[vessenes]

Arab-Jew conflict like we have today is a relatively modern thing, starting around the turn of the 19th century and intensifying during WW2 for a variety of reasons, including oil politics for Hitler and increasing land / nationalism tensions.

An interesting book about this and Iraq in specific is Banking on Baghdad; published in 2008, it's aimed at an interested Western reader, and is a good read.

[smcl]

Thanks for this reccomendation, it's in my queue now :)