Middle East Study Guide

Mandate System

Was the League of Nations arrangement that allowed Britain and France to govern the former Ottoman Arab lands after WWI, supposedly until those lands were ready to rule themselves. It was set up at the San Remo Conference in April 1920, where Britain received Iraq and Palestine (and later Transjordan) and France received Syria and Lebanon. France ruled directly and split Syria into smaller states, while Britain used “empire by treaty,” giving Iraq formal independence in 1932 but keeping its bases. It is important because the mandates were basically the Sykes-Picot Agreement carried out under a new name, they ended Faysal’s Arab kingdom in Syria in 1920, and they created states with borders that people had not chosen. In Palestine, the mandate also included the Balfour Declaration, which led directly to the Arab-Jewish conflict.

Tanzimat

The Tanzimat was a period of reform in the Ottoman Empire between 1839 and 1876, carried out by the sultan’s officials in Istanbul. It began with the Hatt-i Sharif in 1839, which promised people security of life and property, fair taxes, and regulated army service, and it was extended in 1856 to give non-Muslims equal rights. The reformers built modern schools, secular courts, and a modern army, and they hoped everyone in the empire would see themselves as equal Ottoman citizens. It is important because these reforms took power away from the religious scholars (‘ulama), left the empire with large foreign debts, and led to the Young Ottomans and the first constitution in 1876. Cleveland uses it to show how the empire tried to modernize in order to survive.

‘Ulama

Muslim religious scholars of the Ottoman Empire, who worked as judges, teachers, and legal experts and were led by an official called the shaykh al-Islam. Throughout the Ottoman lands, they ran the Islamic courts, schools, and religious endowments, which made them one of the most powerful groups in society. In the 1800s, reforming rulers such as Mahmud II and Muhammad Ali in Egypt took over their courts, schools, and income, so their power shrank. The decline ended in Turkey in 1924, when Ataturk abolished the caliphate and the shaykh al-Islam’s office, and in 1926 when Islamic law was replaced by a European legal code. It is important because the fall of the ‘ulama shows the move toward secular states, and Iran is the opposite example, where the ‘ulama stayed powerful and led the 1979 revolution.

Ghassan Kanafani

Ghassan Kanafani was a Palestinian writer who became a refugee after the Nakba of 1948 and who wrote about the lives of displaced Palestinians. His best-known work is the novella Men in the Sun, published in 1963, and it was made into the film The Dupes in 1972. In the story, three Palestinian men try to be smuggled from Basra in Iraq to Kuwait inside an empty water tank on a truck, but they die of heat when the driver is delayed at the border checkpoints. At the end, the driver asks why the men never knocked on the walls of the tank, which blames both their silence and the Arab governments and smugglers who exploited them. It is important because it shows how poorly Arab states treated Palestinian refugees and why many Palestinians felt let down by promises of Arab unity.

Sa’d Zaghlul

Sa’d Zaghlul was an Egyptian nationalist leader and a gifted speaker who had studied at al-Azhar and in law. In November 1918 he led the Wafd, which means “delegation,” and asked the British to let Egypt send representatives to the Paris Peace Conference and to grant independence. When Britain arrested him and exiled him to Malta in March 1919, it set off the 1919 Revolution, with strikes and protests by students, workers, peasants, and women across Egypt. He later became Egypt’s first elected prime minister in 1924 after the Wafd won about 90 percent of the seats. It is important because he built Egypt’s first mass nationalist movement, even though Britain’s 1922 “independence” still left it in control of key issues like defense and the Suez Canal.

Halide Edip Adivar

Halide Edip Adivar (1884 to 1964) was a Turkish novelist, women’s rights supporter, and nationalist. During the War of Independence from 1919 to 1922, she supported Mustafa Kemal’s movement in Anatolia, giving speeches and helping the nationalist army. After the republic was created, she criticized Ataturk’s one-party rule and left Turkey in 1926. She is important because she shows that educated women took an active role in Turkish nationalism and that the nationalist cause was connected to women’s rights, which later included the vote in 1934.

Al-Mahdi

Al-Mahdi was Muhammad Ahmad (1844 to 1885), a religious leader in Sudan who declared himself the Mahdi, meaning the divinely guided redeemer, in 1881. He led a jihad against Egyptian rule in Sudan, which he saw as corrupt and which was supported by Britain, and his forces took the city of Khartoum in 1885 and killed the British General Gordon. He died soon after, but the Mahdist state he founded lasted until Britain, conquered Sudan between 1896 and 1898. It is important because it was one of the strongest religious revolts against Egyptian and European control, and afterward Sudan was ruled jointly by Britain and Egypt, which remained a point of conflict between them.

Fallahun

The fallahun are the peasant farmers of Egypt, who made up most of the population and grew the cotton that made Egypt valuable to Europe. In the 1800s, rulers like Muhammad Ali forced them into the army (used cadastral surveys) and into hard labor on canals and farms, and under British control they remained poor and in debt. Colonel Ahmad Urabi, who came from a peasant family, spoke for them in his revolt of 1881 to 1882, and they supported the 1919 Revolution by cutting railway lines. It is important because they were the base of Egyptian society but owned little land, and this inequality, with a tiny group owning a huge share of the land, is why Nasser’s land reform in 1952 mattered so much.

Nakba

The Nakba, which means “catastrophe,” is the Arabic word for the loss of Palestine in the 1948 war. When the British mandate ended in May 1948, Israel declared independence, and armies from Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan, and Iraq entered the fighting but were poorly coordinated. Israel won and gained more land than the UN partition plan had offered, and about 700,000 Palestinians fled or were forced from their homes, with only about 160,000 remaining in Israel. It is important because it created the Palestinian refugee problem, it discredited the old Arab governments (helping lead to Nasser’s coup in Egypt in 1952), and it is the background for Palestinian writers like Ghassan Kanafani.

Lord Cromer

Lord Cromer, was the British official who effectively ruled Egypt from 1883 until 1907, after Britain occupied the country in 1882. Egypt still had its own ruler and ministers, but Cromer had them follow British advice, so Britain controlled the country without officially annexing it. He balanced Egypt’s budget and paid down its debts, but he kept government spending on schools very low, so only a small number of Egyptians could get a modern education. In his book Modern Egypt, he argued that Islam kept women in a position of “marked inferiority,” which he used to justify British rule, and Egyptian reformers like Huda Sha’arawi answered him. He is important because he is the clearest example of how Britain governed through “advisers” and justified imperialism.

UN Resolution 242

UN Resolution 242 was a United Nations Security Council resolution passed on November 22, 1967, after the Six-Day War, in which Israel captured Sinai, Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. It states that land cannot be acquired by war, calls for Israel to withdraw from “territories” it occupied, and calls for secure borders for every state and a just settlement of the refugee problem. Egypt, Jordan, and Israel accepted it, but Syria and the PLO rejected it, and the PLO did not accept it until 1988. It is important because its wording was vague enough that each side read it differently, and it became the basis for “land for peace” negotiations, including the Camp David talks of 1978.

The Young Ottomans

The Young Ottomans were a group of Ottoman writers and officials in the 1860s and 1870s, including Namik Kemal, whose play Vatan means “Fatherland.” They had grown up under the Tanzimat reforms, but they criticized the sultan’s officials for ruling without the people and for copying Europe too closely. They argued for a constitution and a representative government, and they said these ideas were compatible with Islamic traditions of consultation. Their movement helped lead to the Ottoman constitution of 1876, which Sultan Abdul Hamid II suspended in 1878. They are important because they were the first to combine patriotism, constitutional government, and Islam, and the Young Turks later built on their ideas.

Arab socialism

Arab socialism was the economic and political program that Egyptian president Nasser adopted in the early 1960s, especially after Syria left the United Arab Republic in 1961. The government took over foreign companies, banks, insurance firms, and the press, limited how much land one person could own, and expanded free education and guaranteed jobs for university graduates. A single party, the Arab Socialist Union, ran it under the 1962 Charter for National Action, and Nasser said it was compatible with Islam. It is important because it helped many poor Egyptians and inspired other Arab leaders, but it also created a huge, inefficient bureaucracy and left no space for political opposition.

Al-Azhar

Al-Azhar is a famous mosque and university in Cairo, Egypt (est. 970 AD), that has been a leading center of Sunni Muslim learning for about a thousand years. Many important Egyptians studied there, including Colonel Urabi and Sa’d Zaghlul, and its students took part in the 1919 Revolution protests. In 1964 (early 1960s), Nasser took control of al-Azhar by government decree and added modern subjects such as medicine, engineering, and agriculture. It is important because, unlike Ataturk in Turkey, Nasser did not abolish religious institutions but brought them under state control, and he used al-Azhar scholars to say that Arab socialism was Islamic.

Golda Meir

Golda Meir was the prime minister of Israel from 1969 to 1974, and she was the head of the Labor Party and Israel’s only woman prime minister. She was a close ally of U.S. President Nixon, and she did not take Egyptian president Anwar Sadat seriously when he offered to negotiate after Nasser’s death. In October 1973, Egypt and Syria attacked Israel in the Yom Kippur War, and Israel was surprised. She is important because her refusal to negotiate, and the shock of the 1973 war, helped push Sadat toward his later peace efforts and the 1978 Camp David talks/accords (israel and egypt peace).

Suez Canal

The Suez Canal is a waterway in Egypt that connects the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea and gives ships a shortcut between Europe and Asia. It was built by the French engineer Ferdinand de Lesseps and opened in 1869, and when Egypt ran into debt, it sold its shares to Britain in 1875. Britain occupied Egypt in 1882 largely to protect the canal and its route to India, and British troops stayed in the canal zone until 1956. In July 1956, Nasser nationalized the canal, and Britain, France, and Israel attacked Egypt, but the United States and the Soviet Union forced them to withdraw. It is important because the canal explains why Britain controlled Egypt, and the 1956 crisis made Nasser a hero across the Arab world.

Haganah

The Haganah, which means “defense,” was the main Jewish military force in Palestine during the British mandate. It was founded in 1920 after Arab riots, and although the British disapproved of it, they tolerated it. Zionist leaders like David Ben-Gurion controlled it, and it fought during the Arab revolt of 1936 to 1939 and helped sabotage British rule in 1945. In 1948 it carried out Plan D, which captured territory and cleared many Arab villages, and it became the core of the Israeli army. It is important because it shows how organized the Jewish community was compared with the divided Arab side, and it was a main force behind the Nakba.

The Arab Revolt

The Arab Revolt was an Arab uprising against Ottoman rule during WWI. It was led by Sharif Husayn of Mecca, who began it in June 1916 in the Hijaz, the western part of Arabia, after Britain promised to support an independent Arab state. Husayn’s son Faysal led the fighting, with support from British and entered Damascus alongside the British army in October 1918. Husayn described the revolt in Islamic terms, as a fight against the Young Turk government that he said was holding the caliph hostage. It is important because Britain broke its promise: it had already made the Sykes-Picot Agreement with France and had issued the Balfour Declaration, and in 1920 France drove Faysal out of Syria and took control under the mandate system. The revolt became the founding story of Arab nationalism and is the subject of the film Lawrence of Arabia.

Balfour Declaration

The Balfour Declaration was a short letter written on November 2, 1917, by the British foreign secretary Arthur Balfour to Lord Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community. It said that Britain supported “a National Home for the Jewish people” in Palestine, as long as the rights of the existing non-Jewish communities were protected. Britain issued it during World War I partly to win Jewish support in the United States and Russia, because of lobbying by Weizmann, and to protect its position near the Suez Canal. It is important because Cleveland calls it so vague and contradictory that it confused everyone involved, and the mandate system wrote it into the Palestine mandate, which put Britain in a conflict between Jews and Arabs.

Sykes-Picot Agreement

The Sykes-Picot Agreement was a secret deal in 1916 between Britain and France, negotiated by, with Russia agreeing to it. It planned to divide the Ottoman Arab lands after the war: France would get coastal Syria and Lebanon, Britain would get southern Mesopotamia including Basra and Baghdad, and Palestine would be under international control. It was exposed by the Bolsheviks in 1917, and it contradicted what Britain had promised Sharif Husayn about an independent Arab state. It is important because Arabs saw it as a betrayal, and its ideas were carried out through the mandates awarded at San Remo in 1920. In Lawrence of Arabia, learning about it breaks Lawrence’s trust in the British.

Huda Sha’arawi

Huda Sha’arawi (born around 1879 to 1881, died 1947) was a wealthy Egyptian woman who grew up in a Cairo harem and described that life in her memoir, Harem Years. She joined the women’s demonstrations during the 1919 Revolution against British rule, and in 1923 she founded the Egyptian Feminist Union. That same year she and Saiza Nabrawi took off their face veils at the Cairo train station, which became a famous moment for Egyptian women. She helped win compulsory primary school for girls in 1925, but she did not succeed in changing family laws about marriage and divorce. She is important because she shows how women’s rights and nationalism went together, and she answered Lord Cromer’s claim that Islam kept women inferior.

Basra

Basra was an Ottoman province in southern Iraq and an important port on the Persian Gulf, with a large Shi’a Muslim population. British-Indian forces captured it in late 1914, at the start of World War I, and it became the base from which they advanced to Baghdad. After the war, Britain combined Basra with Baghdad and Mosul to create the state of Iraq under a British mandate. It is important because Britain wanted the area for its position in the Gulf, the route to India, and oil, and it shows how artificial the new Iraq was, since it joined three very different provinces. It is also where the journey begins in Kanafani’s Men in the Sun.

‘Abd al-Hakim al-‘Amr

An Egyptian field marshal who had been a close friend of Nasser and one of the Free Officers who overthrew the monarchy in the 1952 coup. As commander-in-chief of the Egyptian army, he was responsible for the military during the war in Yemen in the 1960s and during the June 1967 war with Israel. In that war, Israel destroyed most of the Egyptian air force on the ground in the first hours, and Egypt lost the Sinai Peninsula within days. Nasser blamed the military leadership for the defeat, and ‘Amr was arrested and died in 1967, which the government called a suicide, though many Egyptians doubted it and joked that “he was suicided.” He is important because his fall shows how the 1967 defeat shattered the officers who had led Egypt since 1952, and it marks the end of the Nasser era, as Cleveland describes it.

Ba’athism

Ba’athism, from the Arabic word for “renaissance,” is an Arab nationalist and socialist ideology founded on Orthodox Christianity and Sunni Muslims. They developed the ideas in Paris in the 1930s and formed the Ba’ath Party in Syria around independence in 1946. It said that all Arabs form one nation, and its slogan was “unity, freedom, socialism.” In February 1958, Syrian Ba’thists asked Nasser to unite Syria and Egypt in the United Arab Republic, which lasted until 1961, and later Ba’thists took power in Iraq in 1968 and in Syria with Hafiz al-Asad in 1970. It is important because it was a major Pan-Arab idea that ended up as authoritarian rule.

Required Essay: Taking a long, deep look at the idea of Pan-Arabism, describe its successess and failures. Is is still a viable movement?

Pan-Arabism is the belief that Arabs share one language, history, and culture and should therefore act together politically, or even live in one state. It began in the late Ottoman years as a request for more Arab rights and grew into a major force after World War I. Pan-Arabism reached its height under Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser in the 1950s and 1960s, when millions of Arabs saw him as their leader. Even so, Cleveland shows that the movement never produced a lasting union, and it collapsed after the 1967 war. This essay argues that Pan-Arabism had real successes in building pride and resisting foreign control, but its failures were bigger, and it is no longer a viable political movement today.

Before World War I, most Arabs only wanted more rights inside the Ottoman Empire, and the Arab Revolt of 1916 was the first time many hoped for an independent Arab state. Those hopes were damaged because Britain and France secretly agreed to divide the region in the Sykes-Picot Agreement, and Britain also issued the Balfour Declaration promising a Jewish national home in Palestine. After the war, the mandate system, set up at San Remo in 1920, gave Britain control of Iraq and Palestine and France control of Syria and Lebanon, and France destroyed Faysal’s Arab kingdom in Damascus that same year. The new states developed their own leaders and interests, such as Sa’d Zaghlul in Egypt, who cared more about Egyptian independence than Arab unity. Cleveland sums this up by saying Pan-Arabism was “endorsed rhetorically far more than it was practiced” in the years between the wars.

The biggest success of Pan-Arabism came under Nasser, who took power in Egypt in the 1952 coup and quickly became the most popular leader in the Arab world. When he nationalized the Suez Canal in 1956 and Britain, France, and Israel attacked, the United States and Soviet Union forced them to withdraw, so Nasser won a major political victory. His radio station, the Voice of the Arabs, carried his speeches to people in every Arab country, along with Egyptian films and the singer Umm Kulthum. Ba’athism gave the movement a clear message of “unity, freedom, socialism,” and in 1958 Syria joined Egypt to form the United Arab Republic. Nasser’s Arab socialism, which promised land reform, free education, and jobs, made his message appealing to poor Arabs in many countries and inspired other officers to copy him.

The failures were just as important, because the union with Syria fell apart in 1961 after Egyptians dominated it, and Arab governments then fought each other in the Yemen war. The worst blow was the 1967 war, in which Israel defeated Egypt, Syria, and Jordan in six days, and Nasser’s general ‘Abd al-Hakim al-‘Amr was arrested and died afterward. Pan-Arabism had also failed Palestinians, since the divided Arab armies of 1948 helped lead to the Nakba, and writers like Ghassan Kanafani criticized how Arab governments treated refugees. After 1967, leaders like Anwar Sadat chose peace with Israel based on UN Resolution 242, and many Arabs turned from Arab nationalism toward Islamic movements. Cleveland explains that Pan-Arabism, Arab socialism, and secular nationalism all lost support because they did not deliver unity, prosperity, or victory over Israel.

Pan-Arabism succeeded in giving Arabs a shared sense of pride and a way to resist foreign control. It failed to produce a lasting political union because each state wanted to protect its own power and borders. The mandate system had already created separate states with leaders who benefited from staying separate. After 1967, the movement lost its leader, its main idea, and much of its popular support. For these reasons, Pan-Arabism is no longer a viable political movement, although the feeling of shared Arab identity continues in culture and language.

Essay 2: Option 1 - Please describe the development of Turkish nationalism, from the 19th century to 1930.

Turkish nationalism developed over about one hundred years, as the Ottoman Empire tried and failed to hold its many peoples together. In the 1800s, Ottoman leaders believed all people in the empire could share one Ottoman identity. After the empire lost land and fought World War I, many Turks began to see themselves instead as a separate Turkish nation. Mustafa Kemal, later called Ataturk, turned this idea into a new republic in 1923 and a set of reforms that continued through 1930. This essay explains that development in three stages: Ottoman reform, the Young Turks and war, and the Ataturk republic.

The Tanzimat reforms, which began in 1839, tried to save the empire by giving all Ottoman subjects, Muslim and non-Muslim, equal rights and a common Ottoman citizenship. They created modern schools, courts, and a new army, but the reforms also took power away from the ‘ulama and left the empire deeply in debt. The Young Ottomans, including the writer Namik Kemal, criticized the sultan’s officials for being too autocratic and wanted a constitution and a voice for the people. Their pressure helped bring about the first Ottoman constitution in 1876, although Sultan Abdul Hamid II suspended it soon after. These reformers were not yet Turkish nationalists, but they introduced ideas of fatherland and citizenship that nationalism later used.

In 1908 the Young Turks, a group of officers and officials in the Committee of Union and Progress, forced the sultan to restore the constitution. Their hopes for Ottomanism fell apart when the empire lost land in the Balkans, Libya, and Bosnia, and a thinker named Ziya Gokalp argued that Turks should build a nation based on Turkish culture. The empire then entered World War I in 1914 and lost its Arab provinces, including places like Basra, while Arabs joined the Arab Revolt against it. After the war, the Allies planned in the Treaty of Sevres to divide even Turkey itself, which was part of the same postwar settlement that created the mandate system in the Arab lands. Women such as the writer Halide Edip Adivar also supported the nationalist cause during this struggle.

Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) organized a resistance government in Ankara in 1920, defeated the Greek army, and abolished the sultanate in 1922. The Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 recognized the new Republic of Turkey, so unlike the Arab lands, Turkey avoided becoming a mandate. Ataturk then built a secular nation by abolishing the caliphate in 1924 and replacing Islamic law with a European legal code in 1926. He also banned the fez, changed the calendar, and introduced the Latin alphabet in 1928 so that Turkish culture would be separated from the Ottoman and Arabic past. Kurds were not recognized as a separate people and were called “mountain Turks,” which shows that the new nation was defined as Turkish.

Turkish nationalism started as a reform movement inside the Ottoman Empire and not as a movement against it. Military defeats and the loss of territory made the idea of a shared Ottoman identity seem unrealistic. World War I and the fight against the Allies then turned Turkish identity into a political cause. By 1930, Ataturk’s reforms had replaced the Ottoman Islamic order with a secular Turkish republic. Cleveland shows that this success depended on Turkey winning its independence, which is something the Arab lands under the mandates could not do.

Essay 2: Option 2 - What role did religion play in the development of Zionism?

Zionism is the movement to create a Jewish national home in Palestine, and religion played an important but complicated role in it. Religion gave Palestine its meaning, because Jews had prayed for a return to Zion for centuries. However, Cleveland explains that the political movement began in the late 1800s as a response to anti-Semitism in Europe, and its main founders were mostly secular. Religion later became much more powerful inside Israel, especially after the 1967 war. This essay will show how religion shaped Zionism’s roots, the mandate period, and the state of Israel.

Cleveland says Zionism was “rooted in centuries of religious longing for return to Zion,” but it became a political movement because of pogroms against Jews in Russia (violent, targeted mob attacks against Jewish communities). Britain’s Balfour Declaration in 1917 promised a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine, and the mandate system wrote this promise into the Palestine mandate in 1922. This created a dual obligation for Britain, because it also had to protect the rights of the Arab majority. Religion became a direct source of conflict in 1929, when riots broke out over Jewish prayer at the Western Wall, which is also part of the Haram al-Sharif that Muslims consider holy. At the same time, the main Zionist institutions were secular, such as the labor union Histadrut and the defense force Haganah.

After Israel was created in 1948, the Nakba left hundreds of thousands of Palestinians as refugees, and religion entered the new state in several ways. The Law of Return of 1950 gave every Jew the right to immigrate, but it did not give the same right to Palestinian refugees. Rabbinical courts gained control over marriage and divorce in 1953, and small religious parties gained power in coalition governments. After the 1967 war, the settler movement Gush Emunim, which means “Bloc of the Faithful,” argued that the West Bank was Jewish land for religious reasons. When Menachem won in 1977, Cleveland says it marked a shift from secular Labor Zionism toward religious-nationalist militancy, and settlements grew from 24 to 106.

Religion gave Zionism its deepest emotional appeal and its link to the land of Palestine. However, the movement itself was created by secular leaders responding to persecution in Europe. During the mandate, religion mostly appeared as a source of conflict, such as at the Western Wall. After 1948 and especially after 1967, religious groups gained political power in Israel. Therefore, religion was a source of Zionism’s meaning at the start and a source of its political power later.

Essay 2: Option 3 - Compare the different forms of nationalism that emerged in the Middle East after the end of the Ottoman Empire?

When the Ottoman Empire ended in 1918, people in the Middle East had to decide what they belonged to, and several kinds of nationalism appeared. These included Turkish nationalism, local nationalisms in Egypt, Iraq, and Syria, Pan-Arabism, Islamic unity, and the competing nationalisms of Zionists and Palestinians. A major reason they differed was the mandate system, which in 1920 gave Britain and France control over most Arab lands. Groups that had their own state and army, like Turkey, had more success than those whose borders were drawn by outsiders. This essay compares these nationalisms by looking at Turkey, the Arab lands, and Palestine.

Turkish nationalism was the most successful because Turkey escaped the mandate system and defended its own territory. Mustafa Kemal defeated the Allied plan to divide Turkey in the War of Independence, and the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 recognized the new republic. He then built a secular state by ending the caliphate in 1924, reducing the power of the ‘ulama, and changing the alphabet in 1928. Women like Halide Edip Adivar took part in the movement as well. Iran’s Reza Shah copied some of these reforms, but Cleveland says he relied mainly on the army and did not build popular institutions like Ataturk did.

In the Arab lands, nationalism usually grew inside the new borders that Britain and France had drawn. In Egypt, which Britain ruled by treaty and not as a mandate, Sa’d Zaghlul led a nationalism focused on Egypt, and Huda Sha’arawi connected it to women’s rights. In Iraq, Britain joined Basra, Baghdad, and Mosul into one state, and in Syria, France split the country into smaller pieces. The Arab Revolt and the Sykes-Picot Agreement showed how Arab hopes for one state were blocked, though Ba’athism later tried to revive Pan-Arab unity. A different path was Islamic unity, and Saudi Arabia, which was never a mandate, was built on Islam instead of secular nationalism.

Palestine was different because two nationalisms competed for the same land under one mandate. The Balfour Declaration was written into the mandate, so Britain had promised a national home to Jews while also ruling an Arab majority. Zionists built their own institutions, such as the Histadrut and the Haganah, which prepared them to act like a state. Palestinian Arabs were led by notables who refused to cooperate with the mandate and were divided by family rivalries. The result was the 1936 to 1939 Arab revolt and then the Nakba in 1948, when Israel won and Palestinians lost their homeland.

These nationalisms differed in how much power they had to build a state. Turkey and Zionism had armies and institutions, so they succeeded. Syria, Iraq, and Palestine had their borders and leaders shaped by the mandate system, so their nationalism was weaker or divided. Pan-Arabism and Islamic unity tried to go beyond those borders but did not replace state loyalties. Overall, the main lesson is that nationalism worked best where a group controlled its own territory.

Essay 2: Option 4 - What made Nasser’s political project influential beyond Egypt?

Gamal Abdel Nasser ruled Egypt from 1952 until his death in 1970, and his influence reached far beyond Egypt’s borders. Nasser symbolized “a range of attitudes and actions reaching far beyond Egypt.” Nasser became influential because he stood up to Western powers, spoke directly to ordinary Arabs, and offered social programs that many people wanted. His influence was limited by mistakes, especially the 1967 war. This essay explains his anti-imperial victories, his use of media and ideas, and the limits of his project.

Nasser came to power in the 1952 Free Officers coup, and he quickly worked to end British control of Egypt. He refused to join the Baghdad Pact and bought weapons from the Soviet bloc in 1955 instead of depending on the West. In 1956 he nationalized the Suez Canal after the United States withdrew funding for the Aswan Dam. Britain, France, and Israel attacked Egypt, but the United States and Soviet Union forced them to withdraw. Cleveland calls this a military defeat but a political triumph, and it made Nasser a hero to Arabs who were still under foreign influence.

Nasser spread his message through the Voice of the Arabs radio station, Egyptian films, and singers like Umm Kalthum. His Arab socialism promised land reform, free education, and jobs, which appealed to the fallahun and poor people across the Arab world. He also brought Al-Azhar under state control and had its scholars say that Arab socialism fit with Islam. Other Arab officers copied his example, and the Ba’ath Party used a similar slogan of “unity, freedom, socialism.” In 1958 Syria joined Egypt in the United Arab Republic, which showed how far his influence reached.

Nasser’s influence also had limits that came from his own decisions. Syria left the United Arab Republic in 1961 because Egyptians dominated it, and Egypt’s war in Yemen showed Arabs fighting other Arabs. The 1967 war was the worst failure, because Israel destroyed Egypt’s air force and took Sinai, and ‘Abd al-Hakim al-‘Amr was arrested and died afterward. Cleveland says Nasser’s appeal rested more on “activism and the promise of change” than on a clear program. For that reason, his project could not easily be passed on to a successor.

Nasser mattered beyond Egypt because he proved an Arab leader could challenge the West and win. He gave ordinary Arabs a voice through radio, film, and social programs. Other leaders and parties copied his style, and Egypt became the center of Arab politics. His defeat in 1967 ended much of this influence. Still, his example shaped Arab politics for decades afterward.