Describe the political situation in the Middle East after World War II, with particular emphasis on the region's production of oil
What will be an ideal response?
ANSWER:
Students should recognize that the Arab struggle with Israel was the foundation for many decisions and activities in the Middle East. Originally encouraged by the Balfour Declaration decades before, Jewish settlement in Palestine greatly increased after World War II and the Holocaust. Both Israel and the Arab states participated in the independence movements that swept the world after World War II. Nations that had been nominally independent but were actually under British, French, or American control became autonomous in those years as well. Many of those new nations rallied around the Palestinian people displaced by Israel, which became independent in 1948. Still, the Arab-Israeli conflict would have remained a regional issue if it had not been for the presence of oil. The region's huge oil reserves were not effectively exploited until after World War II, when there were new demands for petroleum. Later, oil-producing nations won greater control and profits from Western oil companies by threatening to nationalize the oil fields. In 1960, they created OPEC as a political and economic instrument to further their interests. The continuing conflicts between the Arabs and Israelis complicated these matters enormously. After the oil crisis in 1974, prices spiraled upward, bringing great wealth and power to oil-producing nations.
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