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The problems in the Middle East go back well before WW1, to the Ottoman Empire in the 18th and 19th centuries. But much of the trouble we see now is the legacy of Lawrence of Arabia riding his hobby-horse through the ruins of that Empire, encouraging the building of nation-states in the area.
WW1 had a direct affect on my own family, as on so many others. My father's eldest brother William died in May 1918 near Jerusalem, and is buried beside the Mount of Olives ; his brother Herbert died in March, 1919 near Basra in Iraq, and is buried at Amara. Both were ordinary lads from a working class family in Fulham, London, so what on earth were they doing in the Middle East? Whatever was the British army doing out there?

The First World War was the vilest of conflicts, which churned up the world disastrously. Fuelled by imperialism on all sides, European armies were land-grabbing as the Ottoman Empire, ally of the Germans and Austro-Hungarians, crumbled.
Britain took Palestine, Egypt and Mesopotamia, France took Lebanon and Syria. Seizing their opportunity, the Arabs revolted agains their Ottoman rulers, helped by T. E. Lawrence, and eventually the Kingdoms of Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Jordan were established. In the midst of all the chaos, the Zionists seized their opportunity to try a land-grab of their own and to claim a homeland for the Jews in what had been Palestine. Naturally the Palestinians did not agree, but in 1948 their long terrorist campaign finally secured for the Zionists the area which is now Israel, although the UN plan was never agreed by all sides.
Hence the bloody mess we have there still. So my uncles died for nothing at all, certainly not for King and country. They were sent off to fight in a hideous war which has never really finished. It has been rumbling on ever since, its consequences have spread to affect the whole world, helped by the power and politics surrounding oil.
Until all concerned start to act like civilized human beings, and less like savages - and that includes the USA, Israel and the Palestinians - I believe the conflict will continute for at the very least another 100 years.

Learn more about this author, William Wilcox.
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