All things Middle East related

[CRedskinsRule]

Originally Posted by NC_Skins

40 Maps That Explain The Middle East

Good and informative history on the Middle East. (via maps)

Excellent presentation. Thanks for linking that. It's a great starting point for any discussion of the region.

Couple of things that it emphasized to me:
1) the ethnic tensions aren't solely due to western influence, within the middle east there are equivalent nationality tensions that led to the European conflicts throughout 1600-1950 culminating in the 2nd world war.

2) Western and Russian arbitrarily drawing lines of demarcation, has certainly exasperated the factional divisions of the region.

3) the 1947/1948 map of the creation of Isreal, and the subsequent map showing recognition of israel and or palestine are stark evidences of a) the western intervention in the area, and b) the absolute rejection of that from almost the whole former muslim empire of 750 (map 20 compared to map 5)