Yes, C.Ham, absolutely....they did have the Soviet Union's support during that lengthy period you allude to (and that's why the Arabs fought Israel with massed armies in that period), but that hasn't been the case lately (since 1989). That was exactly my point. At present, Israel is the only one with the effective backing of a superpower, and that has helped greatly destabilize the whole situation, because you need a relative balance of power in a dispute to keep things from falling apart.

In fact, the whole world has been in far greater peril since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and has seen more wars because of it.

Great wars are triggered when an Empire starts to fall apart at the seams or collapses altogether, because a power vacuum is created and whoever is strongest will try to move into it, against the wishes of many people...and that's when the really serious fighing begins.

America has felt strong enough since the end of the Soviet Union to do as it pleases. So has Israel. That is exceedingly perilous. It's better when major powers are afraid to reach too far, because of what the opposition might do in response. When they lose that fear and become arrogant and absolutely sure of their military supremacy, all bets are off, and any crazy thing can happen...including nuclear war.

It doesn't all happen in a day. It happens in stages, through a series of misadventures, reactions, and counterreactions. At a certain point it becomes uncontrollable. That's what happened in 1914, and it can happen again.