The retrospective history of
West Asia as a whole


Review of Fred Feldman and Georges Sayad, Palestine And The Arabs' Fight For Liberation
In The Militant, 25 August 1997. An overview of the Palestinian struggle as part of the fight against colonialism and imperialist oppression in the Middle East. It spans the period from the opening of World War I to the intifada, or uprising, of the Palestinian people that began in December 1987.
Abdullah The First
Mid-East Realities, 11 May 1999. Early in 1914, Lord Kitchener, had a visit from the son of the leading member of the Hashemite family, the traditional guardians of Islam's holiest sites. And the Middle East has never been the same again; the meeting had a decisive influence on the entire history of the Middle East throughout the rest of the century. In a sense, the Arab world has never freed itself from the shackles and intriques that began with the Hashemite-British alliance at this time.
Turks Come to Town to Give the Other Side of 'Genocide'
By Nora Boustany, The Washington Post, 6 October 2000. Five members of the Turkish Grand National Assembly came to Washington to lobby Congress against passage of a proposed House resolution endorsing charges of genocide by Turkish soldiers against Armenian civilians in 1915-21. While many died on both sides as the Ottoman Empire disintegrated, there is no evidence of a systematic intentional slaughter, even in terms of first-person accounts from Armenian survivors.
The Rape of Palestine
The Mid-East Realities, 13 April 1998. A Zionist article from the Israeli press that clarifies the history of 1948. Jewish national independence wouldn't serve the British masters the way the Arab puppets did, for their corruptability made them easy to control. So Britain in 1930s resisted attempts to settle large numbers of Jews in Palestine. Since the Moslem Mufti leaders were too accomodating of Jews, the British had to create a radical Arab opposition to the Zionists.
Gandhi on Jews, Arabs, and Palestine
Mid-East Realities, [4 December 2000]. Prophetic words of Mohatma Gandhi in 1938 on the Palestinian situation. His sympathy for the suffering of Jews did not blind him to the requirements of justice. The cry for the national home for the Jews does did not much appeal to him, having only Biblical sanction. He wonders why should they not, like other peoples of the earth, make that country their home where they are born and where they earn their livelihood?
A brief history of the occupation
From Sadu Nanjundiah, 8 September 2001. Salient facts concerning the history of land possession during the thirty years of British occupation (1917-1937), the U.N. endorsement of Zionist goals, and the era of Israeli aggression and expansion after 1949.