History of Modern Middle East Essay

This paper aims to leave alone a detailed get wording of the concept of Arab patriotism and the partake it had on the Arab-Israeli conflict. Arab nationalism is a nationalist ideology that grew during the time when the Great drag pudding stone which had been ruling more or less of the eastern territory for the almost cholecalciferol stratums was facing its demise. So in order to properly d proclaimstairsstand the concept of the Arab nationalism we need to have background k immediatelyledge of the downslope of the faggot conglomerate.After ruling the eastern argona which included the midpoint Eastern territory for more than 500 years the Turks within the ranks of the conglomerate started to ignore former(a) ethnicities which mostly included the Arabs and the Christians and scores of plurality from these backgrounds started to take up the Turk dominance. This was precisely the time period during which a maven of separate personal identity started to develop among the local Arab population.The governmental and religious thinkers among the Arabs who were hale awarfaref arefaree of the Arabs inspired past became concerned that if the wind continues to blow in the homogeneous trouble the Arabs would lose their identity and would eventually become foreigners in the land that had historically been theirs. So they began looking for the ways to rilievoore the sense of national soak among the Arabs and at the same time p administer the fall of the Ottoman Empire.Their efforts paying(a) off when the Ottoman Empire allowed the Jews scattered all everywhere atomic number 63 to heavily invest in the deserted areas of its territory. This finality which was a be after to earn tax revenues move out to be a misadventure for the empire because it provided the Arabs a wealthy ally against the Empire. So the Jews started to migrate into their purchased lands in Arab lands and tonic cities like Tel Aviv and Jerusalem started to form, scores of Arab t hrong too immovable to move into these areas impressed by the Jews reenforcement standard and education. afterward on more and more influx of Jews from diverse parts of europium on with the local Arab support proved fatal for the Ottoman Empire who erect itself losing agree over their territory as the Arabs became more vocal against them and managed to watch a lot of land from the empire. But the ground reality was that the Jews were restfully gaining control of major(ip) parts which had been previously controlled by the empire. A brisk battle for the control of major strategic position started between the Arabs and the Jews.The Balfour solution anesthetized by the British government in 1917 made the Arabs more indignant, which support the mental home of a Jew state in the midst of the Arab land. By the abolish of First World War almost all of the territory previously controlled by the Ottoman Empire came under the control of western power. The British mandate includ ed what is today Jordan, Israel and Gaza. Other major areas which included Egypt, Syria, morocco and Lebanon were too being governed by what the Arab intellectuals considered the agents of western imperialism.At this stage the Arab nationalism had interpreted root in the Arab minds and the Arab leaders which included Christians along with the Muslims in vicinity decided to form an alliance against the western imperialism. The point that should be accent here is that the idea of Arab nationalism had been based on the event that the Arabs considered the Ottoman Empire guilty of giving away the power to the west by adopting their ways of life and the allowing the bring of western power in their region. The issue of Jews dominance in what is today Israel surfaced later.Amongst the prominent proponents of this ideology was a Christian Syrian philosopher Al Yazigi who took a feeling that the rise of modern Europe was based on Islamic values while the Ottoman empire and the Arabs ha d abandoned those values, thats wherefore if the Arabs want to keep their land and go up in the policy-making sphere, they need to revive the principles of Islam and rediscover their fading sense of self-identity. Al-Yazigi later on organized several movements in Syria to raise cognizance of his ideology.Another important contri scarcelyor to this idea was Egyptian scholar Mohammed Abduh. He divided up the view of Al-Yazigi that the Ottoman Empire was wrong in adopting the plain modern ideas while abolishing the true Islamic principles which were the foundation of Arab nations success in the past. He also felt the need to restore the Arabs self-esteem as a nation and made attempts at making this view elapse every Arabs mind living in his indigene Egypt. Later on 1911 Al-fatat was form in Paris whose aim was also the revivification of Arab nationalism.The European powers were strongly back tooth this ideology as they wanted to dissever the rule of the Ottoman Empire in the r egion. Arab nationalist leaders shared this objective with the European power but wanted to take over the regime themselves rather than watch the European powers taking direct control of the area. So the Arab nationalist movement started out against the Ottoman Empire and when the Empire collapsed it took a different turn and was then directed towards removing the western powers from straight controlling the Arab area.Thats is why the idea of Arab nationalism played a crucial role in the Arab-Israel conflict that surfaced after the first military man war and became intense after the second cosmos war when a UN committee allowed the Jews to form a separate state in 1948 named Israel. leading from Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and morocco then became convinced that they need to get rid of the Western fascinate in their countries and also drive the Jews out of power who were instantly in total control of the land which the Arabs call the Palestine.The 1948 war of independence was the appoint of this coalition among the Arab nations i. e. (Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Yemen) in which Israel came out the winner and occupied most of the Palestinian territory. After this war on several occasions the Arab nationalism played a crucial role in this conflict manger 1972. Major leaders convoluted include Gamal Abdul Nasser of Egypt, Muammar al-Gaddafi of Libya, Shukri al-Quwatli of Syria and Ahmed bin Bella of Algeria.Following the 1948 war of independence all the Arab countries began to target Jews living on their lands and consequently with child(p) population of Jews migrated to from these areas into Israel. Almost 1 million Jews migrated from Arab countries to Israel from 1949 to 1954. In 1956 Gamal Abdul Nasser closed the pass between Sinai and Arabian Peninsula and took the Suez Canal under government control in order to block the Israeli ships from passing through. Israel tried to attack the seas with the British backing and get the route open once again.It eventually happened imputable to the UN intervention which Egypt didnt follow for long and blocked the passage again. fact became really intense in 1967 when the Egyptian leader gathered the political and military support of the Soviet Union and organized other Arab nations under the Pan-Arab movement to attack Israel and capture the Arab land from the Jews. Situation was quite different from the 1948 war because the proper organization of military resources and unity of the Arab leadership as Jordan and Syria united hands with the Egyptian leader.The result was the six day war which much to the disappointment of the Arab world was won by Israel due to its superiority in Air force technology and captured major strategic positions of Gaza strip, east Jerusalem and most importantly the Sinai passage. After that defeat the Arab nationalist powers by mutual consent boycotted Israel and concluded that Israel be not recognized by any of them. Gamal Abdul Nasser lost his life in 1970 when Egypt tried again to feel the Sinai Peninsula.Since that time several wars have been fought between the Arab world and Israel and a lot of blood has been spilled on both sides, and it seems that neither party is ready to give up on their principles as this discontent between Arab nations with Jews transfers from one contemporaries to the next. This essays aims to discuss the Iranian revolution and its roots and analyze the impact it had on the Islamic political movements across the Middle East. Iranian revolution which is now widely known as the Islamic revolution was the event which started in the 1970 and was eventually completed in 1979.This revolution resulted in the downfall of monarchy and establishment of federation based on Islamic Shria in Iran. The major reasons why this revolution is deemed to be one of the most important turn most in the history are the sheer amount of battalion involved in this revolution, its short time period and its impact o n the rest of the world especially the Middle Eastern region. The Major force behind this revolution was the Islamic clerical leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Before this revolution Iran had been a monarchy for several dynasties.Ayatollah Khomeini who was considered a prominent figure in the religious circles of Iran took a view that the monarchy of Iran was increasingly becoming a follower of the western powers and polluting the minds of the people in Iran. Mohammed Reza shah Pahlavi who took over the monarch from his father in 1919 proved to be the last emperor of his dynasty. The reason behind his demise are not agreed upon by the historians but it goat be concluded that his emulation of making Iran a modern westernized state with the backing of western world was the major reason of his fall from the authority.After taking over the propel he tried to run the state in an authoritarian appearance and take policies which in his view would take cook Iran a modernised state. He established closed relationship with the United States and other regnant Western forces. He abolished the rules of Shria and instead adopted the ones that the Shiite Muslim population of Iran considered to be unacceptable, additionally his autocratic style of governance and the lack of functional direct were also the factors that convinced the population of Iran that it was time for a change.Ayatollah Khomeini who had been exiled from the country by the shah due to his anti-monarch and anti-west attitude chargeed on this weakness of the Shah and started to gather support of the population who believed in Islamic values. Khomeinis idea of the government was based on the Islam. He demanded that monarchy be immediately abolished and an Islamic state be formed instead. Khomeini first came to surface in 1963 as a vocal hostile of what he called white revolution in which shah decided to allow minorities to claim government office and granted women the rights to vote.And from the n on his support began to pick up as the shah became unpopular by the day. The movement picked up the measure yet after 1976 and later on speedily removed shah from his seat. Khomeini who was living exile continued to raise awareness among the Muslim population intimately shahs policies, which were heavily influenced by the American government and at the same time reiterated the need to bring a change. First mass group took place after the death of Khomeinis son in 1977 and k of people gathered to protest against the shah.Then early in the year 1978 another mass protest was held by the Islamist students foundation in the urban center of Qom. Several casualties were reported as the shah ordered the military to control the tug which proved to be an overwhelming task because of the large number of people involved. In the same year another supreme cleric Ayatollah kazem shariatmadari joined broke his silence and joined Khomeini in his movement when one of his pursual was shot de ad at his place. Shariatmadari didnt share the theocratic view with Khomeinie but the supported the idea of abolishment of monarchy.Meanwhile the Shah continued his splutter for westernization and kept holding the meetings with the then American president jimmy carter who conscious him of his support during that period of turmoil. The shah tried to bring some economic constancy by cutting back on the government spending but it also turned out to be a bad decision as it resulted in mass layoffs and the joining of the newly unemployed with the rebels. Things turned nasty when 400 people were reported dead in the Rex movie killings in august.The anti-Shah element then took their movement to a whole new level by calling on a mass sorb which ceased virtually the whole economy and the success of this strike virtually guaranteed the point of the revolution in peoples minds while the shah scrambled to make amends and tried to control the situation fast deteriorating. Finally in the sta rt of the New Year 1979 the Shah to the joy of Khomeini and his followers fled his Iran and Khomeini later returned to his native state to establish a government based on Shria.The impact of this revolution was widespread in the Muslim world as well as well as internationally. No other country has witnessed a revolution such as this before, its basis on the theological rarified and large support the Islamic leaders managed to get from the seemingly westernized bear on provided an example to follow for other the leaders of similar motives in other Middle Eastern states. It gave the religious clerics a new belief that they can get rid off the western influence and perhaps converts their own state based purely on theocratic principles.It had most influence on the neighboring countries of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq where the population of Shiites is substantial. After only a few days of revolution some 400 Iranian militants tried to attack and capture the holy city f Mecca in Saudi Arabia and later on Saudi authorities got a major shock when the an Ashura procession transformed into political one in which people chanted slogans in support of Khomeini. Shiite clerics in Lebanon managed to transform their state into an Islamic one while other countries in the Arab region also adopted an approach to government based on religious principles.Since the turn some in Iran the political Islam has been the main theme of almost all the countries in the region and the clerics now have a deep-seated awareness of the fact that the people in the region are moved by the their pietism and they can use the religion as a means of creating political movement. The governments in these countries are also well aware of this fact and until now have been trying keeping policies in line with the Shria.The strong anti-west stance taken by Iran provided by Iran has been an emblem of this revolution and that continued to this day. Israel has also been a major target after episode clear ed as the religious elements hold a strong feeling for the Palestinians believing that the Jews are unjust holders of the land that actually belongs to the Muslims. Verbal attacks between these two sides are now a common site while a war between al-Jihad controlled Lebanon and Israel was one of the major events of the decade in which Hezbollah managed to successfully defend their territory.