ISLAM-CHRISTIAN DIALOGUE

83 re-Islamization have in common the bre- ak with the previous type of social orga- nization and are opposed to an Islam of compromise, weakened by the modernity transmitted by secularization. The "Mu- slim Brotherhood" movement founded in Egypt in 1928, which currently has much ramification also in the Western world, is an example of the transformation of this awakening by cultivating the anti-Western mentality and blaming the United States (the West, generally assimilated to the Christian world) for its economic and tech- nological backwardness and for the sup- port given to the constitution of the State of Israel. The disappointment of the middle classes and workers for the non-fulfilment of the promises made and for the defeats suffered by the State of Israel, which they see continually strengthening, offers in the 80's a fertile ground for the spread of Isla- mic fundamentalism, (with terrorist affilia- tions) financed by petrodollars. Petrodollar: destabilisation element Considering that the Gulf region is of stra- tegic importance, since it accumulates the greatest energy reserves vital for the continuity of the economic expansion of the West, it is widely held that the United States have considered the Islamic mo- narchies as a stronghold of the interests of the West and have welcomed the dif- fusion of religious movements aimed at contracting the expansion of the influen- ce of the USSR and socialism, political movement connected to Nasser; Nasser quickly spread the idea of pan-Arab union in the Arab masses under the banner of non-aligned and equidistant socialism between the USA and the USSR, therefo- re not pro-Western. The Saudi monarchy was hostile to the spread of the modern secular nationalism freed from religious laws and considered it a real danger for all the monarchies of the peninsula (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Emirates). Together with Pakistan these states founded the Conference of Islamic States in 1969. It is well known that Saudi Arabia, the richest country in the world, financed Islamic con- fraternities and movements throughout the world to promote religious fundamen- talism in the name of Islam by spreading daily hatred towards the corrupted and corrupting West. In the majority of Mu- slim countries, Islamization is carried out through sweeping propaganda that does not neglect the use of all modern means of mass communication. Resentment against the West The hostility reiterated by the Arab and Muslim world can be traced back to the following factors: • Promises broken by the Allies to create a Hashimite kingdom in return for the support received by the Arabs in World War I against the Ottoman occupation. The Kingdom should have included: Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Mesopota- mia (Iraq and Jordan) and Arabia, all for- mer territories of the Ottoman Empire. • Transfer to Turkey of the region of An- tioch, an area with an Arab majority with a strong Christian community ce- ded in 1939 by France in return for Tur- kish neutrality during World War II. • Creation, favoured by the Jewish Holo- caust, in 1948 of the confessional State of Israel with western connotations on the territory of Palestine, inhabited pre- dominantly by Arabs at the expenses of the previous agreement to create a simple Jewish national Home. • Destruction of the Arab, Christian and Muslim character in Palestine and forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of inhabitants, Christians and Muslims. • Rivalry of the powers for the control of energy sources in the Middle East. • Dissemination of Islamic extremism,