ABSTRACT
The victory of Israel in 1949 marked a watershed in the history of the Middle East. It laid cruelly bare the comparative weakness of the Arab nations and the growing strength of the new State of Israel. In the Arab nations the upheavals that followed brought new forces to prominence. They had been developing, however, long before the outbreak of the war. The foundation of Israel in the heat of war was not alone responsible. But, within a decade of those Arab defeats, Britain’s bases of power in Egypt, Jordan and Iraq had been eliminated by a renewed wave of Arab nationalism. Western influence declined during the Cold War for the paradoxical reason that the Arab nations knew that the Western powers would defend them from Soviet attack. The Middle East, with its vast resources of oil in the Gulf and Saudi Arabia, was vital for Western industry and for Japan, leaving aside the strategic importance of the region.
