Middle+East

__Middle East:__ · Having lost in WWI, the Turkish people were on the brick of invasion from Italy and Greece but they were able to drive the Greek armies back that were set to colonize the Turkish homeland. · A Turkish republic was recognized at the hands of wiping out the Greeks but there were radical programs that wanted to model western precedents which included a new Latin alphabet, women suffrage and criticism of the veil. · Being promised by the British to preserve Arab independence, the Arabs were angered, humiliated, betrayed by the break of the promise after they had even ended Turkish rule and supported the British in the war. They were even more angered by the disposition of Palestine where British occupation was coupled with promises of a Jewish homeland. · The occupying European faced stiff resistance from the Arabs in each of the mandates that they had carved out. · The British it seemed promised Palestine to both the Arabs and the Jewish Zionists, the British went as far as approving the Balfour Declaration that would give the Jews back their land but secretly assuring Hussein and other Arab leaders that they would indeed be in control of their own land. · The pledge was a direct response to the persecution of Jews in Eastern Europe and so Jewish intellectuals like Leon Pinsker were convinced that returning to the homeland would solve the problem and there was land there that was purchased for their use. · Prominent assimilated Jews such as Theodor Herzl became activists in returning to Palestine after he saw the treatment that Alfred Dreyfus received when he was falsely accused. He went on to join with other Jewish leaders in eastern Europe and they formed the World Zionist Organization. · After Lord Balfour’s promises to the Zionists became known, it was a double betrayal to the Arabs who had hoped for independence after the war which soon turned into resistance against British rule, which was mirrored by the Jews who also built up their own defenses against the violent Arabs. In the first map, the Middle East is only made up of a couple of countries, some from North Africa but not a lot in Asia. In the second map, the Middle East has expanded a whole lot more and there are a lot more countries from southwest Asia and very few from Africa. In the third map, the Middle East has again expanded and involves a whole lot more countries than in the first or second map coming from Asia.