27. THE COLD WAR AND THE REMAKING OF EUROPE, 1945

The Struggle for Identity in the Middle East

Figure 27.2: MAP 27.4 The Partition of Palestine and the Creation of Israel, 1947–1948

Figure 27.2: The creation of the Jewish state of Israel in 1948 against a backdrop of ongoing wars among Jews and indigenous Arab peoples turned the Middle East into a powder keg, a situation that has lasted until the present day. The struggle for resources and for securing the borders of viable nation-states was at the heart of these bitter contests, threatening to pull the superpowers into a third world war.

Independence struggles in the Middle East highlighted the world’s growing need for oil and often showed the ability of small countries to maneuver between the superpowers. As in other regions dominated by the West, Middle Eastern peoples resisted attempts to reimpose imperial control after 1945. Weakened by the war, British oil companies wanted to tighten their grip on profits. By playing the Western countries against one another, however, Middle Eastern leaders gained their independence and simultaneously renegotiated higher payments for drilling rights.

Emerging Nations in the Cold War

Emerging nations could be the playthings of the superpowers during the cold war, but they could also benefit from the rivalry. When Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser refused U.S. military aid in the 1950s because of the supervision the United States demanded, Nasser turned to the Soviets and received not only military support but also a low-interest loan for the Aswan Dam—the kind of development project undertaken by emerging nations to provide power and water for both agriculture and industry. In 1964, Nasser (right), Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, and Algerian president Ahmed Ben Bella inaugurated the opening of the dam. (Rue des Archives / The Granger Collection, NYC—All rights reserved.)

The legacy of the Holocaust complicated the Middle Eastern political scene. Since early in the century Western backing for a Jewish settlement in the Middle East had stirred up Arabs’ determination not to be pushed out of their ancient homeland. When World War II broke out, 600,000 Jewish settlers and twice as many Arabs lived, tensely, in British-controlled Palestine. In 1947, an exhausted Britain ceded Palestine to the newly created United Nations, which voted to partition Palestine into an Arab region and a Jewish one (Map 27.4). Hostility turned to open war, which Jewish military forces won, and on May 14, 1948, the state of Israel came into being. “The dream had come true,” Golda Meir, the future prime minister of Israel, remembered, but “too late to save those who had perished in the Holocaust.” Israel opened its gates to immigrants, pitting its expansionist ambitions against its Arab neighbors.

One of those neighbors, Egypt, gained its independence from Britain at the end of the war. Britain, however, still dominated shipping to Asia through its control of the Suez Canal. In 1952, Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918–1970) became Egypt’s president on a platform of economic modernization and true national independence—meaning Egyptian control of the canal. In July 1956, Nasser nationalized the canal: “I am speaking in the name of every Egyptian Arab,” he remarked in his speech explaining the takeover, “and in the name of all free countries and of all those who believe in liberty.” Nasser became a heroic figure to Arabs in the region, especially when Britain, supported by Israel and France, attacked Egypt while the Hungarian Revolution (see “Recovery in the East”) was in full swing. The British branded Nasser another Hitler, but the United States, fearing that Egypt would turn to the USSR, made the British back down. Nasser’s triumph inspired confidence that colonized peoples around the world could gain true independence.