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This is one of the roots of the Middle East conflict: the British offered Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca Arab self governance if they would revolt against the

by chx 11y ago

This is one of the roots of the Middle East conflict: the British offered Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca Arab self governance if they would revolt against the Ottomans -- and gave them help in the person of T.E. Lawrence. Then agreed with their French buddies (Sykes-Picot) on how they will split up the region. The Syrian civil war can easily be traced back to this agreement. Then, to crown this all, the British issued the Balfour Declaration where they promised Palestine to the Zionist movement.

freyr 11y ago
For anyone interested in learning more, Lawerence in Arabia by Scott Anderson is a pretty good book.
- chx 11y ago
  And http://www.amazon.com/The-Balfour-Declaration-Arab-Israeli-Conflict/dp/0812976037 http://www.amazon.com/The-Balfour-Declaration-Arab-Israeli-C... is even better :)
berntb 11y ago
So the Mideast troubles comes from decisions a hundred years ago and a few million of "Zionists"? No local responsibility at all...? The problems had nothing to do with e.g. the Bath party, directly inspired by the Nazis? Or the hundreds of years of religious conflicts? Or the lack of experience of own governance, because of Turkish control? And so on...
golergka 11y ago
> Middle East conflict Middle East is a big place; there's no single "conflict" the whole region is involved it, but a complicated mess of all of them. http://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/posts/2015/03/Sharro_Diagram/original.jpg http://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/posts/2015/03/Sh...
- ArkyBeagle 11y ago
  There is the larger decline of the Ottoman Empire as a single ... syndrome.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
dogma1138 11y ago
And then the french and the british went and ruined the Faisal–Weizmann Agreement which could've mitigated some of the conflict. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faisal%E2%80%93Weizmann_Agreement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faisal%E2%80%93Weizmann_Agreem... That said that Israeli-Arab conflict is just a drop in the sea of middle eastern conflicts, if you could remove Israel today with a press of switch it's not like the entire region would magically re-align itself and become peaceful. Iraq and Iran didn't go into a war because of Israel, Saddam didn't invade Kuwait because of Israel, Lebanon didn't had a bloody civil war because of Israel, Iraq and Turkey haven't bombed the Kurds into submission for 60 years because of Israel, Iran and the Gulf states are not currently at a brink of war because of Israel, and ISIS for sure isn't there because of Israel. Like it or not Israel is more of a stabilizing force in the Middle east these days than a disruptive one, Jordan and Egypt are functional more or less due to their tenuous but peaceful relations and continuous cooperation with Israel, the Gulf States have been trading with Israel for decades now and their relations are becoming more and more public with Israel going as far as opening an "unofficial diplomatic office" in the UAE http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/28/world/middleeast/israel-to-open-diplomatic-office-in-united-arab-emirates.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/28/world/middleeast/israel-to... The overall sentiment of the many middle class and higher educated Arabs is that their leaders should be more "like" Israel rather than continue to blame Israel for everything under the sun. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not pretty but lets put it into perspective over the past ~70 years the total casualties amount to less than 30,000 at about 3 to 1 ratio, even if we go as far as over 150 years and include the pogroms and the Arab revolts of the 19th century we still arrive at about 100-110,000 casualties with about the same ratio of 3 to 1. If put this into perspective the Syrian civil war has had more casualties than the entire Jewish/Israeli-Arab conflict since the middle of the 19th century, and the casualties of Aleppo alone amount to more deaths than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since Israel's inception.

by chx 11y ago

freyr 11y ago

For anyone interested in learning more, Lawerence in Arabia by Scott Anderson is a pretty good book.

chx 11y ago
And http://www.amazon.com/The-Balfour-Declaration-Arab-Israeli-Conflict/dp/0812976037 http://www.amazon.com/The-Balfour-Declaration-Arab-Israeli-C... is even better :)

berntb 11y ago

So the Mideast troubles comes from decisions a hundred years ago and a few million of "Zionists"? No local responsibility at all...? The problems had nothing to do with e.g. the Bath party, directly inspired by the Nazis? Or the hundreds of years of religious conflicts? Or the lack of experience of own governance, because of Turkish control? And so on...

golergka 11y ago

> Middle East conflict Middle East is a big place; there's no single "conflict" the whole region is involved it, but a complicated mess of all of them. http://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/posts/2015/03/Sharro_Diagram/original.jpg http://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/posts/2015/03/Sh...

ArkyBeagle 11y ago
There is the larger decline of the Ottoman Empire as a single ... syndrome.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

dogma1138 11y ago

And then the french and the british went and ruined the Faisal–Weizmann Agreement which could've mitigated some of the conflict. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faisal%E2%80%93Weizmann_Agreement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faisal%E2%80%93Weizmann_Agreem... That said that Israeli-Arab conflict is just a drop in the sea of middle eastern conflicts, if you could remove Israel today with a press of switch it's not like the entire region would magically re-align itself and become peaceful. Iraq and Iran didn't go into a war because of Israel, Saddam didn't invade Kuwait because of Israel, Lebanon didn't had a bloody civil war because of Israel, Iraq and Turkey haven't bombed the Kurds into submission for 60 years because of Israel, Iran and the Gulf states are not currently at a brink of war because of Israel, and ISIS for sure isn't there because of Israel. Like it or not Israel is more of a stabilizing force in the Middle east these days than a disruptive one, Jordan and Egypt are functional more or less due to their tenuous but peaceful relations and continuous cooperation with Israel, the Gulf States have been trading with Israel for decades now and their relations are becoming more and more public with Israel going as far as opening an "unofficial diplomatic office" in the UAE http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/28/world/middleeast/israel-to-open-diplomatic-office-in-united-arab-emirates.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/28/world/middleeast/israel-to... The overall sentiment of the many middle class and higher educated Arabs is that their leaders should be more "like" Israel rather than continue to blame Israel for everything under the sun. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not pretty but lets put it into perspective over the past ~70 years the total casualties amount to less than 30,000 at about 3 to 1 ratio, even if we go as far as over 150 years and include the pogroms and the Arab revolts of the 19th century we still arrive at about 100-110,000 casualties with about the same ratio of 3 to 1. If put this into perspective the Syrian civil war has had more casualties than the entire Jewish/Israeli-Arab conflict since the middle of the 19th century, and the casualties of Aleppo alone amount to more deaths than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since Israel's inception.