TheMiddle East, or theNear East, was one of thecradles of civilization: after theNeolithic Revolution and theadoption of agriculture, many of the world's oldestcultures andcivilizations were created there. Since ancient times, the Middle East has had severallingua franca:Akkadian,Hebrew,Aramaic,Greek, andArabic.[1][2][3] TheSumerians, around the 5th millennium BC, were among the first to develop a civilization. By 3150 BC,Egyptian civilization unified under its firstpharaoh.[4]Mesopotamia hosted powerful empires, notablyAssyria which lasted for 1,500 years. For centuries after the 7th century BC, the region was dominated byPersian powers like theAchaemenid Empire.
In the 1st century BC, theRoman Republic conquered most of the region, and its successor, theRoman Empire, that ruled from the 6th to 15th centuries AD referred to as theByzantine Empire, grew significantly more.Roman pagan religions were replaced byChristianity in the 4th century AD. From the 3rd to 7th centuries, Rome ruled alongside theSasanian Empire. From the 7th century,Islam spread rapidly, expandingArab identity in the region. TheSeljuk dynasty displaced Arab dominance in the 11th century, followed by theMongol Empire in the 13th century.
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In the 15th century, theOttoman Empire invaded most ofAnatolia, and dissolved the Byzantine Empire bycapturing Constantinople in 1453. The Ottomans and theSafavid dynasty were rivals from the early 16th century. By 1700, the Ottomans were pushed out ofHungary. TheBritish Empiregained control over thePersian Gulf in the 19th century, whileFrench colonial empire extended intoLebanon andSyria. Regional rulers soughtmodernization to match European powers. A key moment came with the discovery ofoil, first inPersia (1908), then inSaudi Arabia (1938), and otherGulf states, leading to increasedWestern interest in the region. In the 1920s to 1940s, Syria andEgypt pursued independence, in 1948Israel became an independentJewish state.
The British, French, andSoviets withdrew from much of the region during and afterWorld War II. In 1947 theUnited Nationsplan to partition Palestine was voted in favor for a Jewish homeland. AmidCold War tensions,pan-Arabism emerged in the region. The end of European colonial control, the establishment ofIsrael, and the rise of thepetroleum industry shaped the modern Middle East. Despite economic growth, many countries faced challenges like political restrictions, corruption,cronyism and overreliance on oil. The wealthiestper capita are the small, oil-rich Gulf states, namelyQatar,Kuwait,Bahrain, and theUnited Arab Emirates.
Several key events shaped the modern Middle East, such as the 1967Six-Day War,[5] the1973 OPEC oil embargo in response to US support for Israel in theYom Kippur War,[5][6] and the rise ofSalafism/Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia that led to rise ofIslamism.[7] Additionally, theIranian Revolution contributed to a significantIslamic revival.[8] Thedissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 ended the Cold War, and regional conflict was soon made part of thewar on terror. In the early 2010s, theArab Spring triggered major protests and revolutions in the region. Clashes inwestern Iraq in 2013 set the stage for theIslamic State (IS)'s expansion.
Theearliest human migrations out of Africa occurred through the Middle East, namely over theLevantine corridor, with the pre-modernHomo erectus about 1.8 million yearsBP. One of the potential routes for early human migrations toward southern and eastern Asia is Persia.
Haplogroup J-P209, the most commonhuman Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup in the Middle East today, is believed to have arisen in the region 31,700 ± 12,800 years ago.[9][10] The two main current subgroups,J-M267 andJ-M172, which now comprise between them almost all of the population of the haplogroup, are both believed to have arisen very early, at least 10,000 years ago. Nonetheless, Y-chromosomesF-M89* andIJ-M429* were reported to have been observed in theIranian plateau.[11]
There is evidence ofrock carvings along theNile terraces and in desert oases. In the10th millennium BC, a culture ofhunter-gatherers andfishermen was replaced by agrain-grinding culture. Climate changes and/orovergrazing around 6000 BC began to desiccate the pastoral lands of Egypt, forming theSahara. Early tribal peoples migrated to the Nile, where they developed a settled agriculturaleconomy and more centralized society.[12]
AncientLevantines and their descendants exhibit a decrease of ~8% local Neolithic ancestry, which is mostlyNatufian-like, every millennium, starting from thePre-Pottery Neolithic to the Medieval period. It was replaced byCaucasus-related andAnatolian-related ancestries, from the north and west respectively. However, despite the decline in the Natufian component, this key ancestry source made an important contribution to peoples of later periods, continuing until the present.[13] The presence ofNeolithic Iranian ancestry among modern Levantines can be attributed tomigrations during the Bronze Age.[14]
Neolithicagriculturalists, who may have resided inNortheast Africa and the Middle East, may have been the source population forlactase persistence variants, including –13910*T, and may have been subsequently supplanted by later migrations of peoples.[15] TheSub-SaharanWest AfricanFulani, theNorth AfricanTuareg, andEuropean agriculturalists, who are descendants of these Neolithic agriculturalists, share the lactase persistence variant –13910*T.[15] While shared byFulani andTuareg herders, compared to the Tuareg variant, the Fulani variant of –13910*T has undergone a longer period of haplotype differentiation.[15] The Fulani lactase persistence variant –13910*T may have spread, along with cattlepastoralism, between 9686 BP and 7534 BP, possibly around 8500 BP; corroborating this timeframe for the Fulani, by at least 7500 BP, there is evidence of herders engaging in the act ofmilking in the CentralSahara.[15]
The ancient Near East was the first to practice intensive year-roundagriculture andcurrency-mediatedtrade (as opposed tobarter), gave the rest of the world the firstwriting system, invented thepotter's wheel and then the vehicular and millwheel, created the firstcentralized governments andlaw codes, served as birthplace to thefirst city-states with their high degree ofdivision of labor, as well as laying the foundation for the fields ofastronomy andmathematics. However, its empires also introduced rigidsocial stratification,slavery, and organizedwarfare.
The earliestcivilizations in history were established in the region now known as the Middle East around 3500 BC by theSumerians, in southernMesopotamia (modern-dayIraq), widely regarded as thecradle of civilization. The Sumerians and theAkkadians—who extended their empire to northern Mesopotamia (now northernSyria)—and laterBabylonians andAssyrians all flourished in this region.
"In the course of the fourth millennium BC, city-states developed in southern Mesopotamia that were dominated by temples whose priests represented the cities' patron deities. The most prominent of the city-states was Sumer, which gave its language to the area (presumably thefirst written language), and became the first great civilization of mankind. About 2340 BC,Sargon the Great (c. 2360–2305 BC) united the city-states in the south and founded the Akkadian dynasty, the world's first empire."[16]
During this same time period, Sargon the Great appointed his daughter,Enheduanna, as High Priestess of Inanna at Ur.[17] Her writings, which established her as the first known author in world history, also helped cement Sargon's position in the region.
Soon after the Sumerian civilization began, theNile valley ofLower andUpper Egypt was unified under thePharaohs approximately around 3150 BC. Since then, Ancient Egypt experienced 3 high points of civilization, the so-called "Kingdom" periods:
The history of Ancient Egypt is concluded by theLate Period (664–332 BC), immediately followed by the history of Egypt inClassical Antiquity, beginning withPtolemaic Egypt.
Thereafter, civilization quickly spread through theFertile Crescent to the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea and throughout theLevant, as well as toAnatolia. Ancient Levantine kingdoms and city states includedEbla City,Ugarit City,Kingdom of Aram-Damascus,Kingdom of Israel,Kingdom of Judah,Kingdom of Ammon,Kingdom of Moab,Kingdom of Edom, and theNabatean kingdom. ThePhoenician civilization, encompassing several city states, was amaritime trading culture that establishedcolonial cities in theMediterranean Basin, most notablyCarthage, in 814 BC.
Mesopotamia was home to several powerful empires that came to rule almost the entire Middle East—particularly theAssyrian Empires of 1365–1076 BC and theNeo-Assyrian Empire of 911–605 BC. The Assyrian Empire, at its peak, was the largest the world had seen. It ruled all of what is now Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt,Cyprus, and Bahrain—with large swathes of Iran, Turkey, Armenia, Georgia, Sudan, and Arabia."The Assyrian empires, particularly the third, had a profound and lasting impact on the Near East. Before Assyrian hegemony ended, the Assyrians brought the highest civilization to the then known world. From the Caspian to Cyprus, from Anatolia to Egypt, Assyrian imperial expansion would bring into the Assyrian sphere nomadic and barbaric communities, and would bestow the gift of civilization upon them."[18]
From the early 6th century BC onwards, several Persian states dominated the region, beginning with theMedes and non-PersianNeo-Babylonian Empire, then their successor theAchaemenid Empire known as the first Persian Empire, conquered in the late 4th century BC by the very short-lived kingdom ofMacedonia ofAlexander the Great, and then successor kingdoms such as Ptolemaic Egypt and theSeleucid state in Western Asia.
After a century of hiatus, the idea of the Persian Empire was revived by theParthians in the 3rd century BC—and continued by their successors, theSassanids from the 3rd century AD. This empire dominated sizable parts of what is now the Asian part of the Middle East and continued to influence the rest of the Asiatic and African Middle East region, until the ArabMuslim conquest of Persia in the mid-7th century AD. Between the 1st century BC and the early 7th century AD, the region was completely dominated by the Romans and the Parthians and Sassanids on the other hand, which often culminated in variousRoman-Persian Wars over the seven centuries. Eastern Rite,Church of the East Christianity took hold inPersian-ruled Mesopotamia, particularly in Assyria from the 1st century AD onwards, and the region became a center of a flourishingSyriac–Assyrian literary tradition.
In 66–63 BC, theRoman generalPompey conquered much of the Middle East.[19] TheRoman Empire united the region with most of Europe and North Africa in a single political and economic unit. Even areas not directly annexed were strongly influenced by the Empire, which was the most powerful political and cultural entity for centuries. ThoughRoman culture spread across the region, theGreek culture and language first established in the region by Macedonia continued to dominate throughout the Roman period. Cities in the Middle East, especiallyAlexandria, became major urban centers for the Empire and the region became the Empire's "bread basket" as the key agricultural producer.Ægyptus was by far the most wealthy Roman province.[20][21]
During the time thatmystery cults were introduced to the region, traditional religions were often criticized and the cults gained societal influence.[22] These cults formed around gods likeCybele,Isis, andMithra.[22]
As the Christian religion spread throughout the Roman and Persian Empires, it took root in the Middle East, and cities such as Alexandria andEdessa became important centers of Christian scholarship. By the 5th century, Christianity was the dominant religion in the Middle East, with other faiths (gradually includingheretical Christian sects) being actively repressed. The Middle East's ties to the city ofRome were gradually severed as the Empiresplit intoEast andWest, with the Middle East tied to the new Roman capital ofConstantinople. The subsequentFall of the Western Roman Empire therefore, had minimal direct impact on the region.
The Eastern Roman Empire, today commonly known as theByzantine Empire, ruling from theBalkans to theEuphrates, became increasingly defined by and dogmatic about Christianity, gradually creating religious rifts between the doctrines dictated by the establishment in Constantinople and believers in many parts of the Middle East. By this time, Greek had become the 'lingua franca' of the region, although ethnicities such as the Syriacs and the Hebrew continued to exist. Under Byzantine/Greek rule the area of the Levant met an era of stability and prosperity.
In the 5th century, the Middle East was separated into small, weak states; the two most prominent were the Sasanian Empire of thePersians in what is nowIran andIraq, and the Byzantine Empire in Anatolia and the Levant. The Byzantines and Sasanians fought with each other a reflection of the rivalry between the Roman Empire and the Persian Empire seen during the previous five hundred years. The Byzantine-Sasanian rivalry was also seen through their respective cultures and religions. The Byzantines considered themselves champions ofHellenism and Christianity. Meanwhile, the Sasanians thought themselves heroes of ancient Iranian traditions and of the traditional Persian religion,Zoroastrianism.[24]
The Arabian peninsula already played a role in the power struggles of the Byzantines and Sasanians. While Byzantium allied itself with theKingdom of Aksum in the horn of Africa, the Sasanian Empire assisted theHimyarite Kingdom in what is nowYemen. Thus theclash between the kingdoms of Aksum and Himyar in 525 displayed a higher power struggle between Byzantium and Persia for control of the Red Sea trade. Territorial wars soon became common, with the Byzantines and Sasanians fighting over upper Mesopotamia andArmenia and key cities that facilitated trade from Arabia,India, andChina.[25] Byzantium, as the continuation of the Eastern Roman Empire, continued control of the latter's territories in the Middle East. Since 527, this included Anatolia, Syria,Lebanon,Palestine, and Egypt. In 603 the Sasanians invaded, conquering Damascus and Egypt. It was EmperorHeraclius who was able to repel these invasions, and in 628 he replaced the Sasanian Great King with a more docile one. The fighting weakened both states, leaving the stage open to a new power.[26][27]
The nomadicBedouin tribes dominated the Arabian desert, where they worshippedidols and remained in small clans tied together by kinship. Urbanization and agriculture was limited in Arabia, save for a few regions near the coast.Mecca andMedina (then called Yathrib) were two such cities that were important hubs for trade between Africa and Eurasia. This commerce was central to city-life, where most inhabitants were merchants.[28] Nevertheless, some Arabs saw it fit to migrate to the northern regions of the Fertile Crescent, a region so named for its place between theTigris and Euphrates rivers that offered it fertile land. This included entire tribal chiefdoms such as theLakhmids in a less controlled area of the Sasanian Empire, and theGhassanids in a similar area inside of Byzantine territory; these political units of Arab origin offered a surprising stability that was rare in the region and offered Arabia further connections to the outside world. The Lakhmid capital,Hira was a center for Christianity and Jewish craftsmen, merchants, and farmers were common in western Arabia as were Christian monks in central Arabia. Thus pre-Islamic Arabia was no stranger to Abrahamic religions or monotheism, for that matter.[29]
While the Byzantine Roman and Sassanid Persian empires were both weakened bywarfare (602–628), a new power in the form ofIslam grew in the Middle East. In a series of rapidMuslim conquests,Arab armies, led by theCaliphs and skilled military commanders such asKhalid ibn al-Walid, swept through most of the Middle East, taking more than half ofByzantine territory and completelyengulfing the Persian lands. In Anatolia, they were stopped in theSiege of Constantinople (717–718) by the Byzantines, who were helped by theBulgarians.
The Byzantine provinces ofRoman Syria, North Africa, andSicily, however, could not mount such a resistance, and the Muslim conquerors swept through those regions. At the far west, they crossed the sea takingVisigothic Hispania before being halted in southern France in theBattle of Tours by theFranks. At its greatest extent, theArab Empire was the first empire to control the entire Middle East, as well three-quarters of theMediterranean region, the only other empire besides the Roman Empire to control most of theMediterranean Sea.[30] It would be the Arab Caliphates of theMiddle Ages that would first unify the entire Middle East as a distinct region and create the dominantethnic identity that persists today. TheSeljuk Empire would also later dominate the region.
Much of North Africa became a peripheral area to the main Muslim centres in the Middle East, but Iberia (Al-Andalus) and Morocco soon broke away from this distant control and founded one of the world's most advanced societies at the time, along withBaghdad in the eastern Mediterranean. Between 831 and 1071, theEmirate of Sicily was one of the major centres of Islamic culture in the Mediterranean. After its conquest by theNormans the island developed its own distinct culture with the fusion of Arab, Western, and Byzantine influences.Palermo remained a leading artistic and commercial centre of the Mediterranean well into the Middle Ages.
Religion always played a prevalent role in Middle Eastern culture, affecting learning, architecture, and the ebb and flow of cultures.Muhammad's introduction of Islam inspired achievements inarchitecture, the revival of old advances in science and technology, and the formation of a distinct way of life. Islam primarily consisted of thefive pillars of belief, including confession of faith; the five prayers a day; tofast during the holy month ofRamadan; to pay the tax for charity (thezakat); and thehajj, the pilgrimage that a Muslim needed to take at least once in their lifetime. Islam also created the need for spectacularly builtmosques which created a distinct form of architecture. Some of the more magnificent mosques includeAl-Aqsa and the formerMosque of Cordoba.[31]
Islam unified the Middle East and helped the empires there to remain stable. Missionaries and warriors spread the religion from Arabia to Africa, South and Southeast Asia, and Mesopotamia. This created a mix of cultures, especially in Africa, and the mawali demographic. Although the mawali would experience discrimination from the Umayyad, they would gain widespread acceptance from theAbbasids and it was because of this that allowed for mass conversions in foreign areas. "People of the book" or dhimmi were always treated well; these people included Christians, Jews,Hindus, and Zoroastrians. However, the crusades started a new thinking in the Islamic empires, that non-Islamic ideas were immoral or inferior; this was primarily perpetrated by the ulama (علماء) scholars.[31]
Arabian culture took off during the early Abbasid age, despite the prevalent political issues. Muslims saved and spread Greek advances inmedicine,algebra,geometry, astronomy,anatomy, andethics that would later find its way back to Western Europe. The works ofAristotle,Galen,Hippocrates,Ptolemy, andEuclid were saved and distributed throughout the empire (and eventually into Europe) in this manner. Muslim scholars also discovered theHindu–Arabic numeral system in theirconquests of south Asia. The use of this system in Muslim trade and political institutions allowed for the eventual popularization of it around the world; this number system would be critical to theScientific Revolution in Europe. Muslim intellectuals became experts inchemistry,optics, andmapmaking during the Abbasid Caliphate. In the arts,Abbasid architecture expanded uponUmayyad architecture, with larger and more extravagant mosques.Persian literature grew based on ethical values. Astronomy was stressed in art. Much of this learning would find its way to the West. This was especially true during theCrusades, as warriors would bring back Muslim treasures, weapons, and medicinal methods.[32]
The dominance of the Arabs came to a sudden end in the mid-11th century with the arrival of theSeljuk Turks, migrating south from the Turkic homelands in Central Asia. They conquered Persia, Iraq (capturing Baghdad in 1055), Syria, Palestine, and theHejaz. Egypt held out under theFatimid caliphs until 1169, when it too fell to the Turks.
Despite massive territorial losses in the 7th century, the Christian Byzantine Empire continued to be a potent military and economic force in the Mediterranean, preventing Arab expansion into much of Europe. The Seljuks' defeat of the Byzantine military in theBattle of Manzikert in the 11th century and settling in Anatolia effectively marked the end of Byzantine power. The Seljuks ruled most of the Middle East region for the next 200 years, but their empire soon broke up into a number of smaller sultanates.
The Seljuk victory at the Battle of Manzikert led to them controlling the cities of Edessa andAntioch. Around 1078, the Seljuks formed theSultanate of Rum, whose capital was atNicaea in northwest Anatolia. The Seljuks controlled Jerusalem by 1087.Alexios I Komnenos, who became Byzantine emperor in 1081, realized that the Seljuks' growth could help him in his battle for control of Anatolia.[33][34]
In March 1095, Komnenos appealed to the states west of the Byzantine Empire for help. In November, in theCouncil of Clermont in France,Pope Urban II called for soldiers from across Europe to go east to take back the "Holy Land" for Christianity. This was an opportunity to strengthen the Catholic Church, and for the Pope to become the head of a unified Catholic and Orthodox church. 60,000 Christians, including thousands of knights, joined the cause, partially in order to protect Christian sites such as theChurch of the Holy Sepulchre. This mission, theFirst Crusade, began in 1096. This was the first of the Crusades, a series of religious wars in Europe and the Middle East from the 11th to the 13th centuries.[33][34][35]
Four large armies headed east: the first was headed byGodfrey of Bouillon, the duke ofLower Lotharingia, and they arrived at Constantinople in December 1096. The second, headed by a Norman from Italy namedBohemond.Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse was the most prominent Crusader at the start of the expedition; he led the third army. The fourth was led byRobert Curthose. The latter three armies reached Constantinople in April 1097. In May, the armies reached Nicaea, which surrendered to the Byzantines. In July, the armies headed for Antioch, reaching the city in October. The city, with strong defensive walls, wasbesieged by the Crusaders until they took the city in June 1098. In January 1099, three of the armies headed for Jerusalem, while Bohemond stayed in Antioch. In June, the 1099Siege of Jerusalem started, and the Crusaders took the city in July. The Crusaders massacred the non-Christian population of the city. The First Crusade ended with the establishment of multipleCrusader states in the region: from north to south, theCounty of Edessa,Principality of Antioch,County of Tripoli, and theKingdom of Jerusalem.[33][34]
In October 1138, anearthquake struck Aleppo (located on theDead Sea Transform), which had hundreds of thousands of residents at the time. The city's walls and citadel were destroyed, killing an estimated 230,000 people. Crusader and Muslim forts, atHarem andAtarib respectively, were also destroyed.[36]
In 1144, the Seljukstook back the city of Edessa, promptingPope Eugenius III in December 1145 to call for theSecond Crusade, protecting the achievements the Crusaders had made decades prior. Unlike the first war, these Crusaders were led by kings; two armies were commanded byConrad III of Germany andLouis VII of France. In 1147, their armies reached Constantinople. Upon entering the Levant, the Crusaders faced heavy Seljuk resistance, and their war effort began collapsing afterfailing to take Damascus in 1148.Bernard of Clairvaux, an influential French saint who had advocated for the war, determined that its failure lied in the "sinfulness of Europeans", and only through the "purification and prayers of Christian[s]" would God allow crusading knights to succeed; this became a core tenet ofpopular piety in medieval Europe.[37][38][39]
Najm al-Din Ayyub was the patriarch of aKurdish warrior family in the mid-12th century. He was appointed by the Seljuks as governor of Damascus, and with his brotherShirkuh, he united the Syrians as one front in preparation for another war with the Crusaders. In 1171, Ayyub's sonSaladin, a Sunni living in Egypt, abolished the unpopular and failing Shi'ite Fatimid Caliphate, and founded theAyyubid dynasty. He was a vassal of his father until Ayyub died in 1173, and then he moved to Syria and proclaimed himself as his father's successor. From 1174 to 1186, in an act ofjihad, a type of Islamic religious struggle,[40] Saladin conquered and united the Muslims of Syria, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Palestine under the Ayyubid banner. He was seen as a "a generous and virtuous but firm ruler, devoid of pretense,licentiousness, and cruelty". In 1187, at theBattle of Hattin, Saladin trapped and destroyed a Crusader army, giving the Ayyubids the opportunity to overrun the Kingdom of Jerusalem andtake back its capital.[41][42][43]
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In response to the recapture of Jerusalem, in October 1187,Pope Gregory VII called for theThird Crusade, with similar goals to the previous wars. The new Crusader leaders wereFrederick Barbarossa, emperor of theHoly Roman Empire (HRE);Philip II of France; andRichard I of England. In 1190, as Barbarossa's army traveled throughCilicia, he died. Lacking leadership, his soldiers either died, returned to Germany, or, in rare cases, made it to the Levant.[38][39]
In 1191, the English landed at Cyprus, ending the local rebellion against Byzantine rule led by a man namedIsaac Komnenos who proclaimed himself ruler of the island. The Cypriots were forced to pay taxes to the Crusader war effort, and generations of Crusaders controlled the island until 1571. In the Levant in 1191, the English captured the cities of Acre and then Jaffa. In 1192, as the English were garrisoned in Acre, Saladin launched asiege of Jaffa. The English returned to the city and fought the Ayyubids; the battle ended in a stalemate. The English left for home, as Richard I had to deal with domestic affairs, and the Third Crusade ended.[38][39] Saladin died in 1193.[44]
Frederick Barbarossa's successor,Henry VI, set out for the Levant with an army in theCrusade of 1197. The Germans successfully captured Beirut from the Ayyubids, but later that year, Henry VI died in Sicily. In 1198, while the Germans were besiegingToron, they received the news of the emperor's death, and abandoned the siege to return to Germany.[45]
Jerusalem was still controlled by the Ayyubids in August 1198, whenPope Innocent III called for theFourth Crusade to once again try recapturing the city for Christianity. At the time, the English, French, German, and Spanish monarchs were dealing with their own domestic affairs; Richard I of England vowed to return to the Middle East to finish the job of taking Jerusalem, but he died in 1199. The Crusader armies were thus commanded by "second-tier" noblemen from France, led by the ItalianBoniface I, Marquis of Montferrat.[44]
Boniface; his liegePhilip of Swabia; andAlexios IV Angelos—son ofIsaac II Angelos, who was Byzantine emperor before he was deposed by his successor,Alexios III Angelos, in 1195; agreed to use the Crusade as an opportunity to storm Constantinople and depose Alexious III. The Crusaders declared war on the Byzantines, and entered Constantinople. In July 1203, Isaac II and Alexios IV were made co-emperors. Alexios III's son-in-law,Alexios V Doukas, was installed as emperor in January 1204. Doukas had Alexious IV strangled to death, and Isaac II imprisoned; the latter died in prison. In April 1204, Doukas demanded the Crusaders leave Constantinople. Instead, they committed theSack of Constantinople, robbing the city of its wealth and goods. Parts of the Byzantine Empire were given to theRepublic of Venice and its allies. Doukas fled the city and met up with Alexios III to join him as fugitives. However, Alexios III blinded him. Doukas was then captured by the Crusaders, who killed him as revenge for ordering Alexious IV's death.[44][46][47][48][49]
In 1215, Pope Innocent III called for another crusade to retake Jerusalem from the Ayyubids. TheFifth Crusade began in 1217. This time, the Crusaders decided to weaken the Ayyubids by capturing their cities in North Africa and Egypt, predicting the dynasty had a weak hold over that area. The CrusaderscapturedDamietta in Egypt, but in general, their plan did not work, as they had less soldiers, military equipment, and ships than needed; the Crusader leaders also disagreed over how to go about the war. TheAyyubids defeated them on the banks the Nile in August 1221. The Crusaders were forced to abandon Damietta, and once again return to Europe without taking Jerusalem.[50][51][52]
TheMongol Empire was founded in modern-day Mongolia in 1206, led byGenghis Khan. He was the first "Khagan", the ruler of all the Mongol peoples. Over 12 years, the Mongols spread out from the easternEurasian Steppe into west and east Asia, brutally conquering much of the continent's land with a large army of effectivecavalry and archers. In 1218, 100,000 Mongol soldiers entered theKhwarazmian Empire in Persia, and captured the Khwarazmian cities ofBukhara andSamarkand. Muslims were massacred; their irrigation systems and some of their cities were completely destroyed, leading them to nickname Genghis Khan the "Accursed One". From 1221 to 1223, the Mongols conquered the lands encircling theCaspian Sea.[53][54]
In 1227, Genghis Khan died, and his sonÖgedei Khan became the new Khagan. Ögedei split the empire into four areas; one owned by him, and the others individually owned by his three brothers.Tolui received the Middle Eastern quadrant. Initially, this did not mean Ögedei's brothers led the government in their respective areas; he ultimately governed the whole empire for decades.[53][54]
Frederick II became Holy Roman Emperor in 1220, during the Fifth Crusade. His legitimacy as emperor was questioned by Pope Innocent III and Innocent's successor,Honorious III. Before the crusade was over, Frederick promised to go south and join the Crusaders, but this did not happen. After the Crusade ended, he expanded the Holy Roman Empire into central Europe and Sicily, encircling the country of thePapal States which the Pope ruled. Honorious III asked Frederick to honor his pledge to retake Jerusalem, for its own religious sake and to take pressure off of the Papal States. Frederick agreed to start theSixth Crusade in August 1227, but delayed his departure to illness. Honorious' successor,Gregory IX, thenexcommunicated Frederick from the Catholic Church as punishment for not following his pledge to go.[52][55]
This incident did not demotivate Frederick, and he sailed to the Levant with a well-equipped army of 12,000: 10,000 infantry and 2,000 knights. They landed at Acre in September 1228. Frederick entered negotiations with Levantine religious leaders such as those in theKnights Templar andKnights Hospitaller, but they would not negotiate with someone who was now outside the church. Frederick was able to talk with them through military commanders associated with him, but who were seen as technically independent of him. Promising the religious leadershereditary land and military promotions, Frederick was able to make an agreement in 1229 to expand the Kingdom of Jerusalem's Levantine territory and allow Christians to reoccupy most of Jerusalem.[52][55]
In the fifteen years following the Sixth Crusade, many Ayyubid cities on the Mediterranean coast started allying with the local Crusader states out of convenience. This was because, after the Ayyubid sultanal-Kamil died in 1238, his successors started fighting over control of the region which destabilized these cities. In August 1244, the Muslim Khwarazmians took Jerusalem back from the Christians, and in October, a Christian army was defeated by the Ayyubids at theBattle of Forbie in Gaza, which stabilized and strengthened Ayyubid control. The Christians remaining in Jerusalem were massacred, and their holy sites were destroyed.Pope Innocent IV called for theSeventh Crusade, which was led byLouis IX of France. Louis wanted to take both Jerusalem and Egypt from the Muslims. The Crusaderscaptured Damietta in 1249, and then went toMansourah in 1250, where they were routed by a Muslim army. Louis was captured and ransomed back to the Crusaders, who returned home once again.[56]
Mamluks were enslaved Muslim soldiers who made up armies in the Abbasid Caliphate. These armies had Mamluk generals, who, in 1250, formed theMamluk Sultanate in Egypt and Syria. The sultanate was officially a part of the Abbasid government, and ruled for centuries. These Mamluks had no relation to theMamluk dynasty in India, which also existed in the 13th century.[57][58]
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Thesiege of Baghdad and the death of Abbasid Caliphal-Musta'sim in 1258 temporarily ended the caliphate.[59] When the KhaganMöngke Khan died in 1259, any further Mongol expansion in the region was halted, as the regional military leaderHulegu Khan had to return to the Mongol capitalKarakorum for the election of a new khagan. His absence resulted in the first defeat of the Mongols by the Egyptian Mamluks during theBattle of Ain Jalut in 1260.[60] Issues began to arise when the Mongols were unable to reach a consensus as to whom to elect Khagan. Additionally, conflict occurred between traditionalists who wished to retain their nomadic culture and Mongols moving towards sedentary agriculture. All of this led to the fragmentation of the empire in 1260.[61] Hulegu carved out his Middle Eastern territory into the independentIlkhanate, which included most of Armenia, Anatolia, Azerbaijan, Mesopotamia, and Iran.
The Mongols eventually retreated in 1335, but the chaos that ensued throughout the empire deposed the Seljuk Turks.
TheBlack Death was apandemic of theplague that spread throughout theOld World—but mostly Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, and North Africa—from 1346 to 1353. The disease was caused bybacteriaYersinia pestis, carried to humans by fleas on rodents, and then from human to human. It originated in Central Asia, and was unknowingly brought toCrimea via Mongol warriors, as well as traders (Mongols and others) who used the trade routes that connected Europe and Asia (such as theSilk Road). It is likely that Genoese trading ships—with either infected humans or flea-carrying rats onboard—brought the plague from Crimea to the Byzantine Empire in 1347, when sailing back to Italy through Constantinople. From then until 1349, the Black Death spread from Byzantine territory down through the rest of the Middle East. Around 30% to 50% of the population in any infected area died from the disease.[62][63][64]
Timur was a warlord who grew up in theBarlas tribe of Turkic Mongols that lived in the region ofTransoxiana (roughly modernUzbekistan), within theChagatai Khanate (the territory of theChagatai line of khans descended fromChagatai Khan, son of Genghis Khan). From 1364 to 1366, Timur and his brother-in-law, Amir Husayn, conquered Transoxiana, but around 1370, Timur had Husayn assassinated. In Samarkand, Transoxiana's main city, Timur declared himself a sovereign of the Chagatai line who would restore the Mongol Empire to its former glory. This began theTimurid dynasty that controlled theTimurid Empire.[65][66]
In 1380, the empire conquered the nearby region ofKashgar, and in 1383, Timur entered Persia. From 1383 to 1394, the empire conquered eastern and southern Persia, theCaucasus, and Mesopotamia. In 1399, Timur launched an expedition towards Mamluk and Ottoman territory. Timur regained control of modern Azerbaijan, and then captured Aleppo, which was sacked, before moving to Damascus and reducing the city's power by deporting its artisans to Samarkand. In 1401, the Timuridsbesieged Baghdad, killing 20,000 of its residents. At theBattle of Ankara in 1402, Timur defeated the army of the Ottoman sultanBayezid I. Timur received offers of capitulation from the Mamluk sultan and Byzantine emperor, then returned to Samarkand in 1404. In December 1404, Timur set out on a conquest of China, but died in February 1405. Before he died, he had divided his empire's territories between his sons and grandsons.[65][66]
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TheOttomans conquered almost all of Anatolia and the Balkans in the late 14th century, forcing Constantinople intovassalage and then fighting theHungarians. In 1422, Ottoman sultanMurad IIbesieged Constantinople, but stopped to deal with another rebellion in the Ottoman Empire. In 1444, Murad suffered a defeat in the Balkans, prompting him to abdicate his throne to his son,Mehmed II. In 1446, Murad returned to being the sultan, and remained as such until he died in 1451, again succeeded by Mehmed.[67][68]
By the 1450s, a weakened Byzantine Empire had lost much of its territory in wars with the Balkan states and Roman Catholic armies. The population of Constantinople, weakened by two centuries of sporadic raids, had dropped in population from 400,000 in the 12th century to 40,000 to 50,000. Mehmed planned to finish Murad's goal of conquering the city, and in 1452, he made peace with Hungary and Venice. In April 1453, he led an army to Constantinople, and besieged the city. In May, the cityfell to the Ottomans, ending the Roman Empire after 1500 years of continuous existence.[67][68]
By the early 15th century, the Ottomans had become the region's largest power. The Mamluks held them out of the lower Middle East for a century, but in 1514Selim the Grim began the Ottoman conquest of the region. Syria was occupied in 1516 and Egypt in 1517, extinguishing the Mamluk line. Iraq was conquered almost in 40 years from the IranianSafavids, who were successors of theAq Qoyunlu.
The Ottomans united the whole region under one ruler for the first time since the reign of the Abbasid caliphs of the 10th century, and they kept control of it for 400 years, despite brief intermissions created by the Safavids andAfsharids.[69] By this time the Ottomans also held Greece, theBalkans, and most ofHungary, setting the new frontier between east and west far to the north of theDanube. Regions such asAlbania andBosnia saw many conversions to Islam, but Ottoman Europe was not culturally absorbed into the Muslim world.
By 1699, the Ottomans had been driven out of Hungary, thePolish—Lithuanian Commonwealth, and parts of the western Balkans in theGreat Turkish War. In theGreat Divergence, Europe had overtaken the Muslim world in wealth, population and technology. Some historians argue that science had already been in decline in the Muslim world since the 14th century[70] while other argue that sciences still continued until the 17th century.[71][72][73] TheIndustrial Revolution and growth ofcapitalism magnified the divergence, and from 1768 to 1918, the Ottomans gradually lost territory.
Nader Shah has been described as "the last great Asiatic military conqueror".[74] Following his assassination in 1747,his empire quickly disintegrated, and Iran fell into a civil war.
In February 1798, during theFrench Revolutionary Wars, the generalNapoleon—a leader of theFrench Directory, the new French government—requested the Directory, who were at war with the British, to cancel their planned invasion of Britain. He instead began planning aFrench invasion of Egypt, then ruled by the Mamluks. This was intended to halt British trade in the region, make France pose a threat to British possessions in India, and "obtain assets for bargaining in any future peace settlement". France also planned to make a progressive government in Egypt to bring them [the Egyptians] back to their former status. To achieve this, France brought along scholars and scientists to study and report on Egyptian society. Napoleon and his army sailed to Egypt in May 1798.[75][76]
TheRoyal Navy, commanded by AdmiralHoratio Nelson, sailed to Egypt to fight the French navy. On land, in July 1798, the French won against the Mamluks at theBattle of the Pyramids. However, at theBattle of the Nile in August, Napoleon's fleet atAbu Qir was all but destroyed by the British. French communication lines were severed, and Napoleon worked to make his soldiers self-sufficient. The Egyptians resented French occupation, and were further angered in September, when Ottoman sultanSelim III declared war on France. In February 1799, Napoleon marched the French intoOttoman Syria andbesieged Acre, a strategic position beneficial for them to capture. The siege failed, and in May, the Napoleon brought his forces back into Egypt. In July, Ottoman naval forces arrived at the shore of Abu Qir, but failed to maintain abridgehead so they could fight the French on land. Napoleon decided to return to France, and in August, slipped past the British blockade and went home. The remaining French troops were eventually defeated by an Anglo-Ottoman expedition in 1801 and evacuated by the British to Europe.[75][76]
The French researchers who had been studying Egyptian society discovered theRosetta Stone during their work. It is a stone from ancient Egypt inscribed with the same message written in five different writing systems: two forms of the Greek language, theEgyptian language, and two forms of hieroglyphs. The latter two writing systems were hardly understood by European researchers. They were compared with the Greek and Egyptian alphabets—which European researchers did know—and decoded, leading to new understanding of hieroglyphs.[75][77]
Greece,Serbia,Romania, and Bulgaria achieved independence during the 19th century, and the Ottoman Empire became known as the "sick man of Europe", increasingly under the financial control of European powers. Domination soon turned to outright conquest: the French annexedAlgeria in 1830 andTunisia in 1878 and the British occupied Egypt in 1882, though it remained under nominal Ottoman sovereignty.
In 1878, as the result of theCyprus Convention, the United Kingdom took over the government of Cyprus as a protectorate from the Ottoman Empire. While the Cypriots at first welcomedBritish rule, hoping that they would gradually achieve prosperity, democracy and national liberation, they soon became disillusioned. The new colonial administration imposed heavy taxes to pay off OttomanCrimean War loans (guaranteed by both Britain and France) on which the Ottomans had defaulted. Agitation against the taxation was incessant and became a source of nationalist anger towards the British.[78]
The British alsoestablished effective control of thePersian Gulf, and the French extended their influence intoLebanon and Syria. In 1912, the Italians seizedLibya and theDodecanese islands, just off the coast of the Ottoman heartland of Anatolia. The Ottomans turned to Germany to protect them from the western powers, but the result was increasing financial and military dependence on Germany.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Middle Eastern rulers tried to modernize their states to compete more effectively with Europe. In the Ottoman Empire, theTanzimat reforms re-invigorated Ottoman rule and were furthered by theYoung Ottomans in the late 19th century, leading to theFirst Constitutional Era in the Empire that included the writing of the1876 constitution and the establishment of theOttoman Parliament. The authors of the1906 revolution in Persia all sought to import versions of the western model of constitutional government, civil law, secular education, and industrial development into their countries. Throughout the region, railways and telegraph lines were constructed, schools and universities were opened, and a new class of army officers, lawyers, teachers, and administrators emerged, challenging the traditional leadership ofIslamic scholars.
This first Ottoman constitutional experiment ended soon after it began, however, when the autocratic SultanAbdul Hamid II abolished theparliament and theconstitution in favor of personal rule. Abdul Hamid ruled by decree for the next 30 years, stirring democratic resentment. The reform movement known as theYoung Turks emerged in the 1890s against his rule, which includedmassacres against minorities. The Young Turks seized power in the 1908Young Turk Revolution and established theSecond Constitutional Era, leading to pluralist and multiparty elections in the Empire for the first timein 1908. The Young Turks split into two parties, the pro-German and pro-centralizationCommittee of Union and Progress and the pro-British and pro-decentralizationFreedom and Accord Party. The former was led by an ambitious pair of army officers,Ismail Enver Bey (later Pasha) andAhmed Cemal Pasha, and a radical lawyer,Mehmed Talaat Bey (later Pasha). After a power struggle between the two parties of Young Turks, the Committeeemerged victorious and became a ruling junta, with Talaat as Grand Vizier and Enver as War Minister, and established a German-funded modernisation program across the Empire.[79]
In August 1914, Enver Bey signedan alliance with the German Empire, which he considered the most advanced military power in Europe. It was created as part of a joint effort to strengthen and modernize the weakOttoman military and to provide Germany with safe passage into the neighbouringBritish colonies.[80][81] Germany also needed the Ottoman Empire on its side. TheOrient Express had run directly toConstantinople since 1889, and prior to 1914, the Sultan had consented to a plan to extend it through Anatolia toBaghdad under German auspices. That would strengthen the Ottoman Empire's link with the industrialized Europe and give Germany easier access to its Africancolonies and to trade markets inBritish India.[82]
In 1914, Enver Pasha's alliance with Germany led the Ottoman Empire into the fatal step of enteringWorld War I on the side of theCentral Powers against theEntente, an alliance that included Russia, Great Britain and France. The British saw the Ottomans as the weak link in theCentral Powers, and concentrated on knocking them out of the war. When a direct assault failedat Gallipoli in 1915, they turned to fomenting revolution in the Ottoman domains, exploiting the awakening force ofArab,Armenian, andAssyrian nationalism against the Ottomans.[83] The British found an ally inSharif Hussein, the hereditary ruler of Mecca believed by many to be a descendant of Muhammad, who led anArab Revolt against Ottoman rule, after being promised independence.
The Entente won the war and the Ottoman Empire was abolished with most of its territories ceded to Britain and France; theTurkish War of Independence led to the creation of the modern Turkish state. The war transformed the region in terms of shattering Ottoman power which was supplanted by increased British and French influence; the creation of the Middle Eastern state system as seen in Turkey and Saudi Arabia; the emergence of explicitly more nationalist politics, as seen in Turkey and Egypt; and the expansion of oil industry, particularly in the Gulf States.[84]
When the Ottoman Empire surrendered to the Allies in 1918, the Arab factions who had fought alongside the Entente did not get what they had expected. The British and French governments had concluded a secret treaty before the armistice, theSykes–Picot Agreement, partitioning the Middle East amongst themselves. TheLloyd George ministry had in 1917 issued theBalfour Declaration, promising the internationalZionist movement their support in re-creating the historic Jewish homeland in Palestine. After the Ottomans withdrew, Arab leaders proclaimed anindependent state in Damascus, but this was not recognized by France. After afour month-long war, the kingdom surrendered to French forces on 25 July 1920, ending its existence.[85]
Syria became a French protectorate as aLeague of Nations mandate. The Christian coastal areas were split off to become Lebanon, another French protectorate.Iraq andPalestine became British mandated territories. Iraq became the "Kingdom of Iraq" and one of Sharif Hussein's sons,Faisal, was installed as theKing of Iraq. Iraq incorporated large populations of Kurds, Assyrians andTurkmens, many of whom had been promised independent states of their own.
Meanwhile, the fall of the Ottomans and the partitioning of Anatolia by theAllies led to resistance by the Turkish population, under theTurkish National Movement led byMustafa Kemal Atatürk, the Turkish victory against the invading powers during theTurkish War of Independence, and the founding of the modernRepublic of Turkey in 1923. Atatürk, the Republic's first President, embarked on aprogram of modernisation and secularisation that pushed Turkey both economically and culturally closer to Europe and away from the Arab world. He abolished the caliphate, emancipated women, enforced western dress and the use of a newTurkish alphabet based onLatin script in place of theArabic alphabet, and abolished the jurisdiction of the Islamic courts.
Another turning point came whenoil was discovered, first in Persia (1908) and later inSaudi Arabia (1938) as well as the other Persian Gulf states, Libya, and Algeria. The Middle East, it turned out, possessed the world's largest easily untapped reserves ofcrude oil, the most important commodity in the 20th century. The discovery of oil in the region made many of the kings and emirs of the Middle East immensely wealthy and enabled them to consolidate their hold on power while giving them a stake in preserving western hegemony over the region.[86]
As the West became dependent on Middle Eastern oil exports and British influence steadily declined, American interest in the region grew. Initially, Western oil companies established a dominance over oil production and extraction. However, indigenous movements towardsnationalizing oil assets, oil sharing, and the advent ofOPEC ensured a shift in thebalance of power towards the Arab oil states.[86]
Britain was granted a Mandate for Palestine in April 1920 at theSan Remo Conference, and, in July 1922, this mandate was approved by the League of Nations. Palestine became the "British Mandate of Palestine" and was placed under direct British administration. The Jewish population of Palestine, consisting overwhelmingly of recent migrants from Europe, numbered less than 8 percent in 1918. Under the British mandate, Zionist settlers were granted wide rein to immigrate initially, buy land from absentee landlords, set up a local government and later establish the nucleus of a state all under British protection. Arab Palestinian discontent with unpopular British policies and increasing levels of Jewish immigration led to numerous riots and the1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine, which led Britain to issue a white paper in 1939 restricting all Jewish immigrants from coming to Palestine.[87] The Territory East of the Jordan River and west of Iraq was also declared a British Mandate when the Council of the League of Nations passed the British written Transjordan Memorandum in September 1922. Most of the Arabian peninsula, including Mecca and Medina, though not incorporated into either a British or French colonial mandate, fell under the control of another British ally,Ibn Saud, who in 1932, founded theKingdom of Saudi Arabia.[citation needed]
In the early 20th century, Syria and Egypt made moves towards independence. In 1919, Egyptian anti-colonial activistSaad Zaghloul orchestrated mass demonstrations in Egypt known as the1919 Egyptian revolution, in which 800 Egyptians were killed and 1,600 wounded along with 61 European soldiers and civilians; Zaghloul would go on to serve as Prime Minister of Egypt. In 1920, Syrian forces were defeated by the French in theBattle of Maysalun and Iraqi rebels were defeated by the British whenthey revolted. In 1922, the nominally independentKingdom of Egypt was created following the British government's issuance of theUnilateral Declaration of Egyptian Independence.[citation needed]
In 1939,World War II began whenfascistNazi Germany, led byAdolf Hitler,invaded Poland. It was mainly fought between theAllies (including Britain, theUnited States and theSoviet Union) against theAxis powers (including Germany, theKingdom of Italy, and theEmpire of Japan). Germanyoccupied much of Europe.[88] In theHolocaust, Germany murdered millions of people inconcentration camps throughout occupied Europe, includingsix million Jews.[89]
TheFrench Third Republic, an Allied power, wasinvaded by Germany in May 1940. In June, Germany won and split France into two governments, the northern half of the country underdirect German control, and the southern under the semi-autonomousVichy France, which collaborated with Germany.[90][91] Syria was put under the administration of Vichy France.[92]
The Middle East was essential to the British Empire, and Germany and Italy worked to undermine British influence there. Hitler allied with the Muslim leaderAmin al-Husseini—in exile since he participated in the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine—as part of promotingArab nationalism to destabilize regional British control.Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, theShah of Iran since 1941, tried to keep his country neutral in the presence of Axis agents. The handover of Syria to Vichy France threatened British communication lines between Europe andIndia, which was a British colony; this was exacerbated by Germany's successfulinvasion of Greece.[92][93]
In accordance with theAnglo-Egyptian treaty of 1936, Egypt allowed Britain to operate facilities related to the war effort in Egypt's territory, though most Egyptians favored neutrality or supported the Axis. The British were angered byHussein Sirri Pasha's neutral stance, and in 1942 as German forces neared Egypt, UK ambassador to EgyptMiles Lampson forced Farouk to replace Pasha withWafd Party politicianMostafa el-Nahas in theAbdeen Palace incident. The confrontation furthered Farouk's hostility towards the British, and Egypt only declared war on Germany and Japan in 1945.[94][95]
In Iraq, a pro-British regime headed by theRegent'Abd al-Ilah andPrime MinisterNuri as-Said ruled the country. Iraq severed relations with Germany on 5 September 1939 following the outbreak of World War II in Europe. However, Nuri tread carefully between his close relationship with Britain and dependence on pro-German Iraqi army officers and cabinet members. In 1941,a coup d'état led by fourIraqi nationalist army generals, known as "theGolden Square", overthrew al-Ilah and as-Said's regime. The Golden Square intended to use the war to press for full Iraqi independence following the limited independence granted by Britain in 1932.[96]
In April 1941, theAnglo-Iraqi War began as the British forces invaded Iraq and defeated the pro-Nazi Iraqi regime. The Golden Square fled the country, and al-Ilah and as-Said were installed as the leaders of Iraq once more.[96] British-led forces alsocaptured Syria and Lebanon from Vichy France to secure their regional control and provide security for their forces in Egypt.[97] Meanwhile, the Allies were worried Germany would try to access Iranian oil reserves, and the Soviets needed new supply routes to other Allied states after Germany invaded the western Soviet Union inOperation Barbarossa. These factors prompted the successfulAnglo-Soviet invasion of Iran in August 1941.[98]
When World War II ended, the British,[99] French, and Soviets, withdrew from most parts of the regions they had occupied both before and during the War II and seven Middle East states gained or regained independence: Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Israel, and Cyprus.
In Palestine, conflicting forces of Arab nationalism andZionism created a situation the British could neither resolve nor extricate themselves from. The Holocaust created a new urgency in the Zionist quest to immigrate to Palestine and create aJewish state. A Palestinian state was also an attractive alternative to the Arab and Persian leaders as a mean of undermining British and French and perceived Jewish influence in the region under the logic of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend".[100]
The Arab—Jewish struggle culminated in the 1947United Nationsplan to partition Palestine. This plan sought to create an Arab state and a separate Jewish state in the narrow space between theJordan River and the Mediterranean. Jewish leaders accepted the plan, but Arab leaders rejected it.[101]
In May 1948, when the British Mandate expired, the Zionist leadership declared theState of Israel. In the1948 Arab–Israeli War which immediately followed, the armies of Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Lebanon, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia intervened and were defeated by Israel.[102] About 800,000 Palestinians fled from areas annexed by Israel and becamerefugees in neighbouring countries, thus creating the "Palestinian problem", which has troubled the region ever since.[103] Approximately two-thirds of 758,000–866,000 of theJews expelled or who fled from Arab lands after 1948 were absorbed and naturalized by the State of Israel.[104]
In Egypt, civil conflict between left- and right-wing radicals, and Egyptian opposition to the continued British occupation of the Suez Canal, led to the1952 Egyptian revolution. In July 1952, Farouk was overthrown in a coup by theFree Officers, a group ofEgyptian nationalist military officers led by Major GeneralMohamed Naguib and GeneralGamal Abdel Nassar.[105][106][107]
The Egyptian monarchy was dissolved, and in June 1953, Egypt became a republic. A council of eleven military officers led by Nassar, theEgyptian Revolutionary Command Council, governed the country with "carefully controlled manipulation" of the populace. Political parties were banned. Naguib was made Egypt's president, but was effectively apuppet ruler, answering to the council. However, his position threatened Nassar's influence, so in 1954, Nassar mobilized a coalition of supporters (including the working class, theMuslim Brotherhood, police officers, and members of the former political parties) and overthrew Naguib, placing him underhouse arrest. Nassar was made prime minister.[105][106][108]
Britannica writes that in Nassar's 1954 bookPhilosophy of the Revolution, he "outlined his aspiration to be the leader of the 55 million Arabs, then of the 224 million Africans, then of the 420 million followers of Islam". He initially had a moderate diplomatic approach with Israel, Britain and the Sudanese people in southern Egypt, the last of whom wanted independence. In 1953, Egypt agreed to a Sudaneseprovisionalself-government, andSudan became an independent republic in 1956.[105][108]
After World War II, Britain continued to maintain a presence in Iran, effectively controlling Iran's oil industry through theAnglo-Persian Oil Company. In 1951,Mohammad Mosaddegh became Iran's prime minister, and his democratic and nationalist government took control of the Iranian parliament. The parliament voted tonationalize Iran's oil industry, leading the UK'sMI6 to "secret[ly] campaign to weaken and destabilize Mosaddegh". The Shah, influenced by the MI6 campaign, attempted to oust Mosaddegh from the Iranian government with a parliamentary decree. This failed and only strengthened Mosaddegh, while weakening the Shah. The British government then usedanti-communist rhetoric to persuade the U.S.—now in theCold War against the Soviets—to cooperate in overthrowing Mosaddegh.[98][109][93]
In the1953 Iranian coup d'état, theCentral Intelligence Agency (CIA) and MI6 funded agents in Iran who were "used to foment unrest" against Mosaddegh through "harassment of religious and political leaders and a mediadisinformation campaign". In August 1953, Mosaddegh was overthrown after deadly fighting in Tehran, and the CIA sanctioned the Shah becoming the singular leader of Iran. Mosaddegh was put under house arrest until his death. The coup and its effects created the conditions for the 1979 Iranian revolution.[98][110]
TheSuez Crisis in 1956 originated in Egypt's growing support forCzechoslovakia and the Soviet Union, communist allies. In response, the U.S. and U.K. decided not to finance Egypt's construction of theAswan Dam across the Nile. This provoked Nassar into nationalizing the Suez Canal in July 1956, seizing the British and FrenchSuez Company. The U.K. and France, thinking that Nassar might close off the canal—thus cutting offpetroleum shipments to Europe—began a military response against Egypt. In October, Israel joined the conflict, advancing towards the canal. This interfered with the British and French plan, and they forced Israel to stand down. In November, the two countries occupied the canal; the U.S., disapproving of this, led a campaign in theUnited Nations (UN) to force the British and French out of the canal. Egypt ultimately won control over the canal, and the U.K. and France lost much influence in the Middle East.[107][111]
The modern Middle East was shaped by three things: departure of European powers, the founding of Israel, and the growing importance of the oil industry. These developments eventually led to increasedU.S. involvement in the region. The U.S. was the ultimate guarantor of the region's stability as well as the dominant force in the oil industry after the 1950s. When revolutions brought radicalanti-Western regimes to power in Egypt (1954), Syria (1963), Iraq (1968), andLibya (1969), the Soviet Union, seeking to open a new arena of the Cold War, allied itself withArab socialist rulers.
In the mid-to-late 1960s, theArab Socialist Ba'ath Party led byMichel Aflaq andSalah al-Din al-Bitar took power in both Iraq and Syria. Iraq was first ruled byAhmed Hassan al-Bakr, but was succeeded bySaddam Hussein in 1979. Syria was ruled first by a Military Committee led bySalah Jadid, and laterHafez al-Assad until 2000, when he was succeeded by his son,Bashar al-Assad.
In 1960,Cyprus gained independence from British rule. ArchbishopMakarios III, a charismatic religious and political leader, was elected its first independent president, and in 1961 it became the 99th member of the United Nations.[citation needed] Between 1955 and 1974, conflict arising betweenGreek Cypriots andTurkish Cypriots led toCypriot intercommunal violence and theTurkish invasion of Cyprus. TheCyprus dispute remains unresolved.
Tensions between Israel and its Arab neighbors rose in 1966 and 1967, as Palestinian armed groups and theIsrael Defense Forces (IDF) attacked each other in bursts. In 1967, Soviet intelligence released a report falsely claiming that Israel was going to start an offensive against Syria, which prompted Gamal Abdel Nasser to mobilize his forces in solidarity with Syria and prepare for war. In theSix-Day War in June, Israel invaded and captured the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt; the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, from Jordan; and theGolan Heights from Syria. The war ended with Israel's continued control of the territories when all countries involved agreed to a ceasefire.[112]
The Arab countries had 18,000 casualties in the war, while Israel had 700. In November 1967,UN Resolution 242 called for Israel to return the conquered territories in exchange for a lasting peace, which the country did not do. One million Palestinians now lived under Israeli occupation.[112] With an overwhelming Israeli victory, many viewed the defeat as the failure of Arab socialism. Militant andfundamentalist Islam filled the "political vacuum" that was made.[113]
The Arab position, as it emerged in September 1967 at theKhartoum Summit, later become known as the "three nos": no peace, no recognition and no negotiation with Israel. In 1968, Nasser announced his plans to take back the Sinai Peninsula, receiving aid from the Soviets to make up for Egyptian losses in the war. TheWar of Attrition started with limited fighting. The war paused with a mutual ceasefire as both countries built up their forces. In 1969, a larger-scale war began, minorly involving Iraq, Jordan, Palestine, and Syria in an eastern front. In 1970, Nasser asked for direct military support from the Soviets, who began air strikes on Israelis in Egypt. This led to the U.S. mediating another ceasefire, ending the war with no territorial changes.[114][115][116]
After the War of Attrition, new Egyptian presidentAnwar Sadat expressed willingness to reach an accord with Israel based on UNSC resolution 242, butGolda Meir rejected the proposal, leading to theYom Kippur War. In October 1973, Egypt and Syria invaded the Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights to take them back. The U.S. sided with Israel, and the Soviet Union with Egypt and Syria. In 1974, the three warring states agreed to ceasefires and the construction of a UN buffer zone between Egypt and Syria.[117] The Sinai Peninsula stayed underIsraeli occupation.[118]
In 1964, thePalestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) was created as anumbrella organization for underground anti-Israel Palestinian rebels. They grew in the post-1967 occupation, and in 1969,Yasser Arafat was made their chairman. PLO's many factions have different ideologies, from wanting to destroy the state of Israel and replace it with a religiously-equal state, or negotiating with Israel for peace. In the 1970s, some PLO factions engaged in guerrilla warfare against Israel and elsewhere from the PLO's headquarters in Jordan, before Jordan forced them out in 1971. The PLO moved to Lebanon. In 1974, Arafat ordered the end of attacks outside of Israel, and Arab states recognized the PLO as the legitimate Palestinian governmental body.[118]
The 1978Camp David Accords mediated by the U.S. led to the 1979Egypt—Israel peace treaty, in which Israel agreed to stop occupying the Sinai Peninsula. Egypt unsuccessfully tried to get Israel to recognize a Palestinian state which governed Gaza and the West Bank; Israel still sought to destroy the PLO. The accords' "Framework for Peace in the Middle East" put off peace between Israel and Palestine for a later time.[118][119]
From 1963 to 1979, the Shah reformed Iran in theWhite Revolution. A Western ally, he rapidly urbanized, secularized, andWesternized the country, while forgoing democracy andhuman rights. Women received more liberties,land was redistributed to families, literacy increased, tribal groups were given greater autonomy, and the economy boomed from oil. Contrarily, political opposition was marginalized and censored, and dissidents were surveilled, harassed, or tortured.Ulama Shia scholars were undermined by secular leaders, and the economic changes did not reach everyone equally.[120][121][122]
Shi'ite leaders disliked secularization and women's rights—one leader was the populist andanti-WesternRuhollah Khomeini, who wasexiled from Iran in 1964 by the Shah.[120][121][123] However, he still had influence there, and called for the Shah's overthrow. During the 1979Iranian revolution, thePahlavi dynasty was overthrown. The Shah died from health issues in Egypt, and Khomeini became the country's leader. He made Iran a Shi'itetheocratic state, cut ties with the West, and rolled back women's rights. He stayed in power until 1989.[120][122][123][124]
Shi'ite militantsheld 66 Americans hostage in theU.S. embassy in Tehran from 1979 to 1981. The hostage takers wanted the U.S. toextradite the Shah to Iran to be put on trial for human rights abuses. The U.S. did not comply, and stopped buying Iranian oil, whichhurt the U.S. economy. The Shah's death did not end the crisis, and U.S. presidentJimmy Carter lost the1980 presidential election amidst an oil-related recession. In 1981, when Carter's successorRonald Reagan took office, the hostages were freed.[125]
The PLO's move to Lebanon, and Israel's wish to destroy the PLO, partially led to theLebanese Civil War, which was fought from 1975 to 1990.[118][126] Fighting was between theLebanese Army; Israel; Syria; the PLO; theLebanese Front, representing the country's traditional Christian elites; theLebanese National Movement of leftists, Arab nationalists, and Sunnis; and theAmal Movement of Shi'itepopulists. The war ultimately led to Israel and Syria occupying different parts of Lebanon until 2000 and 2005, respectively.[126]
During the1982 Lebanon War, Israel invaded Lebanon, seven years into the civil War.[127][128] The invasion was ostensibly because of attacks launched on Israel by PLO members located inSouthern Lebanon. Israel reached as far as west Beirut, where the PLO had its main stronghold, putting that part of the cityunder siege. 19,000 people died under the siege. Those PLO members made an agreement with Israel to leave Lebanon for Tunisia, while Israeloccupied Southern Lebanon until 2000, supportingproxy wars there.[128][129]
In 1982, Lebanese president-electBachir Gemayel wasassassinated by aSyrian nationalist potentially under orders from Hafez al-Assad.[129][130] Soon after, theKataeb Party right-wing Lebanese militia, coordinating with the IDF, carried out theSabra and Shatila massacre of 2,000 to 3,500 Lebanese and Palestinian civilians.[128][131][132] Out of this conflict cameHezbollah, a Lebanese Shi'ite political party and militant organization opposed to Israel, the U.S., and Saudi Arabia, and supported by Iran.[128][133] In 1983,a terrorist attack by theIslamic Jihad Organization on an American military barrack in Beirut killed 300 American and French soldiers.[129]
Saddam Hussein became the president of Iraq in 1979. The Shi'ite revolution in Iran concerned Hussein, who thought that majority-Shi'ite Iraq would face a similar uprising. He also wanted to overturn the1975 Algiers Agreement, which let Iran control theShatt al-Arab waterway in exchange for Iran withdrawing support for an insurgency by northern Iraqi Kurds. The Shatt al-Arab had been Iraq's only way to access the Persian Gulf. Hussein had begun relying on Iraq's minority Sunni population when in 1980,Iraq invaded Iran, starting theIran—Iraq War. Hussein considered this militarily viable because Iran's military was considered to be weakened after the revolution. Iraq first captured the oil-producing region ofKhuzestan, but Iranians intensely resisted, and by 1982, all the Iranian territory that Iraq had taken was reclaimed. Nevertheless, the war continued for another six years at great cost for both sides.[134][135]
In 1981, on the anniversary of the Yom Kippur War,Anwar Sadat was assassinated by a group of Islamic extremists while he was inspecting troops in Cairo. They disliked that Sadat negotiated with Israel and let the Shah die in Egypt instead of extraditing him to Iran. The perpetrators were led byKhaled el Islambouli, who had connections to the terrorist groupTakfir Wal-Hajira. Takfir Wal-Hajira was partially funded by Libyan leaderMuammar Gaddafi, who unsuccessfully attempted to assassinate Sadat in 1980. Sadat was succeeded by his vice presidentHosni Mubarak, who put hundreds of people on trial for conspiracy in the assassination.[136] In the following years, Mubarak continued following the terms of the Camp David Accords, and improved relations with other Arab states, Israel, and the U.S.[127]
In the 1980s, the U.S. supported theContras—fighting theMarxistNicaraguan government—financially and militarily, as Ronald Reagan feared Marxism spreading throughCentral America. Supporting the Contras was soonbanned by theU.S. Congress. Meanwhile, Americans in Lebanonwere being held captive by Shi'ites supporting Iran; the U.S. publicly deniednegotiating with terrorists or aiding Iran during its war with Iraq, labeling Iran aterrorist state. Secretly, starting in 1985, Reagansold Iran weapons in exchange for the hostages' release, diverting some sales revenue to the Contras. This was publicized in 1986, but Reagan was not punished for the illegal act.[137][138][139]
In 1977, the right-wing political partyLikud won theIsraeli elections, leading to Israel expropriating more land and furthering settlements in the West Bank. Palestinian protests following the invasion of Lebanon increased Israel's repression in Gaza and the West Bank. The conditions for a Palestinian uprising were greater as certain Palestinians challenged the PLO's leadership and viewed Israel, which in the mid-1980s had a significant number vying for peace, as more receptive to Palestinian protests.[140][141][142]
In 1987, an Israeli caused a vehicle crash that killed four Palestinians, as revenge for the fatal stabbing of an Israeli in Gaza years prior. The crash led to theFirst Intifada, a Palestinian uprising—involving the PLO—against Israel. It started as protests and turned into a military conflict against the occupiers. 2,000 people died, around three quarters being Palestinian deaths. In 1988, the PLO denied the U.S.' deal of making peace with Israel on the condition that the PLO acknowledge "Israel's right 'to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries'". The Intifada politically and economically hurt Israel, who elected politicians favoring peace in the1992 elections.[140][141][142]
The fall of the Soviet Union and the collapse of communism in the early 1990s had several consequences for the Middle East. It allowed large numbers ofSoviet Jews to emigrate fromRussia andUkraine to Israel, further strengthening the Jewish state. It cut off the easiest source of credit, armaments, and diplomatic support to the anti-western Arab regimes, weakening their position. It opened up the prospect of cheap oil from Russia, driving down the price of oil and reducing the west's dependence on oil from the Arab states. It discredited the model of development through authoritarian state socialism, which Egypt, Algeria, Syria, and Iraq had followed since the 1960s, leaving these regimes politically and economically stranded. Rulers such as Saddam Hussein increasingly relied on Arab nationalism as a substitute for socialism.
In most Middle Eastern countries, the growth of market economies was said to be limited by political restrictions, corruption, andcronyism, overspending on arms and prestige projects and over-dependence on oil revenues. The successful economies were countries that had oil wealth and low populations, such asQatar,Bahrain,Kuwait and theUnited Arab Emirates (UAE), where the ruling emirs allowed some political and social liberalization, but without giving up any of their own power.
In 1990, North and South Yemenunified as the Republic of Yemen,whose constitution outlines a liberalparliamentary democracy led by a popularly elected president and abicameral legislature, one house being popularly elected and the other elected by the president.[143] The first president of the republic wasAli Abdullah Saleh. In the following years, southern Yemenis felt they had a lesser status than the northerners, and tried to split off from the north. Saleh disallowed this, starting theYemeni civil war of 1994. He ultimately maintained the union.[144] In the 2000Treaty of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia ceded land to northern Yemen.[145]
In 1990, Iraq—with the world's fifth-largest army—invaded Kuwait in retaliation for oil-related economic disputes between the two countries. The Kuwaitis strongly resisted Iraq, but within days, the capital ofKuwait City was captured. Kuwaiti emirJaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah fled to Saudi Arabia and established agovernment-in-exile, to which 350,000 Kuwaitis fled. Iraq was supported by Algeria, Jordan, thePalestinian Liberation Organization, Sudan, Tunisia, and Yemen, while Kuwait was supported by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and other Gulf states. As Iraqi troops neared Saudi Arabia, SaudiKing Fahd asked his allies to respond militarily, which the Soviets supported.[146]
The U.S. launchedOperation Desert Shield, deploying more than 400,000 troops and backed byan international coalition. Iraq stopped plans to invade Saudi Arabia. Iraq then established theRepublic of Kuwait occupation government led by ColonelAlaa Hussain Ali. The occupiers "began a systematic campaign of pillage, rape, torture, murder, and theft".[146][147] Hussein used the Kuwaiti crisis to end the Iran—Iraq War, as Iraq accepted Iranian terms and stopped occupying parts of Iran. In 1991, the coalition's Operation Desert Storm started, led by U.S. GeneralNorman Schwarzkopf. It involved air, ground, and naval offenses. Iraq, outnumbered and using ineffective weaponry, was quickly defeated.Iraqi casualties vastly outnumbered the coalition's. Iraq was forced into making peace and recognizing the re-established Kuwaiti emirate's soveriegnty.[146]
In the war's aftermath,Kurds in northern Iraq starteda rebellion against Hussein's government, which was brutally suppressed. This caused the coalition countries to establish ano-fly zone over parts of Iraq. As part of the war's peace terms, Iraq had to cooperate with UN investigators who would search the country for the presence ofweapons of mass destruction (WMDs). Iraq refused to cooperate with the UN, leading to the1998 bombing of Iraq by the U.S. and U.K.[146][148]
The 1993 and 1995Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO were initially a significant step towards peace between Israel and Palestine. The accords advocated atwo-state solution, and in a slight weakening of Israel's post-1967 occupation of Palestine, Gaza and the West Bank were allowed limited self-governance by thePalestinian Authority. The agreement had the goal of ending the Israel—Palestine conflict by May 1999, but this did not happen. In 1995, Israeli prime ministerYitzhak Rabin wasassassinated by a Jewish extremist who was against the accords. This brought up concerns about Israel's national security, which led to the1996 election ofBenjamin Netanyahu, who was against the accords, as prime minister. Netanyahu refused to negotiate with Yasser Arafat. While Netanyahu's successorEhud Barak resumed negotiations, tensions between Israel and Palestine had once again started to rise.[149][150][151]
The2000 Camp David Summit, meant to further peace between Israel and Palestine, failed. Also that year, Israeli politicianAriel Sharon, leader of Likud, visited theTemple Mount—a holy site for both Jews and Muslims in the Old City of Jerusalem—to promote Israeli sovereignty over the site. Sharon's visit and rioting by Israeli Arabs led to theSecond Intifada, an uprising by Palestinians against Israeli security forces in Palestine which lasted until 2005. The Intifada and the failure of the Camp David summit,Britannica writes, "convinced a majority of Israelis that they lacked a partner in [Yasser] Arafat to end the [Israel-Palestine] conflict".[152][153][154]
In 2002, at the height of the uprising,Israel built a barrier between and Israel and the West Bank, and inside of the West Bank, which Israeli security forces still continued to patrol. 10% of the West Bank's territory effectively became under the control of Israel through the barrier's construction.[155][156] In 2003, Sharon, then the prime minister of Israel, announced Israeli security forces would withdraw from Gaza and parts of the West Bank.Arafat died in 2004, leading to negotiations between Israel and a more moderate Palestinian government, which led to an agreement for a ceasefire in 2005. In 2005, Israel withdrew its military and settlers from the Gaza Strip, but still patrolled the territory's borders and airspace.[152][154][156]
In 1988,Osama bin Laden—anIslamist,pan-Islamist, andjihadist of the wealthybin Laden family which had connections to theSaudi royal family—foundedal-Qaeda, a militant terrorist organization. In 1996 and 1998, he declared war on the U.S. in response to their foreign policy in the Middle East, such as their permanent military presence in countries like Saudi Arabia.[157] On 11 September 2001 ("9/11"), al-Qaeda launched a series ofmajor terrorist attacks on various targets in the U.S., killing almost 3000 people. U.S. presidentGeorge W. Bush launched a "war on terror" against terrorist organizations worldwide, including al-Qaeda and their supporters.[158] The U.S.invaded Afghanistan to find bin Laden and dissolve theTaliban government which was harboring al-Qaeda in the country.[159] In 2002, Bush proclaimed that Iraq, Iran, andNorth Korea constituted an "axis of evil" which supported anti-American terrorism.[160] His administrationworked to falsely tie Iraq to 9/11, and claim that Iraq, too, was harboring al-Qaeda.[161][162][163] This was while the U.S. maintainedrelations with Saudi Arabia, who have been more crediblyaccused of working with the perpetrators of 9/11.[164][165][166]
In 2002,U.S. Secretary of DefenseDonald Rumsfeld developed a plan to invade Iraq, remove Hussein from power, and turn Iraq into a democratic state with afree-market economy, which he hoped would serve as a model for the rest of the Middle East.[167][168][169] The U.S. falsely claimed that Iraq was developing and hiding WMDs which could be used to harm the U.S. or other western democracies.[170][171][172] British Prime MinisterTony Blair sided with the U.S.[173][174] In 2003, a U.S.-led international coalitioninvaded Iraq and toppled Hussein's government.Hussein was captured,put on trial for crimes against humanity in 2005, and was found guilty beforebeing executed in 2006.[175][176]
When Hussein's government collapsed, Iraq's major cities were subject to widespread looting, and the occupation soldiers came under attack by a newIraqi insurgency.[177] The insurgency was driven by al-Qaeda,now present in Iraq, under the leadership ofAbu Musab al-Zarqawi. The return of formerly-persecuted Shi'a Muslims to the countrycreated a civil war with the Sunnis—who had just lost significant power with the dissolution of the rulingBa'ath Party, and were radicalized by al-Zarqawi.[178][177][179]U.S. troop deaths rose, while they tried to recreate Iraq as a democratic country with free elections.[177] In the U.S. in 2004, it was publicized that U.S. soldiers working at the IraqiAbu Ghraib prison, which held Iraqi prisoners of wa, had engaged inwidespread torture and abuse of the inmates; these soldiers were prosecuted by the military, and it had a negative effect on the war's popularity in the U.S..[177][180] In 2006, al-Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. bombing.[179] In 2007, amidst greater numbers of U.S. deaths in a "grave and deteriorating" war, Bush started asurge of American troops in Iraq; it is debatable if successive U.S. gains in Iraq were due to the troop surge, or other concurrent factors.[177]
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Starting in 2000, Israel and Hezbollah engaged in skirmishes overland disputes and thedetention of Lebanese nationals by Israel. In 2006, Hezbollah fired a series of rockets into northern Israel and had ground troopscross the border into Israel, where eight Israeli soldiers were killed and two were kidnapped. This began the2006 Lebanon War, which lasted until August, when Israel, Lebanon, and Hezbollah agreed to followUN Resolution 1701.[181][182][183]
The Palestinian militant organizationHamas won the2006 Palestinian legislative election. Israel recognized the West Bank's administration as being led by the moderateFatah, who came in second in the election. Hamas, who only succeeded in governing the Gaza Strip, was declared a hostile group. Israel started ablockade around the Gaza Strip, closing border crossings and limiting imports into the strip. Hamas attacked Israel multiple times, before they made a six-month ceasefire agreement that lasted from June to December 2008. Once the agreement was over, the military conflict restarted with greater intensity, starting theGaza War of 2008 to 2009. The war ended with another ceasefire agreement, but the blockade by Israel as well as Egypt has continued until the present day.[152][156][184]
In the first decades of the 21st century, theEmirati city ofDubai underwent rapid development in previously barren desert land. This included the 2010 opening of theBurj Khalifa, the world's tallest building at 2,717 feet.[185][186] In 2016,Forbes wrote that Dubai could be "the most important city" of the century, noting that its growth increased the population of the UAE by around 1.3 million in the previous decade.[187]
In the early 2010s, theArab Springrevolutionary wave created major protests and uprisings against several Middle Eastern and Arab-majority countries' governments. It started in 2010 with theTunisian revolution, which forced the resignation of presidentZine al-Abidine Ben Ali. In 2011, theEgyptian Revolution forced the resignation of president Hosni Mubarak. In Bahrain, protests against the government were violently suppressed.Protests in Syria against Bashar al-Assad were also violently suppressed, leading to theSyrian civil war which has been ongoing since 2011. In Yemen, protests forced the resignation of Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was succeeded byAbdrabbuh Mansur Hadi; Hadi's government was unstable, leading to theYemeni civil war, which has been ongoing since 2014.[188][189][190] In Libya, a civilian uprising against Muammar Gaddafi, in his fourth decade as ruler, led to the 2011Libyan civil war. Led by the U.S., under the presidency ofBarack Obama (2009—2017), NATO entered the war on the rebels' side.Gaddafi was killer later that year, and a new national government was formed in 2012.[191] This government was unstable, and Libya became a leaderless state. The region's historicalhuman slave trade returned to Libya, andslave markets were set up in its major cities.[192][193]
In 2003, the Iran-backed YemeniHouthi movement beganan insurgency against Saleh's government—which persecutedZaydi Shi'ites—as well as Saudi Arabia.[144][194] In 2009,al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula formed in Yemen, causing Saudi Arabia to secure theirborder with Yemen.[145] The Yemeni civil war, ongoing since 2014, has been fought between theRepublic of Yemen government; the Houthis and theirSupreme Political Council government; al-Qaeda; and each faction's allies. In 2014, the Houthistook over the Yemeni capital ofSanaa, and Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi was put under house arrest. He escaped to Saudi Arabia in 2015. Saudi Arabia and the UAE fought alongside the Republic of Yemen, but the Houthis maintained their holdings. The Houthiscaptured the city ofAden in 2018, influencing the UAE to withdraw from Yemen.[195]
2012 was successful forSyrian rebel groups opposing al-Assad, establishing a foothold in Aleppo. TheBattle of Aleppo became a stalemate in 2013. The civil war soon became a proxy war, as al-Assad received support from Hezbollah, Iran, and Russia, while rebel groups—starting to have their own infighting—received support from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the U.S.[196] In 2013, hundreds of civilians in Damascuswere killed in achemical attack by the al-Assad regime.[196][197][198] This caused debate in the U.S., U.K., and France over whether they should militarily intervene in Syria; this was opposed by China, Iran, and Russia. In September, Syria, the U.S., and Russia made an agreement that al-Assad would rid Syria of chemical weapons, which wassuccessfully carried out. Meanwhile, theAl-Nusra Front, an Islamist al-Qaeda affiliate, had military success in Syria.[196]
In 2013, a Sunni insurgent terrorist group, theIslamic State (IS), started an offensive that tooklarge amounts of territory in Iraq and Syria, fighting both the Iraqi government and, in Syria, al-Assad and his opposing rebels. In 2014, IS proclaimed themselves a caliphate led byAbu Bakr al-Baghdadi. They launched many terrorist attacks worldwide.[196][199] IS' growth overshadowed the successes of the Al-Nusra Front.[200] In 2016, the Al-Nusra Front cut ties with al-Qaeda and soon dissolved, succeeded by the groupTahrir al-Sham in 2017.[201]
There was aninternational military campaign against IS in Iraq and Syria from 2013 to 2017, which fed into the Syrian civil war. The U.S.—under Obama andDonald Trump (in his first term from 2017 to 2021)—and a coalition of Arab countriesbombed IS;Russia bombed IS and unrelated Syrian rebel groups, falsely claiming they [Russia] were mostly targeting IS. The U.S. allied with Kurdish-aligned forces such as theSyrian Democratic Forces. Turkey and the Kurds continued their decades-long war with each other, while both were allied with the U.S. and fighting IS. Turkeybacked Syrian rebels along theSyria–Turkey border, and the Turkish military directlyoccupied part of northern Syria in 2016 to fight IS and the Kurds. IS was thus fighting three simultaneous fronts: al-Assad, Kurds, and Turkey, as well as each of their allies.[196][202][203][204]
Outnumbered, IS lost control of three major cities: Aleppo,Raqqa, andDeir al-Zour. The group was "effectively defeated" by 2018.[202][196] In 2018,Israel targeted Iranian soldiers stationed in Syria.[196]Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi died in Syria in 2019, when he committed suicide amidst an attack on him by U.S. forces.[205][206] While the original IS organization declined, a branch of IS based in south-central Asia, namedIslamic State – Khorasan Province, became more powerful in the 2020s.[207][208]
In 2014, Hamas militants kidnapped and murdered three Israeli teenagers, and two Israelis retaliated by murdering a Palestinian teenager. Large demonstrations by groups in both Israel and Palestine led to exchanges of rocket fire between Israel and Hamas. Israel launched aground invasion of the Gaza Strip to destroyHamas' underground tunnel network that was used to store their missiles. Israel successfully destroyed them, limiting Hamas' ability to greatly attack Israel for around a decade, and influencing the two to make a ceasefire agreement.[209]
In 2019, the deadlyCoronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which is transmitted by the contagiouscoronavirusSARS-CoV-2, wasfirst detected in China. In 2020, the disease spread worldwide, the spread beingdeclared a pandemic by theWorld Health Organization.[210] Jon Alterman writes for theCenter for Strategic and International Studies that the Middle East "navigated [COVID-19] better than many initially had feared", as its governments prioritizedpreventative measures against the disease, such as distributingCOVID-19 vaccines.[211] Compared to other regions of the world, Middle Eastern countries generally had lower rates of death (Jordan and Lebanon being exceptions), and less national economies faced massive decline (Lebanon and Syria being exceptions), even for countries economically dependent on tourism.[211][212]
Lebanon was already facing anational economic crisis when the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated their economic decline. This crisis worsened in 2020, when the city of Beirutwas heavily damaged in a large explosion; a stockade ofammonium nitrate had been negligently left in thePort of Beirut for years—until the stockade exploded, destroying most of the port and creating ashockwave which damaged much of the city. At least 200 people were killed, 6,000 injured, and 300,000 were made homeless.[213][214][215]
In 2022, Benjamin Netanyahu returned as Israeli prime minister, cementing whatCNN referred to as "Israel's likely most right-wing government ever".[216][217][218] In 2023, Hamas launched alarge-scale surprise attack on Israel, killing around 1,200 people, the majority Israeli civilians. Hundreds weretaken hostage by Hamas. It was the deadliest day in the history of Israel, whodeclared war on Hamas.[219][220][221] Hezbollah beganrocket attacks on Israel, and Israel responded with air strikes.[222][223] Israeli also conductedair strikes on Gaza, followed by afull land invasion. By November 2024, 43,000 Gazans—both civilians and militants—have beenkilled in the war, and most of the strip has been destroyed.[219][224][225]
There were multiple peace talks between Israel, Hamas, and the U.S., but most of these failed.[226][227]Joe Biden, U.S. president from 2021 to 2025, minorly held back Israel's plans for Gaza,[228][229][230] while at the same timesupplying Israel with weapons.[231][232][233] Many countries and international organizations found Israelto be committing genocide by deliberately shooting, bombing,and starving Gazan civilians en masse. Meanwhile, Iran formed an anti-Israel "axis of resistance" with Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria, and YemeniHouthis.[219][234][235][236][237] The Houthisattacked shipping in the Red Sea in 2023, leading to a U.S.-ledmilitary response.[238][239]
In 2024, Iran and Israel launched air strikes at each other.[240][241] Israeli intelligence then carried out awidespread attack in Lebanon, by flooding the country with electronic devices such aspagers which had been rigged to explode. The devices were intended to be sold to Hezbollah members, though some civilians were killed.[242][243][244] Israel theninvaded Lebanon, escalating their conflict with Hezbollah.[222][245]
In 2025, the Houthis made aceasefire with the U.S., pausing their fighting in Yemen and Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea; the deal did not include an end to the Houthis' attacks on Israel.[246] Later, Israel launched a series of airstrikes on Iran, beginning theIran-Israel war. Iran responded with strikes against Israel, and the two countries have continued bombing each other since. Israel claimed their strikes were intended to destroyIran's ambitions to build nuclear bombs for themselves; however, Iranian civilians were targeted in some cases. Israel then strengthened its occupation of the West Bank. In hissecond term as U.S. president, Donald Trump brought the U.S. into the war on Israel's side, bystriking three Iranian nuclear sites.[247][248][249] As a result, the Houthis ended their ceasefire with the U.S., and Iran unsuccessfully tried striking a U.S. military base in Qatar.[250][251]
In 2024,a coalition of Syrian opposition armiescaptured Damascus, forcing Bashar al-Assadto flee the country—likely to Russia—endingBa'athist Syria.[252][253] Since 2022, al-Assad had received less support from Russia, who were "bogged down" in theRussian invasion of Ukraine.[254]Ahmed al-Sharaa, the head of Tahrir al-Sham since 2017, became president of Syria's new national government in 2025.[255][256]
By country:
Bevin regarded the UNSCOP majority report of 1 September 1947 as unjust and immoral. He promptly decided that Britain would not attempt to im- pose it on the Arabs; indeed, he expected them to resist its implementation… The British cabinet...: in the meeting on 4 December 1947... It decided, in a sop to the Arabs, to refrain from aiding the enforcement of the UN resolution, meaning the partition of Palestine. And in an important secret corollary... it agreed that Britain would do all in its power to delay until early May the arrival in Palestine of the UN (Implementation) Commission. The Foreign Office immediately informed the commission "that it would be intolerable for the Commission to begin to exercise its authority while the [Mandate] Palestine Government was still administratively responsible for Palestine"... This... nullified any possibility of an orderly implementation of the partition resolution.
By 1948, the majority of Palestinians, about 700,000 to 800,000 people from 500 to 600 villages, were displaced. They were either expelled or fled from their homes for fear of being killed, as had actually taken place in a number of villages.
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