Great Powers in the Middle East:

A Comparative Study of Arab-Israeli Conflicts in 1967 and 2021

DOI

10.2991/assehr.k.211020.191How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Security dilemma, the Six-day war, Great powers

Abstract

This article conducts a comparative study of Arab-Israeli conflicts: the Six Day War of 1967 and the Israeli-Palestinian Crisis of 2021. The outbreak of armed conflict between Israeli and Palestinian forces in 2021 has constituted a resurgence of internecine violence. The role of great powers in such conflicts features the alleged influence of the United States in bringing about a ceasefire between Israeli and Palestinian forces on the 21st of May 2021. It situates accounts of the role of the United States as a great power as part of a longstanding explanatory mechanism for Arab-Israeli conflict and resolution that dates back into the Cold War. Identifying such explanatory accounts as rooted in neorealist theory, this article argues that such assessments of the role of great powers overlook the roles of internal factors motivating war and peace, such as ideological factors. From a realistic neoclassical perspective, it also argues that although the support or opposition of external states – particularly great powers – has some influence over Arab-Israeli conflicts, neorealist theory elevates the role of great external powers to the almost total exclusion of contributary internal factors.

Copyright

© 2021, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Guanjie Ruan
PY  - 2021
DA  - 2021/10/21
TI  - Great Powers in the Middle East:
BT  - Proceedings of the 2021 International Conference on Public Relations and Social Sciences (ICPRSS 2021)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 412
EP  - 416
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.211020.191
DO  - 10.2991/assehr.k.211020.191
ID  - Ruan2021
ER  -