What is the Middle East like?

Answer 1

Geographically it is very hot, and much of it consists of desert or scrubland, although there are also many areas of abundant fertility due to either natural or manufactured irrigation. This results in some parts of it being very agriculturally fertile and allows for the production of a lot of fruit, grain and vegetables, as well as some areas of quite outstanding natural beauty- forests are scarce, but there are still parts where there are fields and woodland that are host to an abundance of lovely flowers and plants, as well as a variety of fauna. It is also very rich in oil, especially the areas covering Iran (which, strictly speaking, is not officially classed as being the Middle East but is generally loosely regarded as such), Iraq and Saudi Arabia, which has enabled some of it's nations to become very wealthy in exporting this oil to other countries. Politically though, it is (and has always been) a region of intense conflict and warfare, either on religious, economic or geo-political grounds, and is very unstable. It is home to Jewish people, and also to Arabs who are always in some sort of continual hatred and fighting in some region of the Middle East or another. Some of it is between the modern State of Israel and it's neighbouring Arab countries- the latter claim that Israel has unfairly occupied Arab territory and is a regional bully, and the Palestinians are fighting to get the land back that was formerly allocated to them by the UN after the end of WW2 and which Israel invaded in 1948. Also, both Zionist Jews and Islamic Arabs claim Jerusalem to be their de facto capital. There is also in-fighting both within and between the various Arab states, due to the differing forms of Islam that these nations practice (Sunni Islam and Shia Islam), and also between moderate Arab Governments and extremists, who want to replace them with a very harsh form of religious rule governed by Sharia Law (as practiced in Iran). Arab nations can also fight each other because one or other of them wants to be the dominant Islamic power in the region, or for economic reasons (i.e. disputes over claims to oil fields, etc.) It is within Israel's interests to keep it's surrounding Islamic neighbours fighting each other, as this means that they will be focusing their intentions elsewhere and not be such a direct threat to Israeli security. The region has historically been occupied for periods of time, initially by the Romans but subsequently by the Ottoman and British Empires, as well as by the French- it was also subject to fighting in Mediaeval times between the Crusaders of Western Europe and the native Islamic Arabs, because at the time, Europe wanted to claim Jerusalem as the Christian capital. It is the Western powers' division and allocation of territory during the first half of the 20th Century that has shaped the political and national boundaries that the Middle East has today. In the modern world, the two Superpowers of the USA and Russia have taken opposing sides in supporting different countries- the USA has traditionally staunchly backed Israel due to the huge numbers of Americans who are of Jewish origin, as well as the moderate or Western-friendly Arab states (i.e. Saudi Arabia is hardly moderate towards it's own citizens, but it is friendly towards the West. The same went for Iraq under Saddam Hussein up until he invaded Kuwait in 1990). Russia has always backed the more extreme Arab or Islamic countries. The two huge superpowers have a strong vested interest in controlling the Governments of the Middle East by proxy, mostly because (although they do have oil reserves of their own), they are both heavily dependent upon Middle East oil- their own reserves are not enough to keep their economies and infrastructures going. They go out of their way to court favour with the moderate Arab states, who can waver between one side or another if they feel that either the US or Russia is being too antagonistic to their own interests or being too harsh on one or other of their Arab neighbours. The whole subject of Middle Eastern politics is extremely complicated, and far too lengthy to go in to here, but there are excellent sites on Wikipedia that can give you both a history of Middle Eastern affairs and an overview of what is happening there today (my own brother-in-law is a Middle East expert, and even HE gets bewildered about some of the reasons for happenings there!) But as a final point, geographically the Middle East is strictly speaking the area known as The Levant- the region to the East of the Meditteranean Sea. Egypt, Libya and it's neighbouring countries to the West, although Arab and Muslim, are officially part of North Africa (although Egypt has been a critical nation in wars against Israel in the past). Iran, although Islamic, is also not classed as being in the Middle East, and it's people are not Arabs but Persians- but since 1979, the extremely fundamentalist Shi'ite Government has always backed the extremist Islamic factions in the Middle East with both armaments and fuel oil. The West supported Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq War to prevent Iran from becoming the dominant Islamic regional power.