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116-822: The Suez Crisis also known as the Second Arab–Israeli War , the Tripartite Aggression in the Arab world and as the Sinai War in Israel , was a British–French–Israeli invasion of Egypt in 1956. Israel invaded on 29 October, having done so with the primary objective of re-opening the Straits of Tiran and the Gulf of Aqaba as the recent tightening of the eight-year-long Egyptian blockade further prevented Israeli passage . After issuing

232-607: A Central Semitic group in southern Levant and northern Arabian peninsula . Arab tribes and federations such as Nabataeans , Tanukhids , Salihids , Ghassanids , and numerous other groups were prevalent in southern Levant ( Syrian Desert ) and northern Arabia. Their expansion beyond Arabia and the Syrian desert is due to the Muslim conquests of the 7th and 8th centuries. Iraq was conquered in 633, Levant (modern Syria, Israel, Palestine, Jordan and Lebanon ) between 636 and 640 CE. Egypt

348-649: A consequence, American diplomats favoured the creation of a NATO-type organisation in the Near East to provide the necessary military power to deter the Soviets from invading. The Eisenhower administration, even more than the Truman administration, saw the Near East as a huge gap into which Soviet influence could be projected, and accordingly required an American-supported security system. American diplomat Raymond Hare later recalled: It's hard to put ourselves back in this period. There

464-579: A deal that would see Egypt assume sovereignty over the canal zone base, but then allow the British to have "technical control" in the same way Ford auto company provided parts and training to its Egyptian dealers. Nasser did not share Dulles's fear of the Soviet Union and insisted vehemently he wanted to see the end of British influence in the Middle East. The CIA offered Nasser a $ 3 million bribe if he would join

580-464: A garrison of 80,000, making it one of the largest military installations in the world. The Suez base was an important part of Britain's strategic position in the Middle East; however, it became a source of growing tension in Anglo-Egyptian relations . Egypt's domestic politics were experiencing a radical change, prompted by economic instability, inflation, and unemployment. Unrest began to manifest in

696-571: A joint ultimatum for a ceasefire, the United Kingdom and France joined the Israelis on 5 November, seeking to depose Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser and regain control of the Suez Canal , which Nasser had earlier nationalised by transferring administrative control from the foreign-owned Suez Canal Company to Egypt's new government-owned Suez Canal Authority . Shortly after the invasion began,

812-780: A mixture of Arab and Nubian elements. The Arab Abbasid Caliphate fell to the Mongol invasions in the 13th century. Egypt, the Levant and Hejaz also came under the Turkish Mamluk Sultanate . By 1570, the Turkish Ottoman Empire controlled most of the Arab world. However, Morocco remained under the rule of the Zenata Wattasid dynasty , which was succeeded by the Saadi dynasty in

928-466: A national cinema. While Egyptian and Lebanese cinema have a long history of production, most other Arab countries did not witness film production until after independence, and even today, the majority of film production in countries like Bahrain, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates is limited to television or short films. There is increased interest in films originating in

1044-528: A pistol sixty miles from me at the Suez Canal to worry about somebody who is holding a knife a thousand miles away? Dulles informed Nasser of his belief that the Soviet Union was seeking world conquest, that the principal danger to the Near East came from the Kremlin, and urged Nasser to set aside his differences with Britain to focus on countering the Soviet Union. In this spirit, Dulles suggested that Nasser negotiate

1160-415: A point of strength". A dilemma for American policy was that the two strongest powers in the Near East, Britain and France, were the nations whose influence many local nationalists most resented. From 1953 onwards, American diplomacy had attempted unsuccessfully to persuade the powers involved in the Near East, local and imperial, to set aside their differences and unite against the Soviets. The Americans took

1276-466: A result of debt and financial crisis, Egypt was forced to sell its shares in the operating company to the British government. They were willing buyers and obtained a 44% share in the company for £4 million (equivalent to £476 million in 2023). This maintained the majority shareholdings of the mostly-French private investors. With the 1882 invasion and occupation of Egypt , the UK took de facto control of

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1392-729: A result of the incident, Nasser began allowing raids into Israel by the Palestinian militants. Egypt established fedayeen bases not just in Gaza but also in Jordan and Lebanon, from which incursions could be launched with a greater amount of plausible deniability on the part of Nasser's Egypt. The raids triggered a series of Israeli reprisal operations , which ultimately contributed to the Suez Crisis. Starting in 1949 owing to shared nuclear research, France and Israel started to move towards an alliance. Following

1508-685: A southwestern region in the Khuzestan Province ; others inhabit the Bushehr and Hormozgan provinces and the city of Qom . Mali and Senegal recognize Hassaniya , the Arabic dialect of the Moorish ethnic minority, as a national language . Greece and Cyprus also recognize Cypriot Maronite Arabic under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages . Additionally, Malta, though not part of

1624-481: A strong friend of Israel, urged an alliance with that nation against Egypt. Prior to 1955, Nasser had pursued efforts to reach peace with Israel and had worked to prevent cross-border Palestinian attacks. In February 1955, Unit 101 , an Israeli unit under Ariel Sharon , conducted a raid on the Egyptian Army headquarters in Gaza in retaliation for a Palestinian fedayeen attack that killed an Israeli civilian. As

1740-487: A strong warning to the British if they were to invade Egypt; he threatened serious damage to the British financial system by selling the American government's bonds of pound sterling . Before their defeat, Egyptian troops blocked all ship traffic by sinking 40 ships in the canal. It later became clear that Israel, the UK, and France had conspired to invade Egypt. These three achieved a number of their military objectives, although

1856-550: A threat to Nasser's desire to see Egypt as head of the Arab world. The creation of the Baghdad Pact in 1955 seemed to confirm Nasser's fears Britain was attempting to draw the Eastern Arab World into a bloc centred upon Iraq, and sympathetic to Britain. Nasser's response was a series of challenges to British influence in the region that would culminate in the Suez Crisis. In regard to the Arab leadership, particularly venomous

1972-494: A young nationalist who, though no Communist, could if used correctly do much damage to Western interests in the Middle East. Marshal Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia , who also came to know Nasser at the Bandung Conference told Khrushchev in a 1955 meeting that "Nasser was a young man without much political experience, but if we give him the benefit of the doubt, we might be able to exert a beneficial influence on him, both for

2088-587: Is a member-state of the Arab League, although both Chad and Eritrea are observer states of the League (with possible future membership) and have large populations of Arabic speakers. Israel is not a part of the Arab world. By some definitions, Arab citizens of Israel may concurrently be considered a constituent part of the Arab world. Iran has about 1.5 million Arabic speakers. Iranian Arabs are mainly found in Ahvaz ,

2204-569: Is largely due to the policy of the West in building up and flattering him". In a May 1956 gathering of French veterans, Louis Mangin spoke in place of the unavailable Minister of Defence and gave a violently anti-Nasser speech, which compared the Egyptian leader to Hitler. He accused Nasser of plotting to rule the entire Middle East and of seeking to annex Algeria, whose "people live in community with France". Mangin urged France to stand up to Nasser, and being

2320-482: Is nevertheless diverse in many ways, and economically includes some of the wealthiest as well as poorest populations. The region mostly corresponds with the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) definition. In post-classical history , the Arab world was synonymous with the historic Arab empires and caliphates. Arab nationalism arose in the second half of the 19th century along with other nationalist movements within

2436-521: Is not included in the region. Similarly, Chad , Eritrea and Israel recognize Arabic as one of their official or working languages but are not included in the region because they are not members of the Arab League. The linguistic and political denotation inherent in the term Arab is generally dominant over genealogical considerations. In Arab states, Standard Arabic is used by the government. Local vernacular languages are referred to as Darija ( الدَّارِجَة "everyday/colloquial language" ) in

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2552-433: Is official in all of them. Several states have declared Arabic to be an official or national language , although Arabic is not as widely spoken there. As members of the Arab League, however, they are considered part of the Arab world under the standard territorial definition. Somalia has two official languages, Arabic and Somali , while Somaliland has three, Arabic, Somali and English . Both Arabic and Somali belong to

2668-439: Is sometimes seen to be inappropriate or problematic, and may be supplemented with certain additional elements (see ancillary linguistic definition below). As an alternative to, or in combination with, the standard territorial definition, the Arab world may be defined as consisting of peoples and states united to at least some degree by Arabic language, culture or geographic contiguity, or those states or territories in which

2784-515: Is used as the lingua franca throughout the Arab world. The Arab world is at its minimum defined as the 19 states where Arabs form at least a plurality of the population. At its maximum it consists of the 22 members of the Arab League , an international organization, which on top of the 19 plurality Arab states also includes the Comoros , Djibouti and Somalia . The region stretches from

2900-624: The Arab homeland ( اَلْوَطَنُ الْعَرَبِيُّ al-waṭan al-ʿarabī ), also known as the Arab nation ( اَلْأُمَّةُ الْعَرَبِيَّةُ al-ummah al-ʿarabiyyah ), the Arabsphere , or the Arab states , comprises a large group of countries, mainly located in West Asia and North Africa . While the majority of people in the Arab world are ethnically Arab , there are also significant populations of other ethnic groups such as Berbers , Kurds , Somalis and Nubians , among other groups . Arabic

3016-708: The Arabian Peninsula (Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen). He also considered Iraq, alongside Upper Mesopotamia (Iraq, Syria and Turkey), Ash-Sham (Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and Turkey), Egypt and the Maghreb (Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia and Western Sahara Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic) to be part of the Arab regions. Malta , an island country in Southern Europe whose national language derives from Arabic (through Sicilian Arabic ),

3132-798: The Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Arabian Sea in the east, and from the Mediterranean Sea in the north to the Indian Ocean in the southeast. The eastern part of the Arab world is known as the Mashriq , and the western part as the Maghreb . According to the World Bank , the Arab world has a total population of 456 million inhabitants and a gross domestic product of $ 2.85 trillion, as of 2021. The region

3248-709: The Cape of Good Hope in Africa, giving the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces time to consolidate their position. The importance of the canal as a strategic intersection was again apparent during the First World War, when Britain and France closed the canal to non- Allied shipping. The attempt by the German-led Ottoman Fourth Army to storm the canal in 1915 led the British to commit 100,000 troops to

3364-873: The Druzes (mainly in Syria and also in Lebanon, Jordan) and Mandaeans (in Iraq). Formerly, there were significant minorities of Jews throughout the Arab World. However, the Arab–Israeli conflict prompted their mass exodus between 1948 and 1972. Today small Jewish communities remain, ranging anywhere from just 10 in Bahrain , to more than 1,000 in Tunisia and some 3,000 in Morocco . Historically, slavery in

3480-597: The Egypt–Israel border , while British prime minister Anthony Eden resigned from his position. For his diplomatic efforts in resolving the conflict through UN initiatives, Canadian external affairs minister Lester B. Pearson received a Nobel Peace Prize . Analysts have argued that the crisis may have emboldened the USSR, prompting the Soviet invasion of Hungary . The Suez Canal was opened in 1869, after ten years of work financed by

3596-632: The Entente Cordiale between the United Kingdom and France, with the Convention finally coming into force in 1904. The Entente Cordiale stipulated that the functioning of the international supervisory commission described in Article 8 would "remain in abeyance." However, for the next 40 years, British actions would largely be in the spirit of the abandoned reservation. On 5 August 1914, at the beginning of

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3712-668: The First World War , Egypt, under the nationalist Khedive Abbas Hilmi II , declared that the Canal would be open to ships of all nations. However, the United Kingdom subsequently deposed Abbas; replaced him with his uncle, Hussein Kamel ; and declared the re-establishment of the Sultanate of Egypt as a British protectorate. Thereafter, Britain barred canal access to ships of the Central Powers for

3828-508: The Maghreb or Aammiyya ( ٱلْعَامِيَّة "common language") in the Mashreq . The majority of the vocabulary in these vernaculars is shared with Standard Arabic, but they also significantly borrow from other languages, such as Berber , French , Spanish and Italian in the Maghreb. Although no globally accepted definition of the Arab world exists, all countries that are members of the Arab League are generally acknowledged as being part of

3944-430: The Mashriq at 73.6%. The United Nations published an Arab human development report in 2002, 2003 and 2004. These reports, written by researchers from the Arab world, address some sensitive issues in the development of Arab countries: women empowerment, availability of education and information among others. There is no single description of Arab cinema since it includes films from various countries and cultures of

4060-506: The Middle East , film production was scarce until the late 1960s and early 1970s when filmmakers began to receive funding and financial assistance from state organizations. This was during the post-independence and is when most Arab cinema took root. Most films produced at that time were funded by the state and contained a nationalistic dimension. These films helped to advance certain social causes such as independence, and other social, economic and political agendas. A sustained film industry

4176-507: The Ottoman Empire . The Arab League was formed in 1945 to represent the interests of Arab people and especially to pursue the political unification of the Arab countries; a project known as Pan-Arabism . In page 9 of Best Divisions for Knowledge of the Regions , 10th century Arab geographer Al Maqdisi used the term Arab regions ( Arabic : أَقَالِيمُ ٱلْعَرَبِ ) to refer to the lands of

4292-512: The Palestinian fedayeen , who made frequent raids into Israel, rendered it difficult for the Eisenhower administration to get the approval of Congress necessary to sell weapons to Egypt. American public opinion was deeply hostile towards selling arms to Egypt that might be used against Israel. Moreover, Eisenhower feared doing so could trigger a Middle Eastern arms race. Eisenhower very much valued

4408-661: The Tripartite Declaration as a way of keeping peace in the Near East. In 1950, in order to limit the extent that the Arabs and the Israelis could engage in an arms race , the three nations which dominated the arms trade in the non-Communist world, namely the United States, the United Kingdom and France, had signed the Tripartite Declaration, where they had committed themselves to limiting how much arms they could sell in

4524-474: The Tripartite Declaration , and supply even more weapons to Israel. During the same visit, Peres informed the French that Israel had decided upon war with Egypt in 1956. Peres claimed that Nasser was a genocidal maniac intent upon not only destroying Israel, but also exterminating its people, and as such, Israel wanted a war before Egypt received even more Soviet weapons, and there was still a possibility of victory for

4640-587: The 16th to 17th centuries. The Ajuran Sultanate also held sway in the southern part of the Horn region. The sentiment of Arab nationalism arose in the second half of the 19th century along with other nationalisms within the declining Ottoman Empire . When the Ottoman Empire collapsed as a result of World War I , much of the Arab world came to be controlled by the European colonial empires: Mandatory Palestine , Mandatory Iraq , British protectorate of Egypt , French protectorate of Morocco , Italian Libya , French Tunisia , French Algeria , Mandate for Syria and

4756-413: The 1955 deal. Nasser had let it be known, in 1954–55, that he was considering buying weapons from the Soviet Union, and thus coming under Soviet influence, as a way of pressuring the Americans into selling him the arms he desired. Khrushchev, who very much wanted to win the Soviet Union influence in the Middle East, was more than ready to arm Egypt if the Americans proved unwilling. During secret talks with

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4872-480: The Anglo-American " special relationship ", which led the Americans to lean towards the Egyptian side in the Anglo-Egyptian disputes. During the difficult negotiations over the British evacuation of the Suez Canal base in 1954–55, the Americans supported Egypt, though trying hard to limit the extent of the damage this might cause to Anglo-American relations. In the same report of May 1953 to President Dwight D. Eisenhower calling for "even-handedness", Dulles stated that

4988-485: The Arab world adhere to Islam , and the religion has official status in most countries. Shariah law exists partially in the legal system in some countries (especially in the Arabian Peninsula ), while others are legislatively secular . The majority of the Arab countries adhere to Sunni Islam . Iraq and Bahrain , however, are Shia majority countries, while Lebanon , Yemen , and Kuwait have large Shia minorities. In Saudi Arabia , Ismailite pockets are also found in

5104-456: The Arab world and therefore does not have one form, structure, or style. In its inception, Arab cinema was mostly an imitation of Western cinema. However, it has and continues to constantly change and evolve. It mostly includes films made in Egypt , Lebanon , Syria , Iraq , Kuwait , Algeria , Morocco , and Tunisia . Egypt is a pioneer in the field, but each country in the region has its own unique cinema. Elsewhere in North Africa and

5220-407: The Arab world, has as its official language Maltese . The language is grammatically akin to Maghrebi Arabic. In the Arab world, Modern Standard Arabic , derived from Classical Arabic (symptomatic of Arabic diglossia ), serves as an official language in the Arab League states, and Arabic dialects are used as lingua franca. Various indigenous languages are also spoken, which predate the spread of

5336-403: The Arab world. The Arab League is a regional organisation that aims, among other things, to consider in a general way the affairs and interests of the Arab countries and sets out the following definition of an Arab: An Arab is a person whose language is Arabic, who lives in an Arab country, and who is in sympathy with the aspirations of the Arab people. This standard territorial definition

5452-546: The Arab world. For example, films from Algeria , Lebanon , Morocco , Palestine , Syria and Tunisia are making wider and more frequent rounds than ever before in local film festivals and repertoire theaters. Arab cinema has explored many topics from politics, colonialism, tradition, modernity and social taboos. It has also attempted to escape from its earlier tendency to mimic and rely on Western film devices. In fact, colonization did not only influence Arab films, but it also had an impact on Arab movies theaters. Apart from

5568-414: The Arab world. This would manifest in the challenging of British Middle Eastern interests throughout 1955. The US, while attempting to erect an alliance in the form of a Middle East Defense Organization to keep the Soviet Union out of the Near East, tried to woo Nasser into this alliance. The central problem for American policy was that this region was perceived as strategically important due to its oil, but

5684-415: The Arabic language. This contrasts with the situation in the wider Islamic world , where, in contiguous Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Perso-Arabic script is used and Arabic is the primary liturgical language, but the tongue is not official at the state level or spoken as a vernacular . Arabs constitute around one quarter of the 1.5 billion Muslims in the Islamic world. The majority of people in

5800-438: The Baghdad Pact as a Western attempt to promote his archenemy Nuri al-Said as an alternative leader of the Arab world. Instead of siding with either superpower, Nasser took the role of the spoiler, and tried to play them off, to have them compete in attempts to buy his friendship. Under the new leadership of Nikita Khrushchev , the Soviet Union was making a major effort to win influence in the so-called Third World . As part of

5916-453: The British desire to continue to maintain influence in the Middle East, and Nuri Said's wish to associate his country with the West, as the best way of counterbalancing the aggressive Egyptian claims to regional predominance. The conclusion of the Baghdad Pact occurred almost simultaneously with a dramatic Israeli reprisal operation on the Gaza Strip on 28 February 1955 in retaliation for Palestinian fedayeen raids into Israel , during which

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6032-416: The British government was in effective control of the Canal. In 1956, the Egyptian government nationalised the Suez Canal Company. Future wars between Egypt and Israel would see the canal blocked and unusable for extended periods of time. In 1875, a financial crisis prompted the Khedive of Egypt, Isma'il the Magnificent , to sell Egypt's shares in the Suez Canal Company to the United Kingdom . In 1879,

6148-399: The British viewed any Egyptian government not headed by King Farouk as an improvement. In May 1953, during a meeting with Secretary Dulles, who asked Egypt to join an anti-Soviet alliance, Nasser responded by saying that the Soviet Union has never occupied our territory ... but the British have been here for seventy years. How can I go to my people and tell them I am disregarding a killer with

6264-404: The Egyptians were not interested in joining the proposed MEDO; that the Arabs were more interested in their disputes with the British, French, Israelis and each other than in standing against the Soviets; and that the "Northern Tier" states of Turkey, Iran and Pakistan were more useful as allies than Egypt. Accordingly, the best American policy towards Egypt was to work towards Arab–Israeli peace and

6380-417: The FLN. Mollet came to perceive Nasser as a major threat. During a visit to London in March 1956, Mollet told Eden his country was faced with an Islamic threat to the very soul of France supported by the Soviet Union. Mollet stated: "All this is in the works of Nasser, just as Hitler's policy was written down in Mein Kampf . Nasser has the ambition to recreate the conquests of Islam . But his present position

6496-477: The Free World camp. Though it would be false to describe the coup deposing King Farouk in July 1952 as a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) coup, Nasser and his Society of Free Officers were in contact with CIA operatives beforehand Nasser maintained links with potential allies, from the Egyptian Communist Party to the Muslim Brotherhood on the right. Nasser's friendship with CIA officers in Cairo led Washington to overestimate its influence in Egypt. That Nasser

6612-524: The French and Egyptian governments. The canal was operated by the Suez Company , an Egyptian-chartered company; the area surrounding the canal remained sovereign Egyptian territory and the only land-bridge between Africa and Asia. The canal instantly became strategically important, as it provided the shortest ocean link between the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean . The canal eased commerce for trading nations and particularly helped European colonial powers to gain and govern their colonies. In 1875, as

6728-419: The GPI of Yemen is only 0.46 in a 53% adult literacy rate. Literacy rate is higher among the youth than adults. Youth literacy rate (ages 15–24) in the Arab region increased from 63.9 to 76.3% from 1990 to 2002. The average rate of GCC States * Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC) Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC) was 94%, followed by the Maghreb at 83.2% and

6844-426: The Israeli Unit 101 commanded by Ariel Sharon did damage to Egyptian Army forces. The close occurrence of the two events was mistakenly interpreted by Nasser as part of coordinated Western effort to push him into joining the Baghdad Pact. The signing of the Baghdad Pact and the Gaza raid marked the beginning of the end of Nasser's good relations with the Americans. In particular, Nasser saw Iraq's participation in

6960-415: The Jewish state. Throughout 1955 and 1956, Nasser pursued a number of policies that would frustrate British aims throughout the Middle East, and result in increasing hostility between Britain and Egypt. Nasser saw Iraq's inclusion in the Baghdad Pact as indicating that the United States and Britain had sided with his much hated archenemy Nuri al-Said 's efforts to be the leader of the Arab world, and much of

7076-455: The Lebanon and the so-called Trucial States , a British protectorate formed by the sheikhdoms on the former "Pirate Coast". Convention of Constantinople The signatories comprised all the great European powers of the era, and the treaty was interpreted as a guaranteed right of passage of all ships through the Suez Canal during war and peace . During the 74 years of the United Kingdom's military presence in Egypt, from 1882 to 1956,

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7192-451: The Mediterranean, where tankers received it. The US imported another 300,000 barrels daily from the Middle East. Though pipelines linked the oil fields of the Kingdom of Iraq and the Persian Gulf states to the Mediterranean, these routes were prone to suffer from instability, which led British leaders to prefer to use the sea route through the canal. The rise of super-tankers for shipping Middle East oil to Europe, which were too big to use

7308-437: The Muslim world developed out of pre-Islamic practices of slavery in the Arab world . According to UNESCO , the average rate of adult literacy (ages 15 and older) in this region is 78% . In Mauritania the rate is lower than the average, at less than 50%. Bahrain , Palestine , Kuwait , Qatar , and Jordan record a high adult literacy rate of over 95%. The average rate of adult literacy shows steady improvement, and

7424-497: The Near East was seen as an ominous development that threatened to put an end to British influence in the oil-rich region. Over the same period, the French Premier Guy Mollet was facing an increasingly serious rebellion in Algeria , where the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) rebels were being verbally supported by Egypt via transmissions of the Voice of the Arabs radio, financially supported with Suez Canal revenue and clandestinely owned Egyptian ships were shipping arms to

7540-507: The Near East, and also to ensuring that any arms sales to one side was matched by arms sales of equal quantity and quality to the other. Eisenhower viewed the Tripartite Declaration, which sharply restricted how many arms Egypt could buy in the West, as one of the key elements in keeping the peace between Israel and the Arabs, and believed that setting off an arms race would inevitably lead to a new war. The Egyptians made continuous attempts to purchase heavy arms from Czechoslovakia years before

7656-487: The Near East. Despite the establishment of such an agreement with the British, Nasser's position remained tenuous. The loss of Egypt's claim to Sudan, coupled with the continued presence of Britain at Suez for a further two years, led to domestic unrest including an assassination attempt against him in October 1954. The tenuous nature of Nasser's rule caused him to believe that neither his regime nor Egypt's independence would be safe until Egypt had established itself as head of

7772-419: The Nile Valley, Levant and northern Iraq respectively. There are also Assyrian , Armenian , Syriac - Aramean and Arab Christians throughout Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan. There are also native Arab Christian communities in Algeria, Bahrain, Morocco, Kuwait and Tunisia. Smaller ethno-religious minorities across the Arab League include the Yezidis , Yarsan and Shabaks (mainly in Iraq),

7888-423: The Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles found to his astonishment that the Arab states were "more fearful of Zionism than of the Communists". The policy of the United States was colored by uncertainty as to whom to befriend. American policy was torn between a desire to maintain good relations with NATO allies such as Britain and France who were major colonial powers, and to align Third World nationalists with

8004-419: The Soviets in 1955, Nasser's demands for weapons were more than amply satisfied as the Soviet Union had not signed the Tripartite Declaration. The news in September 1955 of the Egyptian purchase of a huge quantity of Soviet arms via Czechoslovakia was greeted with shock and rage in the West, where this was seen as a major increase in Soviet influence in the Near East. In Britain, the increase of Soviet influence in

8120-409: The United Kingdom and other Great Powers forced the removal and exile of Isma'il and his replacement as Khedive by his son, Tewfik Pasha . Discontent with Tewfik's rule sparked the Orabi Revolt of 1881 by nationalist army officers. Interpreting the revolt as a possible threat to their use of the Suez Canal, the British intervened militarily in favour of the beleaguered Khedive. The British victory in

8236-419: The United States to supply arms on a generous scale to Egypt. Nasser refused to promise that any U.S. arms he might buy would not be used against Israel, and rejected out of hand the American demand for a Military Assistance Advisory Group to be sent to Egypt as part of the arms sales. Nasser's first choice for buying weapons was the United States. However his frequent anti-Zionist speeches and sponsorship of

8352-610: The United States, weighed down by defence commitments in Europe and the Far East, lacked sufficient troops to resist a Soviet invasion of the Middle East. In 1952, General Omar Bradley of the Joint Chiefs of Staff declared at a planning session about what to do in the event of a Soviet invasion of the Near East: "Where will the staff come from? It will take a lot of stuff to do a job there". As

8468-496: The absolute number of adult illiterates fell from 64 million to around 58 million between 1990 and 2000–2004. Overall, the gender disparity in adult literacy is high in this region, and of the illiteracy rate, women account for two-thirds, with only 69 literate women for every 100 literate men. The average GPI (Gender Parity Index) for adult literacy is 0.72, and gender disparity can be observed in Egypt, Morocco, and Yemen. Above all,

8584-444: The age of 18. Rapists are often treated leniently or acquitted in the Arab region if they marry their victims. 37% of Arab women experienced violence in their lifetime, but the numbers may be higher according to indicators. In some countries, the share of women experiencing violence and abuse by intimate partner reaches 70%. Table of largest cities in the Arab world by official city propers : The Arabs historically originate as

8700-442: The canal after the onset of the formal state of war between the two states in 1948. The British government accepted the treaty reluctantly and only with serious reservations: The delegates of Great Britain, in offering this text as the definitive rule to secure the free use of the Suez Canal, believe it is their duty to announce a general reservation as to the applicability of its provisions in so far as they are incompatible with

8816-481: The canal to the UK, and the economic consequences of the canal being put out of commission, concluding: The possibility of the Canal being closed to troopships makes the question of the control and regime of the Canal as important to Britain today as it ever was. In the aftermath of the Second World War , Britain's military strength was spread throughout the region, including the vast military complex at Suez with

8932-579: The canal to the UK, including the need to meet military obligations under the Manila Pact in the Far East and the Baghdad Pact in Iraq, Iran, or Pakistan. The report noted the canal had been used in wartime to transport materiel and personnel from and to the UK's close allies in Australia and New Zealand, and might be vital for such purposes in future. The report cites the amount of material and oil that passes through

9048-488: The canal via treaty. Article I, guaranteeing passage to all ships during war and peace , was in tension with Article X, which allowed the Egyptian government to take measures for "the defence of Egypt and the maintenance of public order". The latter clause was used by the British to defend their closing of the canal to Axis shipping during the Second World War and by Egypt to justify prohibiting Israeli shipping in

9164-596: The canal was useless. The crisis strengthened Nasser's standing and led to international humiliation for the British ;– with historians arguing that it signified the end of its role as a world superpower  – as well as the French amid the Cold War (which established the U.S. and the USSR as the world's superpowers). As a result of the conflict, the UN established an emergency force to police and patrol

9280-608: The canal, meant British policymakers greatly overestimated the importance of the canal. By 2000, only 8% of the imported oil in Britain arrived via the Suez Canal with the rest coming via the Cape route. In August 1956 the Royal Institute of International Affairs published a report "Britain and the Suez Canal" revealing government perception of the Suez area. It reiterated the strategic necessity of

9396-496: The country as well as the canal, its finances and operations. The 1888 Convention of Constantinople declared the canal a neutral zone under British protection. In ratifying it, the Ottoman Empire agreed to permit international shipping to pass freely through the canal, in time of war and peace. The Convention came into force in 1904, the same year as the Entente Cordiale between Britain and France. Despite this convention,

9512-460: The current state of Arab cinema. Women in the Arab world are still denied equality of opportunity , although their disenfranchisement is a critical factor crippling the Arab nations' quest to return to the first rank of global leaders in commerce, learning and culture, according to a United Nations -sponsored report in 2008. According to the United Nations, 14% of Arab girls are married by

9628-538: The deaths of foreigners, including 11 British citizens. This proved to be a catalyst for the removal of the Egyptian monarchy . On 23 July 1952 a military coup by the Egyptian nationalist ' Free Officers Movement '—led by Muhammad Neguib and future Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser —overthrew King Farouk and established an Egyptian republic. In the 1950s, the Middle East was dominated by four interlinked conflicts: Britain's desire to mend Anglo-Egyptian relations in

9744-438: The defence of Egypt for the rest of the war. The canal continued to be strategically important after the Second World War for oil shipment. Petroleum historian Daniel Yergin wrote: "In 1948, the canal abruptly lost its traditional rationale. ... [British] control over the canal could no longer be preserved on grounds that it was critical to the defence either of India or of an empire that was being liquidated. And yet, at exactly

9860-444: The diplomatic offensive, Khrushchev had abandoned Moscow's traditional line of treating all non-communists as enemies and adopted a tactic of befriending so-called "non-aligned" nations, which often were led by leaders who were non-Communists, but were hostile towards the West. Khrushchev had realised that by treating non-communists as being the same thing as being anti-communist, Moscow had needlessly alienated many potential friends over

9976-624: The duration of the war. Citing the security of the canal, Britain attempted to maintain its prerogatives in unilateral declarations. On 5 June 1967, during the Six-Day War , Egypt closed and blockaded the canal against Israel. The canal remained blocked and closed through the War of Attrition of 1968 to 1970 and the October War of 1973. The waterway was eventually reopened on 10 June 1975. The 14-state Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) currently oversees

10092-548: The eastern Al-Hasa region and the southern city of Najran. Ibadi Islam is practiced in Oman , where Ibadis constitute around 75% of Muslims. There are also Christian adherents in the Arab world, particularly in Egypt , Syria , Lebanon , Iraq , Jordan , and Palestine . Small native Christian communities can be found also throughout the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa . Coptic , Maronite and Assyrian Christian enclaves exist in

10208-546: The ensuing Anglo–Egyptian War resulted in Britain acquiring physical control over Egypt, including the Suez Canal. France , which had previously dominated the canal and whose investors still controlled the majority of shares in the Suez Canal Company, hoped to weaken British control and attempted to sway European opinion for internationalising the canal. The British and French governments compromised by seeking to neutralise

10324-636: The growth of radical political groups, such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt , and an increasingly hostile attitude towards Britain and its presence. Added to this anti-British fervour was the role Britain had played in the creation of Israel . In October 1951, the Egyptian government unilaterally abrogated the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936 , the terms of which granted Britain a lease on the Suez base for 20 more years. Britain refused to withdraw from Suez, relying upon its treaty rights, as well as

10440-419: The history of Arab cinema, recently the portrayal of women became an important aspect in the production of Arab cinema. Arab women shaped a great portion of the film industry in the Arab world by employing their cinematic talents in improving the production of Arab films. The production of Arab cinema has declined in the last decades and many filmmakers in the Middle East gathered to hold a meeting and discuss

10556-445: The larger Afro-Asiatic language family. Although Arabic is widely spoken by many people in the north and urban areas in the south, Somali is the most widely used language, and contains many Arabic loan words . Similarly, Djibouti has two official languages, Arabic and French . It also has several formally recognized national languages; besides Somali, many people speak Afar , which is also an Afro-Asiatic language. The majority of

10672-399: The majority of the population speaks Arabic, and thus may also include populations of the Arab diaspora . When an ancillary linguistic definition is used in combination with the standard territorial definition , various parameters may be applied to determine whether a state or territory should be included in this alternative definition of the Arab world. These parameters may be applied to

10788-737: The motivation for Nasser's turn to an active anti-Western policy starting in 1955 was due to his displeasure with the Baghdad Pact. For Nasser, attendance at such events as the Bandung conference in April 1955 served as both the means of striking a posture as a global leader, and of playing hard to get in his talks with the Americans, especially his demand that the United States sell him vast quantities of arms. Arab world The Arab world ( Arabic : اَلْعَالَمُ الْعَرَبِيُّ al-ʿālam al-ʿarabī ), formally

10904-507: The new state of Israel in aggressive expansion. Our basic political problem ... is to improve the Moslem states' attitudes towards Western democracies because our prestige in that area had been in constant decline ever since the war". The immediate consequence was a new policy of "even-handedness" where the United States very publicly sided with the Arab states in disputes with Israel in 1953–54. Moreover, Dulles did not share any sentimental regard for

11020-709: The outbreak of the Algerian War in late 1954, France began to ship more and more arms to Israel. In November 1954, the Director-General of Israel's Ministry of Defense Shimon Peres visited Paris, where he was received by the French Defense Minister Marie-Pierre Kœnig , who told him that France would sell Israel any weapons it wanted to buy. By early 1955, France was shipping large amounts of weapons to Israel. In April 1956, following another visit to Paris by Peres, France agreed to totally disregard

11136-439: The population speaks Somali and Afar, although Arabic is also widely used for trade and other activities. The Comoros has three official languages: Arabic, Comorian and French. Comorian is the most widely spoken language, with Arabic having a religious significance, and French being associated with the educational system. Chad , Eritrea and Israel all recognize Arabic as an official or working language, but none of them

11252-523: The presence of the Suez garrison. The price of such action was an escalation in violent hostility towards Britain and its troops in Egypt, which the Egyptian authorities did little to curb. In January 1952, British forces attempted to disarm a troublesome auxiliary police force barracks in Ismailia , resulting in the deaths of 41 Egyptians. This led to anti-Western riots in Cairo resulting in damage to property and

11368-412: The proposed Middle East Defense Organization; Nasser took the money, but refused to join. Nasser made it clear to the Americans he wanted an Egyptian-dominated Arab League to be the principal defence organisation in the Near East, which might be informally associated with the United States. After he returned to Washington, Dulles advised Eisenhower that the Arab states believed "the United States will back

11484-480: The revolution (until Egypt renounced it in 1951, the 1936 Anglo-Egyptian treaty allowed Britain the right of intervention against foreign and domestic threats). In turn, many American officials, such as Ambassador Jefferson Caffery , saw the British military presence in Egypt as anachronistic, and viewed the Revolutionary Command Council (as Nasser called his government) in a favourable light. Caffery

11600-454: The sake of the Communist movement, and ... the Egyptian people". Traditionally, most of the equipment in the Egyptian military had come from Britain, but Nasser's desire to break British influence in Egypt meant that he was desperate to find a new source of weapons to replace Britain. Nasser had first broached the subject of buying weapons from the Soviet Union in 1954. Most of all, Nasser wanted

11716-517: The same moment, the canal was gaining a new role—as the highway not of empire, but of oil. ... By 1955, petroleum accounted for half of the canal's traffic, and, in turn, two thirds of Europe's oil passed through it". Western Europe then imported two million barrels per day from the Middle East, 1,200,000 by tanker through the canal, and another 800,000 via pipeline from the Persian Gulf ( Trans-Arabian Pipeline ) and Kirkuk ( Kirkuk-Baniyas pipeline ) to

11832-519: The settlement of the Anglo-Egyptian dispute over the British Suez Canal base, as the best way of securing Egypt's ultimate adhesion to an American sponsored alliance centered on the "Northern Tier" states. The "Northern Tier" alliance was achieved in early 1955 with the creation of the Baghdad Pact comprising Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Iraq and the UK. The presence of the last two states was due to

11948-424: The states and territories of the Arab League (which constitute the Arab world under the standard definition) and to other states and territories. Typical parameters that may be applied include: whether Arabic is widely spoken; whether Arabic is an official or national language; or whether an Arabic cognate language is widely spoken. While Arabic dialects are spoken in a number of Arab League states, Literary Arabic

12064-846: The strategic importance of the canal and its control were proven during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05, after Japan and Britain entered into a separate bilateral agreement. Following the Japanese attack on the Russian Pacific Fleet at Port Arthur , the Russians sent reinforcements from their fleet in the Baltic Sea . The British denied the Russian Baltic Fleet use of the canal after the Dogger Bank incident and forced it to steam around

12180-481: The terms of which agreed to withdrawal of all troops within 20 months, maintenance of the base to be continued, and for Britain to hold the right to return for seven years. The Suez Company was not due to revert to the Egyptian government until 1968 under the terms of the treaty. Britain's close relationship with the two Hashemite kingdoms of Iraq and Jordan were of particular concern to Nasser. In particular, Iraq's increasingly amicable relations with Britain were

12296-775: The three countries came under heavy political pressure from both the United States and the Soviet Union , as well as from the United Nations , eventually prompting their withdrawal from Egypt. Israel's four-month-long occupation of the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula enabled it to attain freedom of navigation through the Straits of Tiran, but the Suez Canal was closed from October 1956 to March 1957 . U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower had issued

12412-402: The transitory and exceptional state in which Egypt is actually found and so far as they might fetter the liberty of action of the government during the occupation of Egypt by the British forces. France accepted the reservation but, in accordance with international law at the time, noted that made the treaty a "technically inoperative" "academic declaration." The reservation was not removed until

12528-521: The view that, just as fear of the Soviet Union had helped to end the historic Franco-German enmity , so could anti-Communism end the Arab–Israeli dispute. It was a source of constant puzzlement to American officials in the 1950s, that Arab states and Israelis had more interest in fighting each other, than uniting against the Soviet Union. After his visit to the Middle East in May 1953 to drum up support for MEDO,

12644-576: The wake of the coup saw the country strive for rapprochement throughout 1953-54. Part of this process was the agreement, in 1953, to terminate British rule in Sudan by 1956, in return for Cairo's abandoning its claim to suzerainty over the Nile Valley. In October 1954, Britain and Egypt concluded the Anglo-Egyptian Agreement on the phased evacuation of British Armed Forces troops from the Suez base,

12760-485: The years in the Third World. Under the banner of anti-imperialism, Khrushchev made it clear that the Soviet Union would provide arms to any left-wing government in the Third World as a way of undercutting Western influence. Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai met Nasser at the 1955 Bandung Conference and was impressed by him. Zhou recommended that Khrushchev treat Nasser as a potential ally. Zhou described Nasser to Khrushchev as

12876-483: Was able to emerge in Egypt when other parts of the Arab world had only been able to sporadically produce feature-length films due to limited financing. Arabic cinema is dominated by films from Egypt . Three quarters of all Arab movies are produced in Egypt. According to film critic and historian Roy Armes, the cinema of Lebanon is the only other in the Arabic-speaking region, beside Egypt's, that could amount to

12992-461: Was close to CIA officers led them to view Nasser as a CIA "asset". In turn, the British who were aware of Nasser's CIA ties resented this relationship, which they viewed as an American attempt to push them out of Egypt. The reason for Nasser's courting of the CIA before the coup was his hope the Americans would act as a restraining influence on the British, should Britain decide on intervention to put an end to

13108-484: Was conquered in 639, and gradually Arabized during the medieval period. A distinctively Egyptian Arabic language emerged by the 16th century. The Maghreb was also conquered in the 7th century, and gradually Arabized under the Fatimids . Islam was brought to Sudan from Egypt during the 8th to 11th centuries. The culture of Sudan today depends on the tribe, some have a pure Nubian, Beja , or Arabic culture and some have

13224-539: Was consistently positive about Nasser in his reports to Washington, right up until his departure from Cairo in 1955. The regime of King Farouk was viewed in Washington as weak, corrupt, unstable, and anti-American, so the Free Officers' July coup was welcomed. Nasser's contacts with the CIA were not necessary to prevent British intervention against the coup as Anglo-Egyptian relations had deteriorated so badly in 1951–52 that

13340-484: Was really a definite fear of hostilities, of an active Russian occupation of the Middle East physically, and you practically hear the Russian boots clumping down over the hot desert sands. The projected Middle East Defense Organization (MEDO) was to be centered on Egypt. A United States National Security Council directive of March 1953 called Egypt the "key" to the Near East and advised that Washington "should develop Egypt as

13456-689: Was the feud between Nasser and the Prime Minister of Iraq, Nuri al-Said , for Arab leadership, with the Cairo-based Voice of the Arabs radio station regularly calling for the overthrow of the government in Baghdad. The most important factors that drove Egyptian foreign policy was a determination to see the entire Middle East as Egypt's rightful sphere of influence, and a tendency on the part of Nasser to fortify his pan-Arabist and nationalist credibility by seeking to oppose all Western security initiatives in

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