On 14 May 1948, when the British Mandate expired, the Zionist leadership declared the State of Israel. Goldschmidt, Arthur, and Lawrence Davidson. Ancient Levantine kingdoms and city states included Ebla City, Ugarit City, Kingdom of Aram-Damascus, Kingdom of Israel, Kingdom of Judah, Kingdom of Ammon, Kingdom of Moab, Kingdom of Edom, and the Nabatean kingdom. Out of these self-criticisms came an assortment of responses, including adaptation of Western ideals, advocating for separation of religion and politics, complete rejection, and calls for armed struggle against Western powers. Since the sixteenth century, when British ships and trading companies sailed in, the region has become all too aware of Western superiority on the battlefield and in the marketplace. The worldwide change of governance in Eastern Europe, Latin America, East Asia, and parts of Africa following the dissolution of the Soviet Union did not occur in the Middle East. It cut off the easiest source of credit, armaments, and diplomatic support to the anti-western Arab regimes, weakening their position. British Colonialism, Middle EastHistorians date the beginning of British imperialism in the Middle East to 1798, the year Napoléon invaded Egypt. In response, Israel moved towards a unilateral solution, pushing ahead with the Israeli West Bank barrier to protect Israel from Palestinian suicide bombers and proposed unilateral withdrawal from Gaza. Islam unified the Middle East and helped the empires there to remain stable. In most Middle Eastern countries, the growth of market economies was said to be limited by political restrictions, corruption, and cronyism, overspending on arms and prestige projects and over-dependence on oil revenues. In 1941, the Rashīd `Alī al-Gaylānī coup in Iraq led to the British to invade, leading to the Anglo-Iraqi War. Haplogroup J-P209, the most common human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup in the Middle East today, is believed to have arisen in the region 31,700±12,800 years ago. The protests against Col. Muammar al-Gadhafi's regime in Libya started on Feb. 15, 2011, escalating into the first civil war caused by the Arab Spring. Middle East expert Dr. Qanta Ahmed on the president being advised to uphold Trump's Iran policies. The Middle East has probably been debating Western modernity longer than anywhere else, as many try to become modern without becoming Western. "The Assyrian empires, particularly the third, had a profound and lasting impact on the Near East. Much of North Africa became a peripheral area to the main Muslim centres in the Middle East, but Iberia (Al-Andalus) and Morocco soon broke away from this distant control and founded one of the world's most advanced societies at the time, along with Baghdad in the eastern Mediterranean. Africans across the continent resisted colonial demands and took up arms against European colonizers during World War I. Religion always played a prevalent role in Middle Eastern culture, affecting learning, architecture, and the ebb and flow of cultures. Iraq incorporated large populations of Kurds, Assyrians and Turkmens, many of whom had been promised independent states of their own. This subjugation by Christian empires led Muslims of the Middle East to question their own beliefs as well as their aspirations, making many wonder whether the success of Western occupation was due to the inferiority of their own Islamic ideals. Obama and the Middle East: One Year On, A New Beginning? In the whole region, only Israel, Turkey and to some extent Lebanon and the Palestinian territories were considered to be democracies. In addition to the analysis provided by each month’s feature, Origins will also include images, maps, graphs and other material to complement the essay. Archbishop Makarios III, a charismatic religious and political leader, was elected its first independent president, and in 1961 it became the 99th member of the United Nations. The British imposed heavy taxes to cover the compensation they paid to the Sultan for conceding Cyprus to them. These developments led increased U.S. involvement in Middle East. Ikhwanweb :: The Muslim Brotherhood Official English Website, Muslim Brotherhood Statement on the Arrest of Acting Chairman Dr. Mahmoud Ezzat, The Muslim Brotherhood Mourns Prominent Leader Essam Al-Erian, Leaked Letter Reveals Officers Assaulted Muslim Brotherhood's Chairman in Prison, Nine Human Rights Organizations Condemn Death Sentences in “Kerdasa Case”, Spokesman: Despite Relentless Oppression, Muslim Brotherhood Intact and Functioning, AOHR: Nine Detainees Die of Medical Negligence in Egyptian Prisons in 3 Months, Political Prisoners in Al Minya on Hunger Strike to Protest Torture, Isolated Confinement, Muslim Brotherhood Celebrates the New Hijri Year, Muslim Brotherhood’s Statement on the Unjust Death Sentences Against 75 Political Prisoners of Its Members. The Ottomans turned to Germany to protect them from the western powers, but the result was increasing financial and military dependence on Germany. In 1979, Egypt under Nasser's successor, Anwar Sadat, concluded a peace treaty with Israel, ending the prospects of a united Arab military front. A Palestinian state was also an attractive alternative to the Arab and Persian leaders, instead of the de facto British, French, and perceived Jewish colonialism or imperialism, under the logic of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend".[40]. My aim during the next third of an hour will be to put their roles into a meaningful perspective for you. The British,[41] French, and Soviets departed from many parts of the Middle East during and after World War II. The next month Britain severed the formal constitutional link between Egypt and the Ottoman Empire, declared a protectorate over the country, deposed the anti-British Khediv… The Assyrian Empire, at its peak, was the largest the world had seen. A turning point in the history of the Middle East came when oil was discovered, first in Persia in 1908 and later in Saudi Arabia (in 1938) and the other Persian Gulf states, and also in Libya and Algeria. That's when Shiites conspired to resurrect Persian imperial rule over the Middle East and then the world. The rise of German dictator Adolf Hitler had created a new urgency in the Zionist quest to immigrate to Palestine and create a Jewish state. Al Jazeera--Are Jews of Middle Eastern, North African and Spanish descent discriminated against in Israel? In effect, Turkey, having given up rule over the Arab world, was now determined to secede from the Middle East and become culturally part of Europe. The Fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 brought a global security refocus from the Cold War to a War on Terror. The West is not entirely to blame for the way things are in the Middle East. In the 1st century BC, the expanding Roman Republic absorbed the whole Eastern Mediterranean, which included much of the Near East. In Jordan, Iraq, Egypt and later Libya, the British set up kings to help their rule. Early tribal peoples migrated to the Nile River, where they developed a settled agricultural economy and more centralized society.[12]. The list of Arab-Israeli wars includes a great number of major wars such as 1948 Arab–Israeli War, 1956 Suez War, 1967 Six-Day War, 1970 War of Attrition, 1973 Yom Kippur War, 1982 Lebanon War, as well as a number of lesser conflicts. The Jewish population of Palestine which numbered less than 8 percent in 1918 was given free rein to immigrate, buy land from absentee landlords, set up a shadow government in waiting and establish the nucleus of a state under the protection of the British Army which suppressed a Palestinian revolt in 1936. By 2005, President George W. Bush's Road map for peace between Israel and the Palestinians was stalled, although this situation had begun to change with Yasser Arafat's death in 2004. A. Urbanization and agriculture was limited in Arabia, save for a few regions near the coast. for the Middle East", "Skyes Picot Agreement: Division of Territory", "Christian Europe and Mongol Asia: First Medieval Intercultural Contact Between East and West", https://doi.org/10.1080/09636412.2019.1604987, The Middle East : peace and the changing order, Dean Peter Krogh Foreign Affairs Digital Archives, Middle East: Primary Cultural and Historical Zones, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_the_Middle_East&oldid=1005616713, Articles needing additional references from October 2016, All articles needing additional references, Articles with unsourced statements from April 2011, Articles with disputed statements from July 2015, Articles with unsourced statements from September 2011, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, It was associated with divinity, royalty, and power.