The Middle East.

1-geography

The Middle East is a geographical and cultural region located primarily in western Asia, but also in parts of northern Africa and south eastern Europe. The western border of the Middle East is defined by the Mediterranean Sea, where Israel, Lebanon, and Syria rest opposite from Greece and Italy in Europe. Egypt in Africa also borders the Mediterranean Sea and is sometimes considered as part of the Middle East, while Turkey and Cyprus literally connect Europe to Asia and oscillate between being called European and Middle Eastern. 

Middle east is located on two continents and includes sixteen countries

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2-History

Antiquity

The first sedentary goes back to the Mesopotamia, region in what we today call Iraq, the Sumerian Uruk period, in the fourth millennium before JC. For several millennia the Middle East was one of the cultural and scientific development of outbreaks among the largest in the world, contact with European civilization, Africa and Asia led to the development of commodity exchange, knowledge and multiple conflicts over wealth, holy places, or communication channels.

Long before the Sumerian civilization settled permanently, the population started to settle in the fertile valleys of the Nile, Mesopotamia and on the shores. This period includes the Natufian period, the Neolithic preceramic and the Chalcolithic, early forms of agriculture, livestock, crafts and urbanisation are being developed.

Middle age

From the early Middle Ages, the Muslim civilization develops gradually and assimilates the earlier civilizations, the Abbasids extend well beyond the current Middle East and resist successive crusades from the Europeans, and the Ottomans penetrated into Europe in the fifteenth century. The rise of Islam and the Arabic language goes very fast, and supports the Arab conquests; the cultural influence is also important in the arts, sciences, architecture or the Islamic culture.

Foreign domination

During the nineteenth and twentieth century, the British Empire occupied Egypt and part of the south of the Arabian Peninsula and the Ottoman empire joined Germany and the Austro-Hungarian empire during the first world war, their defeat lead to the Sykes-Picot deal (repartition, of the middle east countries in order to avoid the Soviet union and the second Reich to colonize the region), Cyprus, Palestine and Iraq fell under British control and the State of Greater Lebanon (Syria agent) passes under French mandate of the League of Nations

The decolonisation of the middle east took 50 years from 1922 until 1971, the first country to gain the total independence was Egypt in 1922 and the last countries was the Persian Gulf like the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar.

Since then the different countries in the region has installed different political systems that in the eyes of the occidental countries has been considered as democratic like the leader of dominant clans like Saddam Hussein or Muammar Gaddafi, military regimes or chieftain in the Persian Gulf But the independence did not lead to peace in all the region like for instance the war between Iran and Iraq, conflict amplified by religious issues, Iran having a majority of Shia Muslims and Iraq Sunni Muslims.

The last two decades have been marked by two different tendencies, countries with high resources in oil grew very fast (members of OAPEC): United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, and major cities of Saudi Arabia. Dubai and Abu Dhabi have very ambitious projects: urban development, education system, medical complexes, shopping canters, etc. But both cities are also banking on their future development, after oil, Arab investments funds are among the largest in the world and everything is done to accommodate many wealthy tourists: hotels, leisure, private artificial islands, etc

Numerous cooperation projects between Arab countries and other countries in the Middle East region have been implemented by different governments:

3-Economy

The Middle East economy is as diverse as are the countries that compose it. If the production and export of hydrocarbons and raw materials is still largely the primary source of wealth of the Middle East and in particular to the countries of the Arabian Peninsula, Iraq and Kuwait, other countries like Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey or Cyprus or some emirates have turned their economy into other activities such as tourism, trade, agriculture and high technology. On the other hand, more recent phenomenon, petrodollars are reinvested via the Arab private and public funds in finance and the international economy

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