{"id":45283,"date":"2024-01-05T07:08:06","date_gmt":"2024-01-05T15:08:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=45283"},"modified":"2024-01-06T09:43:18","modified_gmt":"2024-01-06T17:43:18","slug":"learning-from-old-globes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2024\/01\/05\/learning-from-old-globes\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning from Old Globes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reprinted from Bracing Views<\/a> with the author\u2019s permission.<\/i><\/p>\n

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Back in 2015, I broke out my old globe and wrote the article below. My globe is roughly 100 years old, when Israel didn\u2019t exist. The relatively tiny area of Palestine (look for Jerusalem) is labeled \u201cBrit Mand,\u201d as in British Mandate after World War I, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and the Treaty of Versailles. The British had control over Palestine and made conflicting promises to Zionists (the Balfour Declaration of 1917) and to the Palestinians (the Sykes-Picot Agreement<\/a> of 1916, which advanced the idea of Arab self-determination).<\/p>\n

Israel, of course, was created in the aftermath of World War II and the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews. For Zionists, it was the fulfillment of a dream, even of prophecy. For the Palestinians whose homes and lands were taken from them, it was the Nakba or catastrophe. Another Nakba is currently in progress as Israel destroys the Gaza Strip with the apparent goal of displacing most if not all of the 2.3 million Palestinians who live there.<\/p>\n

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Anyhow, here\u2019s my article from December 2015:<\/p>\n

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How about a contrary perspective on the Middle East, courtesy of my old globe? \u00a0It dates from the early 1920s, just after World War I but before Russia became the Soviet Union. \u00a0Taking a close look at the Middle East (a geographic term that I use loosely), you\u2019ll notice more than a few differences from today\u2019s maps and globes:<\/p>\n

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  1. Iraq and Syria don\u2019t exist. \u00a0Neither does Israel. \u00a0Today\u2019s Iran is yesterday\u2019s Persia, of course.<\/li>\n
  2. Instead of Iraq and Syria, we have Mesopotamia, a name that resonates history, part of the Fertile Crescent that encompassed the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers as well as the Nile in Egypt. \u00a0Six thousand years ago, the cradle of human civilization, and now more often the scene of devastation caused mainly by endless war.<\/li>\n
  3. Ah, Kurdistan! \u00a0The Kurds today in northern Iraq and southern Turkey would love to have their own homeland. \u00a0Naturally, the Arabs and Turks, along with the Persians, feel differently.<\/li>\n
  4. Look closely and you\u2019ll see \u201cBr. Mand.\u201d and \u201cFr. Mand.\u201d \u00a0With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire (roughly a larger version of modern-day Turkey) at the end of World War I, the British gained a mandate over Palestine and Mesopotamia and the French gained one over territory that would become Lebanon and Syria<\/a>. \u00a0The British made conflicting promises to Jews and Arabs over who would control Palestine while scheming to protect their own control over the Suez Canal. \u00a0A large portion of Palestine, of course, was given to Jews after the Holocaust of World War II, marking the creation of Israel and setting off several Arab-Israeli Wars(1948-73) and the ongoing low-level war between Israel and the Palestinians, most bitterly over the status of the \u201cOccupied Territories\u201d: land captured by the Israelis during these wars, i.e. the West Bank<\/a> (of the Jordan River) and the Gaza Strip (both not labeled on my outdated globe).<\/li>\n
  5. Improvisation marked the creation of states such as Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq. \u00a0Borders encapsulated diverse peoples with differing goals. Western powers like Britain and France cared little for tribal allegiances or Sunni\/Shia sensitivities or political leanings, favoring autocratic rulers who could keep the diverse peoples who lived there in line.<\/li>\n
  6. Historically powerful peoples with long memories border the Middle East. \u00a0The Turks and the Persians (Iranians), of course, with Russians hovering in the near distance. \u00a0They all remain players with conflicting goals<\/a> in the latest civil war in Syria and the struggle against ISIS\/ISIL.<\/li>\n
  7. Three of the world\u2019s \u201cgreat\u201d religions originated from a relatively tiny area of our globe: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. \u00a0Talk about a fertile crescent! \u00a0Sadly, close proximity and shared roots did not foster tolerance: quite the reverse.<\/li>\n
  8. Remember when Saudi Arabia was just Arabia? \u00a0Ah, those were the good old days, Lawrence.<\/li>\n
  9. Nobody talks much about Jordan<\/a>, an oasis of relative calm in the area (not shown on my old globe). \u00a0Lucky Jordan.<\/li>\n
  10. The presence of Armenia<\/a> in Turkey on my old globe raises all kinds of historical ghosts, to include the Armenian genocide<\/a> of World War I. Today, Turkey continues to deny that the word \u201cgenocide\u201d is appropriate to the mass death of Armenians during World War I.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    My fellow Americans, one statement: The idea that America \u201cmust lead\u201d in this area of the world speaks to our hubris and ignorance. \u00a0We are obviously not seen as impartial. \u00a0Our \u201cleadership\u201d is mainly expressed by violent military action.<\/p>\n

    But we just can\u2019t help ourselves. \u00a0The idea of \u201cglobal reach, global power\u201d is too intoxicating. \u00a0We see the globe as ours to spin. \u00a0Ours to control.<\/p>\n

    Perhaps old globes can teach us the transitory nature of power. \u00a0After all, those British and French mandates are gone. \u00a0European powers, however grudgingly, learned to retrench. \u00a0(Of course, the British and French, together with the Germans, are now bombing and blasting old mandates in the name of combating terrorism.)<\/p>\n

    I wonder how a globe made in 2115 will depict this area of the world. Will it look like today\u2019s globe, or more like my globe from c.1920, or something entirely different? \u00a0Will it show a new regional empire or more fragmentation? \u00a0An empire based on Islam or a shattered and blasted infertile crescent ravaged by war and an inhospitable climate driven by global warming?<\/p>\n

    Readers: I welcome your comments and predictions.<\/p>\n

    William J. Astore is a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF). He taught history for fifteen years at military and civilian schools. He writes at Bracing Views<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author\u2019s permission. Back in 2015, I broke out my old globe and wrote the article below. My globe is roughly 100 years old, when Israel didn\u2019t exist. The relatively tiny area of Palestine (look for Jerusalem) is labeled \u201cBrit Mand,\u201d as in British Mandate after World War I, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-45283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":"Remembering when Palestine was a British Mandate"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/290"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45283"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45290,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45283\/revisions\/45290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45283"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=45283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}