Middle East

K

Uprisings and Independence Movements

The new political order was widely contested after the war. The Arab states had been subject to Ottoman rule for centuries before European arrival. In many cases, what was anti-Ottoman sentiment soon became anti-European sentiment. In 1920, uprisings in Iraq against British rule compelled the British government to modify the mandate system by creating a provisional government. Iraq became formally independent in 1932. In Syria the French had considerable difficulty controlling a major national uprising from 1925 to 1927. Despite negotiations in 1938 for increased Syrian autonomy, independence was not achieved until 1946. Transjordan obtained qualified independence in 1928 and full independence in 1946. Lebanon became fully independent of France in 1943. Egypt, which had become a British protectorate in 1914, became an independent state in 1922. However, a large British military presence remained until 1954.

L

The Birth of Israel and Ensuing Conflicts

During the early years of British-mandated Palestine, Jewish settlement increased. Jews formed 11 percent of the population of Palestine in 1922 and 29 percent in 1936. Arabs opposed British support of Zionism, and they started a revolt that lasted from 1936 to 1939. In an effort to appease the Arab world, Britain issued the White Paper of 1939, restricting Jewish immigration and land sales to Jews and providing for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state within ten years. Britain's weakening commitment to Zionism, combined with the Holocaust during World War II (1939-1945)-in which German Nazis systematically murdered millions of European Jews-caused Jews in Palestine and worldwide to step up their demands for a Jewish state. In 1947 Britain decided to leave Palestine, and called on the United Nations (UN), the successor to the League of Nations, to make recommendations for the area’s future.

In November 1947 the United Nations resolved to partition Palestine into Arab and Jewish areas, and Britain announced that it would leave the region by May 15, 1948. The Jews accepted the proposal, but the Arabs rejected it as a violation of their right to self-determination. Violence erupted and soon turned into full-scale civil war. In early 1948 Jewish guerrilla forces began terrorist attacks on Arab communities, forcing much of the Arab population to flee. When Israel was declared an independent Jewish state upon British withdrawal, forces from neighboring Arab countries joined the war against Israel. By the end of the fighting in 1949, Israel had substantially increased the size of its territory beyond the area granted to it by the UN partition, and about 900,000 Palestinians became refugees outside the state of Israel.

Arabs and Israelis failed to reach a comprehensive peace agreement, and additional wars followed. In 1956 Britain and France joined Israel against Egypt in a conflict over control of the Suez Canal (see Suez Crisis). Diplomatic intervention by the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) helped end the conflict. Israel further expanded its territory by taking the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights, and the Sinai Peninsula (known collectively as the Occupied Territories) in the Six-Day War of 1967. In this conflict and in another in 1973, the two superpowers stepped up their involvement by supplying weapons, the United States to Israel and the USSR to the Arab nations (see Arab-Israeli War of 1973).

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In October 1974 the Arab League recognized the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), a group founded in 1964 to work toward Palestinian nationhood, as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. In addition, the United Nations granted the PLO observer status, meaning it could participate in UN deliberations but could not vote on resolutions. The 1978 Camp David Accords, under which Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt, and the resulting peace treaty between Egypt and Israel of March 1979 removed Egypt from the Arab-Israeli conflict. However, Israel did not reach peace agreements with the other Arab nations, and the future of other occupied regions remained undetermined. In 1987 a movement known as the intifada, a series of demonstrations, strikes, and riots against Israeli rule, began in the Gaza Strip and spread throughout the Occupied Territories.

M

Islamic Revival and the Iranian Revolution

In the first half of the 20th century the spread of literacy, wider access to education, and the growth of modern communications networks substantially changed Middle Eastern society. With the formation of new classes and political institutions came increased pressure to end foreign rule and to widen political participation. Most early political movements were avowedly secular in their structure and objectives. The 1950s in particular seemed to be a time of great hope and optimism for the peoples of the Middle East. The rise of Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser and his early triumphs with the Suez Crisis and at the Bandung Conference, where 29 nations of Asia and Africa demanded an independent voice in international affairs, were a source of inspiration. He rejected Western influence, embraced a policy of nonalignment with either the U.S.- or Soviet-led blocs of power, and espoused the possibility of a strong, united Arab world. The potential of socialism, or state-sponsored economic development, together with the friendship of the Soviet Union and increasing oil revenues, gave new confidence. The reality, embodied in the Arab defeat in the Six-Day War, was far less inspiring.

In the 1970s Muslims in many countries began to seek, often violently, the revival of Islamic law in both governmental and wider societal spheres. There are various explanations for this “Islamic revival.” It most likely resulted from the combination of many factors, such as the perceived failure of mass political movements in the second half of the 20th century, the deeply undemocratic and unrepresentative regimes in power in almost all Middle Eastern states, and the lack of progress on major regional issues such as the Arab-Israeli conflict. Other factors were the pro-Western attitudes of rulers like the shah of Iran and Egyptian president Anwar al-Sadat, the increasing gap both within and among states between rich and poor, and widespread misery and despair caused by war, inflation, unemployment, and poverty that had affected the region for so long. However, Islamic fundamentalist activists have rarely offered viable alternatives to the conditions they criticized.

The most successful attempt to establish an Islamic state was the Islamic Revolution of Iran in 1978 and 1979. During the 1960s and 1970s Iran’s ruler, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, attempted to modernize Iran at great speed. Although living standards rose, inflation soared and rapid migration to cities as the economy industrialized severely disrupted Iran’s traditional social structure. Many foreigners working in Iran brought Western habits and an increased demand for consumer goods, which further stressed Iran’s cultural values. Also, the shah's role as a principal ally of the United States in the Middle East made him highly unpopular. Religious leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in exile since 1963 for criticizing the shah, broadcast messages from Iraq and later from Paris to his followers. Matters came to a head in 1978, when hundreds of demonstrators were killed in clashes with the police. In January 1979 the ayatollah’s followers forced the shah to flee Iran, and Khomeini returned the next month. He and his supporters set up an Islamic republic by a referendum in April 1979.

N

Iran-Iraq War

In neighboring Iraq, dictator Saddam Hussein feared that the Iranian Revolution would prompt Iraqi Shias to rebel. Using a border dispute as a pretext, Hussein invaded southwestern Iran in September 1980. The war proved to be one of the most costly, unnecessary, and fruitless conflicts of the 20th century. Finally, in 1988, the two countries accepted a UN resolution calling for a cease-fire.

O

Persian Gulf War

The Iraqi economy was severely weakened by the war with Iran, and the regime of Saddam Hussein became deeply unpopular. To divert attention from his domestic problems, and to punish neighboring Kuwait for its part in depressing the price of oil, Hussein directed his forces to invade and annex Kuwait in August 1990. In response, an international coalition led by the United States launched an air attack against Iraq in January 1991. After a brief ground war the coalition defeated Iraqi forces by the end of February. See Persian Gulf War.

The conflict highlighted significant changes in world politics and international relations since the late 1980s. The decline of the USSR, which had been involved in Middle Eastern affairs since the 1950s, combined with a lack of support from other Arab countries that had traditionally banded together, left Saddam Hussein with virtually no allies. The Iraqi people, exhausted after eight years of fighting Iran, did not support the invasion of Kuwait. Many Arab nations, including Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt, and the smaller Persian Gulf states, lent military support to the coalition that defeated Iraq. Fearing regional instability, the coalition did not attempt to remove Hussein from power. The lack of international support for Kurdish and Shia rebel groups in Iraq after the war further showed the hesitancy of other nations to become involved in Iraqi internal affairs.

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