Conflict in the Middle East:

Conflict in the Middle East: Can There Ever Be Peace? The Holy Bible advises that there will always be wars and rumors of war, and history has borne this out; however, the Middle East in particular has historically been wracked by violent conflict for a variety of reasons.

While the reasons for these conflicts have been varied, they have all been characterized by three fundamental aspects: (a) competition for scarce resources; (b) a highly patriarchal social framework that disenfranchises women and encourages violence as a legitimate and acceptable practice; and - inter- and intra-religious differences, a situation that is further exacerbated by the need to share such holy sites as Jerusalem between sometimes mutually-hostile faiths.

This paper provides a review of the related literature to show how these three fundamental aspects have contributed to the historic incidence of violence in the Middle East, followed by a summary of the research in the conclusion. Review and Discussion Competition for Scarce Resources. According to Morrissette and Borer (2004), "Many of the wars of the 20th century were about oil, but wars of the 21st century will be over water.

While it is clear that many of those sources of conflict remain salient today, future war in the Middle East also will be increasingly influenced by economic and demographic trends that do not bode well for the region" (p. 86). The World Bank has estimated that by 2025, world population will reach eight billion; more alarming, over 90% of this projected growth will occur in developing countries where most people depend on local renewable resources (Morrissette & Borer, 2004).

Likewise, Richards and Waterbury (1996) emphasize that, "The continued pressure of population on scarce resources poses serious problems for the region" (p. 75). Indeed, competition over resources has been a source of conflict throughout history, but many of the nations of the Middle East are relatively small and some are resource-poor, at least in terms of renewable resources. According to Gray (2002): The new world order is consigned to the rubbish heap, and the outlines of the world in which we will live over the coming century have become clearer.

The end of secular ideology has not brought peace. It has simply changed the character of war. In the Persian Gulf, we see nations playing out new struggles. Those struggles are about the control of scarce resources. Ideological conflicts are being replaced by geopolitics. The strategic rivalries of the cold war are being followed by resource wars (emphasis added). (p.

20) Alas, while modern technology may avoid these dire Malthusian predictions, or at least ameliorate them somewhat in the future, solving these problems seems simple in comparison to changing the more complicated nature of the social environment in which they are playing out, and these issues are discussed further below. Highly Patriarchal Social Framework. In many parts of the Middle East, women are little more than chattel today based on longstanding customs: "From 3000 B.C.-A.D.

1100, man's view of himself as superior in all ways to women soon became enshrined in the law and custom of the world's earliest civilizations, those of the Middle East. Women became a chattel first of her father, then of her husband, then of her son" (Sechzer, 2004, p. 51). While the laws and practices vary, the majority of Islamic countries in the Middle East have specific beliefs about women and have restrictions concerning them (Sechzer, 2004).

Religious tenets in the more restrictive regions are used to "keep women in their place" and violence against women sometimes even takes the form of killing. In her book, Sites of Violence: Gender and Conflict Zones, Giles (2004) notes that, "In the Middle East, for instance, 'honor killing' is prevalent. Amnesty International reports that "[i]n Pakistan, hundreds of women, of all ages, in all parts of the country and for a variety of reasons connected with perceptions of honor are killed every year.

The number of such killings appears to be steadily increasing as the perception of what constitutes honor -- and what damages it -- steadily widens" (p. 108). Likewise, the deposed Taliban regime in.