WI - Effects of a more divided Middle East / North Africa

Re: no palestine - there never was a group that identified themselfs as such until after the creation of israel ... up until then palestine was a geographic description just like levant or appalachia or oceana ....
Perhaps a POD that kept the US from rejecting the league of nations and having wilson being even more forceful in seeking self determination.

For POD, try getting wilsom more assertive for sepf determination and making the US join the league of nations.

Also Fwiw, prior to Israel's reestablishment, Palestinians referred to the Jews with the Arabs (who were offended at being called Palestinian) only adopting the term as a competing-nationalism after the 67 War whereas before they identified themselves as Arabs or South Syrians (part of a Greater Syria) after the 1920 division of Syria between the British and the French.
 
IMHO, a relatively ethnically homogenous and geographically contiguous Kurdestan is entirely possible, provided that it's confined to the mountainous areas around the Turkey-Iraq-Iran borders.
 
IMHO, a relatively ethnically homogenous and geographically contiguous Kurdestan is entirely possible, provided that it's confined to the mountainous areas around the Turkey-Iraq-Iran borders.

no question, but to be sustainable it will need to be largely mountainous and, thus, defendible ... and be able ot hold some useful oil lands that can be defended from these high grounds.
 
In my opinion though I don't think one big Kurdistan state would succceed. I think there would be a lot of internal fighting that I could see it breaking up to two small states.
 
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Eliphas8


No, it does not. You make it sound like I’m calling for the Copts to rule all of Egypt (who fwiw appear to be too spread out for a Coptic state to appear). While not perfect the WI scenario would potentially solve a lot of problems in the region current under Sunni Arab hegemony, hell it is certainly a lot better than OTL atm where division (whether full-statehood or an autonomous canton part of a federation) appears to be the only humane remedy for the region as an alternative to Sunni Arab or Shia Persian hegemony.

The fact is that the middle east should never have had the specter of Ethnic nationalism forced onto it at all because the region is terribly set up for it, even if you divided states along ethnic lines you will have numerous pockets within these states that are still entirely open to being discriminated against. There is no clean way to divide up the middle east effectively.
 
(seems like the fronts and text sizes are playing up a bit)

katchen

Thanks for the reading suggestions.

Fascinating history, was wondering how far back British support for Pro-Arab Pro-Sunni interests goes at the expense of others.


Eliphas8



Under that logic I suppose Armenia would have been better off under Turkish rule in the same way Bosnia and Kosovo should have remained under Serbian rule.

Why the obsession with Palestine? An Arab Palestine would only be serving Sunni Arab interests, which defeats the purpose of this What-If scenario where non-sunni non-muslim and non-arab minorities gain statehood.

You know the Arabs don't form a united front in any sense of the world. The Palestinians are just as much a persecuted minority as any other minority group in the Middle East. If you are going to divide up the Middle East why not let them have their own state.
 
Israel having the Sinai is in no way comparable to Alsace-Lorraine. Since you'll need a PoD no later than 1918 to get this, if the British do "follow" the Balfour Declaration (one option) and include the Sinai it won't be such a huge problem - in 1918 the population of the Sinai was a small number of Bedouin, and the Gaza area had a small population. From a British perspective having the Suez Canal zone as a "neutral" area controlled by them with Israel on one side and Egypt on the other is a big winner - neither side can "claim" the canal as theirs, and both sides have an interest in a "DMZ" controlled by power(s) whose interest lies in keeping this DMZ safe and the canal open is a positive.

As far as minorities in "ethnic" countries, what you'll see is various population exchanges - some voluntary, some not so, some relatively peaceful others not so. While no country will end up being pure, hopefully most will tolerate minorities that are too small to be seen as much of an internal threat. There will, of course, be irredentism and territorial longings - again some will eventually go away, others may simmer.

An advantage to this TL is that most of these entities are not going to be big enough to cause real problems in many ways, and since everybody gets their own piece of ground, support outside the region for various claims will be minimized.
 

katchen

Banned
The problem with the Sinai is that THAT boundary was set in the 1820s between the Ottomans and Mehmet Ali. Chaim Weitzman tried in 1905 to get permission for Jews to settle in the Sinai Peninsula diverting Nile Water but the Egyptian government would have none of it.
For better or worse, the Egyptian Government has never been able to divert Nile water along the Mediteranean or Red Sea coasts of the Sinai to settle it;s own fellaheen in the Sinai either before or after the building of the Suez Canal . Had they been able to do so before the canal, it is possible the canal might never have been built. It would have been too disruptive to too many farmers. Afterwords, somehow it has always been too expensive or too many other priorities despite it's obvious strategic value against Israel. and keeping control out of the hands of Sinai's bedouins.
 
As far as minorities in "ethnic" countries, what you'll see is various population exchanges - some voluntary, some not so, some relatively peaceful others not so. While no country will end up being pure, hopefully most will tolerate minorities that are too small to be seen as much of an internal threat. There will, of course, be irredentism and territorial longings - again some will eventually go away, others may simmer.

So even you admit this will result in ethnic cleansing. Hope is not enough here, I need some guarentee more solid than "well if everything goes sunshine and rainbows these nations will treat their minorites well. How on earth is this better when all it really seems to change is increasing the number of ethnic cleansings going on and needlessly uprooting tens of thousands more people.

And Sinai will act as an Alsace Lorraine because without it there really is no way Egypt will feel safe from Israel. A relatively safe uninhabited buffer zone is very good for their relations. Giving that land to Israel and settling it utterly destroys any chance of that happening and only makes Egypt feel massively unsafe.
 
You know the Arabs don't form a united front in any sense of the world. The Palestinians are just as much a persecuted minority as any other minority group in the Middle East. If you are going to divide up the Middle East why not let them have their own state.



Eliphas8

What makes Sunni Arabs living there a distinct identity compared to other Sunni Arabs or to other groups like the Kurds, Shia Arabs and other distinct identities in the region? Until they adopted the term Palestinian in the mid/late-60s (which previously referred to the Jews) the Arabs there preferred to call themselves Arabs or South Syrian, not exactly a distinct ethnic and religious identity is it?

Especially in a thread that is precisely about realising the national aspirations of non-sunni, non-arab and non-muslim minorities with a rough POD between WW1 and the 1920s, the point being to create a new order in a region where powerful groups like the Sunni Arabs, Turks or Shia Iranians have their hegemonic ambitions curbed during the Great War and the aftermath.

We’ll agree to disagree, I have no desire to have the thread derailed on whether the Sunni Arabs in what was formerly South Syria until 1920 are distinct from other Sunni Arabs in the region.

Just because such a scenario would end up looking more like the breakup of Yugoslavia and would hurt the pride of the Sunni Arab side or reduced states like Turkey and Iran, does not justify ignoring the aspirations of historically mistreated minorities that short of assuming power in coup and running a dictatorship (as in the case of the Alawites) would have suffered brutal discrimination at the hands of the majority at best or outright genocide at worse.
 




Eliphas8

What makes Sunni Arabs living there a distinct identity compared to other Sunni Arabs or to other groups like the Kurds, Shia Arabs and other distinct identities in the region? Until they adopted the term Palestinian in the mid/late-60s (which previously referred to the Jews) the Arabs there preferred to call themselves Arabs or South Syrian, not exactly a distinct ethnic and religious identity is it?

Especially in a thread that is precisely about realising the national aspirations of non-sunni, non-arab and non-muslim minorities with a rough POD between WW1 and the 1920s, the point being to create a new order in a region where powerful groups like the Sunni Arabs, Turks or Shia Iranians have their hegemonic ambitions curbed during the Great War and the aftermath.

We’ll agree to disagree, I have no desire to have the thread derailed on whether the Sunni Arabs in what was formerly South Syria until 1920 are distinct from other Sunni Arabs in the region.

Just because such a scenario would end up looking more like the breakup of Yugoslavia and would hurt the pride of the Sunni Arab side or reduced states like Turkey and Iran, does not justify ignoring the aspirations of historically mistreated minorities that short of assuming power in coup and running a dictatorship (as in the case of the Alawites) would have suffered brutal discrimination at the hands of the majority at best or outright genocide at worse.
I see you conveniently ignored my earlier post in which I challenged the common misconception that the Palestinian identity was formed only in a reaction to the formation of Israel. I have never in my life, either in current affairs or in history heard of the Jews of Palestine being referred to solely as "Palestinians" so I'm afraid you'll have to back that assertion up. Your strange attempt to try and deny the suffering and the mistreatment of the Palestinians based on your assignment of them to a greater "Sunni Arab" group belies your voiced desire to avoid making the thread yet another Palestinian debate.

Anyone with even a basic understanding of the Middle East could tell you that simply because a person is Arab, it doesn't mean they won't identify themselves by a "Sub-ethnicity". For example, I am an Arab, but I am also Bahrani. They aren't mutually exclusive identities, and it is likewise the same with the Palestinian and Arab identities. You say your scenario is aimed to help minorities in the Middle East, but you have ignored several elephants in the room. Namely, that...

1- Some ethnicities are simply too small and scattered for their own states, such as the Assyrians in Iraq (whose position has deteriorated as the Kurds gained autonomy OTL) or the Copts in Egypt. Where do they fit into your grand design?

2- The Sunni Arabs have hardly been a scarcely hegemonic group, simply for the fact that they often work against each other. Saddam Hussein's Iraq, despite being Sunni dominated, nevertheless waged war on Sunni Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The Sunni Hashemites were pushed from the Hejaz by the Sunni Saudis.

3- A large Israel only serves to exacerbate tensions in the Middle East. It would lead to more people being displaced, and would encroach even more severely on its neighbors. Not a recipe for peace.
 
I see you conveniently ignored my earlier post in which I challenged the common misconception that the Palestinian identity was formed only in a reaction to the formation of Israel. I have never in my life, either in current affairs or in history heard of the Jews of Palestine being referred to solely as "Palestinians" so I'm afraid you'll have to back that assertion up. Your strange attempt to try and deny the suffering and the mistreatment of the Palestinians based on your assignment of them to a greater "Sunni Arab" group belies your voiced desire to avoid making the thread yet another Palestinian debate.

Anyone with even a basic understanding of the Middle East could tell you that simply because a person is Arab, it doesn't mean they won't identify themselves by a "Sub-ethnicity". For example, I am an Arab, but I am also Bahrani. They aren't mutually exclusive identities, and it is likewise the same with the Palestinian and Arab identities. You say your scenario is aimed to help minorities in the Middle East, but you have ignored several elephants in the room. Namely, that...

1- Some ethnicities are simply too small and scattered for their own states, such as the Assyrians in Iraq (whose position has deteriorated as the Kurds gained autonomy OTL) or the Copts in Egypt. Where do they fit into your grand design?

2- The Sunni Arabs have hardly been a scarcely hegemonic group, simply for the fact that they often work against each other. Saddam Hussein's Iraq, despite being Sunni dominated, nevertheless waged war on Sunni Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The Sunni Hashemites were pushed from the Hejaz by the Sunni Saudis.

3- A large Israel only serves to exacerbate tensions in the Middle East. It would lead to more people being displaced, and would encroach even more severely on its neighbors. Not a recipe for peace.

The term Palestinian did not exclusively refer to only the Arabs in the Levant, in fact up to the 1967 War the Arabs were offended at being called Palestinians since the term was a synonym of the word Jews. Even Immanuel Kant referred to Jews as "the Palestinians living among us" in Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (page 100) albeit in a negative context. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_Palestinian

1- Obviously the Assyrians and Copts are not in a position to had a state of their own, yet that is not the case for other minorities.

2- While the Baathist Iraq regime under Saddam benefited the Sunnis at expense of the Kurds and Shia, it could be argued that the regime was secular by ideology though you have a point on the tribalism / infighting among the Arabs, yet it is from such instability or change of regime that minorities historical suffered since the degree of their degraded status was largely dependent on the whim of whoever was in charge, which would not be the case if they had states of the own.

3- Despite some misconceptions Israel has no expansionist designs on the Middle East unlike Iran (with its Safavid agenda) or the Muslim Brotherhood (gaining power with the West's help), even if they had the numbers or will to do so. An Israel with the territories of post-1967 would be pretty much the absolute maximum it is willing to entertain, especially as they pretty much gave the Sinai back to Egypt in return for a peace treaty.
 
The term Palestinian did not exclusively refer to only the Arabs in the Levant, in fact up to the 1967 War the Arabs were offended at being called Palestinians since the term was a synonym of the word Jews. Even Immanuel Kant referred to Jews as "the Palestinians living among us" in Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (page 100) albeit in a negative context. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_Palestinian

1- Obviously the Assyrians and Copts are not in a position to had a state of their own, yet that is not the case for other minorities.

2- While the Baathist Iraq regime under Saddam benefited the Sunnis at expense of the Kurds and Shia, it could be argued that the regime was secular by ideology though you have a point on the tribalism / infighting among the Arabs, yet it is from such instability or change of regime that minorities historical suffered since the degree of their degraded status was largely dependent on the whim of whoever was in charge, which would not be the case if they had states of the own.

3- Despite some misconceptions Israel has no expansionist designs on the Middle East unlike Iran (with its Safavid agenda) or the Muslim Brotherhood (gaining power with the West's help), even if they had the numbers or will to do so. An Israel with the territories of post-1967 would be pretty much the absolute maximum it is willing to entertain, especially as they pretty much gave the Sinai back to Egypt in return for a peace treaty.
In the original post, you said that the Palestinians referred to the Jews living in Palestine. The source you posted mentions absolutely nothing about the Arab usage of Palestinian to refer solely to the Jewish population, and indeed mentions nothing about Arabs seeing the word as insulting. Indeed, before papers such as the "Palestine Post" were event thought of, Arabic language papers in the area carried names such as "Filasteen" (which of course is Palestine in the Arabic language). Are we to believe the publishers of the newspaper were in on some insulting joke?

1- Many minorities would be left with states that are nonviable at any rate. Either too small to resist invasion and domination by larger states around them, or not possessing the resources necessarily to sustain themselves as independent states.

2-The regime was secular by ideology, but in practice in terms of treatment of its citizens, it was like Bashar al-Assad's Syria in the sense that it used the religious and ethnic communities of its people to divide and rule. Indeed, under Saddam Hussein, Christians held comparatively a lot of power. It was essentially a coalition of certain minorities, led by the Sunni Arabs ruling over the Kurds and the Shia Arabs. Hardly a situation in which all minorities could be considered to be especially repressed.

3- What is the Safavid agenda? I've never actually heard the phrase being used before.

Israel most definitely does have expansionist designs. It illegally holds territory seized from its neighbors, and continues to encroach on Palestinian territory in the West Bank, regularly building new settlement blocs. Not only does Israel have expansionist designs, but it is largely succeeding in realizing them. Much more so than the Iranians increasingly besieged by Sunni Arab powers, or the Muslim Brotherhood which is barely keeping a lid on unrest in Egypt.
 
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