1.

Sykes-Picot

2. Zionism and the birth of Israel

3. Arab Nationalism

4. Islamism

I. Colonization and protectorates in the Middle East (Sykes-Picot)

PAPER 1: Sykes-Picot Roundtable

Sir Mark Sykes and François Georges-Picot lived with the secret agreement they were assigned to
draft during the First World War, to divide the Ottoman Empire’s vast land mass into British and
French spheres of influence. The Sykes-Picot Agreement launched a nine-year process—and other
deals, declarations, and treaties—that created the modern Middle East states out of the Ottoman
carcass. The new borders ultimately bore little resemblance to the original Sykes-Picot map, but their
map is still viewed as the root cause of much that has happened ever since. The colonial carve-up was
always vulnerable. Its map ignored local identities and political preferences. Borders were determined
with a ruler—arbitrarily.

Sykes-Picot (official name: the Asia Minor Agreement) bears recalling because its profound two
mistakes are in danger of being repeated: one concerned form and the other substance.

Form: Negotiated in secret by three European imperial powers, it became the great symbol of
European perfidy. Not surprisingly, the Allied Powers secretly carving up the central Middle East
without consulting its inhabitants prompted an outraged response (George Antonius, writing in 1938:
"a shocking document ... the product of greed at its worst ... a startling piece of double-dealing").
Sykes-Picot set the stage for the proliferation of a deeply consequential conspiracy-mentality that ever
since has afflicted the region.

Sykes-Picot created a miasma of fear about foreign intervention that explains the still widespread
preference for discerning supposed hidden causes over overt ones. What in 1916 appeared to be a
clever division of territory among allies turned out to set the stage for a century of mistrust, fear,
extremism, violence, and instability. Sykes-Picot contributed substantially to making the Middle East
the sick region it is today.

Substance: In simple terms, France got Syria and Lebanon, Britain got Palestine and Iraq. But it was
operationally not so simple, as borders, administrations, and competing claims needed to be worked
out. For example, French forces destroyed the putative kingdom of Syria. Winston Churchill one fine
afternoon conjured up the country now known as Jordan. Under pressure from Lebanese Catholics, te
French government increased the size of Lebanon at the expense of Syria. But the largest issue, of
course, was the issue of control over the Holy Land, or Palestine, a problem complicated by London's
having promised roughly this area to both the Arabs (in the McMahon-Hussein correspondence of
January 1916) and the Zionists (in the Balfour declaration of November 1917). It appeared that
London had not just sold the same territory twice but also double-crossed Arabs and Jews by
arranging (in Sykes- Picot) itself to retain control over it.

For a century, the bitter reaction to the Sykes-Picot process has been reflected in the most politically
powerful ideologies to emerge—Nasserism, in Egypt, and Baathism, in Iraq and Syria—based on a
single nationalism covering the entire Arab world. For three years, Egypt and Syria, despite being on
different continents, actually tried it, by merging into the United Arab Republic; the experiment
disintegrated after a 1961 coup in Damascus. Yet the premise of American policy (and of every other
outside power) today—in stabilising fractious Iraq, ending Syria’s gruesome civil war, and
confronting the Islamic State—is to preserve the borders associated with Sykes- Picot. Since August,
2014, the United States has invested more than eleven million dollars a day in military operations,
including almost nine thousand airstrikes on Iraq and more than five thousand on Syria. In its final
months in office, the Obama Administration is intensifying that strategy. Since April 8th, senior
officials— Vice-President Joe Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry, and Defense Secretary Ash Carter
—have made surprise visits to Baghdad to prop up Iraq’s increasingly fragile government. Baghdad’s
political crisis predates its war with ISIS.

The United States is upping its military footprint, too. On April 18th, President Obama announced the
deployment of Apache helicopters, sophisticated mobile rockets, and another two hundred troops to
Iraq. The situation is even worse in Syria, as the United States ratchets up its role there, too. The
peace talks launched in January are precarious, at best, after three unsuccessful rounds.

The United States claims progress in the military campaign against the Islamic State. Since
November, ISIS’s pseudo- caliphate has lost forty per cent of its territory in Iraq and ten per cent in
Syria, as well as tens of thousands of fighters, tons of arms, and hundreds of millions of dollars stored
in warehouses that have been bombed by the U.S.-led coalition. Pentagon officials said last week that
the number of new ISIS recruits in Iraq and Syria has plunged—from fifteen hundred a month last
year to two hundred a month now. ISIS fighters are dying faster than they can be replaced. For the
first time, ISIS no longer seems invincible (2016). The region is now beginning to peer nervously
beyond both the political chaos and the challenge from ISIS. There’s a well-rooted fear that both Iraq
and Syria—an area stretching from the Mediterranean to the Gulf—have become so frail that they
may not be sustainable, regardless of whether ISIS is defeated. The debate about Iraq’s future has
shifted since Senator Joe Biden wrote a controversial Times Op-Ed, in 2006, proposing three
autonomous regions, for Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds to have their own political space.

A century after Sykes-Picot, the dual crises have stripped away the veneer of statehood imposed by
the Europeans and have exposed the emptiness underneath. Iraq was managed by Britain and Syria by
France, with limited nation-nurturing, before both were granted independence. They flew new flags,
built opulent palaces for their leaders, encouraged commercial élites, and trained plenty of men in
uniform. But both had weak public institutions, teeny civil societies, shady and iniquitous economies,
and meaningless laws. Both countries were wracked by coups and instability. Syria went through
twenty coups, some failed but many successful, between 1949 and 1970, an average of one a year,
until the Assad dynasty assumed power—in another coup. Increasingly, the glue that held both
countries together was repressive rule and fear. In Syria, the death toll is many times higher, the
sectarian and ethnic divide at least as deep as in Iraq. The test in both countries is not just finding a
way to re-create states more viable than the various formulations attempted since the Sykes-Picot
process was launched. It’s also rallying public will in the current environment. Some of the political
alternatives may be just as problematic. The reconfiguration of either Iraq or Syria into new entities
could be as complicated, and potentially as bloody, as the current wars. The weaknesses and
contradictions of authoritarian regimes are at the heart of the Middle East’s ongoing tribulations. Even
the rampant ethnic and religious sectarianism is a result of this authoritarianism, which has come to
define the Middle East’s state system far more than the Sykes-Picot agreement ever did.

The region’s “unnatural” borders did not lead to the Middle East’s ethnic and religious divisions. The
ones to blame are the cynical political leaders who foster those divisions in hopes of maintaining their
rule. In Iraq, for instance, Saddam Hussein built a patronage system through his ruling Baath Party
that empowered a state governed largely by Sunnis at the expense of Shiites and Kurds. Bashar al-
Assad in Syria, and his father before him, also ruled by building a network of supporters and affiliates
whereby members of his Alawite sect enjoyed a privileged space in the inner circle. The Wahhabi
worldview of Saudi Arabia’s leaders strongly encourages a sectarian interpretation of the country’s
struggle with Iran for regional hegemony. The same is true for the ideologies of the various Salafi-
jihadi groups battling for supremacy in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. Identity politics play a role in the
unfolding struggles for control in the Middle East, but they are not necessarily the root of the region’s
conflicts. Instead, it is the style of politics and government chosen by successive Middle Eastern
leaders that has pitted their own populations against each other.

PAPER 2: Marina Ottaway: Learning from Sykes-Picot

Sykes-Picot

1918 - 1925
One of the areas that was agreed upon after the collapse of the Ottomans was the Levant (area o the
Middle East). 2 diplomats (on French, the other British) drew up a map of how the repartition of some
of the Middle East could be. However, the lines that were initially drawn look nothing like the ones
that were actually established, this is why the agreement is relevant.

There were many aspects that influenced the partition of this area, even the European Union played its
role, so did Turkey, Iran and KSA.

Partition
What the French and the British knew for sure is that the former areas of the Ottoman empire were
not ready for self-governance yet. However they were unsure as to hoe much would each one get.

Britain would get the Mesopotamia part from Baghdad, through Basra, all the way down to the East
coast of the Arab peninsula.

France would get the area starting in the Mediterranean Coast from Haifa to Southern Turkey. Inland,
to a part of Anatolia.

In addition they would get areas “zones of interest” which would be supervised by them.

Finally, the area of today’s Israel West Bank would be an “international zone” governed by Russia,
France and Britain.

The Arabian Peninsula, except the one given to Britain, would be left to the Arabs.

Nationalist Reaction
British and French had believed that they would be helping Arabs governance as they believe these
were not ready to govern themselves. Nonetheless what they didn’t expect is that Arabs wouldn’t take
this idea of Western control badly.
It created nationalist feelings towards Arabs. This were more prominent in Cairo, Baghdad and
Damascus.

The issuing by Britain of the “November 1917 Balfour Declaration”, which declared support for the
establishment of a Jewish home in Palestine, encouraged the Zionist movement and inevitably an
Arab nationalist reaction

Turkish nationalist fought fiercely, formed a new strong Turkish state that was not part of the Sykes-
Picot Agreement.
Local actors were not willing to remain passive and allow British and French to control them and
design the post Ottoman era Middle east as they pleased.

Although Damascus was supposed to be for the French, it was the British who entered and expelled
all the Turks. Similarly, in Palestine.

The creation of the LON meant that the Arab territories under Britain and France would become
mandates of the LON. Mandates were however, temporary and had the aim to teach Arabs how to rule
themselves.

Furthermore, Britain and France were undergoing economic problems which meant that they could
not take the finial burden to take care of these countries.

It wasn’t until 1925 that the Syke-Picot Agreement concluded on the final map of the Levant:
• Syria, under the french, LON mandate
• Mesopotamia, under British, LON mandate that did not include the east coast of the Arab
peninsula
• Palestine under the British, including Transjordan
• Turkey and Egypt achieve their independence. Nationalistic and secular.
• The Suez canal remained in the hands of B&F

The new countries had new artificial borders and a mixed population. The job of B&F was to
preparing them to self govern. In other words, they had the job to build states. But these remained
hollow for a number of reasons.

Mesopotamia & Palestine

British encountered great serious challenges with its mandates in Mesopotamia and Palestine.

Mesopotamia -> King Faisal was allocated in the expectancy that it would create loyalty. Not the
case.

Furthermore, they had to face nationalists in the cities and even a rebellion in Mosul who were not
keen to subordinate to a mandate.

Essentially British did not have the time or capacity to build a functioning political system,
institutions, and a common identity.

Iraq (B)
1932: British mandate came to an end. The hollowness of the state became evident. They had left their
mandates with a monarchy they hoped would be effective. Nonetheless, the military in 1936 seized its
power. By 1941 Iraq had had 5 coup d’état.

1941: Installation of an anti-British, pro-nazi government that tried to push British army out of Iraq
led to a small Anglo - Iraqi war and British occupation that lasted until 1947.

Unrest, revolts and coups d’état kept going.

1958: Abd Al-Karim Qasim seeks power, abolishes the monarchy and takes Iraq out of the Baghdad
Pact. He threatened to nationalise oil and possibly join the United Arab Republic with Egypt and
Syria. He is outcasted in a coup d’erat in 1963.

1969: rise to power of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Instability ceased because a strong, authoritarian
regime used repression to make up for the hollowness of the state. He is removed by the USA in
2003.

Palestine (B)
Even more problematic.
The initial objective of creating a state embracing the diverse population groups collided with the
Zionist project to make Palestine not just the home for Jews (suppported by the Balfour declaration).
Jewish vs Arab nationalist
British toy with the idea of creating a jewish state in Palestine, enraging Arabs and unsatisfying
Zionist. The partition was supported by the UN. Problem up to this day.

Trasnjordan (B)
Administered separately from Palestine. The British started to recognised its independence in 1928
although the official declaration was not until 1948.

Syria (F)
This mandate ended up in the formation of two trouble countries: Syria and Lebanon.
It was (as stated in the S-P agreement a British mandate, nonetheless it was given to French in the
Paris Peace Conference).
As the french came to control this area, Faisal (leader) and the nationalists sought its independence.
French reaction was to force the abdication of Faisal and to divide Syria in 6 mini states. One of these
mini states is now Lebanon (1943), the only one that lasted long term.
These division did not solve the problem in Syria. There were anti-french uprisings etc. It wasn’t util
two years later that French could pacify (but not unite) the country. They tried to form the Syrian
republic in 1930, but this did not succeed as some of the mini states did not want to.

During WW2 French lost control of Syria by a British occupation and Syria formally gains
independence in 1943. Nonetheless, Syria remained completely unstable. Going through several
coups, 20 cabinets and 4 different constitutions.

In 1958, Syria joins Egypt in forming the United Arab republic. This union came to an end 3 years
later.

Until 1970, under Hafez Al-Assad, finally gets stabilisation with the help of the Baath Party.
Stabilisation for 30 years, then he dies and passes his rule to his son, stabilisation until the uprisings of
the Arab World in 2011.

What allowed this state to survive is the authoritarianism of regimes. Same for Iraq.

Iraqi Kurds
The Iraqi Kurds ask for the formation of new states. Even if they know that they’re not ready for it
yet. Which doesn’t stop Iraqi Kurdistan from establishing state institutions.

Syria and Iraq are no longer functioning as states. Can they be put back together? Both countries have
lost territory to the ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant/Syria) -> explicit state building project.
This has obtained acceptance in Sunni Syrians and Iraqis. Iraq is still recognised as a State but
because its borders are internationally recognised and oil revenues but its more weak than ever. ISIS’
goal is to create an islamic state.

The bitter reaction to the Sykes-Picot process has been reflected in the most politically powerful
ideologies to emerge—Nasserism, in Egypt, and Baathism, in Iraq and Syria—based on a single
nationalism covering the entire Arab world. [relation to topic 3]

PAPER 3: David Siddhartha Patel: Sykes Picot.

In June 2014, ISIS released a pair of videos: one, in Arabic, entitled “The Breaking of the Borders,”

and a second, in English, called “The End of Sykes-Picot.” In the former, ISIS uses bulldozers to
breach the berm delineating the Iraq-Syria border, and a cavalcade of captured Humvees and troop
transports drives through. As inspirational music plays, an elderly Arab man watches this purported
century-old legacy of Sykes-Picot being erased and wipes tears from his eyes, just before an ISIS
soldier respectfully kisses his forehead. In the English-language follow-up video, a young ISIS fighter
identified as Abu Safiyya gives a tour of what he calls “the so-called border of Sykes- Picot,” proudly

proclaiming, “We don’t recognize it, and we will never recognize it.” Standing in front of a seemingly
outdated map of the border region, he declares, “Now it is all one country, one dawlat [state], one
umma [community].”

ISIS’s actual challenge to borders also finds echoes in Arab nationalism. The region’s borders seem
weak and fragile today, but the lines seemed even blurrier in 1958. In February of that year, Syria and
Egypt merged to form the United Arab Republic, spurring the Hashemite monarchies of Iraq and
Jordan to attempt their own rival merger as the Arab Federation—which collapsed six months later,
after the overthrow of the Iraqi monarchy by army officers. It then appeared as though Iraq would join
the UAR, with Jordan and Lebanon perhaps not far behind; but the UAR too broke up, in 1961. Other
attempts at unification include the United Arab States confederations with Yemen and Gaddafi’s
attempts to merge Libya, at various times in the 1970s, with the UAE, Sudan, and Tunisia. Yet, the
borders that Arab nationalism threatened to sweep away remained—or, in the case of the United Arab
Republic, reemerged by 1961 with its dissolution. The state system of the Middle East, then, has
weathered numerous challenges—and the current challenge from ISIS in several ways echoes earlier
eras.

II. Zionism and Israel

Israel

In 1799 Napoleon attacks Acre, in his efforts to defeat the Ottoman empire, he seeks for new allies.
He promised the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine if they raised against the Ottoman empire. This
tactic was used by the British later until they urged the Sultan to open Palestinian borders to Jewish
immigration.

Wealthy Jews of Europe started sponsoring the settlement of Jews in Palestine (Rothschild
family). This continuous settlement made the creation of the term Zionism (Zion=Jerusalem), the
movement that aims to establish Jewish state in the lands of Palestine. Herzl ➔ “The Jews state”
book.

1897 First Zionist council in Switzerland, demonstration of power in Europe.

At the beginning of the WW1, the French and Russians wanted to have permanent influence
in the Middle East. Britain wasn’t happy about it because they controlled the Suez Canal and wanted
to maintain control in Palestine (in order to have protection there to the Suez Canal).

In1915 a document written by Herbert Samuel stablished that a British controlled Palestine
was in the interest of the majority of Zionists. They saw that as a chance of Jewish immigration to
Palestine. They thought that with more Jewish population, Zionists will have the British protectorate,
and reject the French.

The Balfour declaration from the British Minister to Rothschild, showing them support on the
Zionist movement, again to promote Jewish going to Palestine to control it ➔ The great betrayal to
the Arabs.

A week later of the letter British general Allenby captured Jerusalem, and later the head of the
Zionist (Chem Weizmann) organization meet with him.

The conflict started when a resentence movement started in the region (anti-Zionist, Arabs),
and the situation started to exploit quickly. Even thought Britain had many warnings such as EE. UU
president Wilson they went on with the Jewish immigration.

After WW1, the League of Nation is created, and the Middle East is divided. In 1922 is
established that Britain should control Palestine. The Arabs lose all hope in their promised land and
the resistance started to get so strong. In 1936 a general strike developed onto a revolt, heavily
suppressed by the British.

1. BRITISH INTERESTS 



1917: World War I, the foreign affairs minister of Britain writes a letter promising a land on
Palestine for Jews to gain their support (zionists) trying to weaken the Ottoman Empire by
supporting independence in the region. At the end of the World War I its land was divided by
europeans: Palestine and Mesopotamia were British and Syria and Lebanon were French.

1920: The Ottoman Empire was defeated and its land carved up by European powers. Britain wants
to create a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

2. WWII AND ITS CONSEQUENCES 




1939: Beginning of World War II. A lot of jews were killed because of the holocaust, increasing
tensions with arabs because of the immigrations to Palestine. The United Nations decided to divide
the region between arabs and jews (Arab state+ Jewish state -> Jerusalem=international zone). The
Zionists accepted but the Arabs rejected, so there was a civil war.



Civil war: The Arab league put together a liberation army of volunteers who fight against zionists.
The Jews organised an army by giving military training to its population. The Jews sent agents to
Europe to retrieve WWII military stocks and signed arms contract with the British help.

3. STATE OF ISRAEL



 1948: Britain withdraws from the region (Palestine) was completed. The jews become independent
from the State of Israel. In response to that independence the Arab League declares war. 

Armistice agreements: Israel gives new territory including the Gaza Strip (for Egypt) and the West
Bank was annexed to Jordan. 

This conflict caused large-scale displacement: Arabs were expelled from Israeli territory to
refugee camps and a lot of jews communities in Arab countries went back to Israel and others
moved to Europe and settle there.

4. ARAB-ISRAEL WARS 



1967: The Six Day War: Israel declares war on Syria, Egypt and Jordan. Israel dominates the war
by seizing Egyptian sinai, Syrian Golan Heights and the West Bank of Jordan. The United Nations
takes part with the 242 resolution containing the Israeli occupation. 



1973: Syria and Egypt attack Israel to gain their territory but they failed. Influence of the Cold War:
the Soviet Union supported Arab countries, but the United States was sending arms and supplies to
Israel. Israeli army continues to push its borders.

Ceasefire: The oil-exporting arab countries decided to punish USA and Israel’s allies by increasing
the prices and exporting less oil. (Oil crisis of 1973)



1974: International pressure. Israel ceded to Egypt and Syria its territories but still retains control
over Palestinian Territories

5. ISRAEL-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT 



1980: Israel proclaims Jerusalem as its indivisible capital. This decision was condemned by the
United Nations security council. There were tensions over water supply in the Western Bank, as
Israel has the upper hand on resources



1987: The Palestinian population rebels. The First Intifada: this happened because of the tensions
in west bank over water supply, on the hands of Israel, which were unevenly distributed between
Israeli and Palestinian areas. Hamas: Palestinian islamist movement fighting Israel 

The Palestinian liberation organisation proclaimed an independent state of Palestine on 1988 (it
was set up by the Arab League in 1964), Jerusalem would be its capital city and Palestine will be
recognised by main countries all over the world.

6. PEACE EFFORTS 



1993: After six years of conflict, a fragile peace is signed in the Oslo agreements: Mutual
recognition introducing autonomy in the Gaza Strip and in the city of Jericho. 

1995: The West Bank partition plan was signed providing Palestine controlled areas and the rest
 Israeli control (others were mixed areas), but they were unable of agreeing the status of jerusalem
and the return of Palestinian refugees.



2000: There was a visit by the head of the Israeli opposition to the Temple Mount. As a
consequence of this visit, there is the Second Intifada: Numerous of suicide bombings. A wall
starts to be built by Israel in the west bank to protect the country. This construction is declared as
illegal by the International Court of Justice.



2005: To calm that situation, the Israeli government removed Jewish settlements from the Gaza
Strip, but retained control over its borders.

ZIONISM

What is zionism? It is a political national movement aimed to create a sustaining jews state in the
middle east. His founder Theothor Herzi thought the only way for jews to be in peace is by creating
their own country. Palestine was the country chosen by them. The zionism was based on the idea that
Jews constitute a single people (wherever they lived), they were against a backdrop of rising
nationalism and anti-jewish sentiment, and they had an ideology of race ( a jew is not defined by
religious observance, language, place of birth or culture but by descent.

The creation of the Jewish homeland

1917: Balfour’s letter expressing sympathy to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine. He promised
that it wouldn’t harm interests of Arab majority. The Jewish National Fund (JNF) acquired land in
the name of jewish people. Arabs were spelled from their lands.

Histadrut: Institution created by the Zionists to organise Jewish workers and exclude Arabs from
competing with them in the labor market (Jewish monopoly)

Despite these policies and the encouragement, the majority of the Jews showed no interest in settling
in Palestine.



1947: Britain relinquish its control over Palestine. The United Nations voyted to divide Palestine in
two states (Arab state and Jewish State, with Jerusalem as international zone).


1948: The zionists attacked Deir Yassin and massacres more than 250 Palestinians. There was a Civil
War.

Consequences of the civil war: The Zionists controlled 80% of Palestine and there were more than
750000 Arab refugees.

Law of return: Permitted any Jew from anywhere the right to immigrate to Israel and acquire
citizenship
Absentee Property Law: Confiscated the property of Arabs no longer residing on the land which
they held title. Arabs were prohibited to return to their lands,

NABKA: How zionists call the independence of Israel. For them this independence is a humiliation
because they consider Palestine as their land.

III. Arab Nationalism The case of Nasser's Egypt and the Pan-Arabist movement

PAN-ARABIST MOVEMENT

It is a movement created after the First World War. It reached its best moment after Nassar
(1959-1960) when Egypt united with Syria to form the United Arab Republic in 1958 and Iraq and
Yemen almost united as well, but all of this went down with the defeat of the arab army of Egypt,
Syria and Jordan in the Six day War in 1967 with Israel.

Ever since islamism has been ascendent. Today the remaining secular states such as Syria and
Egypt are Islamist parties.

Pan-Arab nationalism: National movement that seeks to unite all arabs into one nation with one
government.

1948 is a really important year because is the date of the declaration of the State of Israel. In 1947
Britain announced they will leave the protectorate in Palestine. Paramilitary Zionist forces started to
force Palestinians to leave towns and raise towns to the ground.

Ben Gurion thought that the Jews must be a majority to guarantee the security in Palestine.
The countries that surround Israel attacked them, but they managed to defend themselves with the
Paramilitary forces (Zionists, well equipped).

This leads to the raise of Arab nationalism (ideology that defends a particular group of people
with common language, territory, etc. understood as nation). This grows up based in the idea of the
major Pan Arab state that the British promised to the Sharif of Mecca to create after the war. Political
Parties start to take shape and demanded the independence of colonies.

Abdel Nasser was a high-ranking officer in the Egyptian army during the wars. He saw 1948
as a humiliation to Arabs, the most shameful thing that had happened in Arab history. He blames the
corruption of the system and the British interference. In 1952 he leads the “free officers” on a revolt, a
few years later he became president (1956). He is a convinced socialist, he will approach Egypt to the
USSR. He opposed every aspect of colonial trace, and he became and icon of Arab unity throughout
other Middle East countries. The Palestinian issue was key in his message.
 When the Ottoman Empire was defeated by the great powers the mediterranean arabs had
been used to live in one state. Many of the deals that had the great powers were tensions an threats.
They believed Hussein, a United Arab kingdom. The divisions created many tribes.

Basically the Quran was sent by God in Arabic to Mohammad, who was arab, suggesting this
people being chosen by god. It wasn’t something new, after all they were addressing an islamic (…).
Nationalists were built on common ethnicity, common language and culture that formed an organic
community in a specific state, calling for the unity from the Atlantic to Morocco to the Arabian Golf
and Turkey in the north of Yemen and Oman.

It didn’t take long for parties to preach arabism such as the National bloc in Syria, later on Ba’ath
party in 1947, one of the pillars of Pan-Arab nationalism. 1963 took a coup. The saviour of Pan-Arab
nationalism was Gamal Abdel-Nassar. Nassar came into power in 1952 taking out the British from
Egypt and from all the Middle East trying to make Egypt the central organism power of the Middle
East and unite the Arab world under his power.

October 1956 France and Britain attacked the Suez Canal, pretending to act in in behalf of the
international community to prevent more conflict between Egypt and Israel. They achieved the
control of the Suez Canal, briefly, because they were condemned by both US and the USSR, so they
had to agree on a cease fire.

What mattered for being Arab was the culture, not the religion. The movement start expanding, when
military leaders in Syria asked Nasser to let them join Egypt into a Arab multipolar state (1957).
Every year that Nasser stayed in power he became more popular. (he started industrialization, free
education and created a program of land reform…)

After 3 years the United Arab Republic dissolved because Nasser transformed Syria into another
Egyptian zone, with Egyptians in power and everything under his control. The dissolution of the Arab
Union of Republics was a hard blow to the Arab Nationalism.

The Suez Crisis in 1956 made Nassar the hero of the Arab world but West refused to supply Egypt
with arms unless Egypt signed an agreement of Israel, and they refused. He signed an agreement with
the Soviets, this lead to a conflict with the West. Then the United States stopped giving loans to Egypt
and stopped the Suez channel agricultural movements. Nassar financed the project. Britain didn’t
accept the nationalise channel and used a military intervention to take it back. That’s why they acted
with Israel and France.

Everything failed and no longer were Britain nor France seen as major powers. The new major
powers were the Soviet Union and the United States. This was the last act of colonialism and after all,
Nasser won.

Nasser in 1958 wanted two create a joined country within Syria and Egypt, it was really an
annexation that lasted 3 years.
 In 1967, the six day war occurred, winning Israel the Sinai peninsula. This ended the “Nassorim”
era because after this Nasser died (1970). Nasser was replaced by Sadat (1970-1981). He wanted to be
distant from the Soviet Union and become closer to the United States. He wanted to have peace with
Israel accepting its leading the independence from the soviets, and started to work with the United
States. Egypt was no longer part of nationalism or socialism, he started a privatisation. He was
assassinated in 1981 and he was replaced by Mubarak, who would follow his liberal policies.

Syria: Symbol of arab nationalism, Baath party, Against imperialism and western, close to the
Soviet Union, took power in 1968, Hatez Al-Assaa (1970-2000)

Iraq: Saddam Hussein, also Baath party, until 2003 when the USA invaded, no good relation with
Syria

Libya: Allied with Western, Muammar Gaddafi (nationalism), closed military bases, tried to be
taken down by the United States.

IV. Islamism: From Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia to Isis

PAPER 1: Investigating the ties between Muhammed ibn Abd al- Wahhab, early Wahhabism,
and ISIS

Wahhabism: fundamentalist movement founded in the eighteenth century by Muhammed ibn Abd al-
Wahhab, a Muslim cleric from Nejd, in the center of the Arabian Peninsula.

There does exist a connection between the ideas of early Wahhabism and ISIS, but the two are not
synonymous. Both feature a degree of violence and compulsion to achieve political objectives. Both
call upon the faithful to return to what they believe to be the practices of the original centuries of
Islam. Toward that end, Muhammed ibn Abd al-Wahhab’s most substantive text, the Kitab al-Tawhid,
or Book of Monotheism, called for a firm cleansing of the Islamic faith, and developed many of the
concepts that Wahhabis and members of ISIS hold true. Those ideas include concentrating humans’
efforts on praising the oneness of God, on avoiding polytheism and idolatry, and on declaring as
apostates those who do not share similar beliefs. But Abd al-Wahhab’s writings were largely silent on
the issue of restoring an Islamic caliphate, the controlling drive of ISIS, as well as the need to kill
opponents of the faith, which ISIS embraces. To see evidence of the use of force by the early
Wahhabis, one must look less at Ibn Abd al-Wahhab’s writings and more at the practices of the early
Saudi wars of expansion, over which Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, during his life, had considerable influence.
Predecessors to ISIS emerged in Iraq in the years following the U.S.-led overthrow of Saddam
Hussein in 2003. In the sectarian violence that flared in succeeding years, Sunni insurgents fighting
against the U.S.-backed, Shia-dominated Iraqi state declared in 2006 the formation of an “Islamic
State in Iraq,” which expanded into Syria during that state’s civil war that began in 2011. Fused with
sympathetic Sunnis in Syria, members declared the existence of the “Islamic State in Iraq and
Syria” (ISIS) in 2013. In June 2014, approximately two and a half years after America’s post-
Operation Iraqi Freedom military advisors withdrew from Iraq, ISIS fighters overran Mosul and a
host of cities in northern Iraq. The Iraqi national army, which Washington had disbanded and
attempted to re-build in the after- math of the 2003 invasion and occupation, proved unable to staunch
the invasion. Confident of the increasing strength of the organization, Iraqi Sunni cleric Ibrahim Awad
Ibrahim al-Badri in 2014 declared the establishment of a new Islamic caliphate—the Khilafah or
“Islamic State”—and proclaimed himself as its first caliph, “Abu Bakr,” appropriating the name from
the Prophet Muhammed’s first Sunni successor.

A review of the ISIS propaganda literature can illuminate the connection; ISIS’s glossy online
periodical Dabiq, for example, discusses and espouses many of Muhammed ibn Abd al-Wahhab’s
ideas, which suggests that ISIS ideology and Wahhabism hold much in common.

In the pages of the magazine, for example, a reader repeatedly comes across references to tawhid,
shirk, and taghut, mainstays of Wahhabi thought. But it would be a mistake to say that ISIS’s guiding
principles stem solely from Muhammed ibn Abd al-Wahhab, for the pages of Dabiq also include other
modern concepts introduced by contemporary Muslim political philosophers such as Sayyid Qutb :

- The faithful must establish and strengthen a modern caliphate, which holds real territory, led by a
descendant of the Prophet Muhammed’s Quraysh tribe.

- The wicked deeds of the modern European “crusader” imperialists and colonialists must be
avenged by the Muslim world. 


So do there exist ties between Muhammed ibn Abd al-Wahhab, early Wahhabism, and ISIS? Certainly,
but the ideas from these time periods are not synonymous with one another.

Sayyid Qutb influences the development of radical Islamism and the evolution to terrorism.

1980s in Afghanistan, when the USSR was invading the country Ayman Al Zawahin, a radical
member of the Muslim brotherhood, started to think that the jihad had to be international.

Abdallah Azzam, he was a Palestinian Muslim brother. He changes the concept o jihad for Islamic
radicals, it was no longer to fight against corrupt governments that didn’t follow sharia, now the goal
was the expansion of Islamic world and the reconquering of ancient Islamic lost territory. This leads
to the creation of al-Qaeda.

Al Zawahim is concerned about the corruption of western values, and he met Azzam and Osama Bin
Laden. These three formed the organization of Al-Qaeda, convinced that the jihad had to take part as a
terrorist organization to start expanding Islam. In a mysterious bombing Azzam died and Bin Laden
and Zawahim were then the leaders of Al-Qaeda.

Bin Laden was very influential and charismatic man, with a huge capacity on moving people. He was
also very rich, and put the weapons and the money, also linked the Taliban group (Afghanistan).

By 1998 two USA’s embassies were attacked by Al-Qaeda, this is a turning point, the CIA has been
sending weapons to the Taliban to fight the Soviets, when the soviets were defeated they focused on
their new enemy, the USA ( the 9/11 of 2001).

Al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria is called Al Nusra. The leader was AL-Zarqawi. He expands operations
also to Irak in response of USA’s attack. (later on, he was thrown out of the organization and killed by
the Americans). Another member of Al Nusra, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi took over as the new leader.

Daesh tries to locate themselves between northern Syria and southern Iraq, but British and Russian
armies helped defeat them the last few years and now they don’t have a physical state to locate them.