World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples

The Middle East stretches from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula in the West to Iran’s border with Afghanistan in the East, and from Syria’s border with Turkey in the North to the Arabian Sea in the South. It is the cradle of ancient civilizations and three world religions.

History

Major historical developments in the 20th century have shaped the difficult climate for many minority groups in the Middle East today.

The 1948 Arab-Israeli War and resulting displacement of Palestinians galvanized Arab nationalism during the 1950s. The creation of Israel led to a near tripling of the Jewish population between 1948 and 1972.

Meanwhile the Cold War was at its peak, major oil discoveries were made in the Persian Gulf area, and rising world demand meant that this oil was a resource of strategic importance. In 1953 the United States and Britain conspired to overthrow a democratically elected government in Iran, contributing to the emerging pattern of western preference for friendly dictators in the oil states.

In 1967 Israel launched a pre-emptive strike against a planned attack by its Arab neighbours, who had the support of other Arab countries. At the end of the Six-Day War, Israel had expanded its borders to include parts of Egypt, Syria and Jordan, as well as all of East Jerusalem, creating new sources of Arab resentment that in turn served to propagate Israel’s sense of vulnerability.

Population growth in Arab countries and high rates of urbanization led to a burgeoning underclass that was receptive to the calls of Arab nationalism or religious fundamentalism. Sectarian tensions in religiously diverse Lebanon—already divided over whether the country should look to France and the Mediterranean world or to its Arab neighbours—were sharpened by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict involving the country’s large Palestinian refugee community, and exploded into civil war in 1975.

Four years later, revolution in Iran overthrew the western-backed regime and introduced a virulently anti-western, fundamentalist Shia Islam theocracy. The United States responded with support for Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, despite his use of chemical weapons during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war. However, when Hussein invaded oil-rich Kuwait in 1990, the U.S. led a coalition to expel and contain his forces. A new American invasion of Iraq in March 2003, ostensibly to prevent Hussein’s use of weapons of mass destruction that never materialized, overthrew the regime, but became bogged down in sectarian and ethnic civil war.

The U.S. administration launched the war in Iraq on the false claim of Hussein’s support for the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. Al Qaeda and other militant Islamist groups had exploited anger in the Muslim and Arab worlds over the ongoing plight of the Palestinians, as well as the U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. Sunni extremist groups have benefited from Saudi largesse, as the Kingdom has attempted to deflect the extreme Wahabbist opposition by subsidizing its proselytizing abroad and granting it cultural policing powers at home. Ongoing war and chaos in Iraq have fed the cycle of anti-western resentment among many Muslims and Arabs, and opened a gaping front for sectarian violence between Shia and Sunni Muslims.

Religious minorities

The majority of the population in the Middle East adheres to two main variants of Islam: Sunni Islam, which has the greater following in most countries, and Shia Islam, centred on Iran and Iraq. Sunni-Shia violence in Iraq has exacerbated sectarian tensions in Iran, Lebanon and Syria. Smaller Muslim sects have often faced discrimination as well. Jews are concentrated in Israel, but ancient Jewish communities still exist in most countries of the Middle East. Jews and Christians have faced varying degrees of discrimination, but have found some protection through Islam’s classification of their adherents as ‘people of the book’. Followers of smaller religions often face greater harassment and discrimination. Many Islamic clerics decry Baha’i as heretics for believing that other prophets came after Mohammed, and this group faces discrimination across the region, particularly in Iran. Israel’s significant Muslim minority, including most indigenous Palestinians, has faced systematic government discrimination in citizenship, property, education, and other rights. In reaction to terrorist attacks on Jewish targets over the years, Israel has imposed drastic security measures on the occupied territories, launched frequent military raids, and stifled Palestine’s economy; Israel and Palestine remain locked in a cycle of violence fed by the politicization of religious intolerance.

Ethnic minorities

Overlaying the religious diversity of the Middle East is a patchwork of ethnic minorities among an Arab majority in most countries, the European and Oriental Jewish majority in Israel, and the Persian majority in Iran. In Iraq, Kurds, Turkmen, Armenians, Circassians, and other ethnic minorities have been targeted by violence, sometimes by Arab authorities, but also at the hands of regional authorities—for example attacks on Turkmen in Kurdish-dominated northern Iraq. Suspicion of Kurdish separatism also has led to state discrimination against them in Syria and Iran. The Gulf States have largely failed to protect the rights of migrant workers, including many from South and South-East Asia, on whom they have become reliant; these workers face widespread exploitive work conditions and restricted freedom of movement.

Women

Amid the generally poor climate for religious and ethnic minorities throughout the Middle East, women minorities have suffered particularly. In addition to ethnic and religious persecution, minority women have been frequent targets for rape and other sexual assault. Conflict, as in Iraq, has enhanced these dangers, and left many minority women as widows or forcibly divorced from husbands of another group; in societies where women have few opportunities to make a living, many have become destitute.