Creating the Modern Middle East

• More than 3,000 yrs. ago the region’s great wealth and prime location b/w Africa, Asia, and Europe made it an important source of power • It was conquered from within and without – This led to diverse ethnic and religious groups living in the area

Uniting Peoples

• When Islam spread across the Arabian Peninsula there was a mosaic of cultures – Most of the people living here eventually converted to Islam and adopted the Arabic language – Christians and Jews continued to practice their religion; Persians, Kurds, and Armenians maintained their cultural identities

• For 150 years Islam was able to control the mixed population, after the 10 th century the Arabs could no longer do so – Due to this Turks, led by the

Seljuks

, conquered almost all of the Middle East – They adopted Islam and ruled the Middle East for over 400 years before being conquered by the Ottoman Turks

• Under the Ottomans groups continued to practice their religion, Islamic law was not pressed upon non-Muslims, Christians, and Jews • In the late 1700s ethnic and religious differences split the empire – European nations saw this as a chance to develop new markets and gain new political influence in the Middle East

WW1

• Began in 1914 –

Allies Britain, France, Russia

, –

Central Powers- Germany, Austria Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire

• After the war started, the Allies planned how they would divide the Ottoman Empire after it was defeated – Each nation would control a certain area, but the Arabian Peninsula would remain untouched

Broken Promise

• Husayn ibn ‘Ali- ruler of Mecca and Medina – ‘ Ali wanted to work with Great Britain and France to establish an independent homeland for Arabs against eh Ottoman Empire – In the end the area given to ‘Ali was much smaller than previously thought – Under the

SYKES-Picot Agreement

the Arab state covered present day Yemen and Saudi Arabia

Husayn ibn ‘Ali

• France was given Syria as a

mandate, or land governed on behalf of the League of Nations,

Britain was given Palestine, Trans-Jordan, and Iraq

Arabs and Jews

• Jews and Arabs wanted Palestine for their own group – Both had ancient historical ties to the land • Jews had been

persecuted

and discriminated against in many areas of the world – b/c of this many migrated and called themselves

Zionists,

after a hill in Jerusalem they prayed to return to.

• • 1882 the first wave of Zionists returned to Palestine, as numbers increased Arabs became fearful of losing their land

Balfour Declaration-

1917 the British gov’t. gave its support to a Jewish national home in Palestine w/out violating Arab rights – the Arabs were pissed b/c they were promised the same thing by means of

self-determination, the right to decide their own political future

• This caused unrest b/c Arabs and Jews living in Palestine – Their were murders and other types of retaliation by both sides – During WWII Jews fled Europe for Palestine • Numbers went from 85000 to 445000 • Britain was forced to put a restriction on the number of Jews allowed to come into the area • Jews in Palestine began practicing guerilla warfare against the British

Creation of Israel

• After WWII the world saw the plight of the Jews and began to support a Jewish homeland –

If you were Arab how would you feel about this?

• Britain gave up and left turning the situation over to the U.N. – The U.N. proposed Palestine be divided into two states

• • The Arabs were even further pissed b/c more than ½ the land was assigned to Jews, yet they only made up less than 1/3 the population

May 1948- David Ben-Gurion,

leader of the Palestinian Jews, announced the independent state of Israel – hours later it was bombed by neighboring Arab nations • Israel ended up with ¾ of Palestine, Jordan and Egypt divided the rest among themselves, the Palestinians were without a nation