AIOC

Question 1

KEY ACTORS: Nasser

Answer 1

• Radio station Sawt al-‘ Arab (Voice of the Arabs) - bypassing domestic national rulers.
• Engaged in Land Reform, nationalisation and population mobilisation.
• Distinguished himself from Soviets in 2 ways:
  
  • Rejected Atheism
  • Rejected class strife
• Arab socialism based on Islam and the interpretation of ishtirakia - Arabic for Sharing.
• The concept of a ‘unity of ranks’ had given way by 1961 to a ‘unity of objectives.’

Question 2

KEY ACTORS: Hafiz al-Asad

Answer 2

• Rose to power in 1970, winning out against radical elements of the Ba’thist. Came to power for opposing guerrilla war against Israel - arguing that Syria lacked the military capability to repulse the Israeli retaliation.

Question 3

KEY ACTORS: Iran

Answer 3

• Most impacted by WWII - dual occupation. SU withdrawal left in pro-US camp; however domestically the Shah was challenged by the nationalist National Front (Mosadeq) and the pro-Soviet Tudeh Party.
• Mosadeq becomes PM in 1951, nationalises AIOP.
• 1953 - Coup - removal of Mosadeq for Pahlavi - in place until 1979. Reorganisation of oil industry - US firms gain 40% total output. (AJAX).
• Rapprochement of SU and Iran led to White Revolution:
  
  • Land reform
  • Construction of an expanded road, rail, and air network
  • Dam and irrigation projects
  • Eradication of diseases such as malaria
  • Encouragement and support of industrial growth, enfranchisement of women, nationalisation of forests and pastures
  • Formation of literacy and health corps for rural isolated areas, and institution of profit sharing schemes for workers in industry.

Question 4

KEY ACTORS: Ba’th

Answer 4

• Michel Aflaq and Salah al-Din Bitar
• Cultural roots in the Marxist milieu of the 1930s Sorbonne.
• Anti-imperialism as well as doctrinaire socialism.
• “freedom, unity, and socialism”

Question 5

KEY ACTORS: PLO

Answer 5

• Governments tended to see Palestinians as destabilising to the functioning of state. Palestinians tended to join existing political movements rather than act as independent in 1950s. • Primarily stationed in Jordan before 1970. (JORDAN CONTROLLED WEST BANK UNTIL 67)

Question 6

1947

Answer 6

• UN divide Palestine into two states.
• Jews accepted the partition resolution; the Palestinians, the Arab states, and the Arab League rejected it and went to war to prevent it.

Question 7

1948

Answer 7

• Israeli-Syrian conflict dates from the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, when Syrian forces moved down from the Golan Heights and seized a small amount of territory assigned to Israel by the 1947 UN partition plan, advancing to the Jordan River or just beyond as well as to the northeast shore of the Sea of Galilee.
• Conclusion saw this territorial border accepted, but then would be revoked by Ben Gurion. Syria absorbed a substantial Palestinian population.
• 1948 the USSR supported the establishment of Israel and armed it.
• 730,000 Arabs displaced.

Question 8

1955

Answer 8

• Ariel Sharon led raid on Syrian shore of Tiberias, killing 50 in an ‘unprovoked act of aggression’, although Israelis insisted that Syrians were firing upon patrol boats.
• Israel continued to be provocative in building infrastructure in DMZs.
• BAGHDAD PACT - seen as another form of colonialism.
• Nasser identifies with the Bandung Afro-Asian solidarity movement.

Question 9

1956

Answer 9

• Challenging Baghdad pact, and to control Suez (as symbol of national independence and as source of revenue), Nasser expelled the British for Suez.
• 23 July - Nationalised. ⁃ Israel conspired with Britain and France to secretly attack Egypt. Israel would launch assault, GB+FR would ‘separate the combatants’ and occupy the Canal.

Question 10

1960

Answer 10

• Conflict over access to River Jordan and tributaries. Israel began diverting headwaters of the Jordan river to the Negev Desert, to reclaim the Negev as agricultural land. Syria responded by diverting tributaries upstream, in southern Lebanon and the Golan Heights, which in turns led to Israeli raids which destroyed Syrian diversion facilities.

Question 11

1961

Answer 11

• Syria seceded from UAR. Known as the Infisāl.
• Speech - Khrushchev argued that it was the duty of the socialist camp to aid peoples struggling for their freedom from colonial domination and newly independent nations, even if they were not yet socialist by any stretch of the imagination.

Question 12

1964

Answer 12

• Palestinian Liberation Organisation, established by the Arab League, but very much under the control of Arab states, and in particular Egypt. At that point it was a ‘non-state actor’ only in name.

Question 13

1967

Answer 13

• Nasser called for removal of UN forces stationed on border with Israel.
• Closed straits of Tiran to Israel. Israelis launch surprise attack on Egyptian 5 June 1967.
• Destroyed air force in hours. Stormed Sinai, reached canal. Syria lost Golan. Jordan forced to abandon Jerusalem and West Bank.
• Israel -> stronger than ever, Western backing. New borders would last for decades.
• 1967, gave the Palestinian movement room for manoeuvre: the regular Arab armies were discredited, while political mobilisation grew within the newly occupied West Bank and in the refugee camps of Jordan and Lebanon. The new leader of the PLO, Yasser Arafat, an engineer from a modestly well-off family in Gaza, used his own political organisation al-Fath. • Egypt, Syria, Jordan involved.

Question 14

1967 - EGYPT

Answer 14

• Nasser’s plans depended on the assumption that the Israelis would strike the first blow. The president rejected the first strike option as politically impossible because he thought it would give the United States and Israel the very pretext for which they were looking.

Question 15

1967 - ISRAEL

Answer 15

• Officials detailed in 1996 the messages which came from Washington: “a. Wait! b. Consult! c. Do what you like!”
• Initially, Levi Eshkol went on radio on 5 June to tell Egyptians that Israel had no territorial ambitions
• Defence Minister - Dayan, postwar: “I was absolutely against reaching the canal. I issued an order to stop at a certain distance from it. But the army presented me with an accomplished fact.”

Question 16

1967 - JORDAN

Answer 16

• Suez 1956 - Jordan offered another front to Israel, Nasser declined.
• 1963, Jordan entered secret dialogue with Israel, reaching peace on borders.
• Hussein felt Nasser was ‘acting like a madman’, but was forced into a diplomatic corner which insisted that he followed; in order to be accepted as one with the other Arab states (previously was seen as unloyal due to scheming in 1948)
• Samu’ Raid - 1966. IDF (Israeli Defence Force) launched attack on village of Samu - broad daylight, armoured brigade, heavy artillery. Jordanian army suffered massive casualties. Dozens killed, many buildings destroyed. Attack was retaliation for a landmine which killed three in Israel the day prior. The raid drove Hussein closer to Nasser.
• Hussein retrospectively saw decision as mistake.
• Jordan lost entire air force, 80% of armour, seven hundred soldiers.

Question 17

1967 - SYRIA

Answer 17

• ‘Most implacable foe’ of Israel.
• 1963 - Ba’thist coup. Existence of Israel - anathema; also a geostrategic wedge against unity.
• Inter-Ba’th rivalry amounted to coup in 1966 by the neo-ba’th, (ninth time in seventeen years that government had been removed by force) much more radical org.
• Severely unprepared for war.
• Golan Heights - Ben Gurion considered to be an integral part of Biblical Palestine - therefore historical right granted the Israelis access. Also established the practical desire to control the Jordan watershed.
• One commentator: ‘Ben Gurion’s territorial claims were large. He never tired of reminding his Arab listeners of the boundaries of Erez Israel.’ His ambitions extended to the Transjordan, as well as sections of Syria and Iraq. • Asad would come to power in 1970s through moderate rather than aggressive position on Israel - recognising Syria’s power in realist terms. • 1976, off the record + posthumous, Dayan confirmed that Israel intentionally provoked the Syrians, claiming that ‘more than 80%’ of clashes with Syria were instigated. ‘It went this way: We would send a tractor to plow someplace … in the demilitarized area, and [we] knew in advance that the Syrians would start to shoot. If they didn’t shoot, we would tell the tractor to advance farther, until in the end the Syrians would get annoyed and shoot. And then we would use artillery and later the air force also, and that’s how it was.’

Question 18

1967 - PLO

Answer 18

• Palestinian involvement against Israel was limited to the PLA - the military wing of PLO.
• 1967 pushed Palestinians towards a more specifically Palestinian nationalism + forced Arab states to recognise a new generation of Palestinian leaders.

Question 19

1967 - US

Answer 19

• The 1967 War has been seen as establishing the “special relationship” between the United States and Israel “based on a commonality of political and strategic interests” particularly related to Cold War issues.
• Resolution 242: UN - Called on the Arab states to accept Israel’s right “to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.”

Question 20

1973

Answer 20

• Egyptian invasion of Israel: the only war launched with a clear political goal that was attained was the Egyptian attack on Israel in October 1973: designed by Sadat not to defeat Israel but to redeem Egyptian prestige and force Israel to the negotiating table, it attained these goals. Sadat was still seen as treasonous by visiting Israel in 1977. The 1973 Arab–Israeli war was one in which the autonomy of local actors was similar to that of 1967 but in reverse: Egypt planned its counter-attack on Israel in secret and, whilst acquiring Soviet weapons, did not take the USSR into its confidence. • In his effort to marginalize the Nasserists, Sadat sowed the seeds of religious revivalism and radicalism. The October 1973 War added momentum and impetus to the religious milieu nourished by Sadat. • Unlike the Six-Day War, the regime and its clerical allies portrayed the 1973 war as a divine victory fought under a religious banner – Allahu Akbar (God is Great); although, the Sadat regime did not fully deploy the war-cry “Allahu Akbar” until the intensification of its de-Nasserization campaign in 1975.

Question 21

1978

Answer 21

• Camp David peace treaty - peace between Egypt/Israel

Question 22

1980-8

Answer 22

• The Iran–Iraq war lasted for eight years, involved hundreds of thousands of casualties.
• At its core, and despite major mobilisations on both sides, it remained a conflict along the frontier, backed up by air and missile attacks on each other’s capitals.
• 1984 - Tanker wars

Question 23

1982

Answer 23

• 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon was designed to root out the PLO and finish the Palestinian question on Israel’s terms; instead, it led to Israel’s first military failure and to strengthening of the PLO’s political, if not military, position internationally and in the region.

Question 24

1990S

Answer 24

• End of Cold War gives US unipolarity. Washington could devote attention to maintaining reasonable flows of oil. • The mix of oil, ethnic conflict, strategic interest and a new ex-nomenklatura clientilism, not to say kleptocracy, in Central Asia, all served to draw Washington, and its Saudi, Turkish and Israeli allies, into a new regional configuration, and towards new sources of profit.

Question 25

1990

Answer 25

• Iraqi invasion of Kuwait - Halliday - Saddam invaded not because the Cold War was over but because he did not realise that the Cold War was over. Saddam Hussein’s regime was itself an untransformed product of the Cold War, a nationalist military dictatorship forged in the height of the that conflict in the 1960s and 1970s and modelled on Leninist principles of control. Saddam modelled himself on Stalin.

Question 26

1993

Answer 26

• Israeli-Palestinian Declaration of Principles - raised hopes that some definitive settlement of the Palestinian question would be reached: indeed they envisaged a permanent settlement by December 1998.

Question 27

1999

Answer 27

• intensive negotiations between Israel and Syria, mediated by US Government. • Water solution -> key contested points of the discussions. Israel wanted full use of Tiberias, tributaries in the Golan and river Jordan. Syria was highly resistant to this principle, maintaining instead that the water issue should be ‘based on the relevant international principles’ - i.e. Golan falls under Syrian sovereignty.

Question 28

2000

Answer 28

• Barak terminated negotiations, without consulting Cabinet. Israeli military officials (typically dovish) were willing to agree with Syria on the border issue. They did not hold Asad as responsible for the breakdown in relations • Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Syrian negotiations collapsed. Second intifada began, Ariel Sharon was elected in 2001 and Israeli-Palestinian violence rose between 2001-02 • Second Palestinian Intifada destroyed potential for re-opening of negotiations. Integrated Western Asian Crisis - name from Halliday. • Cemented by Syrian decision to build 1,500 properties on the Golan.

Question 29

2001

Answer 29

• May 2001, Asad greeted Pope John Paul in Syria with the suggestion that Christians and Muslims make common cause against the Jews, “who try to kill the principles of all religions with the same mentality with which they betrayed Jesus Christ . . . [and] in the same way they tried to commit treachery against Prophet Muhammad.”

Question 30

GAZA

Answer 30

• Whilst Palestine called on traditional Arab symbols, the war held a strong(er) Islamic dimension. Hamas’ rhetoric more explicitly stressed Islamic references, especially when compared to Hezbollah openly Arab nationalist discourse in 2006.

Question 31

THEMES: Arab Cold War

Answer 31

Not a reflection of wider Cold War, but rivalry among Arab nations for seizing the mantle of Pan-Arabism. The Arab Cold War was marked by a complex interplay between the regional and domestic levels making the Arab world look like ‘a set of interconnected organisms separated only by porous membranes, or, alternatively a large-scale domestic system divided into compartments of varying degrees of permeability.’ Dominated not by ‘hard’ militarist power but ’soft’ ideological power.

Question 32

H: Lingyu and Thies

Answer 32

• War and rivalry promotes state capacity;
• External Rivalry - positive impact on state.
  
  • ‘Ratchet effect’ – status apparatus is able to increase the tolerance of citizens to rising extraction,
  • States of the Middle East have generally been ‘hard’ but not ‘strong’.
  • Because of the flat terrain in the ME, offence is often deemed to be superior to defence.
  • Pan-Arab nationalism has been the source of more interstate rivalry and conflict than cooperation and harmony.
  • Specifically, the inter-Arab rivalries relate to competition for the leadership of the Arab world, as well as rivalry over territory, water, ideology, clan interests and royal succession.
    
    • Pan-Islamists are more often the domestic opposition groups in the Arab states; and for the same reason, Iran, the Islamic but non-Arab state, is naturally a threat to its neighbours.
    • Much civil violence is ethnic or religious in nature. In Iran, Syria and Iraq – Kurds – the third largest ethnic group in the Middle East and the world’s largest stateless nation, have greatly shaped the state-building process.
    • Oil is TSE filling the gap left by war in Gulf states as a means of empowering the state - but this is risky: oil is finite, and cannot buy the status quo indefinitely.

Question 33

H: Valbjorn and Bank

Answer 33

• ‘New CW’ - region-specific dynamics reflecting cleavages within Islam or between so-called moderates and radicals.
• 2000s ME was infamously seen as a region divided between violent radicals (Hezbollah, Hamas) and moderate reformists (Egypt, Jordan, Saudi).
• Shift from old to new is not only the changes from adversary to ally from the likes of Egypt and Syria, but also the fact that societal actors rather than upstart Republics are the new radicals. Conflict has gone from between to within states.
• Combined with protests in non-Arab Muslim countries, question is raised as to whether the relevant context is Muslim rather than Arab.
• Groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas evidence a radical restructuring of conflict in the region. • Lessons: 1) Following the New English School, interest should be expanded consider the role of regional and interstate actors. 2) Sovereignty should not be viewed as a given or constant but a disputed and evolving concept. 3) Deterritorialisation of IR - movement away from ‘Westphalian state-system’.

Question 34

Findley

Answer 34

• Iranian and Syrian support for the Hezbollah and Hamas terrorist movements is the protracted border and regional-strategic disputes each country has with Israel
• Saudi Arabia actively provides clandestine support to Sunni extremist groups in Iraq to counter Iranian influence while Eritrea provides assistance to the Islamic Courts Union in Somalia to stymie Ethiopian intervention.
• Value of using terrorist groups:
  
  • 1. Strategic ambiguity and plausible deniability
  • 2. Compensate for weakness vis-a-vis rivals.
  • 3. Cultivation of bargaining assets
  • 4. State sponsorship of terrorist groups that target rival states may also confer strategic benefits in the realm of domestic politics.
• Additionally, Interstate rivalries erode cooperation between countries, and this extends to cooperation on intelligence, policing and counterterrorism efforts.

Question 35

Jerome Slater

Answer 35

• Conventional -> 1948 war holds that the Arab invasion, in general, and the Syrian attack, in particular, were unprovoked acts of aggression in-tended to destroy the new state of Israel.
• The Israeli new history scholarship persuasively argues, however, that Arab actions were motivated far less by anti-Israeli rejectionism than by three other factors:
  
  • Inter-Arab rivalries - Egypt + Syria alarmed by collaboration between Zionists and Transjordan. Invasion helped to block Transjordan territorial gains
  • Response to Israeli expulsion of 700,000 Palestinians. Whilst autocrats were generally unconcerned about the influx of Palestinians, they could not disregard word ‘on the Arab street’. ⁃
  • Border dispute - invasion was designed to ensure that final border between Israel and Syria would include access to the Jordan River and Lake Tiberias. Border dispute of this nature extended back to WWI.
• Core Syrian position remains unaltered since 1970s - peace if Israel withdraws from Golan Heights, which would then be DMZed.

Question 36

Wenger

Answer 36

Lebanese Civil War

• 150,000 killed
• Causes
  
  • Rich/Poor Divide: Christians were over-represented among the elite; Shi’I Muslims over-represented in the working class/ destitute. (There were extreme cases of poverty and wealth in both sects)
  • Unequal Power Distribution: 1943 Agreement – The National Pact – locked top political posts by religious sect, set resentation in a 6-5 ratio of Christians: Muslims; based on questionable 1932 census. Muslims are essentially the majority in the nation.
  • PLO relocated its HQ to Beirut after 1970, Palestinians and Lebanese in the South became a major Israeli target
  • Religion: The Civil War is often described as Christians vs Muslims, but religious labels often signify sectarian or territorial group loyalties rather than religious beliefs. The fiercest battles - Maronite Christians against other Maronite Christians and Shi’i Muslims against Shi’i Muslims in battles for power within their respective communities.
    
    • Many Christians and Muslims support secular political groups.

Question 37

Contenders in Lebanese Civil War

Answer 37

• Lebanese Army - Shi‘i Muslims. backed by US and Iraq (training and arms)
• Lebanese Forces - rightist, Christian militias. Israel provided training and equipment from at least 1976 to 1985, but recently Iraq has become a main supplier.
• The South Lebanon Army - Christian force created and managed by Israel controlling South Lebanon.
• Amal - Shi’i. Armed by Syrians, conflicting with Israelis
• Hizballah - Shi‘i party and militia rival of Amal - want Islamic State. Backed by Iran.
• Druze - allied with Syria.
• Palestine Liberation Organization
• Syria - opposed those which risked Syrian hegemony over Lebanon and PLO. Initially backed the PLO and the Lebanese National Movement, but then backed Christians.
• Israel - sabotage any Middle East political settlement it finds unacceptable. Israel has repeatedly intervened militarily in Lebanon, most massively in its 1982 invasion.

Question 38

Phases of Civil War Conflict (ignore)

Answer 38

• Civil War Begins (April 1975-1976) A series of incidents – government repression of a labor strike in Sidon; rightist attacks on Palestinians in Beirut – trigger clashes between the leftist Lebanese National Movement and the rightist Lebanese Front. • Syria Intervenes (1976) on behalf of Christian right when victory of leftist forces seems likely. Syrian-Christian Confrontation (1978, 1980-81) After the Camp David accords between Egypt and Israel, Syria switches again to battle against the Christian right, now openly allied with Israel. • Israeli-Palestinian War (1978-81) Israel briefly invades southern Lebanon, and subsequently increases the pace of attacks in southern Lebanon and Beirut, killing many Lebanese and Palestinian civilians as well as PLO fighters. US and Saudi Arabia broker an Israeli-PLO ceasefire in July 1981. • Israeli Invasion, Lebanese Resistance (1982-1985) Israel invades Lebanon to eliminate PLO. US Marines intervene in August 1982; withdraw in early 1984 after Lebanese attacks on US embassy (April 1983) and Marine barracks (October 1983). Lebanese Resistance Front forces Israeli withdrawal from all but border zone by June 1985. • War of the Camps (May 1985-January 1988) Amal, backed by Syria, attacks Palestinian camps to prevent PLO reestablishing military presence. • Syria sends troops to West Beirut in April 1987 to end fighting after Amal fails to prevail. Renewed camps war in south likewise ends in Amal-PLO stalemate. • Presidential Crisis (September 1988-present) President Amin Gemayel ends term on September 22 but Parliament does not/cannot meet to elect successor. Gemayel appoints Gen. Aoun interim prime minister; Druze, Shi‘i and Sunni forces, Syrian-backed, oppose Aoun, support acting prime minister Salim al-Hoss. Aoun’s troops initiate “war of liberation” in March 1989, hoping to provoke international intervention against Syria. Maronite Christian Rene Mouwad elected president under Arab League peace plan; assassinated; succeeded by Maronite Christian Elias Hrawi. Aoun refuses to recognize new president’s authority.

Question 39

H: Halliday

Answer 39

• After 1967, US relationship with Israel tightened. Seen as major ally against Soviets.
• 1967 signalled the end of Nasserism as a model for Egyptian, and Arab, revolution.
• Some Arab regimes retained closer links to the USSR: Syria remained until the end of the Cold War dependent on Soviet military and diplomatic support
• The second process unleashed by 1967 was the re-emergence of the Palestinians as an autonomous political force.
  
  • Prior to 1948 Palestinian politics had been dominated by a loose coalition of religious officials and notables.
• The rise of Islamism was the third underlying social and political process unleashed by the war of 1967. Islamist radicals saw themselves both as a challenge to the secular state and as a pan-Arab movement.
• Soviets saw the Middle East in both military and political terms.
• Soviets too avoided direct confrontation with the USA, despite repeated warnings, for example, by Brezhnev over Lebanon in July 1982, that they could not ‘remain indifferent’ to events so near their frontiers. Soviet leaders spoke ominously of the ‘smell of oil’, but did little to counter western action.

Question 40

H: Ferris

Answer 40

• The fulcrum of politics in the ME was not the AIC but inter-Arab conflict between Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
• 1955 and 1967, the so-called Arab Cold War split the Arab world in two, aligning revolutionary military regimes backed by the Soviet Union against conservative monarchies supported by the United States and Great Britain.
• Nasser’s skillful management of the competition between the superpowers for a seat in the cockpit of Arab nationalism produced the golden age of Nasserism. Assured a steady supply of advanced weapons and cheap development credits from the East, and plentiful economic aid from the West, Egypt in the late 1950s and early ’60s seemed to benefit from the best of all possible worlds.
• Nasser’s biggest problem was how to feed 600,000 new mouths every year.
• The solution the Free Officers adopted was, by and large, the Soviet one. Agricultural Egypt was to be transformed from above into an industrial powerhouse, substituting state enterprise for private property and local production for foreign imports.
• US interests in Egypt were derivative and negative -> restrain Nasser and avoid worse alternatives to his rule.
• Syrian withdrawal from the UAR (Sept 1961) seen as huge blow to prospects of united Arab state. Nasser reacted to the dissolution of the UAR with resolve to export Egypt’s revolution to his Arab rivals and determination to deepen the revolution in Egypt itself.
• Of the major Arab states, only Algeria was on good terms with Egypt in the summer of 1962; Iraq, Jordan, Tunisia, Morocco, Syria, and Saudi Arabia were all arrayed against Nasser. For the self-proclaimed leader of the Arab world, the unprecedented regional isolation that followed the secession must have been intolerable.
• Yemen provided opportunity to reclaim moral high ground in ACW. Egypt intervened in Yemen on the pretence that Yeminis wanted protection from Saudi.
• “Food for Peace” - Public Law 480. By 1962 Egypt was importing roughly 50 percent of its consumption of wheat, more than 2 million tons annually; practically all of it came from the United States. US aid fostered an unhealthy dependency, which rendered relations with Egypt susceptible to serious crisis in the event of disruption.
• The US-Saudi alliance was more durable than the bridge of illusions erected between Washington and Cairo in the early 1960s because it was grounded in shared interests.
• Deathblow to US-Egyptian relations- Congo - where the two governments had been tacitly supporting opposite sides in a vicious civil war.
• Crisis - no funds to pay for food imports. Had to commit to Communists. Nasser’s masterful exploitation of the Sino-Soviet split in 1964–65 came to an end.
• Now, largely as a result of Egypt’s continued involvement in Yemen, Nasser stood on the verge of losing aid from one and was busy staving off assaults on Egypt’s sovereignty by the other.
• AIC: Egyptian decision to send forces into the demilitarized Sinai Peninsula in mid-May followed the receipt of intelligence from the Soviet government, according to which an Israeli attack on Syria was imminent.
• Critics of the Yemen War argue that the Egyptian military atrophied during five years of conventional warfare against an unconventional opponent.

Question 41

H: Malcolm Kerr

Answer 41

• LEB, JOR, SAU allowed themselves to become open allies of the US and condemned Cairo and Damascus for allegedly opening the door to the spread of Communism in the area. Rewarded by US with arms and money.
• Syrian-Egyptian union- revolutionary ideas of socialism acquired particular significance from Nasser and the Arab Socialist Resurrection (Ba’th) party of Syria.
• Ba’th Party (BP) that propelled SY into union with EG.
• Autumn 60, unsuccessful attempt of Qasim’s life, attributed to the UAR. From 60-63, the situation settled down into a dreary and inconclusive cold war between cairo and Baghdad.

Question 42

H: Louis and Shaim

Answer 42

• 1967 -> not deliberately planned, rather a crisis slide
• Nasser appeared to challenge Nasser to a duel; through three steps:
  
  • Deploying troops in Sinai
  • Expulsion of UN from Sinai
  • Closed Straits of Tiran
• Inter-Arab rivalry was decisive in bringing war. ME was in a state of turmoil arising from conflict and suspicion between radical and conservative regimes.
• Militant Ba’th in Syria, 1966 started to push for war to liberate Palestine. Nasser was under pressure to support Damascus.
• Egyptian stationing of troops on Sinai was intended to be a political move rather than prelude to war.
• Superpowers did little to prevent. SU provided misleading report on Sinai Israeli troops; supported Egyptian motions. US preoccupied w/Vietnam. LBJ sent mixed messages to Israel. His last signal amounted to a ‘yellow light’, which Israel treated as a green one. Israel had tacit support of US.
• No plan - Israeli tanks halting at the natural frontiers (Suez and River Jordan) suggest this. Did rekindle irredentist claims on Eastern front - Old city of Jerusalem was unintended.
• Syria held that Egypt had failed to promote unity and precipitated a regional crisis.
• Golan Heights - <1% land mass, but key agri and water supplies.
• Conflict over Yemen made it difficult to forge a united coalition against Israel - esp. With Saudis and Jordanians. Rapprochement between Egypt and Jordan was intolerable to Israel. Looked like enemies on three fronts. Dayan noted in diary, it was “the last straw that broke the camel’s back.”
• Samu raid, Israel ‘extracted an eye for an eyelash’. Israel knew that Hussein was doing everything to suppress PLO Fatah.
• The militant Bath regime that captured power in Syria in February 1966 posed as the standard-bearer of Arab unity and continued to agitate for a popular war for the liberation of Palestine • A major landmark in the spiral of violence was an air battle on 7 April 1967 in which six Soviet-made Syrian MiGs were shot down by the Israeli Air Force (IAF).
• Jordan responded by criticising Nasser - claiming that he should have removed UN forces and closed the Straits of Tiran. Jordan signed a mutual defence pact with Egypt thereafter. Hussein signed over Jordanian army to Egypt. • Laroui - SDW saw the death of pan-Arab nationalism, and awoke the region to its backwardness.

Question 43

H: Khazen

Answer 43

• Lebanon has no numerically dominant group. No one group makes up more than 50% of the total population. Furthermore, differences between groups are small (Maronite, Sunni, Shia). Differences of this order have limited political significance in a society such as Lebanon made up of a large number of communities especially when differences among communities involve not only domestic issues, as in the case of other divided societies, but also FP and regional politics.
• During Mandate – marked increase in Muslim education – mid-30s, more Muslims than Christians attending private schools – 20% gain on 1920s. 1960: Disparities between communities declined markedly. Expansion of communal institutions, outside remit of the state, which tended to act as passive agent. Post-67 - Lebanon was de facto weakest player. ⁃ 1970s: Lebanon entered age of ideology and mass politics, spurred on by leftist politics

Question 44

H: Essay

Answer 44

• Lebanon: 1952, during an intersectarian Parliamentary crisis,
• 1958: Divsion between Christians - wanted to remain pro-West, and Muslims - wanted Pan-Arabism. The division did not result in wider conflict, primarily due to U.S. intervention (Operation Blue Bat) and diplomacy.

Question 45

H: Paul Noble

Answer 45

• Ideas were able to move around in a ‘a vast sound chamber in which information, ideas, and opinions have resonated with little regard for state frontiers’.

Question 46

H: Malcolm Kerr

Answer 46

Arab politics was first and foremost about Arab agency.

Question 47

H: Ellie Kedourie

Answer 47

“Chatham House Version” of Middle Eastern history, an interpretation still alive in contemporary analysis of the Middle East. This privileges the deeds, and especially the misdeeds, of foreign powers—from the Ottoman Empire to the United States of America—over the actions of locals. According to this reading of history, many of the region’s endemic problems, such as sectarianism, political violence, and war, owe ultimately to the malevolent designs and false promises of external actors.

Question 48

H: Nigel Ashton

Answer 48

biographer for King Hussein, claimed “Hussein’s decision to join Nasser in waging war against Israel in 1967 was the greatest calamity of his reign.”

Question 49

H: Gamil mattar

Answer 49

Nationalist commentator “The petro-dollar revolution swept people off their feet and transformed the social landscape. Oil money fuelled the rebirth of political Islam at the expense of Arab nationalism.”

Question 50

H: Habib

Answer 50

Founder of Egyptian Islamic Jihad - “To be honest with you, the Sadat moment was golden age for the Islamist movement, and we squandered it away.”