Medio Oriente (ingles)

The Middle East is the heart of Arab and Islamic worlds. It comprises:

• Arabian Peninsula

• Tigris-Euphrates river basin

• Lebanon coast

The world’s three greatest monotheistic religions where born here: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Zone of frequent conflict. Middle East has two thirds of the world’s oil, so it is a very big part of the economy of the world. In politics the rich countries are still ruled by families, like dictatorships.

Palestinian Israeli conflict

One of the main factors of the fight, is the land, that has been conquered several times. One of the most shocking events that has happen to one of this two parties is the holocaust during the World War II because this made the jewish realize that they needed a Jewish State, something official because they have been having a lot of territorial problems since the roman empire kicked them out. The WWII brought a very high rate of population of Jews in Palestine. So the UN decided to divide the territory in half and this was nothing good for the Palestinians, so the war broke down.

Palestinians had been overlooking this conflict as pacific parts. Even though Arab countries had acted fiercely, there was no response from the non-Arabic Palestinian population. In 1964, an Arab Summit was held in Egypt, in which the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) was created. It served to represent the Palestinian cause, and was integrated by many of the previous organizations. Its first leader was Ahmad Shuqayri and since 1969 it was led by Yasser Arafat.

The Six Day war (1967) was an armed conflict in which Egypt, Jordan and Syria attacked Israel, and lasted from June 5 to June 11. Israel won, and the territory it controlled was doubled.

Diplomatic efforts from Egypt and Syria to recover their territory failed, and in 1973 a full-scale war was launched during the Jewish festivity of Yom Kippur. This war was come to be known as Yom Kippur War or Ramadan War. Then, in 1972, 11 Israeli athletes were killed during the Munich Olympics by members of the PLO.

In 1977, the Camp David Accords were signed by Egypt and Israel. In these accords, the next was accepted:

• Palestinian self-government in the West Bank and Gaza

• A peace treaty between Egypt and Israel

• Peace treaties between Israel and its other neighbors

Of the three, only the third worked. The peace treaty between Israel and Egypt was signed in March 1979, but most Arabic societies didn’t agree with this and saw Egypt as a traitor.

In 1982, a new Israeli attack was launched against the Palestinians in Lebanon, causing an uprising from the Palestinians in 1987. One of the greatest events was when Palestinian youths threw stones at heavily armored Israeli soldiers, action at which the Israeli government responded with great violence. This demonstrations, called Intifada continued until 1993. The Intifada opened the doors to new negotiations; however, the Israeli government wouldn’t negotiate with the PLO because they considered them terrorists.

In 1997, a treaty called Oslo II was created to achieve peace: Gaza would be divided into three regions, the first one under the control of the Palestinians, the second one controlled by the Israeli, and the third one under a joint control.

However, over the last 15 years political and religious leaders were killed by their counter parts on both sides. This led to Israel wanting to build a wall on its border to prevent Palestinians to pass, and thus stopping suicide bombings.

In 2007, Palestinian and Israeli presidents seemed to be coming to a treaty, but then in 2008 an attack launched by Israel into Gaza broke these relations. The United States has been trying to get Middle East to peace, but neither of both parts seems to want to lose. This causes the negotiations to be in vain.

Iran

Iran has been ruled by several Muslim dynasties since the XIV century. In the XIX century a man named Reza Khan seized power, and renamed himself Reza Shah Pahlavi. In this time, the trading was ruled by the British and Russian Empires. But when the WWII started,

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