Palestine and Israel crisis and its effects on U.S. Arab relations - Essay Example

? Palestine and Israel Crisis and its Effects on U.S. – Arab Relations Palestine and Israel Crisis and its Effects on U.S. – Arab Relations Introduction This paper is aimed at analyzing and evaluating the U.S. – Arab relations in the context of Palestine and Israel crisis. The prolonged hostilities between the Palestinians and Israelis have created considerable international tensions. The role of the United States in the peace process involving the two parties is debated time and again both by the Arabs and the Jews. The Arab countries are especially worried about the American approach and intent. They generally appear to be suspecting a geopolitical encroachment from the powerful American side combined with the interests of Israel. Even faithful American allies like Saudi Arabia and Turkey do not appear to be least contented about the lingering Palestine and Israel crisis and the American role in the peace process. Thesis Statement Palestine and Israel crisis has increased geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and the Arab countries, which has made this issue multilateral and increasingly complex. Effects of the Crisis Involving the Region In general, the international community holds that American policy in this region favors Israel. The military superiority of Israel relative to any plausible coalition of the Arab parties has been primarily maintained through American military assistance.1 Since military power has played a very important role throughout the Palestine and Israel crisis, political geography of the region has been considerably changed. Israel has increased the geographical extent of its political dominion (by annexation of Golan Heights, for example). Also, it has the ability to block and encircle the West Bank and Gaza Strip at utter geographical convenience. Moreover, Israel has strategically erected and shifted Jewish settlements in the region from time to time. Israel has four widely accepted physiological divisions: Northern Coast, Central Hills, Jordan Rift Valley, and Nagev Desert.2 The topography of Palestine is relatively simple; West Bank is landlocked and hilly, while Gaza shows general features of an uneven coastal terrain.3 However, Israel’s stringent security and economic policies in regards of its settlements in West Bank and its control over the Gaza coast has complicated the political geography of the region. Israel’s regional geo-strategic moves have adversely affected the Arab nations at large. The Arab countries are becoming more and more sensitive about their geographical borders and natural resources, which has pressurized America. America has to provide military support to the countries like Egypt and Jordan, and cautiously position its troops in and around the Arabian Peninsula. Palestine and Israel crisis is antagonizing even the non Arab countries like Iran and Pakistan. In sum, regional geopolitics is becoming very intense in the Middle East and even in South Asia. Effects Involving Mobility Annexation, blockade, settlement, evacuation, and politically motivated demographic alterations have increased the importance of mobility in the context of Palestine and Israel crisis. “The contrast between Oriental Jews and Israeli Arabs with regard to their different geographical mobility is striking. The Oriental Jews are immigrants who lost contact with their countries of origin, whereas the Arabs are natives who resumed ties with their people. The Orientals have a large degree of internal migration, whereas the Arabs almost none.”4 In the course of the Arab – Israeli conflict, Israel saw an influx of Jewish asylum seekers from the Arab countries while Palestinians were turned almost into refugees in their own land and strategically isolated. Moreover, during and after the World War II, thousands of Jews migrated to America and there they eventually formed a very strong socio-political lobby for Israel. This lobby has been strong enough to decide the course of American policies in the Middle East, even beyond the issues specific to Palestine and Israel.5 Hence, mobility in regards of Palestine and Israel crisis has directly influenced the human geography of Israel (including Palestine) and indirectly affected the ethnic and racial distributions in USA and the Arab countries. This has led to strong association between international politics and intercontinental human geography as far as the U.S. – Arab relations can be analyzed. Arabs are today doubtful towards the U.S. commercial, cultural, and military activities in the Middle East while the Israeli human geography remains very dynamic and mobility continues. The Factor of Globalization Globalization has led to a variety of political, social, and economic activities, which suggest various ways to broadly stabilize the economic geography of the region. Economic issues are now becoming prominent and people in both Israel and Palestine are trying to improve their living standards and socio-economic conditions. Globalization has the potential to minimize the continued geopolitical tensions in the region, particularly when the American policy makers are involved.6 Globalization has created greater interdependence between USA, Israel, and the Arab countries in terms of business entailing energy, petroleum, technology, etc. The gas pipeline between Egypt and Israel testifies that relationships are prospective towards normalization. Globalization has increased the significance of international trade. USA and Israel need petroleum from the Arab countries, while Arab countries need technology. Hence, globalization is already pivotal in restoring the multilateral geopolitical balance. We can hope that globalization will control the hostilities between Palestine and Israel and better the U.S. – Arab relationships through transnationalism, religio-cultural liberalism, and trade.7 Nature – Culture The prolonged fight over the holy land has not much disturbed the nature-culture of Palestine and Israel in terms of heritage, faith, and mass psychology. Especially in the case of Palestine, “The Orientals’ high geographical mobility has contributed a great deal to their cultural change, while the Arabs’ stable residence has sustained their cultural continuity.”8 Hence, the association of the Palestinians with the cultural aspects of the geographical structure and historical evolution of the present day areas of West Bank and Gaza is strong. On the other hand, Jewish settlers in Israel (and Israeli settlements) have got assimilated in a coherent Israeli nation state culture. The river valleys and coastal plains of Israel are a natural oasis for the Jewish culture. With the lapse of time, nature-culture of Israel (especially regarding Jerusalem) has strengthened despite of high mobility, influence of globalization, and continued terror attacks. This sort of cultural segregation, which is primarily based on the geographical patterns of the region, can potentially counter the aggressive geopolitics of interference, annexation, and terrorism. Natural and cultural establishment powered by mutual dialogue between Palestine and Israel can rapidly improve the U.S. – Arab relationships in both religious and cultural terms. The Dilemma of Cultural Landscape Until now in this thesis, problems regarding region and mobility in the context of Palestine and Israel crisis have been considered to be adversely affecting the Arab American relationships. Although globalization and nature – culture are the certain themes in which one can find hope for a stable future, cultural landscape remains the greatest puzzle to be solved in determining the fate of the peace process. In the words of Falah, “Violence against persons and places may result in profound and radical transformations in the cultural landscape. In Palestine, political processes during war and its aftermath resulted in radical changes in culturescape. While the 1948 plight of some three-quarters of a million Palestinian refugees has been the subject of considerable analysis and controversy, far less attention has been paid to the physical destruction of the spatial world they inhabited.”9 This physical destruction altering the cultural landscape is discernable especially in East Jerusalem and Golan Heights, where Israeli settlements are protected and organized in clusters.10 Also, Israel does not appear to have much regard for international criticisms and it often uses force to materialize its aggressive policies and practices of cultural conservatism with immense stress on the geopolitical aspects of a perspective Israeli domination and control. This sort of activity by Israel that directly modifies the cultural landscape of the region is lowering the degree of confidence between the Arab countries and America, which is a prominent and long standing ally of Israel. Terrorism is another issue that is straining the multilateral relationships. Both Palestine and Israel want to extend the spheres of their influence internally and externally with respect to the cultural landscape of the region. As a result, the Palestinians sympathizers in Arab League are becoming skeptic towards American influence, policy, and culture. Conclusion Palestine and Israel crisis has not only affected the U.S. – Arab relations adversely but also created tensions between erstwhile USSR and NATO, Muslim countries and EU; and intensified political controversies and debates in the international bodies like Arab League, United Nations, Non Alignment Movement, etc. Israeli – Palestinian confrontation has dragged the Arab world in between, Israeli lobby in America took the matter to the Western world, and communist countries like Cuba often supported the militant movement of PLO under the banner of global revolution. Hence, as per the statement of this thesis, this issue is actually a multilateral issue, which indubitably involves not only religious and historical issues but the geopolitics of petroleum resource capturing as well. U.S. – Arab relations thus appear to be entering a troubled era since Arab fellow feeling with the Palestinians is very strong and the recent American interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Libya has not only disturbed the Arabs but the Muslim world as a whole too. Bibliography Falah, Ghazi. “The 1948 Israeli – Palestinian War and its aftermath: The transformation and de-signification of Palestine’s cultural landscape”, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 86, no. 2 (1996): 256 - 285 McDougall, James. Geography of Palestine: Historical and Descriptive, on a New and Competitive System, Charleston: Nabu Press, 2010 Orni, Efram and Elisha Efrat. Geography of Israel, Jerusalem: The Israel Program for Scientific Translations, 1966 Quandt, William B. Peace Process: American Diplomacy and the Arab – Israeli Conflict since 1967, Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2005 Rabinowitz, Dan. “Postnational Palestine/Israel? Globalization, diaspora, transnationalism, and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict”, Critical Inquiry 26, no. 4 (2000): 757 - 772 Smooha, Sammy. Israel: Pluralism and Conflict, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978 The Survey of Israel, Atlas of Israel: Cartography, Physical, and Human Geography, New York: McMillan Publishing Company, 1985 Read More