He that plants thorns must never expect to gather rose
- English Proverb
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Israel & Palestine:
With more then 50 years of fighting in a volatile religious region
that is filled with vast amounts of oil, the Israeli & Palestinian conflict
has grown more and more violent every day. At the end of the First World War,
Britain had granted Independence to most of the now divided states of the Ottoman
Empire, except for that of Palestine, the place of the “Holy Land” Jerusalem.
The Zionist movement in Palestine led to the massive amount of Jewish movement
into the state, which at that time was around 90% Arab.
At the end of the Second World War, Jewish movement into the territory grew
even larger, and the struggle between the two religions began to grow. After
struggling between the two sides persisted into violence the British government
recognized Israel as a state, and granted them independence. However, they
did not grant that same statehood to Palestine who since refused to recognize
Israel as a state. The new Israeli state, which had grown 40% bigger then
what Britain had allotted for under the UN plan for peace began creeping
into Palestinian owned land, which almost led to the invasion of Palestine
into Isreal.
This major conflict didn’t take on global proportions until 1956
when the “Egyptians nationalized the Suez Canal, Israel invaded the Sinai,
but later withdrew under pressure from the US and USSR. Official US government
support for Israel developed in the 1960’s, after Egypt aligned itself with
Russia” (History). Since this time the two sides have lived through some
of the worst violence our world can imagine. The Palestinian fundamentalist
using suicide bombers, and the Israeli government fighting back with its
nuclear army has created one of the most volatile regions on earth.
Al Qaeda & The United States of America:
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Al Qaeda successfully pulled of one of the world’s most biggest terrorist
acts in the name of a religion against it’s enemy The United States. In
retaliation the United States then waged war in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan
and has further backed the Israeli cause in the Middle East.
Al Qaeda’s leader Osama Bin Laden who was trained back in the early 1980’s
by the United States of America to fight the Russians in the US’s need to
stop the flow of communism began to grow a hatred for the country and its
values and the way they used their super-power status to control certain
aspects of the world economy. This led to the formation of a fundamentalist
version of Islam in which anyone who does not follow that same belief system
is considered an infidel and must be punished by death. The group took this
claim to reality in several embassy bombings, and then an attack on the USS
Cole, and finally the attacks on 9/11.