In the Middle East, the drums of war are often beaten to distract populations from domestic unrest and concerns. Enemies are identified as a looming threat, and leaders vow to confront this threat.
However, when war is waged to achieve political objectives or to distract from domestic failures, it almost always ends up backfiring by simply fomenting more chaos, resulting in the loss of life and the wasting of resources.
One example of such a war is the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. At the time, Saddam Hussein's regime vowed to fight against "Persian expansion into the Arab homeland". On its part, Iranians rallied behind the slogan, "The path to liberate Jerusalem starts from Karbala."
After exhausting Iraq's resources and manpower during the eight-year war, Saddam went on to invade its southern neighbour Kuwait in 1990, destabilising the security of the entire Gulf region.
This demonstrates the dangers of how countries subservient to the whims of their political leaders, who are not interested in pursuing peaceful solutions, can fall into the trap of war.
This example demonstrates how it is much harder to pursue peace than to wage war, and the recent example of Israel's war on Gaza proves just that.
Religion used to fuel extremism
Religion is often used as an effective tool to fuel extremism and wage wars, with countless examples spanning human history.
Samuel Huntington's famous book The Clash of Civilisations –which began as a magazine article written as the Cold War was ending – predicted that future wars would be fought between cultures rather than countries. Many observers view the rise of extremist religious ideologies in the past few decades as validation of Huntington's thesis.
The Hamas-led Al-Aqsa Flood operation and Israel’s subsequent brutal military campaign in the Gaza Strip have reignited discourse among extremists openly espousing genocidal rhetoric.
Several leaders in the United States and Europe have expressed solidarity with Israel and have conflated criticism against Israel's war with anti-Semitism.
Despite massive and widespread protests against Israel's war crimes, attempts by government and media personalities to discredit and silence them have been relentless.
