What is the core of the ongoing conflict in the middle east?

Answer 1

Arab Answer

The Zionists want to strip the Arab and the other people living their from their homeland. They are invading Palestine and killing innocent men, women, and children just because the Zionists want a country which was already occupied with people before they invaded it.

Multifaceted Answer

The above answer reflects typical Arab attitudes that all of their problems are imposed by Outsiders. The truth of the matter is that while the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict is among the conflicts present in the Middle East (as are the American Invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan), it is not the sum total of conflicts in the Middle East.

The majority of Middles East conflicts derive from the tribal mentality that is present in Arab States along with repression-based politics. The system as set up in numerous Arab countries, such as Libya and Iraq is that each person has sole loyalty to his tribal leader and not to a national government. As a result, these tribal leaders become their own de facto city states that go to war against each other. Sadr City in Baghdad was the most famous such micro-country. Each tribe promises its members better conditions at the expense of the conditions of a different tribe. As a result, the tribes come into direct conflict.

What has typically happened in Arab National Governments is that one tribe has ascended to power and forcibly represses the other tribes to make good on its promise. This particular case is most visible in Syria where the Alawite Moslems (who make up less than 20% of the country) have ruled with an iron fist since the 1960s and made life terrible for the majority Sunni Moslems (without help from Zionists).

If more Arab countries become like Tunisia, federated states based on the sentiment of national unity, pride, and self-defense, where there is true freedom of religion and freedom of speech there may a great lessening of Middle East Conflicts. It is the deprivation of these identities and rights that results in much of the Middle East conflicts.

Answer 2

The majority of Middle East conflicts derive from the tribal mentality that is present in Arab States along with repression-based politics. The system as set up in numerous Arab countries, such as Libya and Iraq is that each person has sole loyalty to his tribal leader and not to a national government. As a result, these tribal leaders become their own de facto city states that go to war against each other. Sadr City in Baghdad was the most famous such micro-country. Each tribe promises its members better conditions at the expense of the conditions of a different tribe. As a result, the tribes come into direct conflict.

What has typically happened in Arab National Governments is that one tribe has ascended to power and forcibly represses the other tribes to make good on its promise. This particular case is most visible in Syria where the Alawite Muslims (who make up less than 20% of the country) have ruled with an iron fist since the 1960s and made life terrible for the majority Sunni Muslims (completely without Israeli or Palestinian intervention).

If more Arab countries become like Tunisia, federated states based on the sentiment of national unity, pride, and self-defense, where there is true freedom of religion and freedom of speech there may a great lessening of Middle East Conflicts. It is the deprivation of these identities and rights that results in much of the Middle East conflicts.

Answer 3

If we're talking about Syria and IS, it's twofold. Syria's troubles started when the Assad government totally overreacted on protest meetings, killing a great number of protesters. It triggered a long-simmering resentment of the Sunni-Muslim majority in Syria with the decades-long domination of the country by the clan of Assad and the Alawite Muslim minority his family came from. The Sunni Muslim rebels quickly found support from other Sunni Muslim countries like Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

Assad got support from Iran, which as a Shiite Muslim country wanted to prevent a too large Sunni domination in the region. You can say that basically Syria is the battlefield of a power struggle between Iran and Saudi Arabia, with Turkey pitching in because it has ambitions of reviving its old Ottoman Empire power and influence. Russia got involved because it always had friendly relations with Assad and also, because it has enough trouble as it is with its own Muslim minorities and wants to send out a clear signal that it will fight Muslim 'trouble making' where and when it sees it.

Then there is IS. It is muddle-headed US policy making by the Bush Government that gave birth to IS in the first place. Bush had all higher military personnel of the Iraqi army fired from their jobs and then had them interned. This caused massive loss of face as well as destitution for the officers' families, and their stay in the internment camps gave them all the time in the world to foster their hate and resentment towards the US for doing this to them.

With nowhere else to go and with their military and organizational abilities in search of employment, they were the ones who started IS and turned it into a fundamentalist and violently anti-Western organization.

IS basically is a rogue state that because of its fundamentalist beliefs gets much financial support from Saudi Arabia and several other Arab countries. IS fights Assad as its fights the Iraqi Government - not as a 'rebel' force, but just to carve out a State of their own that will make IS's leaders rich through tax and oil income. IS is being fought by all other parties in the region, including the parties that at the same time are fighting each other.