History of the Middle East in the 20th Century 101: The TextVook

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Hakan Erdem Book Published by: Internationally renowned scholars consider how individual historians, historical schools, and historical paradigms have shaped the study of the history of the Middle East over the twentieth century, chiefly after World War I. The State of the Art p. The Historiography of the Modern Middle East: Transforming a Field of Study pp. Colonialism and Nationalism p. Women, Gender, and Empire pp.

Turkish Historiography on the Armenian Deportations and Massacres of pp. Narratives of Crisis p. The Theory of Crisis and the Crisis in a Theory: Egyptian troops are put on high alert and moved into the Sinai Desert. The Israelis consider this action a threat to their security and an act of deliberate provocation. In the meantime, Jordan has entered into a mutual defense treaty with Egypt, and mobilized its troops. Israeli ground troops destroy the Egyptian military units in the Sinai and advance on the Suez Canal.

A chaotic withdrawal of what remains of the Egyptian army is hastily arranged.

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The entire Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza strip fall to Israeli military rule, and thousands of Egyptian troops are either killed or captured. On the Syrian front, the Israeli forces destroy the Syrian defenses and capture the strategic Golan Heights, which will later be annexed to Israel. They hold absolute authority in the country. Saddam Hussein became vice chairman of the council in All American and British military personnel stationed in Libya are expelled from the country; by , their military bases Wheelus, Tobruk and al-Adam will be closed.

Al-Qadhafi allies himself with Nasser and begins a wave of nationalizations, especially in the oil industry. As one of the original Free Officers of the coup, Sadat has held many official positions: Prior to the coup, Sadat had been engaged in violent activities against the British presence in Egypt, and was imprisoned for his role in the assassination of Amin Othman. Under his regime, Syria becomes tightly controlled by the Alawite minority and remains a secular state.

In Algeria, President Boumediene initiates a program of agrarian reform and nationalizes all foreign interests in the hydrocarbons industry. This social welfare movement receives support from Israel. Palestinian guerrillas from the Black September organization take 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team hostage at the Munich Olympic Games.

All 11 athletes are killed during a botched rescue attempt at the airport. First Egyptian warplanes bombard Israeli positions in the Sinai, and then artillery and water pumps demolish the Barlev Line, which Israel had erected along the Eastern bank of the Suez Canal as a defensive measure and an early warning system. Pontoon bridges are run across the waterway and Egyptian troops and tanks cross the Suez Canal into the Sinai to recapture parts of the occupied lands.

The Syrian forces attack Israeli positions in the Golan Heights and achieve similar initial victories. Israeli leaders ask for help from U. President Richard Nixon, who immediately orders a massive airlift of military equipment. Israel regains the upper hand in the war, and the Egyptian and Syrian advances are halted. All Arab oil-producing nations decide to impose an oil embargo on the United States and the European countries that support Israel.

The embargo causes economic hardship in the West and increases oil prices. Hussein was a pioneer in the modernist movement in Arabic literature. Born on November 14, , poor and blind from a young age, he became best known as a novelist. Hussein, who served as Egyptian Minister of Education from to , was also the author of a very controversial thesis on pre-Islamic poetry.

The action fails, though it will be tried again later, twice. The Tunisian leader, Habib Bourguiba, quickly comes to realize that such a union is likely to work against Tunisia, denounces the treaty, and pulls Tunisia out of it within a month of its signing. Yacine questions the legitimacy of King Hassan II and suggests that he redeem himself by doing away with injustice, by committing himself to the renovation of Islam, and by making himself accountable to a council elected according to Islamic principles.

Saudi King Faisal is assassinated by a member of the royal family. King Faisal, who had played a vital role in the implementation of the Arab oil embargo, is succeeded by his brother, King Khalid. The indigenous population, led by the Polisario Front, with backing from other countries in the region begins an armed struggle for an independent Sahrawi state. A cease-fire will be agreed upon in , but as of this writing Morocco and the Polisario have not yet reached an agreement on the conduct of a U.

President Anwar Sadat of Egypt visits Jerusalem.

The visit is strongly condemned by all Arab states, even though some leaders, like the kings of Jordan and Morocco, have already secretly met Israeli officials. Egypt is shunned by its fellow Arab states and expelled from the Arab League, whose headquarters are consequently moved to Tunis.

Howver, in Egypt, the hope for economic prosperity as a divided of peace helps to make the Egyptian populace amenable to the visit.

Erik-jan Zurcher

During his visit to Jerusalem, Sadat addresses the Israeli Knesset, and prays at the al-Aqsa mosque, accompanied by Palestinian religious authorities. He reasserts the Palestinian right to sovereignty over their land, including East Jerusalem and the Islamic and Christian holy sites therein.

Relations between Israel and Egypt are to be normalized and full diplomatic relations established. Further negotiations involving the Syrians and the Palestinians are called for. As a result of the Accords, Egypt begins to receive economic and military aid from the United States, as both a reward for the peace treaty and a compensation for the billions of dollars in economic aid that Egypt used to receive from the oil-rich Arab countries.

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The army replaces him with Colonel Chadli Bendjedid. The book critically examines Western depictions of the Orient — in particular, the Islamic World. American embassy staff will be held hostage until The Iranian revolution becomes an inspiration for Islamist movements worldwide. The United States begins to train and support resistance forces. Muslims from all over the world, and particularly from Arab nations, go to Afghanistan to help join in the struggle against the Soviets.

The scandal shakes the foundations of the Saudi dynasty, whose claim to legitimacy rests on their protection of the holy places. After two weeks police raid the Grand Mosque, causing approximately casualties on both sides. Iraq attacks Iran over a minor border dispute, and a nine-year war between the countries begins. Despite the violence and hardship visited on both nations by their conflict, there will be no significant border changes.

The action is again a failure, due primarily to local resistance and to active French and American opposition to the Libyan effort. Libya loses thousands of men and millions of dollars in military equipment. After the government forbids a March 9th lecture on Amazigh poetry by writer Mouloud Mammeri at the Tizi Ouzou University in the Kabyle region, people take to the streets in a massive protest march, the first of its kind in the history of independent Algeria. The protest is brutally suppressed by security forces.

Islamist militants in the Egyptian army assassinate President Sadat during a military parade commemorating the October War. His vice-president, Hosni Mubarak, becomes president of Egypt.

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Prior to his death, Sadat had angered many segments of the Egyptian population by imprisoning thousands of intellectuals, writers, and Muslim and Christian clerics. Syrian forces repress an uprising led by the Muslim Brothers. After the group allegedly attacks and kills a number of Syrian policemen in the northern town of Hama, President Hafez al Assad sends in thousands of troops, which besiege the town for days and bombard it with heavy artillery, killing between 5, and 25, civilians and reducing the town to rubble.

After months of heavy shelling of Beirut and other Lebanese cities, as well as hundreds of casualties, Israel withdraws from all of Lebanon except southern border regions. During the course of the Israeli invasion, Phalangist militia, allies of Israel, massacre hundreds of Palestinians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila under the watchful eyes of the Israeli forces. Defense Minister Ariel Sharon will be forced to resign in after a commission of inquiry finds him indirectly responsible for failing to take action to prevent the massacre.

The organization will become the main instrument of resistance to the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. Libya and Morocco sign the Oujda Treaty of Union. The Treaty promises close economic and political cooperation between the two countries. France and the United States are critical of the accord, the main purpose of which is to boost the Libyan and Moroccan positions in regional political maneuverings.

Morocco needs to neutralize Libyan support for the Polisario Front, and Qadhafi needs to polish his international image and wants Morocco to surrender active Libyan dissidents to him. The treaty will last less than two years. Artists like Cheb Khaled and Cheb Mami will eventually give this music worldwide appeal. An ailing and mentally incompetent President Habib Bourguiba is ousted in Tunisia by his prime minister Zine al-Abidin Ben Ali, who seizes the reins of government for himself and will rule Tunisia with an iron fist.

The Palestinians, armed mostly with stones, are vastly outgunned and thousands will be killed in the first three years alone. Because of its military tactics against Israeli occupation and its political rhetoric, Hamas quickly gains the support of the disenfranchised Palestinian masses. Its leaders accuse the PLO leadership of defeatism and a lack of will to engage the Israelis militarily.

Within days, more than 25 countries recognize the Palestinian government-in-exile. In December, Arafat announces that the PNC recognizes Israel as a state and condemns terrorism in all its forms — including state terrorism, i. The riots, which soon spread to other major cities in Algeria, are harshly repressed, at the cost of the lives of hundreds of young people.

President Chadli Bendjedid initiates a series of rapid political reforms that opened the door to multipartism and to the freedom of association and expression. Dozens of magazines and newspapers spring up, and 62 new political parties are born in a country that has until this point been governed by only one party, the FLN.

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Death of Ayatollah Khomeini, the political and spiritual leader of Iran since the revolution. He believed that the nationalist struggle had to fight against the native aristocracy as well as foreign rulers. The UMA will largely lie dormant, however, blocked by rivalries between the two main players, Algeria and Morocco, and by their opposing views on the resolution of the western Sahara problem.

These actions are based on the Iraqi claim that Kuwait was historically part of Iraq before the British created it artificially as a means of protecting their interests in the Arabian Peninsula. Iraq also claims that Kuwait has been cheating on its exploitation quota for a jointly-owned oil well located on their common border.

The international community condemns the invasion, and on August 6th strict economic sanctions are imposed. These sanctions will have a devastating effect on the Iraqi economy. A country international coalition, led by the United States and including some Arab forces, gathers , soldiers in Saudi Arabia in preparation for a military action to push the Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. Jordan, Yemen, and the PLO condemn the war, but all other Arab countries either support the action Egypt and Syria contribute sizable forces or adopt a neutral stance.

After massive air strikes paralyze Iraqi forces in both Iraq and Kuwait, a ground offensive begins, and lasts hours. Iraqi forces in Kuwait are decimated, and the coalition troops enter the city of Kuwait and restore the ruling family. See video footage here.

The international sanctions against Iraq are modified in August and September in order to allow Iraq to sell oil for the purpose of acquiring food. However, many observers indicate that this modification does little to lessen the hardships imposed on the Iraqi people by the sanctions regime. Visit the web page for the UN oil-for food Program here.

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See, also, Arabia for the effect of the war on the countries of the Arabian Penninsula. Thousands of other Islamists are also arrested and interned in camps specially set up in the south of the country. These arrests follow the first major clash between the Islamists and the government, when the army had to intervene to end a long sit-in organized by the FIS in support of early presidential elections and a change in the new electoral districting law, which was believed to have been tailored to benefit the FLN.

In spite of these clashes and tension, on December 26th Algeria holds the first balloting of its first multiparty elections since independence. The Islamist party, the FIS, seems to be on its way to a landslide victory; the second balloting is scheduled for January Fearing a landslide victory for the Islamists in the parliamentary elections, the Algerian military intervenes by pushing President Bendjedid — who is suspected of a willingness to cooperate with an FIS-dominated parliament — to resign, and by canceling the elections.

A High State Council is set up to govern the country until a new president can be appointed. The FIS party is banned and more of its leaders and militants arrested. The Islamists, who had already once instigated a violent campaign against the government and military, decide to unleash an all-out war against the regime in order to reclaim their electoral victory and establish an Islamic order in Algeria.

Their violent campaign is met with an equally brutal military response. In the decade to come, close to , people will be killed in a period marked by terror attacks against both security personnel and innocent civilians, and by the assassinations of intellectuals, artists, politicians, and foreigners. Muhammad Boudiaf , a well-respected leader of the Algerian war for independence who has been living in self-imposed exile in Morocco, is invited by the Algerian military to return and lead the country out of the crisis.

He returns on January 16th. Six months later, on June 29th, President Boudiaf is assassinated by one of his security guards during a public meeting in the eastern city of Annaba. Details are in a report from the Ploughshares Project.

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