Talk:History of the Middle East/Archive 1

I found some POV problems in this article - Its not good to group the entire middle east under one umbrella - Some Arab countries have healthy economies while others don't. WhisperToMe 05:49, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

That isn't true. Some Arab countries such as Qatar have oil and small populations, and are thus rich. I wouldn't call that a healthy state of affairs though. None of them, with the partial exception of Lebanon, have functioning market economies with an entrepreneurial class.

More importantly, I have reverted all your edits. As I might have expected from our arguments at History of Athens, they are poorly written. They also drag in a great mass of irrelevant detail about Osama etc which don't belong in an overview article. Also, and quite predictably, under the guise of "NPOV" they in fact remove anything which seeks actually to explain what has happened in the Middle East.

Adam 08:40, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Why not improve the grammar manually instead of just reverting the edit. Listen, there's a reason why I changed the content. Not ALL PARTS of the Middle East are doing poorly. Trying to keep it simple makes it misleading. Detail is needed in some respects.

It is a point of view by trying to imply that all of the middle east is backwards. Yes, oil is still the main industry, but these countries are weaning themselves off of it, partly due to the help from the guest workers, which come from countries like the Philippines and India.

Oh, and BTW, Dubai is diversifying its economy by opening high-tech sectors and other business areas in the emirate. In addition, Dubai has the Middle East's largest airport and is becoming a travel hub - It has flights to 4 cities in Australia and will get NYC service in June of 2004. WhisperToMe 08:55, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Adam 09:07, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * The countries which have both oil and small populations (the UAE, Qatar, Bahrein and Kuwait) have only a tiny part of the population of the Middle East. The fact that they are rich doesn't qualify the fact that Arab Middle East as a whole is economically backward. And even they don't have genuine market economies, although they are moving in that direction. As for Dubai, anywhere can be a travel hub if it halfway from someway to somewhere else and has cheap oil.
 * This is an article about the whole history of the Middle East, spanning more than 2,000 years. All that stuff about Osama clearly doesn't belong in it - add it to the Osama bin Laden article if you think it's important.
 * If I though the material you added to the article was important and relevant, I would have taken the time to copyedit it (I have been a subeditor for many years among other things), but it wasn't, so I didn't. See the note at your Talk page on this subject.

Also, here's what's POV in this... "The advent of a new western army of occupation in a Middle Eastern capital marked a turning point in the history of the region. If the U.S. succeeded in transforming Iraq into a prosperous and stable democratic state, the consequences for the region might indeed be great. But the consequences of failure would also be very far-reaching. In early 2004 it was still not clear whether the U.S. project in Iraq would succeed even to the extent of holding elections there, let alone transforming the Middle East. By 2004 also George W. Bush's "road map" for a peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians had evidently failed, and the Israelis were embarking on a unilateral settlement by building a security barrier which would amount to a de facto annexation of parts of the West Bank to Israel. From Algeria to Iran, the Middle East remained a zone of authoritarian regimes, stagnant economies and civil conflicts."
 * The Road Map has stalled, but this hasn't degenerated into total war. There is some positive news in the Road Map - Israel is pulling Jewish settlements from some places.
 * The kingdoms and dictatorships vary in authoritarianism. The UAE's leader is liberal, as is Qatar's, Saudi Arabia and Iran have theocracies, and Syria has a dictator.
 * Gulf Air, a Middle Eastern airline, is getting its first women pilots! Doesn't this say something? Not all of the Mideast is "backwards", compared to the West
 * Not all of the mideast is stagnant, explained above. WhisperToMe 09:05, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I stand by my statement that the roadmap has failed. What Sharon is doing now is a post-roadmap process. None of your other statements have any bearing on the discussion. If you think Sheikh Zayed is a liberal, you should try living there. Adam 09:10, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Adam, its no longer just oil. Middle Eastern governments are using oil profits to diversify their economies. Dubai is starting to get huge in telecommunications (Just opened Dubai Internet City), transit (Like Atlanta Airport), Tourism (Desert expeditions and beaches are there, along with the World's Richest Horse Race) - But I do admit that I added too much on OBL. But I'm going to make a new reply.

BTW, See Dubai, and book a flight there to get some education :). WhisperToMe 09:13, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Adam, veils aren't required in Dubai, and pretty women are only what's hired by Emirates, a la Singapore Airlines. Trust me, I know some people over the net who have been there, and its supposed to be magnificent. Many in Dubai want to Etisalat's monopoly on the net, and some Gulf newspapers have significant press freedom. WhisperToMe 09:16, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Whisper, the Middle East (broadly defined) has a population of about 300 million. The UAE has a population of 2.4 million (less than 1% of the total), of whom only 20% (less than 0.1% of the total) are actually UAE citizens. What happens in Dubai is therefore almost entirely irrelevant to a general overview of the economic situation in the Middle East.

In any case, here is an extract from my website on the political situation in the UAE: "There are no political parties in the UAE and the legislature is nominated by the Emirs. The majority of the population who are not Emirate Arabs have no civil or political rights, and groups such as Human Rights Watch are trying to persuade the government to improve their legal situation. The Emirates' great oil wealth has helped to prevent organised opposition. Amnesty International's 2003 Report on the United Arab Emirates reported continuing human rights abuses: "New and broader security provisions facilitated the arbitrary arrest and incommunicado detention of up to 250 United Arab Emirates (UAE) nationals. Most remained in detention at the end of the year. The arrests, which began towards the end of 2001, were carried out in the context of combating "terrorism". Some of those detained were reportedly ill-treated. Dozens of people employed by the ministries of justice and education were forcibly retired or transferred as part of an ongoing policy of limiting freedom of expression and association"." Adam 09:36, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Yes, the emirs do control the UAE - Yet they have been liberal, in comparison to other mideast countries. They did snag Djamel Beghal at Dubai airport on false passport charges - with some "coercion", they fouled the Paris embassy terrorist attack plot - Beghal recanted some of his statements due to his alleged treatment, however. But the Philippines did worse to Abdul Hakim Murad. WhisperToMe 09:39, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

And also, the UAE and Qatar have among the freest presses in the region. WhisperToMe 09:41, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

OK, Whisper, I should know better than to try to persuade you of anything. I will continue to revert edits such as the ones you have been making.

I will however add a sentence or two on the relative liberalism and prosperity of the Gulf states.

Adam 09:57, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Adam, you don't own Wikipedia. And you are being accused of being racist on the IRC chatroom. Seriously now... WhisperToMe 10:04, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I don't claim to own WP. I claim the same right to revert edits as very other User has, including you. You can't win these debates just by persistence. If I say the Earth is flat three times, that doesn't require you to accept it. And I have no interest in what is said about me on IRC, which I don't use, or anywhere else. Adam 10:13, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Adam you have taken credit for other peoples articles on your website. MysticalCow 10:29, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

What does that mean? Adam 10:30, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

You say my contributions on your homepage as if they are just yours and not the work of many. http://www.adam-carr.net/ MysticalCow 10:34, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

That is a lie. I list three articles I wrote myself and one (Prussia) which I completely rewrote. Adam 10:40, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I know this is OT, but perhaps you could link to your edits only, in some form of log, instead of just outright listing the articles. WhisperToMe 10:38, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I have added a disclaimer at my website pointing out that all WP articles are open-access and may contain work by other contributors. Nevertheless, the statement that I "have taken credit for other peoples articles" is a LIE for which I expect an apology. Adam 10:53, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

=Proposed new version=

Is this better?

The modern Middle East
By the 1990s, some Westerners saw the Middle East as not just a zone of conflict, but also a zone of backwardness. The rapid spread of political democracy and the development of market economies in Eastern Europe, Latin America, East Asia and parts of Africa passed the Middle East by. In the whole region, only Israel and Turkey were democracies.

In some of the countries, including several in Levant, while the growth of market economies was inhibited by political restrictions, corruption and cronyism, overspending on arms and prestige projects, and overdependence on oil revenues. The successful economies in the region other than Turkey and Israel were those which combined oil wealth with low populations, such as Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. In these states, the ruling emirs allow a certain degree of political and social liberalization, yet without giving up any of their own power. The emirs are considered liberal in comparison to their neighbors, but conservative compared to the United States, Canada, Western Europe, Japan, and Australia. The market economies in those countries started to grow and diversify.

By the end of the 1990s, several countries in the Middle East were falling behind not only Europe, but also behind India, Mainland China and other rapidly developing market economies, in terms of production, trade, education, communications and virtually every other criterion of economic and social progress. The assertion that, if oil was subtracted, the total exports of the whole Arab world were less than those of Finland were frequently quoted in the West. The theories of authors such as David Pryce-Jones, that the Arabs were trapped in a "cycle of backwardness" from which their culture would not allow them to escape, was widely accepted in the west.

The failure of the attempt by Bill Clinton to broker a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians at Camp David in 2000 (2000 Camp David Summit) led directly to the election of Ariel Sharon as Prime Minister of Israel and to the Al-Aqsa Intifada, characterised by suicide bombing of Israeli civilian targets. At the same time, failures of some of the Arab regimes and the bankruptcy of secular Arab radicalism led a section of educated Arabs (and other Muslims) to embrace Islamism, promoted both by the Shi'a clerics of Iran and by the powerful Wahhabist sect of Saudi Arabia. Many of these militant Islamists gained military training while fighting against the forces of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

One of these was a wealthy Saudi Arabian, Osama bin Laden. After being in Afghanistan, he offered assistance to the Saudi Royal Family during the Gulf War. They chose the Americans instead, which infuriated him. His al-Qaida organization was moved to Sudan after he was expelled from Saudi Arabia. He started to plot against the United States in 1991. He lost his Saudi citizenship in 1994, and was expelled from Sudan in 1996. After resettling in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, his organization committed the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings and the USS Cole bombing. The most infamous attack was the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon near Washington, D.C., killing nearly 3,000 people. An affilitated group, Jemaah Islamiya, carried out the October 2002 Bali terrorist bombing in Indonesia, killing another 200. The September 11 attacks led the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush to launch an invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 to overthrow the Taliban regime, accused of harbouring Osama and his organisation. The U.S. and its allies described this operation as part of a global "War on Terrorism."

The Bush administration also apparently became convinced that Saddam Hussein was reconstituting Iraq's program of building weapons of mass destruction, in violation of the agreements it had given at the end of the Gulf War, although it later became evident that this threat was greatly exaggerated. During 2002 the "hawks" in the administration, led by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, developed a plan to invade Iraq, remove Saddam from power and turn Iraq into a democratic free market state which would serve as a model for the rest of the Middle East.

According to the Bush Administration, the plan was motivated by a combination of alarm at the prospect of Iraq developing chemical, biological or even nuclear weapons, an intense dislike of Saddam and his anti-American rhetoric, a desire to finish the work which George Bush had not completed in 1991, a desire to alter the Middle East balance of power in favour of Israel and cut off the sources of anti-Israeli terrorists, and the belief that the removal of Saddam from power could lead to the complete transformation of the Middle East. When the U.S. and its principal allies, Britain and Australia, could not secure United Nations approval for an invasion of Iraq, they went ahead without it, overthrowing and eventually capturing Saddam with no great difficulty, and occupying Baghdad in April 2003.

The advent of a new western army of occupation in a Middle Eastern capital marked a turning point in the history of the region. If the U.S. succeeded in transforming Iraq into a prosperous and stable democratic state, the consequences for the region might be great. The consequences of failure would also be very far-reaching. In early 2004 it was still not clear whether the U.S. project in Iraq would succeed even to the extent of holding elections there, or to transforming the Middle East. By 2004 also George W. Bush's "road map" for a peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians had stalled. As of 2004, the Israelis started building a controversial security barrier.

Whisper, here is my counter-edit, with reasons for changes stated:

The modern Middle East
By the 1990s, many western commentators (and some Middle Eastern ones) saw the Middle East as not just a zone of conflict, but also a zone of backwardness. The rapid spread of political democracy and the development of market economies in Eastern Europe, Latin America, East Asia and parts of Africa passed the Middle East by. In the whole region, only Israel and Turkey were democracies.


 * This avoids saying what "most westerners" think, which we can't really say.

In most Middle Eastern countries, the growth of market economies was inhibited by political restrictions, corruption and cronyism, overspending on arms and prestige projects, and overdependence on oil revenues. The successful economies in the region were those which combined oil wealth with low populations, such as Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. In these states, the ruling emirs allowed a certain degree of political and social liberalization, yet without giving up any of their own power. The emirs were considered liberal in comparison to their neighbors, but conservative compared to the west.


 * It is most Middle Eastern countries, not just some.
 * I wouldn't describe Turkey and Israel as particularly successful economies, though they are more-or-less free-market ones.
 * We don't need to list all the western countries.
 * The last sentence didn't tell us much: the point has been made.

By the end of the 1990s, the Middle East as a whole was falling behind not only Europe, but also behind India, Mainland China and other rapidly developing market economies, in terms of production, trade, education, communications and virtually every other criterion of economic and social progress. The assertion that, if oil was subtracted, the total exports of the whole Arab world were less than those of Finland was frequently quoted in the West. The theories of authors such as David Pryce-Jones, that the Arabs were trapped in a "cycle of backwardness" from which their culture would not allow them to escape, were widely accepted in the west.


 * Again, the statement is true of the region as a whole. That there are some small exceptions doesn't change that. All the major economies of the region (Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia) are in trouble one way or another, and the gap between them and the west is widening because they have much faster growing populations. Even in the oil states this is true, because the price of oil is falling in real times while populations are increasing.

The failure of the attempt by Bill Clinton to broker a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians at Camp David in 2000 (2000 Camp David Summit) led directly to the election of Ariel Sharon as Prime Minister of Israel and to the Al-Aqsa Intifada, characterised by suicide bombing of Israeli civilian targets. At the same time, the failures of most of the Arab regimes and the bankruptcy of secular Arab radicalism led a section of educated Arabs (and other Muslims) to embrace Islamism, promoted both by the Shi'a clerics of Iran and by the powerful Wahhabist sect of Saudi Arabia. Many of these militant Islamists gained military training while fighting against the forces of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.


 * Again, most is much more accurate than some. Islamist radicals, of course, say that all'' the Arab regimes have failed.

One of these was a wealthy Saudi Arabian, Osama bin Laden. After fighting against the Soviets in Afghanistan, he formed the al-Qaida organization, which is held responsible by the U.S. for the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings, the USS Cole bombing, the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. An affilitated group, Jemaah Islamiya, carried out the October 2002 Bali terrorist bombing in Indonesia, killing another 200. The September 11 attacks led the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush to launch an invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 to overthrow the Taliban regime, accused of harbouring Osama and his organisation. The U.S. and its allies described this operation as part of a global "War on Terrorism."


 * There was far too much unneccesary detail in this paragraph. The point is to explain Osama's emergence in the context of Middle East history, not to duplicate the Osama and al-Qaida articles.

The Bush administration also apparently became convinced that Saddam Hussein was reconstituting Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program, in violation of the agreements it had given at the end of the Gulf War, although it later became evident that this threat was greatly exaggerated. During 2002 the "hawks" in the administration, led by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, developed a plan to invade Iraq, remove Saddam from power and turn Iraq into a democratic state with a free-market economy, which, they hoped, would serve as a model for the rest of the Middle East.

In the view of most commentators, the plan was motivated by a combination of alarm at the prospect of Iraq developing chemical, biological or even nuclear weapons, an intense dislike of Saddam and his anti-American rhetoric, a desire to finish the work which George Bush had not completed in 1991, a desire to alter the Middle East balance of power in favour of Israel and cut off the sources of anti-Israeli terrorists, and the belief that the removal of Saddam from power could lead to the complete transformation of the Middle East. When the U.S. and its principal allies, Britain and Australia, could not secure United Nations approval for an invasion of Iraq, they went ahead without it, overthrowing and eventually capturing Saddam with no great difficulty, and occupying Baghdad in April 2003.


 * You can't say "according to the Bush Administration", because they didn't in fact say those things. They never said, for example, that they were going into Iraq to finish the job left undone by George Bush Sr. Commentators like us said that.

The advent of a new western army of occupation in a Middle Eastern capital marked a turning point in the history of the region. If the U.S. succeeded in transforming Iraq into a prosperous and stable democratic state, the consequences for the region might be great. The consequences of failure would also be very far-reaching. In early 2004 it was still not clear whether the U.S. project in Iraq would succeed even to the extent of holding elections there, or to transforming the Middle East. By 2004, also, George W. Bush's "road map" for a peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians had stalled. In response, Israel moved towards a unilateral solution, pushing ahead with its "security barrier" to separate Israel from the Palestinians. The barrier if completed would amount to a de facto annexation of substantial areas of the West Bank by Israel.


 * I have tidied up the last sentence a bit.

Adam 05:32, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

- The counter proposal sounds good. :)

There is one change that I believe should be made.

The barrier if completed may amount to a de facto annexation of substantial areas of the West Bank by Israel.

Israel is still debating over the exact borders of the security wall. WhisperToMe 05:49, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I have no problems with "may." Adam 05:54, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Wouldn't the Oslo Accords be another good thing to add to the Mideast History page? WhisperToMe 05:59, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I am very wary of getting this article drawn into the shark-infested waters of the Israel-Palestine conflict, on which there are already a dozen articles, all of them the scenes of endless edit wars. I actually thought of ending this article in 1947 with the founding of Israel, but eventually decided to continue through to the end. I don't think tracing the ins and outs of 30 years of failed peace plans contributes anything to this article. Adam 06:49, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The accords haven't been completely undone. Just mentioning them isn't giving too much detail. They are what set up the Palestinian Authority in the first place. WhisperToMe 23:44, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I also think that the role of women today in Arabic countries should be mentioned. In those that do not have conservative religious governments, women are starting to choose men that would allow them more freedom in their relationships, and they also are starting to get educated. - In several countries, women are needed in the workforce.

Also, I heard that Lebanon is starting to rebuild itself after the war. WhisperToMe 23:47, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I agree that a paragraph on the position of women in the Middle East would be useful. I suggest you write one and place it here for discussion.

Yes Lebanon is recovering from the civil war. Lebanon, like Israel, is an anomaly in the Middle East because it is 40% Chritian and the Christians are considerably Europeanised. Because the French left the Christians in charge at independence, Lebanon was a reasonably functioning democracy and market economy until it was taken over by the Arab-Muslim majority and sucked into the Israel-Palestine-Syria conflict, which caused the civil war and ruined the country. Adam 00:24, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Whisper: I did suggest discussing a paragraph on women before adding it to the article.

This is your paragraph:

In the Gulf emirates, Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt, the role of women started to change. Women are getting educated in universities to fill the labor demands of their countries, and younger women are choosing men who will allow them more freedom in their relationships. Bahrain is creating a house of the legislature that can be occupied by both men and women. The Emir of Kuwait passed a decree that would have given women the right to vote for the parliament in 1999, but the parliament rejected this. In Saudi Arabia, women still have many restrictions, such as not being able to drive an automobile. In Afghanistan, which is sometimes considered a country in the Middle East, the Taliban, which held much of the country, severely limited the rights of women until it was overthrown in 2002. For more information on that, see: Taliban treatment of women.

The problem with this is that it ignores the history of the emancipation of women in the Middle East, which began in the Ottoman Empire and continued in Ataturk's Turkey. Radical regimes such as Iraq and Libya emancipated women decades ago. The Gulf emirates are in fact almost the last places in the region to do so. This paragraph needs more research. Adam 04:53, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The paragraph mainly deals with emancipation of women during the 1990's. Also, it mentions the specific countries where the roles of women were changing. Of course, one could mention that women had already been emancipated in Turkey and Iraq. I'm grouping Libya with Northern Africa - The article should deal with the "Southwest Asia" definition of the Middle East, although Egypt is included as it has the Sinai Peninsula. WhisperToMe 06:33, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I tinkered with it a little bit with the intro sentence...

"Starting in the 1990's, the role of women in the Gulf emirates, Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt, had started to change, just like those of women in Iraq and Turkey had decades ago.

WhisperToMe 06:38, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * My point is that it is not good enough to have a paragraph dealing only with the 1990s - history didn't start in the 1990s. A paragraph on the emancipation of women needs to show some historical depth in a synoptic article such as this.
 * "Middle East" is a very loose term, as is explained at Middle East. Sometimes it extends from Morocco to Iran. Adam 07:16, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * 1 Well, perhaps we could elaborate on the roles of women for each era.
 * 2 I added "Southwest Asia" at the beginning of the article to help clearly define it.

WhisperToMe 07:23, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

This is not an article about a geographical area called South-West Asia. It is about a cultural and historical area called the Middle East, whose boundaries vary according to the period and the topic of discussion. Culturally and historically it includes Arab North Africa.

On second thoughts I don't think the "women" section belongs in this article. I am not qualified to write a social or gender-politics history of the Arab-Islamic world, and neither are you. In any case I think it belongs in a separate article. Adding paragraphs about social questions in the modern Middle East only disrupts the flow od what is essentially a political history.

I also deleted this paragraph:

"The Gulf Emirates, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia have a lot of guest workers, who are expatriates from Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia who come there to get jobs in those countries. The treatment of guest workers is controversial. Some of them are in isolated neighborhoods, away from Arab populations. Some of them get stuck without a job and have no money to return home. Some get into trouble with the law when they entrench on Islamic customs unintentionally. Guest workers make up the majority of the population in some countries."

Haven't you noticed yet that the whole article is written in the past tense? It is a history article, a narrative of things that happened in the past. If you want to write about the economy, sociology, politics or demography of the modern Middle East, you can do so at the appropriate articles, or start a new one.

Adam 08:09, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

There's a reason why I did not include North Africa. See: History of Africa, and that has several bits of history dealing with North Africa already. For this reason, this article will deal mostly with Southwest Asia. WhisperToMe 13:48, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Adam 14:10, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * What does or does not appear in other articles is not relevant to what appears in this article. There is no rule at Wikipedia that articles cannot overlap in their contents.
 * In any case, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Sudan are historically and culturally part of the Arab-Islamic world, not part of Africa. As I have said already, "Middle East" is a loose expression without precise boundaries. If I choose to use it in a sense that includes North Africa, then I can and I will, OK?
 * You do not have the right to arbitrarily define what the topic of an article which someone else has written will or will not be.

Adam, you are too loosely defining it. Some people say Greece is in the Middle East. There will be some overlap, as Egypt is in both SW Asia and in North Africa, and Egypt is so closely in touch with its SW Asian neighbors. Therefore, Egypt would be part of this (post-Arab world entry), but this article should no go beyond Egypt unless its referring to relations between SW Asian countries and others...

Perhaps this article should be moved to "History of Southwest Asia" if the title absolutely has to be in a more precise form. WhisperToMe 23:03, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Middle East is the recognised and commonly used term for this region. Most people have never heard of South-West Asia. The title does not have to be in a "more precise form." The title refers to, and the articles describes, an existing reality. If it offends your sense of geographical exactitude, too bad. This is a pointless argument. (Don't you have anything better to do than argue endlessly with me, by the way?) Adam 23:14, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Adam, arguments are a good thing on Wikipedia, just so much as it doesn't degenerate into personal attacks. You don't quite understand what I am trying to do here...

The entire Ottoman section should be left alone in this regard, as the North African lands are part of their empire, and whatever happens there affects Southwest Asia. However, in this sentence... "When republican revolutions brought radical anti-western regimes to power in Egypt in  1954, in Syria in 1963, in Iraq in 1968 and in Libya in 1969, the Soviet Union,   seeking to open a new arena of the Cold War in the Middle East, allied itself with Arab rulers such as   Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt and Saddam Hussein of Iraq."

IMO, Libya should be taken out there, as this doesn't show interactions between them and the Southwest Asian countries. Yet Egypt should stay, as they are better connected to the other Middle Eastern countries, and part of their country is in Asia.

I don't want to completely exclude North Africa, but I want this article to focus on Southwest Asia.

Do you better understand what I'm trying to do here? WhisperToMe 23:24, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

No I don't. As I have said several times, the article defines "Middle East" to include Arab North Africa when it seems appropriate to do so, as in the paragraph you cited. I will revert attempts to alter this. I am not going to argue further about this. Adam 23:53, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The issue is now at Requests for comment - Notice that I too said that I want North Africa discussed where appropriate, BUT I did not think that Libya had to be mentioned in that sentence, and there should be a sentence saying that this article mainly focuses on Egypt and the countries in Asia, and that there is further information on the North African history in the History of Africa article.

I think a better way to phrase this might be... "This article mainly focuses on countries in the Southwestern portion of Asia. For more detailed history of North Africa, see History of Africa."

WhisperToMe 00:00, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Paul has now protected this page, which I agree is the most sensible thing to do in the circumstances, although it is annoying because I have more material I wish to add to it. I think anyone who reads the whole of this Talk page, and also reads the page history containing the many edits which Whisper has sought to make to it, will see two things:
 * That the majority of Whisper's edits were neither well-informed about Middle East history nor well-written in terms of their English expression. Further most of them had the effect of dragging a lot of irrelevant detail and commentary about current affairs into what is meant to a broad historical overview of the history of the region.
 * That I have been very patient with Whisper, explaining carefully why his edits were not appropriate, and negotiating alternative wordings with him. This worked in relation to the substantial edit on the last section of the article, when we were able to come to an agreed text. But it has now broken down over his silly insistence that the term "Middle East" has to be synonymous with "South West Asia." This might seem a very trival question to have an edit war over, but it has to be seen in the context of the whole debate over this page. Adam 04:24, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

"But it has now broken down over his silly insistence that the term "Middle East" has to be synonymous with "South West Asia." " I never said that the term has to be synonomous, but that the article should focus on Southwest Asia moreso than North Africa to reduce overlap between this article and the History of Africa article. But I did learn that the example that I posted earlier should stay as it is, as I found that al-Qadhafi is a promoter of pan-Arabism. WhisperToMe 05:58, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Yes, it did belong because Libya is part of the Middle East culturally. Arab League conferences are held there, for example. The eastern border of the Middle East is fairly well agreed on (somewhere around the eastern edge of Iran seems likely to be well enough accepted for most purposes) but that's not so for the western side, which tends often to include much of the northern shores of Northern Africa. You can't exclude those because they are significant to too much of the history of the Middle East. Going much further west than Libya is seldom necessary, though. Jamesday 06:14, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

And of course the article does focus mainly on countries which are geographically in South-West Asia, plus Egypt which straddles the Asia-Africa border. But I repeat the point that "Middle East" is a deliberately ambiguous term which can be and frequently is used to include Arab North Africa. Adam 06:19, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * Agreed - Algeria and Libya are often lumped together with the Middle East. PMA 06:36, Mar 10, 2004 (UTC)
 * Yes, you can amend what I said to say that the article also focuses on Egypt and Libya, which are both in North Africa and both of which have strong ties to the Arab World. However, there are many other countries in North Africa, each with varying amounts of ties to the Arab World. I still think that this article should provide a link to History of Africa. WhisperToMe 23:24, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The article doesn't really "focus" on anywhere, it is a history of the Middle East as a region, so this this whole discussion is pointless. I have no objection to a link to History of Africa when the article is unprotected. Adam 23:38, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Unrelated, but Xirzon suggested that after the article is unprotected, to add more info on Western oil involvement in the Mideast. See: http://www.seen.org/PDFs/Crude_Vision2.pdf WhisperToMe 00:11, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The article already discusses the importance of oil in the politics of the region. We do not need to bring in more discussions about current controversies which are already discussed at length elsewhere. The article you have linked to is really about US politics and not the Middle East. Adam 00:58, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

From the discussion above; "Middle East is the recognised and commonly used term for this region. Most people have never heard of South-West Asia. "

This just about illustrates what is wrong with this discussion. There is a POV here shared by both principal protagonists. This is a western PoV that defines the lands to the southeast of Europe as the 'Middle East' and then asserts that since it has been so defined, it must have a common culture. This despite the fact that it has three major religions, numerous ethnicities and languages.

It does have a common history, but then any geographically contiguous region would have a common history. The efforts to draw in other Arab countries, Islamic countries, and other neighbouring countries to make sense of the 'common culture' are a waste of time.

The Middle East is an expression only of European and American views of the lands to the southeast of Europe. It is not a precisely defined term, and its usage often shows its user's viewpoint. I see that the Wikipedia article at Middle East has  yet another definition of the Middle East from most of those I have seen, which manages to exclude Turkey.

It would make much more sense to write histories of the specific regions and empires. The Byzantine empire, the intial Arab conquests, the Ottoman empire, the modern western domination. They all affected different regions.

From the article; "The decisive event in the creation of the Middle East as a distinct cultural region was the rise of Islam in the Arabian Peninsula. "

This is rubbish. The Middle East (as I understand it anyway) is not a distinct cultural region. The result of the rise of Islam was the creation of the Dar al Islam as a distinct cultural region. I could argue that the decisive event in the creation of the Middle East was the schism between the Roman and Orthodox churches. That would be mostly pointless, since it would depend on my PoV on of what the Middle East is.

Imc 19:17, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The thing is that "Middle East" is much more commonly known than "Southwest Asia" in the English language. WhisperToMe 20:04, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Imc is of course correct that the concept of the "Middle East" is a European cultural creation. Since this is an English-language encyclopaedia, it naturally and rightly has an article about that cultural creation. Wikipedia is part of the culture of the West, and discusses all subjects from within the Western world view. (Some Wikipedians deny or deplore this, but it is a fact). No doubt the Arabic Wikipedia treats the subject, and most other subjects, very differently. Adam 01:32, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * Granted, the Middle East being used as a name in the English wikipedia is not problematic in itself. Providing that it is understood that it is a 'European cultural creation', defined in terms of its relationship to (western) Europe, and is not in itself a natural cultural region, as for instance Kurdistan would be.

Attempts to claim that the region has a common culture because it is has been so defined by western Europeans and later by Americans just show Eurocentrism. I'll grant that there is a common history, but that common history only started with the domination of the area by western Europeans and then by America; i.e. from the 19th century onwards.

Regarding the name Southwest Asia, it should be noted that the term Middle East used to be regularly transformed into 'West Asia' when US news reports were printed in Indian papers (I haven't noticed if it still happens). German still uses the term 'Naher Osten' (Near East). The French often prefer to consider the Arab countries together, which is probably derived from their closer historical contact with several Arab countries. Imc 18:15, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Yes, Imc is right that there are several cultures, especially in Levant and Mesopotamia. WhisperToMe 19:36, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

But after creating the Southwest Asia article, I've decided that should end the dispute. I'm calling it off. WhisperToMe 06:53, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)

As soon as this is unprotected, I don't think a "Geography of the Middle East" link should be listed, as the "Middle East" isn't a good geographical term itself. WhisperToMe 06:58, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)

So you called off the dispute for a whole five minutes. That's a good start, but I'm sure you can do better. Try going cold turkey by taking these articles off your watchlist. Adam 07:33, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I don't see my participation in this article as being a factor in this as much as the fact that I created a new Southwest Asia to satisfy the geography stuff. I'll let the style of the "History of the Middle East" go how it is going. WhisperToMe 08:22, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Completely unrelated to this whole dispute, Arafat's official title is 'Chairman', not 'President'. Coredumb 20:22, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)

He is President of the Palestinian Authority. "This agreement included provision for the Palestinian elections which took place in early 1996, and Arafat was elected President of the Palestine Authority." Adam 23:58, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)

He is both. The head of the Palestinian Authority is given the title "ra'is" -

From Yasser Arafat: "Israeli documents usually translate it as "chairman", while Palestinian documents translate it as "president". The United States usually follows the Israeli practice, while the United Nations usually follows the Palestinian practice." WhisperToMe 00:41, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

He is called "Chairman" because he is Chairman of the PLO. He is called "President" because he is President of the PA. The latter title is obvious more important and should take precedent. I don't think Israeli or US government usage should determine our usage. Adam 00:46, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Unprotection
I'd like to unprotect this article, but first I have to know - has a compromise on this article been reached? &rarr;Raul654 11:38, Mar 24, 2004 (UTC)

That is entirely up to WhisperToMe. If he has given up trying to impose his personal definition of the Middle East on the rest of the world, the article can be unprotected. If not, not. Adam 22:49, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

"Because the French left the Christians in charge at independence, Lebanon was a reasonably functioning democracy and market economy until it was taken over by the Arab-Muslim majority and sucked into the Israel-Palestine-Syria conflict, which caused the civil war and ruined the country. Adam 00:24, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC) " I find this discinctly racist, Adam (the clear implication that Christians by nature are democratic and have successful economies, whereas Islamic Arabs ruin countries and cause civil wars) and it is quite concerning that someone who has such views is in such a high position to make modifications to articles which would naturally be directly influenced by your own opinions. Possibly we could try and get a lot more people to get involved in this article in order to fully legitimise it and stop the stupid two-way argument that has been going on. Hauser 14:44, 2 May 2004 (NZEST)

The facts of Lebanese history are I stated them. I drew no inferences from them about any nation or race being anything "by nature," and in fact I hold no such views. I believe that all nations and races are capable of creating market economies and political democracies if given the opportunity - which is why I support the current efforts to create a democracy in Iraq. That being said, it is obvious that there is an ingrained culture of authoritarianism in the Arab-Islamic world, and also a tendency to blame outsiders (Jews, Christians, Americans) for the Arab-Islamic world's problems. But I am optimistic about these things. It is only 20 years since we were told that East Asians, Africans, South Americans and Slavs were also incapable of creating democracies. Adam 05:32, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

It's good to see that you aren't a racist :). "also a tendency to blame outsiders (Jews, Christians, Americans) for the Arab-Islamic world's problems." I agree with this to quite an extent, though not in the case of the Americans. the irony is that the Americans destroyed two of the very few true democratic regimes in the Middle East during the Cold War : Syria and Iran . Hauser 22:45 3 May 2004 (NZEST)

Okay, what's wrong with having the title of the second-to-last as "The Middle East in the 1990s and 2000s" as opposed to the "Modern Middle East"? WhisperToMe 06:05, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Because "Modern Middle East" is more concise and reads better, while meaning exactly the same thing. Also "2000s" can be read as referring to the whole 21st century and we haven't had much of it yet. Adam 08:18, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Economy
The article claims: "By the 1990s, many western commentators (and some Middle Eastern ones) saw the Middle East as not just a zone of conflict, but also a zone of backwardness. The rapid spread of political democracy and the development of market economies in Eastern Europe, Latin America, East Asia and parts of Africa passed the Middle East by. "

And latter: "By the end of the 1990s, the Middle East as a whole was falling behind not only Europe, but also behind India, Mainland China and other rapidly developing market economies, in terms of production, trade, education, communications and virtually every other criterion of economic and social progress. The assertion that, if oil was subtracted, the total exports of the whole Arab world were less than those of Finland was frequently quoted in the West."

This is pure nonsense. The GDP (per capita) of Qatar and UAE is higher than Israel; Kuwait and Saudi Arabia's is higher than Russia; Iran's is higher than China. Syria, Jordan and Egypt's (notice these countries don't have oil) is higher than India. The whole article has a negative tone, and as this example shows that in some cases pure nonsense is used to maintain that tone. OneGuy 14:07, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Early History
"The area now known as the Middle East has a history of human civilisation extending back 5,000 years." Well, I know for a fact that there was a settlement complete with stone walls and a stone tower as far back as 8350 BC... I'd say that qualifies as civilization, ne?--Deridolus 03:25, 11 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Good catch.  &larr;Humus sapiens&larr;ну? 04:20, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Except that this is not really an article about the ancient history of the region. The idea of a geopolitical entity called "the Middle East" is a fairly recent one, as the article explains. Events before the Arab conquest should be treated very briefly, as they are covered thoroughly elsewhere. If need be I will make this clearer in the introduction. Adam 05:01, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Also, historians draw a dictinction betwee a culture and a civilisation. Pre-literate societies are generally described as cultures, and are not in any case part of "history" properly defined. I have removed the paragraph, which went right back to the Neanderthals (non-human hominids). Why not say that the first inhabitants of the Middle East were single-celled organisms? Adam 05:23, 11 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Fine, I'm convinced. Why don't we do the same in History of Palestine?  &larr;Humus sapiens&larr;ну? 06:20, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with that article so I won't venture an opinion, except to say that Palestine is a much more tightly defined area than the Middle East, so more detail is possible. Adam 06:25, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Multiple problems
Read the article, there are more than enough "rag heads" and other racist terms. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.168.115.106 (talk • contribs)
 * Thanks much for noticing! This is all today's vsandalism. The article has been restored to previous good version, and the vandal has been blocked for 24 hours. ←Humus sapiens ну? 07:10, 10 May 2006 (UTC)