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The Middle East has always been a political hot bed especially now with American participation in Iraq and Afghanistan. For years we have tried to bring peace to this region starting with Israel only to have a minimal result or no result at all. For us to bring peace to Israel we must understand it's past or we are doomed to continual failure. Israel as the modern state that we know started after 1940 when the United Nations determined that a national place for Jewish people needed to be created much to the dismay of their Arab neighbors. Eventually this disagreement with their Arab neighbors blew up into the 1948 Arab-Israeli war which ended in July 1949 after two failed truces. But this would not spell the end of warfare for Israel there were two more wars in store for the country. In 1967 the third Arab-Israeli began it is also known as the Six-Day war or the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. It began with an Israeli preemptive strike against an Egyptian airbase and involved Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq as enemies of Israel. Following six days of a combined ground and air war Israel's enemies signed a cease-fire agreement effectively ending the war. The results of this war changed Israel's boundaries through the gain of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, and the Golan Heights forming the Israel we see today. But, peace did not reign in Israel until 2007 when a United Nations brokered cease fire was signed this was after four other conflicts. Even after achieving relative peace Israel is still not completely safe as it is a constant target for terrorism.

If we use Israel as a template for peace in the Middle East we can see that peace is in fact possible but it requires a lot of hard work, patience and unfortunately bloodshed. For any future policy for the Middle East we must try to understand their cultural background and their interactions with their neighbors. So far we have not done this due a lack of knowledge on the Middle East instead we tend to charge into the area and force what we believe is best on them with mostly disastrous results. But this seems to be changing because of our results. So in my opinion the current polices may work but in the future I see the United States as a neutral diplomat so the countries can work out their own problems instead of a liberating force it is now so bloodshed can be avoided.

Learn more about this author, Don Emery.
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