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comment by b_b
b_b  ·  3774 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Obsessing About Gaza, Ignoring Syria (and Most Everything Else)

Yes, certainly strife in the Balkans predates modern Europe by a long shot. I chose 1935, because some historians have said that Germany and the USSR at that time used local civil wars as a pretext for invasion, and that especially the Germans co-opted dissidents to fight on their behalf against hostile regimes. One can envision the same happening in the Mid East today (cough, arm and train the rebels, cough)