Maps of the Middle East

Check out this website about the Middle East: www.theglobaleducationproject.org/mideast

While I freely admit that I am ignorant about any number of topics,at this particular time, given our reading of Baghdad Without A Map, I find my ignorance of the Middle East painful and embarrassing. To begin with, it was not until I started this unit that I realized the Middle East, countries which I have bandied about in water cooler talk as if I were one of an educated, bleeding-heart liberal elite, was arbitrarily fashioned (to some degree) by the winning powers of Europe after World War I. Indeed the Allies themselves banded together and placed Israel in the middle of Palestine after World War II. Now, I realize that the creation of the Jewish State is far more complicated than simply sketching boundaries and encouraging immigration, but the bottom line is that a group of powerful men, none of whom lived in the area, decided (rightfully, I believe) that there needed to be a refuge for Jews and chose Jerusalem, for obvious reasons, as that site. However compassionate that act might have been meant to be, it also seems so very arrogant to me. What consideration was given to those who actually lived in the area? My point here is that boundaries matter. The boundaries can be physical, like the boundaries of a country or a town or a home site; they may be religious, they may be emotional, they may be personal. It is this seeming arrogance, this seeming disregard for boundaries that still haunts the Middle East today. The "West" continues to cross boundaries as it fights its war on terror in Afghanistan, as it helps to bring "peace" to Iraq, arguably and ironically a country that has been torn apart and devastated because the United States and its allies choose to cross boundaries. Are there lines that we as Americans, as part of a nation that is a "super power" (whatever that means), should not be crossing? We need to know our boundaries, and part of that knowledge begins by knowing more, learning the maps and outlines of the countries and cultures.

-EBW