Meanwhile, the Arabian Peninsula had begun to emerge yet again as a powerful force in world history, thanks to the discovery of oil in the 1930s. The desert lands of Arabia, worthless for agriculture, could hardly have been more valuable if they were covered in gold dust instead of sand: with the spread of automobiles, particularly in Europe and America, the world had an unquenchable thirst for gasoline, and the once-poor nations of Arabia became fabulously wealthy.
As in Muhammad's time, it was ironic that the forgotten nations of Arabia came to have enormous power. Also ironic was the fact that most of the powerful countries of ancient times had little oil, whereas the poorest regions were now rich. Thus Syria had much less oil than Arabia, and Lebanon less still; likewise Yemen, the one relatively powerful Arab nation in ancient times, proved to have little oil.
Hussein I (King of Jordan).
Archive Photos/Archive France. Reproduced by permission.
Oil wealth, along with the guidance of the powerful Saud (sah-OOD) family, led to the independence of Saudi (SOW-dee) Arabia, by far the largest nation on the Arabian Peninsula. The Sauds were sheikhs (SHAYKZ), or desert kings, as were the rulers of many other oil-rich nations such as Bahrain and Oman that became independent in the years following World War II (1939-1945). But Israel, too, became an independent country in 1948. This development led to great tension with its Arab neighbors.
This tension was increased by the rising movement for an independent Arab state in Palestine—the same land that Israel claimed for its own. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and its leader, Yassir Arafat (yah-SEER AIR-uh-fat; 1929- ), were not above using terrorism to achieve their aims. Thus at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, a Palestinian group killed eleven Israeli athletes.
The Palestinians in 1978 attacked Israel from bases in Lebanon. The Israelis responded by occupying part of Lebanese territory to establish a protective buffer zone. In 1982, Israel launched a major attack against Palestinian strongholds in Lebanon, particularly in the capital city of Beirut (bay-ROOT). Beirut, a favorite tourist spot during the 1950s and 1960s, became a war-torn shell of a city. On October 25, 1983, a terrorist drove a truck filled with explosives into barracks that housed U. S. peacekeeping forces in Beirut; the resulting explosion killed more than 200 Marines.
The terrorists were allied not with the PLO, but with another, even more violent, force in the region: Iran under the Ayatollah Khomeini. Nor were the Palestinians and the Islamic fundamentalists in Iran the only threat to peace: another was Hafez al-Assad (hah-FEZ ahl uh-SAHD; 1928-), who took power in Syria in 1971. A fierce enemy of Israel, he supported the PLO and began occupying parts of Lebanon in 1976. Even more frightening was Saddam Hussein of Iraq, who in 1990 invaded the oil-rich sheikhdom of Kuwait. Like many leaders in the region, Saddam claimed to desire unity among all Arabs, but his ruthless attack on his neighbors to the south sent another message.
A quite different leader—and certainly no relation of Saddam's, though they had the same last name—was King Hussein I (hoo-SAYN; 1935-1999) of Jordan. Hussein, who became ruler in 1952, initially supported the PLO, but like Anwar Sadat of Egypt, he came to desire better relations with Israel. From the 1970s onward, he actively supported the cause of peace in the region. When he died in 1999, people all over the world mourned his passing.
World History
