Peace in the Middle East

It’s difficult to imagine that we might return to the situation just a few months ago when the US launched its apparently irrational attacks on Iran. Of course the situation in the Middle East has been especially tense since the barbaric attack on Israel by Hamas in October, 2023 which was followed by the merciless response by Israel which has left tens of thousands of Palestinians dead and laid waste to much of Gaza.

Before that the Middle East was developing as a popular tourist destination and was building itself as a centre of culture and sport with the FIFA World Cup being held in Qatar in 2022.

Then much further back there was the 6 day war in 1967 and the ‘later Israel Egypt war Yom Kippur war of 1973 but in between there seems to have been a long period of comparative calm albeit with the Lebanese civil war which flared up from time to time.

The picture above is from 1987 (I think) and is of some of the attendees at a regional business meeting which I ran in Istanbul. That’s me standing third from the left. Second left is Wael Nawas, a Jordanian who was our salesman in Saudi Arabia. Second right is Chris Kotsakis who was the regional manager. On the extreme right is Ali Zangooi who was our salesman in Tehran. I can’t remember the name of the guys in the front row but the one on the left was a salesman from Greece and the one on the right was a salesman based in Dubai, I remember that he was a Christian Lebanese. I don’t recall much about the person in the middle of the standing row but I think he was Syrian or Iraqi.

If there’s a point to this blog piece it is that in the absence of wars people get on pretty well as evidenced by the mix of Christians and Moslems, Iranians and Arabs, and Greeks and Turks in the group. People in business by and large get on well with each other regardless of nationality, religion and ethnic origin. Why do ego-driven politicians and religious leaders have to get in the way?