'Middle East's current problems started from the 1967 war'
 

New Delhi, Feb 24 (IANS) Wracked by insurrection and terrorism, the Middle East is going through a traumatic time but most of its problems can be traced to one short war between Arabs and Israelis nearly half a century ago, says a Pulitzer Prize-winning American historian who spent his formative years in the region. "The Middle East is going through a terrible moment, everything is collapsing, the artificial borders set by the British and the French... then the American intervention in Iraq in 2003 led to blowback and many unintended consequences," journalist-turned-author Kai Bird told IANS in an interview. Americans do **t k**w what they are doing in this part of the world," said Bird, who was five when his family moved to East Jerusalem where his father was American consul, and spent a considerable part of his early life there as well as Cairo, Beirut, Dhahran (Saudi Arabia) as described in "Crossing Mandelbaum Gate: Coming of Age Between the Arabs and Israelis, 1956-1978" (2010).

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