Read another essay by Jamieson on Afghanistan in The Edmonton Journal
The current clash between Israel and Hizbollah in Lebanon brings more warfare to an area that has seen the clash of armies since ancient times. Is this a new stage in a conflict that has its roots in the modern post-1945 period or just a continuation of a centuries-old struggle? It may seem odd to characterize warfare between a Jewish state and a terrorist group drawn from the Shia Muslim population of Lebanon as a continuation of the Christian-Muslim conflict which began in the seventh century CE, yet this clash has discernible roots in that age-old struggle. This essay will examine the elements of historical continuity between the past and today, as well as important new features in the current conflict.
At the start of the twentieth century, the world's greatest Muslim power, the Ottoman empire, was struggling to resist the attacks upon it by the Christian powers of Europe. This conflict still had a definite religious aspect. During the 1890s the Christian powers had threatened to intervene when Christian Armenians were massacred in the empire. For a thousand years the Muslims had generally been dominant in the Christian-Muslim conflict, but from the seventeenth century onwards, the Christian powers of Europe had become ever stronger. They achieved their final victory in the First World War. The Ottoman Empire was defeated and broken up. By the early 1920s there were only a handful of Muslim states in the world which were not part of one of the European empires.
Continue reading "Continuing the Christian-Muslim Conflict?: Israel, Iran and Lebanon by Alan G. Jamieson" »
