10 Facts Every Westerner Should Know About the Middle East

Arabs do make an ethnic group,
Arabs originally inhabited the Arabian Peninsula.
they where tribes ,Later there were a migration, they migrated and diffused north to Syria (bilad al sham) and Iraq and west to Egypt
and settled there.Maybe there were native people(the regions they settled in)before this migration,but I know that after that this regions was inhabited by a majority of Arabs till this day.

Looking at the fact that these regions was the center of the old world
its natural that Arabs were mixed with other ethnic groups.
You can still find "unmixed Arabs" in Yemen (those who didn't migrate)

There is No black Arabs
there skin is white to brown

the modern 'Arab' definition is : those who speak Arabic language and who share some other cultural values.

The land of Palestine was inhabited by Arabs for thousands of years
in the beginning of the 20th century Jews migrated from Europe,Russia,many parts of the world to Palestine
which was occupied by Great Britain at that time,the Britons took the lands of Arabs by force and gave it to the Jews

1948 Israel was announced as a state
before that there was no Israel and before that a bit more
there were no Jews in Palestine (or they were a very small minority)

Arabs fight Israel to get there lands and rights back

suppose that Arabs occupy USA
what would the Americans do
would they give it or fight for it

Arabs are not attacking Israel they are giving back Israel attacks

CORRECTION arabs do not make an ethnic group but rather arabs are a group of people that share the same language and several other cultural values. It is not a race you can find black arabs and white arabs, monst of them are mediterraneans but still do not make a race or an ethnic group they have their many differences despite their claim of being one nation. To clarify Yemen, Egypt, Morocco, Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea, Lebanon, Jordan are all arab but with several things in common and lots of difference.

sooo...
how are Christians anti-american???

This is very insightful, but I'm sorry Bernie, I disagree with you 100%. I lived in Israel for a year on business (and I am not a Jew), and the Israelis do not treat the people in the Gaza any worse than you or I would treat someone that routinely launched rockets into our neighborhoods in the US or Europe. And Israel is so small you can see it yourself - not just by some foolish, slanted reporter on TV. I would go much further than the Israelis. They have amazing restraint. It amazes me how lies can be spread so easily by those with a political agenda. People need to go see for themselves how those around Israel treat the Israelis before they complain about how the Israelis "return the favor." I met many happy Muslims working in Israel - and for very good pay (top dollar). Has anyone ever asked where all the money goes that is poured into the Palestinian "coffers" by generous US and European citizens and governments? By all accounts they should have the finest schools and at least decent homes, but no... it somehow gets funneled into very violent causes (e.g., how was Arafat's wife in France worth over 20 million US dollars?). It sure must pay well to be a leader of a "celebrity cause" - I am so sick of the lies made up to cover for terribly violent behavior (anywhere in the world, and by anyone, US and Europe included).

@John Waters -- Yeah, things to get engolfed in the Palestine/Israeli madness very quickly; my fault as much as other, so sorry about that. But I think, especially since America is perceived as meddling the the region as a pawn of Israel, it's important to talk about if the goal is to understand how we are seen from their perspective.

@Bernie -- That's interesting, I never actually considered the 9/11 thing being a Arab thing or not. I sort of assumed it was because all 19 of the people in the plane where Saudi Arabians (and as far as I know Muslims) that the fact is relevant. I'm not sure what the alternative is, about what 9/11 is "about" or what the motivations were. My point really bringing that up is that I'm not fully comfortable claiming I "survived" that terrorist attack when it happened while I was in my apartment, rather that up close enough to see the other guys eyes and smell the burnt flesh like the time before. (NYC smelt more like burning plastic afterwards.)

At any rate, in general I think there's clear consensus that 9/11 constituted a terrorist attack, and it supports my blanket statement that "statistically speaking, the odds heavily favor suicide bombers being muslims". And it would be illustrative to speculate on why that is so. Salman Rushdie has some interesting thoughts on that.

@Rob -- I know that you are trying to be facetious, but I'm pretty that the people responsible for the Oklahoma bombings planned on walking away from it, and that going out in a blaze of glory (or whatever) was not an integral part of the plan. I think you missed the gist of what I was saying. You probably heard something more like "all muslims are terrorists", and that sort of sloppy reading and reasoning is pretty dangerous when we are making sweeping generalizations.

@samer -- When I lived in Kuala Lumpur I was there for Ramadan. The ethnic struggles there were pretty tense, but only the ruling 1/3 of the population Muslim and (more or less) a 1/3 being Chinese and 1/3 being Indian. It was pretty mellow for a non-Muslim to eat during Ramadan, but there were people out in force actively questioning people who were not obviously non-muslim about eating during the day. Other than the fact that people were cranky because they were hungry, people were a lot more smoothly integrated than you would think if you were comparing it to some of the more fundamental golf states for sure.

In reply to 16, I'm not going to put "peace be upon him" as a special case against the name of Muhammad, because he rode around the world spreading his ideas by killing innocent people and threatening others into delusional belief. Belief that is now hard for them to shake without being socially ostracized.

However I do respect the freedom of all to believe as they will as long as they don't force it on me.

None of this changes the fact that Muslims of all ethnicities want to destroy Israel...

Comment by Nicole — 11/25/2008 @ 2:10 pm

Having visisted Israel, and spent time with Jews as well as Muslims. I can honestly say that this comment is not true...and only serves to demonstrate ignorance....some Muslims want to destroy Israel, and some Israelis' want to destroy Palestine & Muslims...however most just want to get on with their lives. there is a very violent history between the two, and Israel is oppressing Palestine.

One correction though: Iraq is mostly Sunni, not Shia, since Kurds are part of Iraq and they are mostly Sunnis.

Wow, a Saddamist who is still gripping onto that long refuted illusion of an argument.

Arab and Kurdish Sunnis in Iraq make up approximately 30% of the population - no more, no less.

The real corrections to be made are these:

Nice post.

One issue with it, though...it's entitled "10 facts..." and the 7th is "According to the Bible, Jews and Arabs are related".

Since when is anything from the Bible to be considered a fact?

I appreciate the point you are trying to make...but this was surely already done by pointing out that they were both ancient Semitic peoples (more or less in those terms)?

I would disagree with this section right here:

The Shia believed Muhammad’s second cousin Ali should have taken over (the family/cleric model). The Sunni believed that the best person for the job should be chosen by the followers (the merit model) and that’s how the first Caliph, Abu Bakr, was appointed.

Although the conflict began as a political struggle it now mostly considered a religious and class conflict, with political conflict emanating from those rifts.

The terms Shia and Sunni were solidified hundreds of years after the death of Muhammad, and as a result I find it impossible to retroactively use these terms to describe the disagreements as to who was the rightful claim for the Caliphate. According to most accounts, Ali was away from the other Ansar washing the body of the prophet while a political decision was made between Umar and Abu Bakr to give the Caliphate to Abu Bakr (with Umar preceding, and Uthman being appointed the 3rd Caliph).

The arguement in favor of Ali from my own knowledge don't stem so much from any family/clerical model, in fact, I would argue quite the opposite. There was no formal 'church' structure to Islam and there still is not in Sunni Islam, moreover the ties of family and kinship (as tribal humanism was also a fading epoch by this time) were dispensed formally in the Constitution of Medina, whereby Muhammad proclaims that Muslims are one Umma (community) above all other kinships. Rather, Ali as deserving of being the first of the rightly guided Caliphs comes from well documented remarks when Muhammad is said to have proclaimed 'Anyone who follows me, follows Ali', indicating that Ali was at embraced by Muhammad as capable of leading the people.

I do agree that the conflict between Sunnis/Shia was a political struggle, but one couched in the maneuvering of Abu Bakr and Umar to force Ali out of power while they have the opportunity and not so much on any one model of legitimate rule. What would be interesting would be to analyze this through the prism of Max Weber and his ideas of power and legitimacy of the state.

Very informative and good read, must know info
Please correct one information in it, Ali was Mohammed's First cousin, not his second, their fathers were real brothers

Great post, I would like to raise a little issue, I am an atheist but still seen and raised as Muslim. I noticed that all religion including Islam has been manipulated to suite the ruling class, and males in general. A very well known Muslim clerk, the Egyptian Jamal al Banna, has repeatedly said that head cover for women is not an Islamic requirement ,yet this has been debated endlessly in recent days. But in times of uncertainties people tend to cling to religion for boosting their confidence.

Also Ramadan observance for non locals, it should be noted that in some Arabic countries you can get away with eating in public, Syria, Lebanon, Tunisia- which banned fasting and polygamy- Gulf state may have harsh penalties for public eating/drinking/ smoking in Ramadan, especially Saudi, UAE, Kuwait .

Kissing in some countries, is also considered an offence as grave (or fun depending how it feels at the time and afterwards) as sex even though no intercourse is involved.
However, it is very common to see same sex straight people kissing, among men and women, they are not gay if they do it, this is how I lost my lovely European x-girl friend, Hey Nicole, got to say it here sorry.

The middle finger is very offensive to Arabs, in some countries it is punishable by one month jail and a big fine.

Raising you legs on a coffe table when facing an Arabic person is very offensive, although I managed to get over it and you see my shoes now facing my boss when he snoops over my office desk.
Releasing gase/Farting is also very offensive, in Jordan and among Bedouins, it is a very grave disrespectful offence.

L Mac - Strictly looking at the number of Muslims in a country is not sufficient. You also have to look at the socio-economic, educational, and even national background of those individuals. Where the majority of Muslims are well educated and from the middle-class, they are far better integrated in the system. Where they are ill-educated and semi-literate working class, they are easily radicalized.

The 'recruiters' that you speak of are in most cases Wahhabi sect nut-jobs that are sponsored by shady individuals in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The religious establishment there seems to be hell bent on radicalizing every Sunni and wiping out every Shia or Sufi Muslim (which the consider to be as bad Westerners and Jews). Given the vast amount of oil wealth is almost exclusively in the hands of the royal house of Saud, it is not such a leap of faith to suspect them.

If there ever was a regime that needed removal, it is the Saudi monarchy and the Wahhabi religious figures that they prop up in exchange for legitimacy. This crazed fundamentalism of recent decades can be in most part blamed on them. Of note is their support of radical religious schools across the Muslim world, and the proliferation of Saudi or Saudi-trained recruiters across the globe, from conflict zones to the heart of Europe.

"At 2% and 3% they begin to proselytize from other ethnic minorities and disaffected groups with major recruiting from the jails and among street gangs"

Not the only religion where members try to convert others. There's some really annoying church ladies that started to come by my folk's place several times a year as soon as my father told them he was a Muslim.

"From 5% on they exercise an inordinate influence in proportion to their percentage of the population."

This can be said of some other ethnic minorities that shall remain nameless, however I do not agree with you with them exercising a great amount of influence. The fact that they have too little influence is what makes them such good recruits for the "recruiters." It takes some doing to even build a mosque. There aren't too many communities that would be comfortable with one in their neighborhood.

The CIA is not a reliable source of information anyways. I seem to remember something about WMD's... oh and illegal renditions of foreign nationals. The list goes on.

In any case I think I've rambled on long enough.

Persians make up about 50% of the population of Iran. They are only one of many ethnic groups (including Arabs!).

I used to be a homeless rodeo clown but now I am a world class magician !

Islam is not a religion nor is it a cult. It is a complete system. Islam has religious, legal, political, economic and military components. The religious component is a beard for all the other components. Islamization occurs when there are sufficient Muslims in a country to agitate for their ‘religious rights.’
When politically correct and culturally diverse societies agree to the ‘reasonable’ Muslim demands for their ‘religious rights,’ they also get the other components under the table. Here’s how it works (percentages source CIA: The World Fact Book (2007)).
As long as the Muslim population remains around 1% of any given country they will be regarded as a peace-loving minority and not as a threat to anyone.
In fact, they may be featured in articles and films and stereotyped for their colorful uniqueness:
United States — Muslim 1.0%
Australia — Muslim 1.5%
Canada — Muslim 1.9%
China — Muslim 1%-2%
Italy — Muslim 1.5%
Norway — Muslim 1.8%
At 2% and 3% they begin to proselytize from other ethnic minorities and disaffected groups with major recruiting from the jails and among street gangs:
Denmark — Muslim 2%
Germany — Muslim 3.7%
United Kingdom — Muslim 2.7%
Spain — Muslim 4%
Thailand — Muslim 4.6%
From 5% on they exercise an inordinate influence in proportion to their percentage of the population.

It might worth adding that Indonesia is neither an Arab nor a Middle East country.

Good post.

Thanks for this! It is really a suprise to me how little I am aware of the Middle East, even though it is in the news every single day.

Even more suprising is the fact that none of it is relevant to my life, and I have forgotten all of the 10 points already.

I found the information an entertaining distraction, keep up the good work!

bernie, will is busy preparing a comment on how the oklahoma city bombing proves that christians are anti-american. give him time.

Will makes an interesting, albeit speculative, assertion. Is it true that 9/11 had something to do with Arabs/Muslims? I'm not saying that it didn't, just that I've never seen any evidence. Who specifically pulled the job off, and how? And what was their motivation? A fascinating topic. Thanks for raising it.

@Arthur: You mean Tehrangeles? I hear that Tehranto has a pretty big community. There are still about 25,000 active jews in Iran (Source: BBC). As a side note, some of the best sounding chazzan (I don't know hebrew so I don't know the plural, chazzanim?) that I have heard are Persian.

As for Maronites.. I thought they all wanted to be french.

In addition to the Assyrian + Maronite link I posted, here is a similar link of middle eastern Jews. http://www.jimena.org/</p>

John Waters,
Most the of Jews of Iran live in Israel or Los Angeles. No longer Iran.

Most of the points are correct. But... Jews, Assyrians, Kurds and many other minorities in the middle east are not Arabs. They marry each other and keep their own customs. While they may be similar to Arabs since they live in the same places, they are NOT the same ethnic group as this article states in point 1.

See this link for an example:
http://www.aina.org/releases/caamletter.htm
It states:
"The Coalition of American Assyrians and Maronites (CAAM), which includes seven Assyrian and Maronite Organizations, has sent an official letter to the Arab American Institute, asking it to stop identifying Assyrians and Maronites as Arabs. CAAM represents over 2.2 million Assyrians and Maronites in the United States. The letter was also sent to President Bush, Vice President Cheney, all twelve Cabinet members, all members of the House and Senate, The Chicago Tribune, Time Magazine and Groliers Multimedia Encyclopedia.

The CAAM letter was written in response to AAI's deliberate expropriation of the Assyrian and Maronite ethnic identities "

I love how any information source regarding the middle east is immediately engulfed in the Israel/Palestine madness.

This post is about Arabs and Persians, not Israelis. Unless you want to talk about the small population of Arab or Persian Jews I don't really think that the subject of Israel even needs to be addressed here.

Ironically the Jewish population in Iran seems to be quite content with their place in Iranian society and the Arab jews of Palestine have, according to some personal sources that I trust a great deal, been treated more-or-less as second class citizens; the same for ethiopian jews, who fall under the semitic umbrella (Geez is a semitic language). That's not to say that there isn't similar institutionalized racism in the Arab world. Lord knows that I have seen countless "TCNs" (third country nationals) and "black saudis"/sudanese/etc. discriminated against in my travels around the region in the past year. I think its probably due to the fact that all of these nations, including and especially Israel, have a long way to go when it comes to really becoming modern. Folks here don't yet understand that modernity does not mean half dressed women on the TV, techno music, and products with large/easily recognized logos on them. But I digress...

This is an incredibly useful post, the political nonsense in the comments section is not going to take that away.

In the early to mid 70s my Dad was the DCM and chargé d’affaires (effectively 2nd in command) at the American Embassy in Kuwait.

He had two of those spring loaded pull down maps of the region. On one ball was "A" and the was a "P". The only difference was one had the Gulf labelled as the Arabian Gulf and the other as the Persian Gulf. You had to be really careful which you had down depending on who was visiting :-)

Interesting post!!! The tone of the post was from a "pulpit" rather than a classroom but an excellent post.

I think it's funny that none of the people replying to Nicole actually acknowledge the insane hostility that the Arab and Muslim nations (lets just call it the superset) have against Israel. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion -- a known hoax over 100 years old -- was made into a mini-series in Egypt 4 or 5 years ago. To talk about the racial, ethnic and religious break downs of the middle east for the "benefit of westerners" and not mention how Israel is viewed in the region seems like it's leaving out a very important part. Especially since most of the world, and the uninformed like Bernie, views the US as being overly friendly to Israel. (And indeed, we probably are more pro-Israel than any other country.)

I'm not saying that Israel is good or bad as such. Personally, I think that Israel is pretty horrible on the Palestinians, but on the other hand I've personally survived TWO separate terrorist attacks, one of which I was less than 5 ft away from a Palestinian nut-job with a machine gun and a whole bag full of grenades. (This was pre-suicide bomber days, in Rome in the mid-80s.) So I can't say that I think that either party is without blame. I mean, I live in America and you don't see to many native american walking around town, if you know what I mean. In many ways Israel is in this problem because they failed to follow the rest of the European colonists by exterminating the natives. I hardly think that we have the high moral ground.

Also, while I'm feeding the fire, I think it's a fact that most terrorists -- not all, but the overwhelming majority -- are Muslims. (The other attack I was in, if you even want to call it that, was 9/11.) When someone blows themselves up, you can be pretty sure that he's not a follower of Ghandi. Or Martin Luther King. Not to many buddhists strap bombs to themselves. African Animists? Some sort of mother maria worshiper from south american? No, if you had to bet on a religion that produces suicide bombers the odds are pretty clear. So let's be realistic. Sure there are the Tamil Tigers as an exception, and maybe you can drag in the shining path or something, but come on. If you really want to understand the middle east, you can't ignore it. And if you went more into the split between the Shia and the Sunni, and they stories about fighting a losing battle, etc then these things make a little more sense.

I think that this post would have been even better if it would talk about why it's so important that Israel not exist as a separate Jewish state. I don't mean that the Palestinians especially want to do harm to the Jews, but why they wouldn't want a bunch of Europeans to set up a colony in what they, rightly or wrongly, consider to be Arab/Muslim land.

I'm an idiot.

Very interesting but I think the last paragraph of this post is totally unnecessary. Sure it makes you feel good to say, "It took me 2 minutes to write this" but it insults readers who are, at least, going out of their way to learn about the region. Are you putting out material to educate people or make them feel stupid?

Other than that, very interesting.

Sorry, folks. I guess Muslims of all stripes don't want to destroy Israel. I was wrong.

Great post, could I just suggest adding the letters (PBUH) next to the word Muhummad (PBUH). It's really only meant for muslims but im sure your Muslim readers would appreciate it.

This is all very well, but utimately trivial compared to the most pressing Middle Eastern question du jour. To wit, why does Benjamin Netanyahu insist on referring to his country as "Izriyul"?

Could you do a similar post, explaining to me what is up with this
whole Israel thing? Why does it get no comment in the U.S. media
that Israel is treating the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip much
like the Nazis treated the Jews living in the Warsaw Ghetto? I'd gladly give Israelis my home town in California--they can have it; they deserve it, fine; and I'd give away my own home to any Jewish family that suffered oppression under the Nazis, but why should this make me (or anyone else in America) any less outraged when the government of Israel acts in a way that is morally base? Why the silence?

@10. Jack - I consider myself to be pretty well informed about global current events and there were quite a few fact here that I never new. I especially appreciate the comparison of Shia vs. Sunni to Roman Catholics vs. Protestant Christians. That's not something I've ever heard before and will probably think of this comparison next time I read or hear something about this region. I do not think that the facts listed here are common knowledge at all.

P.S. Never mind the trolls (like Nicole). The live for the attention and are most likely just looking to get a reaction from the crowd. They are the annoying adolescent that nobody really thinks is very funny, but everyone laughs at. Trolls don't realize that people are laughing at (not with) them.

There is also a significant Shi'a population in Saudi Arabia, particularly in the eastern province. Bahrain is mostly Shi'a (but tolerant towards other faiths) and Oman is populated by folks who practice a much lesser known third sect of Islam, the Ibadiyah.

(I live and work in Riyadh, for now.)

John

Aww man Nicole, you just ruined a good post with some bigotry. It sucks that even when this guy went through the trouble to metaphorically explain thay you CANNOT generalise, that all these cultures and sects are different you still miss the entire point. Congrats you're still stupid.

I was going to ask if the author of the original post really believed that these basic facts needed to be presented. But then Nicole came in with a sweeping generalisation to prove that there are those whose understanding of the facts is somewhat coloured by an overall bias against a whole group of religions, regardless of the truth. Plus ca change...

None of this changes the fact that Muslims of all ethnicities want to destroy Israel.

Great info. Thanks.

One correction though: Iraq is mostly Sunni, not Shia, since Kurds are part of Iraq and they are mostly Sunnis.

Also Christians in Arab countries are usually Arab, with the largest concentration in Lebanon. Turkey also borders the Arab peninsula, Turkey 98% (I think) Sunni Muslim, but not Arab. Kurds in Northern Iraq aren't Arab, but are Sunni Muslim (with significant populations in Turkey and Iran.

Nice round up.

The Semitic languages are Arabic, Hebrew, and Ethiopic, and the historical language of Aramaic.

“History may not repeat itself, but it does rhyme a lot” -Mark Twain,

\"According to the Bible, Jews and Arabs are related [Genesis 25]. Jews descended from Abrahamâ??s son Isaac, and Arabs descended from Abrahamâ??s son Ishmael. So not only are both groups Semitic, but theyâ??re also family.\"

To be more specific, I believe they were born of the sons of Shem, if memory serve me right.

(I just checked. And Shem was a son of Noah.)

-=T=-

We had no idea about Northern Vietnamese Communists - we slaughtered millions for nothing. Isn't it funny how history tends to repeat itself.

Nice post here. I personally knew most of the facts but it's a great refresher for people like me, and a great learning tool for everybody else. There's no excuse to be ignorant about facts around the world, not in this day and age.