Scott Jezik

Since 2013, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) sponsored an initiative called the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI): an investment initiative in foreign nations spanning seven sectors and over one hundred different countries, including the U.S, with a new canal in Cambodia costing over $1.7 billion as one of the latest in a long line of projects. This investment strategy has focused on many developing countries throughout the world, including Cambodia, by focusing on building and rebuilding trade routes to establish what could be called a modern Silk Route. Essentially, connecting China to neighboring regions and interconnecting the world at large. The Belt and Road Initiative has become a major piece in China’s foreign policy, with the PRC going so far as to officially write it into their charter.

Conflict over ancient religious grounds has seen a resurgence in recent months between conflicting nations each championing different religions and governmental systems: Israel, a Jewish nation, and various organizations with allegiance to Islam. This conflict has modern roots in the establishment of the State of Israel that was granted sovereignty by the British in May 1948, which was concurrent with the expulsion of over 750,000 Palestinians from land that would become Israel. The budding nation soon found it engulfed in a war known as the Arab-Israeli War that ended in 1949 after Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria signed an armistice agreement. Further conflict continued to marr the political and geographic history of one of the most coveted lands in the world, such as the Six-Day War, the Yom Kippur War, and the First and Second Intifadas. The newest in a long line of fighting is Israel’s current conflicts with both Hamas in the Gaza strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon.