The Origin of the Middle East of the 21st Century

One of Matti Friedman's theses in Pumpkinflowers is that the war in Lebanon was a precursor to and contributing factor in the origins of the Middle East of the 21st century. At the time of the war in the security zone, the general Israeli population believes that peace was on the horizon. However, as both author and reader now know, it was merely the beginning of further and more extensive conflict in the Middle East. As Friedman writes: "In 1999 it still seemed the Middle East was changing for the better, and Lebanon still looked like the end of something bad, not the beginning of something worse" (158). As contemporary readers will know, the Middle East of the 21st century is characterized not only by conflict and war but a specific kind of guerrilla warfare in which the battlefield is brought...