Creation of the Middle East

Summary - During WWI, the Ottoman Empire which had sided with the Central Powers ruled over vast lands in the Middle East. The Treaty of Versailles gave Great Britain and France control over the region which proceeded to carve out nations that make up Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq. Eventually the Balfour Deceleration would help establish the Jewish state of Israel in Palestine.


Today, there are many events happenning in the Middle East. One major occuring event is the conflict between the Israli and Palestinian people. This problem originates all the way back to before WWI. What began to occur during this time was zionist movment (Jewish nationalism). This form of Jewish nationalism, that continued into the 1920s and 1930s, encouraged the Jews to migrate to Palestine which would in turn make a Jewish-majority state there. Palestinian Arabs then began to demand a state of their own to be established, which was Palestine. Palestine, however, was ruled by the United Kingdom under the Palestine Mandate. The Brish however were being attacked by Zionist independence fighters and in 1948, they left after a 28 year period of rule. Israel then declared its independence but was then attacked by neighboring Arab states. After the victory of Israel, Over 700,000 Arab Palestinians fled the region. Israel continued to take over lands, such as East Jerusalem, the West Bank of the Jordan River, and the Gaza strip. This broke Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention which says that the settlement and annexation of territory aquired in military conflict is forbidden. In 1987, a small up-rising against Israeli rule grew into a large conflict in Gaza, Jerusalem. An attampt to avoid tension in Gaza was the construction of the West Bank Wall, which has since been able to stop Palestinian militants from launching attacks against southern Israel. The best diplomatic way to end tension is a new distribution of territories between Israel and Palestine. The conditions would be that Israel would still maintain Jerusalem (their inherited right) and that the distribution would make Israel not spread out and in the middle. The entire territory will be split right down the middle with more security barriers to prevent any further attacks. If this is done, then the attacks would die down. The two peoples will not become bestfrieds (they have only hated eachother for the last century) but they can still avoid war and killing.

Tsarist Russia-A Day in the Life of Peasant

Peasant's in Tsarist Russia were very badly off. They would wake up evry morning in freezing temperatures in their little izbas(huts). This made them save a quater of the room in the hut for a perch, or large stove that was fueled with straw. They would be practically starving from the shortage of food because of the lack of crop production. This was due to the poor, hard, and sometimes swampy soil conditions. They all had to bond together, peasant to peasant and share food from a common bowl just so their bellies would be some what satisfied. This became a sign of friendship and trust, which was a good feeling for these peasants considering they were ruled by a ruthless and selfish tsars. These same tsars heavily taxed these peasants which brought them down into complete poverty. The only thing that kept them pushing on was story telling. This was when peasant families would sit down together and tell eachother stories of how the future would be bright and full. This and the trust they all had in eachother enabled them to persevere through hard times. These people most certainly would support the idea for a Revolution. This is because they were economically in poverty and needed change in order for them to have better lives.