The Historical Emergence of the Main Forms of Actors in the Middle East and North Africa region

Essay , 2008 , 8 Pages , Grade: A

Politics - History of Political Systems

This paper will focused on the historical antecedents of actors involved in creating and developing Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, and what are the differences amongst them. The timeline will begin in the aftermath of the Ottoman Empire that materialized into the advent of the European colonizations and birth of nation-states.

Revolutions spark all over the Fertile Crescent, when the Arabs knew that the twilight of the Ottomans are now commencing. According to Aroian and Mitchell (1984, p. 164), from the 1919 Syrian resistance that was affirmed by their French protectors through the provisions laid down in the League of Nations has led to the Iraqi revolt of 1920, which was resembled by British India and Egypt in the days of Lord Cromer because they were inspired by the Syrian revolution.

The premise is that all of the Arabian Peninsula is interconnected to each other with regards to their struggle for freedom and independence. Halpern (1963, p. 256) contends that the San Remo Conference, in addition to confirming allied plans for Iraq and Syria, granted Britain a mandate that combined Palestine and Transjordan (the area across or east of the Jordan River).

Prior to the partition, Palestine had been part of greater Syria, while present-day Jordan was viewed as part of both Syria and Arabia. Ottoman administrative divisions had not included the terms Palestine and Jordan. When Britain obtained the mandate for Palestine at San Remo, the intention was that a national home for Jews should be set up in Palestine, but it was stated explicitly that not all conditions of the mandate would necessarily apply to the entire area.

The Historical Emergence of the Main Forms of Actors in the Middle East and North Africa region

This paper will focused on the historical antecedents of actors involved in creating and developing Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, and what are the differences amongst them. The timeline will begin in the aftermath of the Ottoman Empire that materialized into the advent of the European colonizations and birth of nation-states. Revolutions spark all over the Fertile Crescent, when the Arabs knew that the twilight of the Ottomans are now commencing. According to Aroian and Mitchell (1984, p. 164), from the 1919 Syrian resistance that was affirmed by their French protectors through the provisions laid down in the League of Nations has led to the Iraqi revolt of 1920, which was resembled by British India and Egypt in the days of Lord Cromer because they were inspired by the Syrian revolution. In generalization prism, all of the Arabian Peninsula is interconnected to each other with regards to their struggle for freedom and independence.

In Halpern (1963, p. 256) contends that the San Remo Conference, in addition to confirming allied plans for Iraq and Syria, granted Britain a mandate that combined Palestine and Transjordan (the area across or east of the Jordan River). Prior to the partition, Palestine had been part of greater Syria, while present-day Jordan was viewed as part of both Syria and Arabia. Ottoman administrative divisions had not included the terms Palestine and Jordan. When Britain obtained the mandate for Palestine at San Remo, the intention was that a national home for Jews should be set up in Palestine, but it was stated explicitly hat not all conditions of the mandate would necessarily apply to the entire area.

In the end, the British decided that circumstance in the barren area east of the Jordan did not warrant further military activity because on March 1921, as allowed by policymakers led by Winston Churchill, to offer to Abd Allah the Transjordan in exchange for giving up his claim to the Iraqi throne and his fight against the French. Transjordan would still become part of the Palestine mandate approved by the League of Nations in 1923, but its territories were specifically excluded from provisions relating to a Jewish national home. Although the Zionist Executive accepted this stipulation in 1922, Zionists claimed later that this action partitioned territory promised to the Jewish state, even though Jews had been promised neither a state nor all of Palestine.

As a realization from Gerner (1991, p. 42) of the near destruction of the Jewish people of Europe spread, the Zionist movement in the U.S., the country that now contained the largest Jewish community in the world, gained a tremendous support. It was inconceivable to most U.S. citizens regardless of their religious beliefs, that they could fail to support Jewish aspirations for a safe place where Jews could never again be senselessly slaughtered. In the process, the reality of Palestine and its indigenous people was ignored.

Though Howley (1975, p. 3) contested that the events that caused the exodus of the Palestine Arabs did not begin in 1948 or for that matter with the Balfour Declaration in 1917. They began much earlier in the history of the conflict between the Christian West and the Muslim East. This is “a struggle that cannot be fully understood or appreciated unless one grasps the problem as it originated in the Ottoman Empire.” By British declaration of intent to create a “Jewish National Home in Palestine,” David Ben-Gurion reads out the proclamation of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948. In Ostle (1991, p. 24) literature, he said that a guy by the named of Leonard Stein, authoritative historian of Zionism, argued that the real purpose of the Zionist movement was to detach Palestine from its people and form a very effective guard for the Suez Canal thus turning it into a Jewish State.

While the Arabs in the Middle East are busy for their nationalistic activities, According to Hurewitz (1975, p. 19), the Egyptians, which is under the British Wartime Policy, have ascended to demand the restoration of their independence. When the war in Europe ended, Sa’d Zaghlul, whom Lord Cromer had praised as an industrious, intelligent, and capable leader in 1906, gave British high commissioner a statement tantamount to a demand for independence. Within a few days, Egypt was in revolt against British. The national nature of the reaction illustrated the fact that Egyptians, for many different reasons, wanted independence and respect from the British. Contrary to British assertions, what seemed dearest to most British officials despite exceptions like Wingate was the honor of the British Empire. Although the British rapidly squelched the uprising, its magnitude and nature was not entirely lost on officials in Cairo and London. British commission realized that the Egyptians who had suffered from wartime inflation, family separation, hardship, indenture, and death had not received due award. With the acknowledgement of Zaghlul as the man with whom the British would have to negotiate Egypt’s future, he was brought into talks with other freedom fighters.

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• College: Technological University of the Philippines (Political Science)
• Course: for college papers
• Grade: A
• Author: Researcher Nassef Adiong (Author)
• Publication Year: 2008
• Pages: 8
• Catalog Number: V121024
• ISBN (eBook): 9783640243860
• Language: English
• Tags: Middle East, Islam, North Africa, Nassef M. Adiong