Peace in the Middle East: the Future of an illusion

Document Type : پژوهشی

Authors

• David R. Cole ¹
• Pegah Marandi ²

¹ Associate Professor, Western Sydney University, Australia

² Associate Lecturer, Western Sydney University, Australia

10.22067/fedu.2025.46542

Abstract

This essay examines peace in the Middle East by focusing on the historical precedents that have led up to the designation of the modern state of Israel. It is argued that it is the role of the philosophy of education to specifically analyse the creation of the modern state of Israel as a concept, and to unpack this concept with respect to its consequences. Further to this detailed philosophical work, this essay speculates on the more general role of the philosophy of education during times of geopolitical upheaval and universal threat. As such, it was found that the philosophy of education has the dual function of thoroughly unpacking concepts, whilst providing an ethical and intellectual basis for examining the causes of violence and its ramifications. In sum, this essay argues that the philosophy of education has the specific purposes of critically examining concepts and providing future populations a stable basis for hope in the future. 

Keywords

• middle east peace
• geopolitical upheaval
• violence and consequences
• geopolitical philosophy

---

مترجم: احمد شم آبادی، دانشجوی دکتری فلسفه تعلیم و تربیت دانشگاه فردوسی مشهد

Email: [e-mail]

https://orcid.org/0009-0002-0617-7483

References

Al-Hazza, T., & Bucher, K. T. (2008). Books about the Middle East: Selecting and using them with children and adolescents. Bloomsbury Publishing USA.

Beyer, L. E., & Apple, M. W. (1998). The curriculum: Problems, politics, and possibilities. Suny Press.

Brown, R., & Ladyman, J. (2019). Materialism: a historical and philosophical inquiry. Routledge.

Caplan, N. (2019). The Israel-Palestine conflict: contested histories. John Wiley & Sons.

Cole, D. R. (2012). Matter in motion: The educational materialism of Gilles Deleuze. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 44(sup1), 3-17.

Cole, D. R. (2013). Traffic jams: Analysing everyday life through the immanent materialism of Deleuze & Guattari. punctum books.

Cole, D. R. (2014). Capitalised Education: An Iimmanent Materialist Account of Kate Middleton. John Hunt Publishing.

Cole, D. R., & Mirzaei Rafe, M. (2017). Conceptual ecologies for educational research through Deleuze, Guattari and Whitehead. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 30(9), 849-862.

Guilherme, A. (2017). Understanding conflict resolution philosophically in a school setting: three different kinds of violence and dialogue. Journal of Peace Education, 14(2), 215-234.

Gutwein, D. (2016). The politics of the Balfour Declaration: Nationalism, imperialism and the limits of Zionist-British cooperation. Journal of Israeli History, 35(2), 117-152.

Karsh, E. (2012). The war against the Jews. Israel Affairs, 18(3), 319-343.

Kratz, R. G. (2015). Historical and biblical Israel: the history, tradition, and archives of Israel and Judah. Oxford University Press.

Levene, M. (1992). The Balfour declaration: a case of mistaken identity. The English Historical Review, 107(422), 54-77.

Masters, B. (2013). The Arabs of the Ottoman Empire, 1516-1918: A Social and Cultural History. Cambridge University Press.

Mazza, R. (2008). Jerusalem in the First World War: Transition from Ottoman to British rule (1914-1920). University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies (United Kingdom).

Petras, J. (2011). The power of Israel in the United States. SCB Distributors.