From Freedom to Freedom

As Lewis so eloquently states, the main benefit that the West received from the Middle East during the Second World War was the provision of base and support facilities, while the Middle East benefited largely from not having to be placed under Axis rule. The end of the war (in Europe in May, 1945, in Japan in August of that same year), brought the potential of an entirely new world. As mentioned previously, the old powers (Britain, France, Germany) were no longer in a position to dominate the world as they had previously; the new powers (the United States and the Soviet Union) were still sizing each other up. In the Middle East, the major concern following the War was independence. After World War I, only three independent states had existed in the Middle East, and all three (Turkey, Iran, and Afghanistan) had experience in administering their own governments, justice, etc. In the interwar period, four more states were granted sovereignty: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Iraq. Iraq and Egypt remained tied to their former existence in large part because of the presence of the military of Britain in both states. In addition, after the departure of the French from the Levant, Syria and Lebanon joined the independent Arab states. Toward the end of the war, the majority of these states banded together to form the Arab League; among their numbers was Transjordan, which had been part of the post-WWI mandate to the British and which, by the spring of 1946, gained its independence and was renamed Jordan. The priority of all of these states was to gain their complete independence from the Western powers by eliminating the largely unfair treaties and agreements that the Arab states had been forced to sign with the Western powers. This was largely completed by the 1950s, as the Western states withdrew from their former imperial holdings both in the Middle East and throughout the world, including many states that had majority or large Arab populations (Libya, Algeria, Sudan, etc). All of these states subsequently joined the Arab League, and all of them were independent by 1971.

The Creation of Israel

The exception to this rule of Arab independence was Israel, which was established in 1948 following the end of the British mandate over Palestine. Palestine had seen large numbers of Jewish immigrants making their way to the territory following the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and the subsequent British sympathy to the plight of the Jews throughout Europe. Following the Nazi accession to power in 1932, more Jews sought to emigrate as conditions in Germany and then Europe as a whole became more and more unbearable. Between 1933 and 1936, Jewish immigration to Palestine was more than 130,000 people; by 1939, the Jewish population of Palestine was 400,000, or about 30% of the total population. This immigration sparked widespread violence in Palestine, much of it directed against the Jews but some directed at the British leaders in Palestine, for the next 3 years. The Jews living in Palestine retaliated by conducting their own acts of violence, many of them carried out by secret para-military organizations that had been founded in the early mandate years. When World War II broke out, the British focused on the war, and largely ignored issues in Palestine, although violence in the region continued, much of it generated by the Stern Group, a Jewish terrorist organization that targeted primarily British leaders. When the war ended, and the horrors of the Holocaust became public (most sources claim that the Nazis oversaw the murder of 6 million Jews, over 80% of the total European population of Jews), the sympathy for a Jewish homeland became more pronounced. In late 1945, with the founding of the United Nations, the British began to discuss other options for the region, and in February of 1947 the British government formally brought the issue of Palestine to the UN General Assembly’s special session. A Special Committee on Palestine was created by the UN; the committee eventually recommended partitioning Palestine into two states, on Jewish, one Arab, with Jerusalem as a separate body to be administered by the UN. On May 14, 1948, one day before the end of the British mandate, a Jewish state, Israel, is proclaimed. The United States and the Soviet Union immediately recognize the new state. War broke out immediately in Palestine, and several of the neighboring Arab armies joined in the fray. Within a week, over ¾’s of a million Arab Palestinians fled their homes and settled in camps in the areas outside of Israeli control or in neighboring states; these camps still exist, and have been one of the major sources of conflict since the foundation of Israel.

The Israeli army, to the surprise of virtually everyone outside of Israel, was extremely successful, and by the end of May, Israeli troops had already occupied territory that was beyond the limits established by the UN. One of the major questions to face the new Israeli state was how to govern the state; as a Jewish state, much of the law of the state would be dictated by Jewish law, rather than a secular court system of justice. The administration, while secular in some ways, was Jewish by definition, and as such took charge of building synagogues, providing religious services, and the like. The 1948-9, which concluded with an armistice in April of 1949, was only the first in a series of wars between Israel and her Arab neighbors. Two of them, in 1948 and 1973, were clearly of Arab origin; two others, in 1956 and 1982, were the responsibility of Israel. The war of 1967 is far more difficult to assign responsibility for, although, as Lewis points out, it was clearly the most dramatic (and, one could say, traumatic) of the wars. The 1967 war led Israel to take possession of Sinai, the Golan Heights, the West Bank and Gaza, and the remainder of the mandate of Palestine; Sinai was returned to Egypt in 1979 as part of the Camp David accord, and the Israelis left Gaza in August 2005, as part of prime minister Ariel Sharon’s attempt to bring peace to the region.

Israel’s relationship with her neighbors has been, as indicated above, a tenuous one at best. The agreement at Camp David, brokered by US president Jimmy Carter, was the first one between an Arab state and Israel; subsequent agreements have been reached with Lebanon under the leadership of King Hussein and with Syria under the direction of US president Bill Clinton. Other states and groups, most notably the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), have continued to advocate for the destruction of Israel and the return of those lands to the Arabs who left during the 1940s. Some of these, like the Black September movement, are known specifically for their acts of violence (Black September was responsible for the attack on the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972; the 1999 documentary "One Day in September" and its companion book are among the best sources for information about the group). Alone of these, however, the PLO gained a permanent prominence due in large part to the leadership of the late Yassir Arafat. The PLO, founded in 1964, used terrorism both at home and abroad to draw attention to the plight of the Palestinians, and was finally recognized (and vice versa) by Israel in 1993. The most recent intifada, or rebellion, against Israel began in 2002 and continues to today. The United States has remained almost unwavering in its support for Israel, due in large part to Israel’s support of the US during the Cold War and its strategic location on the Mediterranean.

Iran and its Revolution

One of the other states to experience major changes after World War II was Iran. Iran had been occupied during the war by both the Soviets and the British, largely to protect the Iranian oil fields from German occupation. The Shah, Reza Shah Pahlevi, had been pro-German, and abdicated in favor of his son, Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlevi, who adopted a pro-Allied stance. The new shah seemed interested in modernization but was also firmly in control; he asked that the occupying troops leave as soon as the war ended (they had all withdrawn by 1946), and he overcame opposition to his reign by a variety of means, including exile and execution. He did, however, allow women greater freedoms with Iranian society, including in terms of education.

In the 1960s, his policies began to increasingly alienate members of the society who were not benefiting; the elite in Iran (land owners, intelligencia, military leaders, diplomats, politicians, etc) benefited greatly from the shah’s regime, while the poor (especially the peasants) did not. The middle class in Iran shifted alliances, depending on how the economic forecasts looked, but by the 1970s they had become increasingly disgruntled with the economy. This group, which included students and professionals, as well as the so-called technocrats within the government, did not benefit from Iran’s spectacular successes in the oil market, and as such were disposed to the idea of rebelling against the shah. The shah, recognizing that his popularity was slipping, relaxed censorship laws in 1977 and attempted to implement other reforms; however, the discontent was too strong, and the writings of many dissidents, especially those of the Ayatollah Khomeini (who had been in exile since 1963) circulated throughout Iran. Those demanding change generally fell into one of two groups: those who believed in a return to a religious society, and those who wanted Westernization and democracy. As the rebellion against the shah grew, these two groups became a united front, although that would not last long.

In January, 1978, a protest against President Jimmy Carter and the treatment of Khomeini (who was still in exile) erupted into violence when the police opened fire on the protestors. Following the Shi’a tradition for martyrs, a commemoration of the martyrdom took place 40 days after the January attack; when Iranians took to the street to mourn the students who had been shot down, the police opened fire again, killing over 100 people. The demonstrations continued, to the point that by August Iran was in almost constant protest. The shah initially tried to work with the protestors but then, in September, declared martial law and imprisoned as many of the leaders of the rebellion as he could. The rebels then began a series of strikes which essentially crippled the nation; more protests, demonstrations, and riots commenced, and finally, in January 1979, the shah fled Iran; on February 1st, Khomeini returned from exile to be greeted by several million supporters. In November of the same year, following the US’s agreement to allow the shah into the US for medical care, a group of Iranian students stormed the US embassy in Teheran, taking 66 hostages; 53 of the hostages were held until January, 1981, being released only after Jimmy Carter left office and Ronald Reagan became president. In September of 1980, two months prior to the election of Reagan, Iraq took advantage of Iran’s political problems and seized control of several oil rich areas; the resultant war left nearly a million dead and twice that many wounded over the next 8 years.

The other areas of the Middle East are covered in some detail in Lewis’s text (and I am guessing that you all have enough to read during the last two weeks of the quarter!); however, next week’s lecture will focus on the developments in Afghanistan in the post-war period and the emergence of the Taliban, as this is not a topic that Lewis covers. While this is technically a political science topic, it is one of the areas that students are most interested in, so I am breaking my usual rule regarding current events to include a discussion of it.