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Y321: The Middle East 1908–2011: Ottomans to Arab Spring

Religion, ethnicity and political Minorities: Al Qaeda, minorities and the diaspora

  • 3 things to know
  • Unit group 3

Overview

Recall questions on Hamas’s election victory of 2006, Al Qaeda’s origins and methods, Lebanese Christians, Armenians, Copts, the Jews of the Arab world, the Kurds, Palestinians as a minority and the Middle Eastern diaspora.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

What happened to the Jewish communities of the Arab world after 1948?

Key term

Did all Jewish communities support Zionism?

Numbers

Why did Hamas's election victory of 2006 prove so divisive?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    Why did Hamas's election victory of 2006 prove so divisive?

    Model answer

    Israel and Western donors refused to deal with a movement that would not recognise Israel or renounce violence, and the resulting confrontation with Fatah ended in Hamas seizing Gaza in 2007 and a blockade of the territory.

  2. 2

    What were Al Qaeda's origins and its central grievance?

    Model answer

    It was formed in 1988 out of the Arab volunteers who had fought the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, and bin Laden's chief grievance was the stationing of American troops in Saudi Arabia after 1990.

  3. 3

    What methods did Al Qaeda use, and what became of bin Laden?

    Model answer

    It mounted mass-casualty attacks on Western targets, from the East African embassy bombings of 1998 to the attacks of 11 September 2001, and bin Laden was tracked down and killed in Pakistan in 2011.

  4. 4

    Describe the position Lebanon's Christians held in their political system.

    Model answer

    An unwritten pact of 1943, based on a census taken in 1932, reserved the presidency for a Maronite Christian; the shrinking Christian share of the population helped bring on the civil war, and their power was reduced by the settlement of 1989.

  5. 5

    What happened to the Ottoman Armenians, and where did the survivors settle?

    Model answer

    From 1915 they were deported and massacred on an enormous scale, and the survivors formed lasting communities in Syria and Lebanon and a worldwide diaspora that has campaigned for recognition of the genocide.

  6. 6

    Describe the position of the Copts in Egypt.

    Model answer

    They are Egypt's ancient Christian minority, variously estimated at five to ten per cent of the population, with their own Orthodox church and patriarch, but they face restrictions on church building, under-representation in public life and periodic sectarian violence.

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