THE MIDDLE EAST

DEMOGRAPHICS

Primarily Muslim (Sunni > Shi’ia)

Primarily Arab (from Arabian Peninsula)

Home to the Persian Gulf

  • Contains world’s greatest oil reserves (2/3 of all known oil)

IRAN

Persians, not Arabs

Shi’ia Muslims

History

  • CIA replaced Muhammad Mossadeq with Muhammad Reza-Shah Pahlavi
  • Ayatollah Khomeini replaced the shah in the Revolution of 1979
  • A theocracy was created
  • Theocracy – Government ruled by a religious authority
  • Contradictions
  • Women maintain more rights than in most Middle Eastern countries
  • Many want the country to modernize
  • Many citizens are pro-American
  • US and Iran share bond of opposing Iraq

IRAQ

Shi’ia Muslims

Gulf War with Iran (see attached sheet)

SAUDI ARABIA

Home to ¼ of the world’s oil

Founding member of OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries)

Strict, conservative nation

  • Use Sharia Law
  • Law derived from the Qur’an and teachings of Muhammad
  • Iran, Nigeria, Sudan, Egypt, and Pakistan also use some aspects
  • Women have no rights
  • Probably the most conservative Middle Eastern state
  • Fearful of modernization because it threatens the stability of their government

US opposes lack of freedoms, but is reluctant to do anything about it

  • US needs their oil
  • If they overthrow Saudi monarchy, it will be replaced by anti-American Muslim fundamentalists

TURKEY

Founded by Mustafa Kamal Ataturk after WWI when the Ottoman Empire was defeated

One of only 2 democracies (Israel too) in the Middle East

Over 35% “not religious”

Women have rights (ex. veil outlawed, divorce)

Member of NATO

In process of trying to join European Union (EU)

ISRAEL

History

  • Inhabited by Jews in ancient times until they were pushed out by the Romans in 135 AD
  • Muslims took over the land in the 600s AD
  • Ottoman Empire dominated the land until WWI
  • WWI
  • Balfour Declaration
  • British promised a “national home” for Jews in Palestine
  • Attempt to get worldwide Jewish support for WWI
  • Britain took over land after WWI with defeat of Ottoman Empire
  • WWII
  • Germans tries to get Arabs to revolt against British
  • British White Paper (1939)
  • Britain restricts Jewish movement into Palestine
  • Calmed Arabs, offended Jews
  • Holocaust – 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis
  • Israel created by the United Nations in 1947
  • Divided into Jewish and Arab states
  • Israelis = Jews
  • Palestinians = Muslims who lost their land

Arab-Israeli Conflict (see attached sheet)

Only primarily Jewish state in the world

Believed to own nuclear weapons

  • Only 1 other Middle Eastern country (Pakistan) has them

Continued fighting with Palestinians

  • Intifadas – Uprisings against Israeli rule

Middle East feels that US has sided with Israel