Off-Limits Issues
Given the limits of this chapter, I will not be able to deal here with the issue of violence in the supra-territorial Palestinian and trans-border Kurdish spaces in the Middle East.
It is, however, important to mention that the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 and the ‘Six-Day War' in 1967 have changed the face of the region and transformed the Palestinian issue into a most salient one. The Palestinian non-state actors, who won a quasi-state form in the refugee camps, played an important role in Jordan before the kingdom's massive repression during the famous Black September clampdown in 1970, and in Lebanon before the Israeli invasion of 1982 which constrained the PLO to take refuge in Tunisia. The Palestinian camps also hosted non-Palestinian militants, among them members of the German Red Army Faction and the Japanese Red Army.[170] ‘Palestine within' also played a political role during the First Intifada (1987-93), which included riots by Palestinian youth and women activists, and the Second Intifada (2000-4), which has made suicide bombings as the main tool of violence commonplace. Together with South Yemen, where a ‘socialist Republic' survived between 1967 and 1990, the Palestinian supra-national space had been dominated by left-wing movements until the mid 1980s, before hosting Islamist actors such as Hamas.As far as Kurdistan is concerned, it became the theatre of uprisings in Turkey, Iran and Iraq in the i920s-i940s and has been almost constantly in a state of violence since the 1961 Barzani rebellion in Iraq. During the 1980s and 1990s, the Kurdish conflict claimed more than 200,000 lives. Left-wing movements have been dominant in Kurdistan and, although challenged by Islamist actors, still enjoy a hegemonic position in the political landscape.
This chapter will also leave aside the issue of political violence in some parts of the Middle East, to start with in pre-1979/ 80 Turkey[171] and Iran. In the former, violence started in the wake of the 1968 contest between left- and right-wing groups, but also had a communitarian, Sunni-Alevi aspect. In Iran, the left-wing guerrilla movement, which amplified itself throughout the 1970s, was one of the factors preparing the ground for the 1979 revolution, which will be mentioned later on. In both countries, as well as in Morocco, which hosted a left-wing guerrilla movement,[172] violence remained confined, mainly, within the ‘national' boundaries. That was not the case in the long- lasting guerrilla warfare in Dhofar (1963-76) as well as in the intra-Yemeni war which involved Great Britain, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
More on the topic Off-Limits Issues:
- The Limits of Loyalty
- LIMITS TO GROWTH
- THE LIMITS OF DIVINE WISDOM
- Limits of Arbitrage
- The limits of prudence
- The Limits of Deterrence
- Limits of Impact
- Appendix 1 Agricultural Holdings: Table of Time Limits for Service of Notices, etc
- The limits of intellectual humility
- THE LIMITS OF DIVINE POWER
- THE LIMITS OF DIVINE LOVE
- THE LIMITS OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE
- Limits to the Governor’s Jurisdiction
- There are limits to the growth of populations
- Limits of Arbitrage and Noise Trading
- Limits of Unconscionability and No-Injunction Clauses
- Limits on Your Options for Medical Care
- Oedipus the Tyrant and the Limits of Political Rationalism
- ACHILLES’ EDUCATION ON THE LIMITS OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE
- CASE 72: Statutory Limits on a Husband's Power