A Bare Bones History of the Middle East

1. A Bare Bones History of the Middle East

2. 1. How will these revelations affect the war effort? • 2. Should these allegations have been made public? Why or why not? • 3. Are these soldiers sociopaths or does war create monsters?

4. 1800 BCE • Judaism Founded • Lineage goes from Abraham to Moses to David to Solomon, who built his temple in modern-day Jerusalem. • Jews flourished in the area of modern day Israel until about 100 A.D. when they were expelled by the Romans. • Romans were sick of the uprisings, period called the Diaspora.

6. 0-33 ad • Jesus founded Christianity. • Jesus is executed in Jerusalem by the Romans with support from Jewish elders. • The Christians were heavy proselytizers and Christianity spread rapidly throughout the Middle East and Europe, until 375 A.D. when it became the official religion of the Roman Empire, and thus the Western World. • During the Middle Ages, many Christians blamed Jews for the death of Jesus and discriminated (to say the least) against them.

8. 600 a.d. • Mohammed founds Islam in Mecca, Saudi Arabia (current day) and Medina, Saudi Arabia. • He has a vision that he ascends to heaven from the rock on top of Solomon's temple. • So Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem are the holiest sites in Islam, setting up conflict with Jews and Christian over Jerusalem and in current day Israel.

9. Ramadan is the month in which believers believe that Mohammed received his revelations from God. The revelations are written into the KORAN, the Islamic holy book.

11. Al Aqsa

12. Al Aqsa • Is Located on the Temple Mount (Solomon’s Temple, holy to Jews) and is the place believer’s believe Mohammed ascended to heaven, on his horse Barak. • At Al Aqsa, circa 1000 a.d., Christian crusaders massacred Muslim defenders, making it a rallying point for Muslims in their fight against “infidels.”

13. Jerusalem today • Is the capital of Israel and all parts are controlled by Israel. • Palestinians want East Jerusalem to be their capital, but that’s were the wailing wall is, the Western wall of the temple. Captured by Jordan in 1948 War, and taken by Israel in 1967, originally left as international city by Brits. • Israelis are buying and building in that those religious areas.

14. Islam Spreads • Rapidly through the next few hundred years. • Islam becomes the dominate religion in the Middle East, many parts of Africa, including sub-Saharan, Central and Southern Asia. • Much of the conquest was done at the point of a sword, convert or die.

15. Muslim World

16. Schism in Islam • Shortly after Mohammed’s death in about 630, Islam divides in two between the followers of Mohammed’s cousin, married to his daughter, Ali and…. • the followers of his main disciples, establishing the caliphates, government protecting Islam. • Followers of Ali are called Shiites. • Followers of the caliphates are Sunnis

17. Shiite Sunni split is intense and exists today • Sunniism is the dominated group in Islam covering some 85% of all Muslims. • Shiites are a smaller, but very important group. • Iran is the almost all Shiite, as is southeastern Iraq, and Southern Lebanon, with a sprinkling in Yemen (the southern part of the Saudi peninsula.)

18. Main Issue • Has to do with leadership and religious belief. The difference is enough that many Sunnis believe Shiites to be infidels because they worship saints. • Shiites worship holy sites, dead Ayatollahs and Saints. • Shiites believe in an occulted (hidden) Imam who is like a messiah whose suppose to come back on Judgment Day. • In Sunni Islam, because its leadership are layman, it is governments responsibility to ensure safety for Islam: Security is more important than individual freedom! Government is to protect Islam. • In Shiite Islam separation of Mosque and Government would be ridiculous, if your leader is wired to the Prophet, why would you have a separate government? • Shiite leaders are called Ayatollahs and are thought to be direct blood relatives of Mohammed and therefore infallible. You find Ayatollahs in Shiite areas. • Mullahs are learned men, or men who study the Koran, they are lay people. Sunniism does not have a hierarchy of their religion.

19. Assura commemorates Hussein, Ali’s son’s death at the hand of the caliphates in Karbala, Iraq.

20. Iraq • Has a majority poor Shiite population on border with Iran. • The most powerful groups in that region have been Sunni, Saddam was a Sunni. • Iraq also incorporates a large Kurdish (non Arab) Sunni population.

22. Iraq • The “insurgency” against the U.S. was mainly led by Sunni Muslims who were afraid that the Shiites would become a majority in a democratic Iraq, which it did. (Malakki the Prime Minister is a Shiite). • If Iraq becomes a Shiite dominated state, Iran probably will become its natural ally, threatening Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, Sunni states. • Will religion and ethnicity win, or will democratic ideals?

23. Wahhabism • In the 18th century, a very conservative Sunni sect rose to power in current Saudi Arabia and has been dominate there ever since. • This explains the conservatism of the Saudi nation. • Osama Bin Laden and his Saudi followers are Wahhabis.

24. Appropriate Saudi attire for women

26. Ottoman Empire • Ottoman Turks controlled the Middle East from 1300 to 1917

28. 19th and early 20th Century • Britain took over a major portion of the Middle East from the declining Ottoman Empire. The Capitulations.

29. 20th c. Iran • By the 1920s Britain dominated the oil production of Iran, the only place where oil had been discovered by Brits with British capital. (Europe has no oil) • Iranian Oil was essential for the Western Industrial Revolution once the internal combustion engine was dominate.

30. After World War II • Britain was in decline • Saudi Arabia had found oil and was still dominated by Western oil companies. • Many colonies of the Western Europeans and U.S. began demanding independence.

31. Israel • Israel was formed (1949) out the British possession in current day Israel. (close U.N. vote gave it legality) • Secular Socialist Jews called Zionists had begun to buy land in the area of Present-day Israel at the beginning of the 20th century in an attempt to establish a safe, socialist state there. • Other places had been considered, including Uganda and Argentina.

32. Israel • Land is the Palestinian Mandate (Israel) was available for sale because much of it was owned by absentee Ottoman landowners. • Palestine has never, in modern times, been controlled by the Palestinian Arabs who live there: Ottoman Turks, British Mandate, Zionists.

33. Israeli Green line 1949 <<<< West Bank of Jordan River

34. I think the British thought the formation of Israel might be doable, because of the Palestinian population was majority poor farmers. The underestimated the reaction of the rest of the Arab world. Since then, the Israel/Palestinian issue has been a cause celeb in the Islamic world.

35. 1952 • Iran kicked out the monarch who was seen as a western puppet and elected a guy named Mossadeq as Prime Minister. • Mossadeq nationalized the BP oil fields. • The U.S. and Britain orchestrated a coup there to install Shah Reza Pahlavi, a puppet of the U.S., who was particularly brutal, effectively and ironically ending democracy in Iran.

36. 1967 • Israel fought another war with Arabs, and took the lands on the west bank of the Jordan river from Jordan, this area was all Arab and is now referred to as the West Bank. • Israel still controls the majority population with martial law. • Israel has slowly but surely built all Jewish developments throughout the West Bank, making the creation of an Arab/Palestinian/Sunni Muslim state there next to impossible to build.

37. West Bank Taken by Israel in 67

39. Palestinian/Israel issues • Settlements: Israel continues to build settlements on the West Bank, Palestinians believe that to be future homeland. • Right of Return: Palestinians wish the right to reclaim lands owned/occupied by them before 1948: non starter for Israel. • Jerusalem: Palestinians want E. Jerusalem for their capital. • Israel’s security: more radical Palestinians, Hamas, do not believe Israel has right to exist and therefore no negotiations.

40. Freeze expired Sunday, Israeli settlers get busy. Palestinian woman holds son up To look at Israeli settlement

41. Iran makes mischief • Iran has funded Hezbollah, the party of God, on Israel’s northern border, a Shitte enclave in Lebanon. • Israel has invaded Lebanon twice. Currently Hezbollah as thousands of rockets supplied by Iran, ready to launch. • Iran supplies Sunni Hamas in Gaza (on Egyptian border) with missiles that they used on civilian Israel populations. • Israel invade two years ago, atrocities on both sides.

42. Areas of violence

43. Lebanon Is a very complicated place

45. 1973 • Arabs oil producers embargo the U.S. and Western Europe in protest of another Arab Israel War.

46. 1979: All Hell Breaks Loose • Iranian Revolution occurs as Shah is deposed and American hostages are taken. • The Soviet Union fears the spreading the revolution to it’s ‘stans and invades Afghanistan to prevent the spread. • With encouragement of U.S., Iraq invades Iran (Sunni Saddam all for slapping down Shiite Iran).

47. 1983 • U.S. sends marines to Beirut in an attempt to protect Americans amid the civil war. • Shiite extremist blow up barracks killing nearly 300 Americans. • We pull out.

48. 1988 • Soviet Red Army leaves Afghanistan with tail between legs. U.S. has helped this along by supplying Stinger missiles to the Mujahedeen, including a young Jihadist named Osama Bin Laden. • Shortly there after, the Soviet Union dissolves, leaving the U.S. as sole superpower.

49. Iraq-Iran War ends • Both sides end up exactly where they started • Million or more died. • Saddam used war as an excuse to use chemical weapons supplied by us on the Kurds of Iraq, as well as the Iranian army. • Iraq was broke.