Discussion about the Middle East Region
Under the peaceful global environment, the Middle East has never been a peaceful region in the past century. Because of land, religion and nationality issue, the Arab-Israeli conflict existed from a significant amount of Jews moving back to Arab countries by the end of 19th century until now even though the situation nowadays is getting better when looking at the surface of it. The Iranian revolution had been going on from 1905 to 1980 with a target at the dictators with which the general public was not satisfied. Besides, with the intervention from other countries such as Britain at first and America later for their advantages and benefits, the troublesome region just become more unrest.
Take a look at the map in this area; there are 21 separate Arab nations and only one Jewish nation Israel with a small territory. Why did Jewish people come to here to build their nation among so many Arab countries? Why couldn’t Israel make peace with other nations and gain their support or on the contrary why couldn’t other Arab countries accept that the Jewish people to build their country? Why did both Israel and Arab countries start bleeding wars against the other but never found a resolution? The answers to all these questions were just buried in what happened in the past.
Among all the debates between Muslims and Jewish people, what appeared first was religion reflected by the arguments over who are the chosen people of the land of Israel and for Jerusalem. Jewish people believed that according to the Hebrew Bible the land of Israel was promised by God to the children of Israel. However, Muslims argued that according to the Quran the land was not only promised to the Abraham’s younger son Issac but also to the elder son Ishmael, to whom they claimed to be descendants. Jerusalem, located inside Israel, is worshiped as the holy city by three major religions here: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. So the argument of who is the righteous ownership of it is still a fierce debate. Even though it is inside Israel where Israel government set up their main institutions, it is not recognized by other Arab nations. In Muslim education system, it is Muhammad passed through Jerusalem on his first journey to heaven.
After Jewish people had been exiled from their home, this region had been controlled by the Ottoman Empire before the World War I and Britain after the World War II. Called by their religious beliefs, Jewish people had wished to move back. However, another historical reason was that the Jewish people were forced to leave from Europe because of the outbreak of the world war I and world war II. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were larger waves of Jewish immigration into this region especially Palestine and until the year of 1931 there were 17% Jewish people in Palestine. However, the Jewish people did not offer the gesture of peace, they purchased lands from landlords and forbid the Jewish landlords to hire Arabian people. What’s more, other outside forces were also taking sides, for example, the United Nations made a resolution to separate Palestine into two independent countries Arab and Israel. According to this resolution, Israel with 32% of the population would get 57% of the total land that was very fertile however the land given to the Arabian people was very poor and difficult to farm. With no doubt, Israel accepted the deal and built their country accordingly, but Arab nations definitely would reject such an obvious unfair resolution and feeling of hatred towards Jews was burning like a fire inside Arabian people. Therefore, the relationship between Israel and Arabian countries were only becoming worse. More and more Jewish people escaped from Arabian nations where they were cruelly treated by Israel. From that point, the debate of Arab-Israel was represented by the conflicts of religion, land and two counties Israel and Palestine.
On the next day of Israel was founded, claiming to restore peace, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq combined their armies and invaded what had just left Britain’s mandatory, which initiated the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948. However as the result, Israel not only resisted the overwhelming combat but also expanded their territory by occupying more than 6200 square kilometers land but also possessed Jerusalem.
The second war rooted in 1956 when Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping as a breach the Constantinople Convention in 1888. On July 26, 1956, Egypt transformed the Suez Canal Company into a nation owned company and banned Israel shipping from sailing into the canal. However, this decision not only damaged Israel’s economy also damaged the benefits of Britain and France. Therefore, with the support of these two countries, Israel invaded the Sinai Peninsula on October 29, 1956, and resulted in the capture of Gaza Strip and Sinai Penisula. Unde the pressure of the United Nations and United States, Israel ceased the fire and withdrew from the Egyptian territory. On May 19, 1967, Egypt deployed 100,000 soldiers in the Sinai Peninsula and reclosed the Straits of Tiran like they did in 1956. After signing a mutual defense pact with Jordan, Egypt crossed the United Nations line and marched to Israel’s southern border. To respond, Israel launched an attack on Egypt by destroying most of the Egyptian Air Force in a surprise attack and returning to destroy the Jordanian, Syrian and Iraqi air forces, which became the famous chapter in the six-day war. Israel became the victor again.
In 1969, Egypt initiated the third war with the purpose of winning Sinai Peninsula back from the hands of Israel under the agreement reached among Arab leaders that they should make no peace with Israel two years ago. At the beginning of this war, Israel was caught unprepared by a surprise attack on the holiest day of the Jewish Calendar. With other Arab nations joining in, the situation leaned less on the side of Israel. However, the US and European countries were also hurt by the oil embargo and the dramatic increase in oil price. So even though later on Israel started turning around the situation, the war was asked to stop by United States because they were finally scared of nuclear power.
After several wars, Arab countries realized that they could not win in the wars with Israel mainly because that Israel was supported by one of the strongest countries in the world. At the same time, Israel realized that ceasing fire had been the result of all these wars because it is such wished by outside forces and general common expectation. Therefore, helped by the mediation of United States, Egypt, Jordan and other Arab countries had continuously signed the peace agreement with Isreal since 1974.
However even in the 21st century, the conflicts still exist now and then because of the long lasting issues: religion, land and complicated relationships. Flashing back to nearly hundred years ago, the Jewish people came to the land of Israel without hoping for cooperation, mutual benefits, and general prosperity but using strong and ruthless measures to prove they were strong such as killing ordinary people and occupying others’ land. Therefore even though every conflict needs two sides and the other hand Arabian nations started the wars most of the times, the reason of the side of Israel is equally undeniable. What is more complicated is other countries also have critical benefits here and need to exercise a certain degree of control to make sure their benefits will not be influenced.
Iran has a very long history of unrest to put power in the hands of people. At the beginning of 20th century, people were more and more unsatisfied with the Qajar regime. The sound of modifying the constitution and establishing the parliament was getting louder. Even though the power of Qajar government was weakened because of parliament, the struggle between the constitutionalists and the Shahs of Persia still continued, which led to many problems. The Reza Khan established a constitutional monarchy and introduced many social, economic, and political reforms during his reign. According to western modern, primarily American, he replaced the traditional and common religious codes with a brand new series of rules for example women’s dressing codes. To implement his rules, he used power, for example, killing people. In his reign, the future leader of Iran revolution Ayatollah Khomeini was educated. Because, during the early period of Reza Shah’s reign, the founder of Qom Seminary Abdul-Karim Ha'eri Yazdi created substantial changes. Moreover, Abdul-Karim Ha'eri Yazdi was the teacher of Ayatollah Khomeini. However, he avoided participating in a political matter, so did his other followers. Therefore, widespread revolution only happened later in the 1970s.
After Reza Shah was off the political stage in 1941. His son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was pushed to the seat by an invasion of allied British and Soviet troops. After he lost the seat and fled the country, Mohammad Shah also relied on the help from foreign power such as American and Britain to organize a military group such as MI6 in Britain and CIA in America to regain the country from the hands of nationalists and elected prime minister at that time. Therefore, Mohammad Shah maintained a good relationship with American government after he became the ruler again, which continued for more than 30 years. In line with his father’s control, Mohammad Shah was also not giving equal rights to the people. What’s more, his concentration on learning from western countries was also attacked as having disregard for religion and democratic construction. There were more attacks outside because the concentration of power inside Iran was not giving nationalist and Islamist groups opportunities to talk. What more obviously was the SAVAK secret service, which was under the control of the Shah and had power more than any other democratic institutions.
However, generally speaking, westernization could be seen as preparation for capitalism, which is an improvement. Starting from 1963, under the lead of Mohammad Shah, the white revolution began to accelerate the progress of westernization. For example, the primary element in the white revolution the land reform was to decrease the influence of landlord and create larger amount of peasants and working force foundation. What’s more, other elements such as the liberation of women, sales of some nation-owned factories as the financial support, as well as the institution of profit sharing schemes for workers were also improvements. In summary, the white revolution was targeted through breaking down the traditional structure to stimulate the development. However, what Mohammad Shah did not think of was this revolution created more problems that it solved. Furthermore, it cultivated two classes: the intelligentsia and the urban working class, which then became the fundamental force in Iran Revolution 1979 because they resented the government’s corruption and lack of religious beliefs. Moreover, it was less likely that the political parties and powerful trade groups would be supportive because they were stripped of power in the white revolution.
While the general public was more and more dissatisfied with the lack of their national tradition and religion under Mohammad shah’s regime, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini took the opportunity to advertise that Muslims should reject the influence of both liberal capitalism and communism. On top of that, he developed the revolutionary slogan “neither east nor west, Islamic Republic”. In the beginning, the protest only involved a few people in a rather peaceful way. However, how did it continue to succeed finally in making Shah flee and establishing a new government? There were several reasons: first, Mohammad Shah had not expected the revolution because the economy development had been very prosperous at that time, the industry developed very fast, and people had lived a better life with GDP been the highest in dozens of years. He could not understand why people wanted to protest, so he thought to provide what they needed to calm down the protest. However, at the time of protest, people would only believe more that they were right to protest, and the government was really bad if the government just chose to satisfy their demands. Another more important reason was activation of Khomeini and his followers. For example, after he was arrested for protesting against the white revolution, his supporters cooked the story that during three days of riot 15000 people were killed by police fire. However, the estimates after the revolution determined a much lower number of 32 killed. Another example, during the Black Friday tragedy, 5000 people went on the street and faced off with soldiers at Jaleh Square. In the beginning, only warning shots were fired but failed to disperse the crowd. Troops fired directly into the mob, killing 64. Additional clashes throughout the day brought the opposition death number to 89. Then Khomeini immediately claimed that 4000 protesters were massacred by Zionists. It is so obvious that the purpose of Khomeini was not pure. However, it is not obvious that whether there was some force behind the Iran revolution.
Islam states and America are the two main characters in the worldwide oil market. Oil as one of the most valuable energy resources, could not only generate a remarkable amount of value but also will influence the world economy furthermore global politics. Islam states have an abundant amount of oil buried underground, and their oil supply is critical in the world. Among Islamic countries, especially the OPEC members are producing oil mainly for export. Besides, the political issue is very complicated and sensitive in the Middle East area. If Islam states are the largest oil supplier in the world, then America is the highest demanding country in the world. Because between Islam countries and America there is the world’s most significant business relationship, they are relying on each other.
However, there are also conflicts. For example, America has been having a bias towards Israel and provided much support during his conflicts with other Arabian countries. Some Arabian countries finally started to use oil as the weapon in 1973 to reduce production, increase oil price and carry on embargo towards America and other western nations, which resulted in an economic recession. In order to put an end to the oil crisis happening again, America had a plan to use military power towards uncooperative Arabian countries but finally canceled because Arabian countries stopped oil war. After the fourth middle east war, some European countries and Japan started to stand in natural position instead of continuing to follow America towards Israel issues because they needed to maintain a good relationship with Arabian economies to import enough oil. However, America continued with his attitude towards Israel. So the conflict between America and Arabian countries became more outstanding. Entering into the 21st century, especially after “911”, the relationship between America and Islam countries were deteriorated even further.
Finally, when America attacked Iraq, there was ultimately no way back after a long time of conflicts. America started to establish the relationship with Islam countries because of oil. The relation got worse and worse because America wants to continue supporting Israel while needs oil from other Arabian countries. Therefore, the climax of the conflicts was definitely because of oil but not limited to it. America will not want to give up his bias towards Israel. So there is always a crisis about his oil supply because Middle East is an unrest area and war between Israel and Arabian countries may occur at any time. In order to make sure the safety of his future oil supply, America has to do something. However, the reason is far more complicated. America has been the superpower in the world for a very long time. However with the development of larger countries all over the world, America's superpower is becoming less apparent anymore. To maintain his position, he needed to choose a right opportunity to show the world that America is still capable. The third reason is after “911”, America felt the pressure of keeping the country and the people safe. So the war in Iraq was also a prevention for the sake of national security.