William Cleveland A History Of The Modern Middle East

[Tonja Witcraft]

Themain problem, rather than misconceptions, is lack of knowledge. Students are interested in knowing more about Islam in particular, given September 11th, and also, as the Palestinian-Israeli conflict reaches us every day in one form of media or another, students are interested in knowing more about that situation. There, again, we go back to your first question: The Palestinian-Israeli conflict cannot be understood without a sense of the historical past. What we have is a search for knowledge rather than [a need to address] total misconceptions about the region.

I think it is unique to the Arab-Israeli conflict. I think that deep soul searching on the part of Arab scholars and academics, while it may exist in salons and private conversation, is not encouraged by the state itself, so that revisionist history published in Arabic by Arab intellectuals in Arab countries is really not a part of the publishing scene, as yet.

Another question relating to study of the Arab world: We are talking about a region of 22 countries from Morocco to Iraq. Can we really talk about this region as a unit? What are some of the dangers of that? And on the other hand, is there a danger in insisting too much on regional and national specificity?

To go back, briefly to the issue of who is writing the history, are there differences between the way scholars from within the Arab world approach history and the way outsiders would approach it?

I think that what students need to be aware of is that the regional state system that we take for granted, the existence of a group of Arab states in the region stretching from Egypt to Iraq, is a very recent phenomenon. The British and the French carved these states out of former Ottoman territory. The first major change is a regional state system with all the necessity of state relationships where before there was only one state. That is a significant feature and obviously one that has colored the modern Middle East since the creation of these states in the early 1920s.

Wow! The impact of World War II had a number of major repercussions. First of all the weakening of Britain and France led, finally, to the ultimate independence of all of Arab states. Some of them had a nominal independence before the war, Egypt for example, but World War II led to the full independence of the Arab states. And that led to what we were talking about earlier, a regional state policy. It led to their ability, for better or worse, to carry out their own regional policy.

In the period between the two World Wars most Arab political leaders and intellectuals were kind of torn between two conflicting ideologies: the need to build loyalty to the new particular state of which they were now citizens, Iraq or Syria, for example, and at the same time by the lingering belief that because of a shared language, a shared history and a shared cultural background, the Arabs were actually a single nation accidentally divided into different states by Britain and France. The example that was often used was Germany, where in the early 19th century Germany was divided into many principalities and tiny kingdoms, but German thinkers would argue that there was still a German nation there among all those little states. Of course German unification brought such power to Germany, presumably based on this cultural unity, that pan-Arab nationalist thinkers also used the same kind of argument, again, we have been divided artificially into states, but we are, in fact, one nation.

The U.S. was already pretty involved by the post-1967 period, but what it did for the U.S. and European countries was that they realized they had taken for granted the availability of Middle Eastern oil. And, of course, for a decade or so after 1973 smaller cars were built, cars with less horsepower, and there was a 55 mph speed limit in the U.S. There was a conservation movement afoot because it was recognized that oil is a non-replenishable resource and also that the North American continent was using up its oil and would therefore become dependent on the Middle East. Because of this dependency, sure, there was a greater involvement, but a greater concern that friendly rulers dominate the oil-producing states.

Finally, could you give us some background on the Middle East peace process and the Intifada? What would someone who is trying to take a historical approach to that want to pay attention to?

The first thing to look at is the driving force behind Palestinian militant opposition to Israel, in whatever form it takes. The basic issue is in 1967 with the Israeli victory, Israel ended up occupying the West Bank (which is essentially the West Bank of the Jordan River, which had been under Jordanian sovereignty), the Golan Heights from Syria (which is less controversial right now), and the Gaza Strip (which had been under Egyptian sovereignty). It is the Israeli occupation of these two areas in particular, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, that have generated a Palestinian response. What happened within the Israeli body politic was that these occupied territories were seen as potential bargaining chips to be used to extract treaties of peace. But among certain factions of the Israeli public with all its Old Testament, Biblical resonance, settlement of the West Bank became a kind of a religious imperative. This spread, not just within religious circles, but became a part of Israeli politics, particularly with the election of Menachem Begin and his right-wing Likud group. Begin favored settlement and annexation of the West Bank. This in turn, as Israeli settlement activity increased, produced a militant reaction among Palestinians who regarded this other land as being taken away from them and who had formulated a kind of Palestinian nationalism which called the West Bank and Gaza Strip a Palestinian state, and they sought independence for that state. The ongoing occupation and the settlement policies are the root cause of Palestinian responses to oppose these two processes.

Your generous contributions help make TeachMideast, and our efforts to educate and provide high-quality information on the Middle East and North Africa, a reality. Help support the students and educators in your community by clicking the button below.

BROWN, ALEXANDER EPHRAIM (14 May 1852-26 Apr. 1911), inventor of the Brown hoist which revolutionized the lake shipping industry, was born in Cleveland, the son of Fayette and Cornelia Curtis Brown. He graduated from CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL and completed a course in civil engineering at Brooklyn Polytechnical Institute in 1872.

BROWN, DOROTHY GRACE MASON (4 Nov. 1905 - 16 Sept. 1996) helped establish the Maternal Health Association, now known as PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF GREATER CLEVELAND, and supervised the construction of the organization's first Mobile Birth Control unit. Born in Chicago to Ida Markquardt and Morris E. Mason, whose work with the Mohawk Rubber Co.

BROWN, JOHN (c. 1798-30 March 1869) reputedly became Cleveland's wealthiest African American citizen during a 40-year career as the city's most notable barber. Born of free parents in Virginia, he came to Cleveland in 1828 and in barbering took up a trade nearly monopolized in the 19th century by AFRICAN AMERICANS.

BROWN, LLOYD ODOM (12 Dec. 1928-3 May 1993) was the first African-American elected as a Cleveland Municipal Court judge and the second to sit as an Ohio Supreme Court Justice. He also served on Cuyahoga County's Common Pleas court and with the firm of Weston, Hurd, Fallon, Paisley & Howley.

BROWN, PAUL E. (7 Sept. 1908-5 Aug. 1991) was the head coach of the CLEVELAND BROWNS from its beginnings in 1946 through 1962. An innovative and highly successful coach at all levels, Brown developed coaching procedures that revolutionized modern football and earned him election into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1967.

BROWN, WENDELL PHILLIPS (27 Nov. 1866-31 Jan. 1951) was especially noted as a designer and builder of bridges during an engineering career of half a century. He was born in Hopkinton, R.I., the son of George and Martha Brumley Brown. From Phillips Andover Academy he went to Yale, where he received his engineering degree in 1890.

BROWN-FORWARD, INC., a funeral service company, was established in 1825 and is one of the oldest, continually-operating funeral homes in Ohio. The company was originally founded by Daniel W. Duty, who sold furniture and cabinets in addition to his undertaker services. Duty operated from a small office on the corner of St. Clair Avenue and Water (W. 9th) Street.

BROWNE, CHARLES FARRAR [ARTEMUS WARD, PSEUD.] (26 Apr. 1834-6 Mar. 1867), a nationally known journalist and humorist, spent only 3 years in Cleveland but here invented his alter ego "Artemus Ward." Born in Waterford, Maine, to Levi and Caroline Farrar Brown, he moved to Ohio in 1854, working for papers in Tiffin and Toledo before JOSEPH W.

BROWNE, MARY KENDALL "BROWNIE" (3 June 1891-19 Aug. 1971), championship golfer and tennis player, was born in Ventura County, California, the daughter of Albert William and Neotia Rice Browne and attended high school in Los Angeles. Only 5 ft., 2 in. she learned the man's all-court tennis game from her brother Nat, and developed into a sound shot maker and an aggressive player.

The BRUSH AND PALETTE CLUB was one of the many small art groups founded in the late 19th century to support local artists and provide them an opportunity to discuss art with their colleagues and to display their work annually.

The BRUSH DEVELOPMENT CORP., which became the world's largest producer of artificially grown piezo electric crystals, was organized in 1930 to market electronic devices utilizing the crystals, which had been developed in the Brush Laboratories. Located at E. 40th St. and Perkins Ave., the company, under the direction of president Alfred L.

3a8082e126