.

This is completely opposite to the way most Jews and Arabs have been conditioned to look at “the situation.” Jews focus on the damage Arab/Palestinians cause, and believe that damage to be the cause of the conflict, when it is really only a result of it. They view the conflict and its origins from the bottom up. Arabs/Palestinians concentrate on the damage Israel causes and believe this to be the cause of the conflict, when it is really only a result of it. They too relate to the situation from the bottom up.

To understand what really causes the Middle East conflict to continue, one must look at the issue from the top down.

To get a more accurate picture of what lies behind the continued existence of the conflict, let’s acknowledge these five factors which serve to perpetuate – rather than solve – the problem:

1) The vested interests of the Foreign Elite (FE): There is a “third entity” in the conflict in addition to the Israelis and the Arabs: the foreigners (in order of importance, the US, Britain, China, France, Germany). Without them, there would be no Middle East conflict because it is the foreign influence that keeps the “situation” from being resolved. Unfortunately, both Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews believe they are each other’s worst enemy – without considering the third element – the foreigners – that is the enemy of both. The thing that Arabs and Jews have most in common is this common enemy, yet the leaders on both sides (not being legitimate or independent) tell their people that the other side is their number one enemy. Hence the conflict continues.

2) Control of Middle East oil: The foreigners interfere in the Arab-Israeli conflict in order to exploit and control the vast petroleum resources in the region. If there were no oil, there would be no petrodollars to recycle; the foreigners would have no reason to dominate the region.

3) Weapons sales: If there was a worldwide ban on arms sales to the Middle East, there would be no more “radical Arab dictators” with modern arms. If the foreigners stopped selling advanced weaponry to nations of the Middle East, the conflict would end.

4) The mainstream media: If the mainstream media in the West stopped reporting on the “search for peace in the Middle East,” peace would soon be found. By keeping the region’s “unstable” image alive, the media, as the sole source of information by which people can formulate their perceptions, provide an excuse for the foreigners to interfere, and at the same time serve to convince everyone that these western nations want peace, despite the fact that they have been “seeking” it for over 50 years, in vain. The media never question the intentions or agendas of the FE. The media thus provide the glue which keeps the conflict going. Without the mainstream media constantly reporting on the conflict, there would be peace, as everyone would forget that the Middle East is “unstable” and thus in need of “stabilizing” via new “peace initiatives.”

5) Corrupt national leadership of both sides: It isn’t peace between Arabs and Jews that interests the FE, but rather the continuation of the conflict. The way they do that is by corrupting/controlling the national leaders of both sides. The reason why legitimate, popular leaders are not at the helms of countries in the Middle East is because the FE will topple any leader who doesn’t cater to their desires before the needs of their own people. If Middle East leaders are selected and deemed popular by their own people, the FE will demonize them as “radicals/extremists,” “terrorist leaders” or “enemies of peace,” and thus de-legitimize them in the world arena. How can genuine co-existence take hold if the leaders of both sides are more interested in pleasing their foreign masters than their own peoples?

Unless these five basic factors are understood, the true causes that extend the conflict will never be understood. Instead, each side will go on blaming the other – seeking to take the high moral ground and convince their own people and those from abroad that they are right, and the other side is wrong. This will lead only to more death and destruction.

The technique is called “divide and rule,” and it has been a favorite of the FE for decades.

For the rest of the article see:

http://www.joelbainerman.com/articles/me_report.asp