Understanding the Middle East :D

[WhatIfGodWasJustAMyth]

Given your current level of understanding in World Geography, explain the present situation in the Middle East and how it came about. Be sure to include only the facts as we know them today.

[5thHorseman]

In the Middle East, only Israel can claim to be a real democracy with real private industry. As such, in these horrible nations, the government controls everything and the people know no different. Therefore they think that when an American does something like publish a video, it must have been made by the US Government as that's how things work over there.(heard this in an interview this week)

Also, if you watch Middle Eastern tv(the supposed friendly ones too), which is completely controlled by the theocratic fascists and/or dictators; America, Israel and to a lesser extent, Britain, are portayed as the villians whenever ANYTHING goes wrong. Seriously, everything is blamed on these 3 nations. It's a great way to brush away any self made problems at home by directing the blame towards the easy targets; us kafirs.

[Mystic]

Some words...

Colonialism.
Dictators put in place.
Dictators don't serve the interest of the people.
Palestine-Israel issue.
Revolution in Iran.
Hezbollah defeating Israel and hebzollah as a formidable force/threat.
Sunni-Shia-Salafi division.
Iraq - Support of Saddam originally against Iran.
Iraq - Invasion, shia-sunni division causing war.
The want of Islamic state/Khalifa.
Terrorism believed by extremist as a means.
Shia-Sunni-Salafi power struggle in region.
West past support for dictators.
The Quranic outlook of disbelievers and their hostility towards Islam.
Freemasons in power, all over the world, + muslim beliefs in black magic and jinn and sorcery...and belief in Dajjal (a sorcerer whom will trick the world by magic that he is God) make them believe in a conspiracy of the top of pyramid of Freemasons to take over the world and bring the Anti-Christ.
Arab springs.
Syria being key to Hezbollah.
Rebels in Syria promised to attack hezbollah and Shias in Iraq (and of course will slaughter the Alawites in Syria).
Iran China Russia and other countries trying to keep a balance really with Syria.

It's all a mess... but these all factor in.

[Polaris]

A power struggle (land, resources, control of the people) where they use the innocent as pawns for the Moslems.

For Israel, basically acting like the Germans that mistreated them. They just don't do the whole genocide thing.

[kılıç_mehmet]

Given your current level of understanding in World Geography, explain the present situation in the Middle East and how it came about. Be sure to include only the facts as we know them today.

It's a really long story, goes far back.
I'd say that the current middle east came to be what it is a long time ago.

But to give examples from not too far away times, I'd say that British and French colonialism brought about the real catastrophe.
Before that, the arabs, the most numerous people in the middle east, were either desert dwelling bedoin nomads, or city-dwelling people bent on living out a peaceful life, or simple farmers in villages.
After the Ottoman empire got itself involved in a world war, the british were bent on taking over the arabian peninsula using divide&conquer tactics. For that purpose, they incited revolts which stemmed mostly from the ignorant bedoin tribes that roamed the area, with a certain brtish agent known as Lawrence of Arabia as their head. They had success, and the arabs were now expecting the independence they were promised. On the contrary, they received word that they were tricked, and were instead divided even further, into seperate nations, even though they were all arabs in the end.

The Brits and French began to modernize the urban populations of the countries that they held in their hands now, dealing with small-scale rebellions from time to time, probably from peasants and bedoins.
At the end of WWII, the red menace was on the rise, and it was also finding itself a following in the middle east.
The palestinians were the first to found and maintain camps in their country that were officially recognized by leftist groups in other countries, and many other leftist militants from other countries received their training in palestine, and continued to operate elsewhere.
To curb communism in arab countries, the NATO, led by the US, initiated a campaign that would fire up religious fervor instead of communism. Obviously, that was a very futile attempt, as those people obviously were slow to realize that fundamentalism is in many ways, similar to communism.
IF you look at the pictures of Alexandria from the times of the British occupation and today, you'd see many differences.
It's not that it was brought upon by the british occupation, there were many arab visionaries, that advocated nationalism and modernization of thought and deed, who were silenced afterwards.

And well, the foundation of Israel was obviously the last straw for them. They had revolted against the caliphate for their british friends, and were fucked over the head by the same people, the westerners, who were now supporting Israel instead.

The other folks, such as the tajik-folk in the middle east, such as persians, pashto, tajiks, tats, kurds, balochis and etc. were not doing very well.
From these, the persian(fars), tajik and pashto, were dominant people in the areas they lived in. The fars were screwed over by the west due to oil interests in the area, and after that, the shah was deposed of by a revolution, which led to the foundation of the Islamic republic of Iran.
The west sought to use the same tactics of divide and conquer, supporting Iraq in this war.

The kinsmen of the fars, the pashto and tajiks were doing not so well in Afghanistan. The Soviets were pressing in, seeking warm waters, and the US and NATO were determined to stop them. So they armed the local mujahidin, who in turn fought the soviets, and thankfully repulsed them. But they armed them not only with weapons of steel, but also trained them in mental warfare, which included a rigorous religious education, hence the name "taliban", which means student in arabic(Talib, meaning student, Talibun, plural).

Yeah, I believe that explains only a small part.
There are also many other variables that should be taken into consideration, but they'd take us a while, while back, I'd say.