Conflict in the Middle East

The Wye Memoranda in 1999 led violence to erupt once again in the Middle East. In May 18, 1999, President Netanyahu lost reelection to Ehud Barak. The most important goal of the Barak administration was to make peace with the country of Syria and Lebanon. Although peace talks stalled with Syria, Israel was able to make peace with Lebanon with the help of the U.S. In return for peace, Israel withdrew its troops from Lebanon in May 2000.

Meanwhile, in the U.S. President Clinton was preparing for his last two years in office and to make a full scale commitment to peace in the Middle East. He had Palestinian leader Yaser Arafat and Israeli Prime minister Ehud Barak meet several times at Camp David but to no avail. No peace efforts were ever reached.

On December 10, 2000 Israeli Prime Minister Barak resigned from office after failing to stop the violence in the Middle EAst and failing to make peace.

On February 10, 2001 former Israeli war general Ariel Sharon won election. Unlinke Sharon's predecessors, Sharon was unwilling to give land for peace. These strategies in the past had repeatedly failed. Instead, Sharon increased military operations to kill and capture suspected terrorists and destroy the terrorist infrastructure. As a result more suicide bombing ensued. During this cycle of violence the U.S. envoy George Mitchell and CIA director George Tenet were sent to get the sides to agree to a cease fire. However both men were unsuccessful.

America's support for Israel has made Israle a prosperoud nation. The Arab world cares very little about U.S. policies, situations, and ideas because they are worried about Zionism in the middle East. The three areas of politics, economics, and miltary have become the basis of the U.S.' relationship to Israel and the cause of hatred from the Arab World.

Currently, the terrorist group of Hamas has won elections in the Palestinians and with Ariel Sharon no longer able to rule Israel, peace and stability appear to be nowhere in sight. Furthermore, U.S. President Bush has backed Israeli strongly on this manner in fighting the terrorists. Arab countries have grown a hatred towards Bush and have raised oil prices. This is further proof of how much the Arab world has hated the U.S. because of the U.S. realtionship with Israel.