Despite the Camp David agreement the conflict between the Arabs and the Israelis has continued.

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Despite the Camp David agreement the conflict between the Arabs and the Israelis has continued.

There are deep-seated religious cultural and economic differences between the Israelis and Palestinians. All religions have places that they regard religiously significant and for both the Muslims and Jews; Jerusalem is considered to be one. They both think it is holy to them alone and that because of this they have claim to it. Both people are also wary of each other because of their different religious holidays and how they are celebrated.

The fact that the Israeli people are so much wealthier than the Palestinians also causes a divide between them. Many Palestinians are unemployed refugees and have poor standards of living, whilst there are often Israelis living around them living in totally contrasting conditions due to a great deal of American aid.

These conditions have helped the conflict continue because their religious differences, cultural differences and difference of opinion over Jerusalem being their own capital leads to misunderstanding and guardedness. The tension, which originates from these differences, escalates each and every day as long as these two very different people are still living in the same vicinity. The outcome of this is that these two people resent each other especially the Palestinians who feel victimized and also resent how much international aid the Israelis get. It is an especially important factor preventing peace because it is not easily resolvable factor.

  The pressure from other countries has also contributed to the ongoing conflict. America not only supported Israel financially but also politically due to the cold war. The cold war was a political battle between Russia and America and one of their forms of showing their opposing views was by backing and supporting different allies in the Arab Israeli conflict. The cold war ended in the early 1990’s and so America no longer saw it necessary to support Israel for strategic reasons. America was thus more willing to see the big picture and sympathise with the Palestinians after the Intifada when they confronted the Israelis. One of consequence of this compassion towards the Palestinians was a significant amount of pressure being put on the Israelis to make peace. Another factor that caused this change of opinion was the fact that America was still being criticised. They were accused of double standards after helping Kuwait in the Gulf War but merely ‘sympathising’ with the Palestinians. America needed to keep favour with the Arab states for reasons such as oil and so they had an ulterior reason to persevere in their influencing upon Israel to make peace.

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 This is a reason why the conflict is still going on because Israel resents America’s change of loyalties and game plan. They were used to unconditional support from America and felt pushed into a corner when they were unexpectedly put under pressure. The Israelis therefore became more adamantly against compromise and any deal they were pushed into was consequently hoax and had a chance of being short-lived. This factor could be thought of as a short-lived problem because America’s support was, at the end of the day, conditional and so it could be considered a minor problem.

The pressure from ...

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