NOVI HISTORY
Mrs. Johnson's 7th Grade Social Studies (Text Book: World History: Moffitt, Mullins, Blankenship)
HISTORY
The Ottoman Empire(1914)
The Ottoman Empire overtook many of the countries that make up Southwest Asia today, from the 1300s until the end of WWI. By the beginning of WWI, the empire was falling apart due to the difficulties of ruling such a large area.
When WWI began, the Ottoman Empire decided to join forces with Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Bulgaria to form the Central Powers an fought against the allies (Russia, France, United Kingdom, Italy, and the United States). Obviously, their side lost the war in 1918 and as a result, the empire was broken up into a number of smaller countries. The treaty was announced in 1920 and is now known as the San Remo Agreement.
Unfortunately, the European politicians whom had declared the boundaries of these new countries paid little attention to the religious and ethnic groups whom were living in the area. They didn't take into consideration the concept of nationalism which is the idea that countries are more successful if all people share the same ideology, religion, culture, and historic background/beliefs.
The Birth of the New State
An important area created from the Ottoman Empire was Palestine. This area was important to Jews, Christians, and Muslims due to its involvement in the Bible, Torah and the Quran.
At this time, most of the people living there were known as Palestinian Arabs. Many Jews immigrated to the area from Western and Eastern Europe because they belive that Palestine is the land that God had promised to the. These groups of people were known as Zionists or those who believe that Jews should return to their homeland. Conflicts arose between the Palestinian Arabs and the Jewish settlers and confilct continues to this day.
During WWII, the Jews were tormented by Nazi Germany, led by Adolf Hitler. There was widespread antisemitism(the hatred of Jews simply because they practiced the Jewish faith) in Europe. Over six million Jews were killed in Nazi concentration camps and many others left Europe to avoid death. This time period was known as the Holocaust.
Many countries in the world felt guilty over the Holocaust as they learned about what had happened in the German-run camps. In 1948, the United Nations voted to create a homeland for the Jews in Palestine. but didn't take the feelings of the Palestinian Arabs into account. Many Middle Eastern countries refused to take in the new "country". War broke out in May 1948 between the new state of Israel and the Palestinians, including other Middle Eastern countries.
The Israelis won the war and the new state of Israel survived, taking more land than originally planned. Many Palestinian refugees(people who have to leave their homes due to war) were forced from their homes and families. For the last 50 years, conflict has continued between the Palestinian Arabs and the Israelis.
Operation Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom
In August 1990, the country of Iraq invaded Kuwait to get their very large oil supplies. The leader of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, claimed that they were taking more oil than necessary. He also claimed that when the Ottoman Empire was broken up, Kuwait should've been apart of Iraq.
Since the US gains most of its oil oimports from Kuwait, it was concerned about the invasion.The United Nations voted to send a military force to drive out Iraq. This effort was known as Operation Desert Storm or the Persian Gulf War. Thirty-nine countries joined in and within three months, by February 1991, the Iraqi government accepted a truce and agreed to withdraw from Kuwait.
In 2001, after the destruction of the World Trade Center, the US began a military operation in Afghanistan aimed at capturing the people responsible for the attack. Intelligence sources identified an organization known as Al-Qaeda or the Force, led by Osama bin-Laden. The aim of Al-Qaeda was to bring down western influence in the Middle East.
The US launched a series of attacks on the mountain hideouts in October 2001 in an attempt to capture bin-Laden and destroy Al-Qaeda. Soon after, the Taliban (radical Muslim government) fell.
Two years later, in 2003, the US launched an invasion of Iraq, after claiming that the Iraqi government was developing nuclear weapon to aid Al-Qaeda. The US called this military action Operation Iraqi Freedom. The government fell rather quickly due to the fact that Saddam Hussein was a cruel, vile leader. However, problems arose because the United States didn't have a plan to help reorganize the country's government.
American forces have remained in Iraq ever since, trying to stop the fighting between the different religious and ethnic groups who are competing for power as they tried to reorganize a new government.