Islamism, Arab identity, the grievances of Palestinians and Israelis and oil supply issues have always been interrelated. Security for one must take into account security for all.
Arab history since the 1920s has been marked by collisions and attempts at accommodation between a national ideal and a set of regional and international realities: among the latter, the division of the Arab world into separate states and the constraints on Arab capacities for self-management and self- determination from external intervention.
Central to the interplay between the Arab national ideal and the realities it faced was the gradual transformation of this ideal into a doctrinaire nationalism with set ideologies and programs of action.
Whatever the differences between them, the Arab nationalist parties and organisations unanimously rejected any kind of western stewardship over their lands, along with the western-supported Zionist agenda for Palestine.
