It may come as a surprise to readers of my geopolitics blog that I have avoided - and will continue to avoid - taking sides in the conflict pitching Israelis against Palestinians in Gaza.
The reasons are however quite simple. As a Romanian-Australian historian having specialised in Toulouse in international relations and geopolitics, my professional interests are exclusively focused on developments happening around Romania and, by extension, in Eurasia. This is why I have devoted most of my professional attention to the war in Ukraine in the past twenty months, as well as before that, since 2014. Sadly, Romania still has more than half a million ethnic Romanians living, or dying on the battlefields in Ukraine, and unfortunately it has been flooded with hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees since February 2022.
As Romania was for more than two decades a satellite of China during the Ceausescu regime, I have also paid special attention to China's spreading influence in Eastern Europe, before and after 1989.
By the same token, Russia was an important actor in the evolution of the Romanian principalities during the Middle Ages, as well as a leading power involved in the major developments affecting the history of the modern Romanian state since the unification in 1859.
My professional interest in the major events happening within the EU has deepened since 2007, when Romania was admitted as a member.
My acquired knowledge of events from parts of the Arab world dates back to 2010-2011, when I was studying for my masters degree at Sciences Po in Toulouse. My research thesis then was concerned with the evolution of the EU's relations with the Maghreb countries. My thesis did not include research or references to events in the Mashreq ,nor did I acquire the necessary in-depth historical information about these areas.
After World War II, the US replaced European powers - the British and the French- in the Middle East, becoming its sole peace and security provider. Consequently, I have usually paid only scant attention to developments there. I have always considered it a huge mistake,for example, and an illustration of his megalomania the fact that Ceausescu had cultivated political leaders from the Middle East, like Yasset Arafat , or that he tried - albeit unsuccessfully - to play the role of peacemaker between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
A comparative analysis of the way major powers have governed the Arabs from the Middle East over the past few hundred years reveals the fact that the Ottomans were by far much more adept at keeping the peace among Arabs than the West has over the last hundred years. Naturally, having the same religion as the Arabs in the Middle East or North Africa has helped the Ottoman Turks keep the peace in those regions until 1918 when the Sultanate imploded. Unfortunately, the skills of various Western administrators, including the Americans, were not up the task of keeping the Middle East stable and the Arabs pacified .
This above comment, however, should not be understood as an endorsement of President Erdogan's latest speech in Istanbul on behalf of the Palestinians from Gaza. Although his first decade in power was very successful, Erdogan has slowly but surely torpedoed his main achievements during his second decade at the helm. Trying to bask in the glory of his Ottoman predecessors, or of that of Kemal Ataturk, will not help the efforts to stabilise the Middle East or put an end to the conflict in Gaza.
