Just because the modern 'west', that is, western Europe and her colonies, sees itself in contrast to the 'East', and the civilization that the modern west sees as its predecessors, the Greeks, were once fighting a state to the east in the middle east does not mean that there is an age-old 'east' vs. 'west' conflict!
All it means is that the ancient Greeks happened to be, at one time, fighting a state to the east of them!
In fact, the ancient Greeks have as much in common with the Arabs as they do with western Europe!
Greek science in Arab science, traditions of art that love mathematical symmetry, innumerable little things from the ancient Mediterranean and common roots in Egypt and ancient Phoenecia, traditions of wisdom teaching in Islam that represent Faith and Reason in harmony with each other in much the same way as the teachings of Plato and Pythagoras- not to mention a lot of the same ideas as in Plato. Roots in ancient Egypt. Roots in the music and arts of the ancient Mediterranean.
The Greeks today have as much in common with the Arabs as they do with western Europe!
And in fact, Greece today is much more like the 'East' today than the west today- for while Greece originated many things in the west today, Greece knows much of the same wisdom as the rest of the east, and the modern west is more characterized by what it does not know, or rather refuses to learn, than what it does know! And so since Greece knows the same kind of things as Egypt and India, Greece today is much more like the east today than the west!
And it is the west today that is the odd man out!
If there is an 'East' vs. 'West' contrast in the world today, I daresay that Greece is definitely in the 'East'!
There is no ages-old 'west' vs. 'east' conflict, for today the Greeks are definitely on the eastern side of the divide!
We in the modern west did not inherit an age-old conflict with the 'east' from the Greeks, because the Greeks are part of the very East that the modern west rejects today!
The Greeks just happened to be fighting a state to the east of them, nothing more!
God loves you!
Sincerely,
David S. Annderson