The Middle East

[Music] oh [Music] where history began history today is made anew in lands at once timeless and changing fabled and mysterious yet as sharply real as a headline the lands of the middle east the maps of the middle ages used to show this region as the center of the world because of its inclusion of the holy land already then it was a cultural area rich in history western civilization began in the valleys of the nile the tigris and euphrates rivers [Music] here men learn to domesticate animals to farm the soil to write to make laws and to worship one god for three of the world's great religions germinated here judaism christianity and islam [Music] through 5 000 years of conflict kingdoms and empires rose and and the monuments of their lost glory and fated power are left as the marks of an historical legacy to enrich the landscape and now today once again there is a stirring here and world attention focuses once more on this region of the globe our own nation takes a deep interest in the countries covered in this report including israel egypt syria jordan lebanon saudi arabia kuwait iraq oman and aden this has been abundantly clear ever since the american doctrine of 1957 held out the assurance of u.s military assistance when requested to any middle eastern country threatened by aggression from the forces of communism under its terms united states forces in 1958 responded to an urgent appeal for help from lebanon [Music] why this interest in the middle east one reason is its location it is a world crossroads a sea land and air bridge connecting the three continents of europe asia and africa then there is the area's immense supply of oil about two-thirds of the world's known reserves from this supply it furnishes three-fourths of europe's oil needs and almost all those of the far east in world affairs 2 these states are playing an increasingly significant role they frequently take a united stand on issues and exert a powerful influence on other states thus the majority of nations in this area making up the arab bloc can have considerable impact on world attitudes and decisions the area which for all these reasons figures so importantly in the course of world history today is not one solid entity there are divisions some of them deep and ancient some born of the troubled present which pit nations and groups of nations and groups within nations against each other their governments range from republic to monarchy to chictum from forward-looking to feudal and no two are of the same form [Music] and the people themselves differ quite as much as do their forms of government the most explosive issue of all is the existence of the state of israel israel was born amid turbulence and bloodshed following u.n partition it became a separate nation after the british who had exercised a mandate since the end of world war one withdrew from palestine in 1948 it was immediately attacked by its neighboring arab states who resented the new nation and considered its creation to be illegal israel successfully beat off the attacks and a series of armistice agreements worked out by the united nations brought an end to organized warfare in 1949 since then israel has worked at fever pitch and with a tough and pioneering spirit to make a self-sufficient nation within its borders [Music] penniless jewish immigrants bringing with them the varied languages skills and customs of the countries of their birth have been absorbed and provided with shelter food and jobs barren and eroding land has been cultivated [Music] determined efforts and irrigation and specialized projects with cattle have promoted an agricultural program which today produces a plentiful supply of basic food [Music] even industry despite serious limitations in raw materials has grown rapidly at variance with this picture are the camps outside israel's borders where more than a million arab refugees maintain a miserable existence and demand the right to return to the homes in palestine from which they say they were dispossessed during the war israel says it would be impossible to read them it has offered to discuss compensation but the arab states supporting the refugees demands refused to acknowledge israel's right to palestine and will not accept any conditions at all the result is stalemate in terms of human wretchedness and the plight of those people symbolizes not only the divisiveness which scars the middle east but also strangely enough it's opposite for the arab nations surrounding israel although divided on many issues are united in their opposition to israel [Music] not only their opposition to israel but other factors to provide a unity which binds together most of the arab lands of the middle east [Music] for the arabs of every country share a common culture which spills across the borders of nations and is apparent throughout the arab world from the architecture of its buildings to the customs of its daily life [Music] [Applause] much of this cultural unity stems from the arab language the tongue most commonly used in the area it is something more than a bond uniting the arab world it reflects the tradition and customs of that world [Music] an arab speaking arabic wherever he may be speaks on the basis of judgments and assumptions and values shared by all other arabs [Music] religion is another socially cohesive force there are christian groups particularly in lebanon and to a lesser extent in egypt and there are of course the jews in israel but the overwhelmingly dominant religion in the middle east is islam the powerful faith founded by the prophet muhammad 1400 years ago five times a day a call from the minaret atop the mosque which is the center of community life in every village and city summons the faithful to prayer and in home and mosque and field muslims kneel and face mecca the holy city in saudi arabia where muhammad was born it is a common sight for islam is a faith which pervades the daily lives of the people and its bible the quran spells out with precision the details which form the basis of their law and culture it is a faith built upon the acknowledgement of one god whose name in arabic is allah and throughout the muslim world it teaches a unifying peace through submission to allah's will [Music] even its physical appearance gives a unity to the middle east most of the middle east is a desert an extension of that great dry world which extends from the sahara desert in the west to the gobi desert in central asia the sun burns down unremittingly with the searing heat through most of the year water is scarce annual rainfall throughout the area is less than 10 inches high winds bring frequent sand storms so severe that they block vision the land and climate dictate the most severe of the region's problems the inhospitable desert is uninhabitable except for nomadic tribesmen who camp around the infrequent oasis wherever their camels and flocks of sheep and goats can graze most of the people live by farming the narrow crucial bands of fertile land which stretch along the few rivers or in even smaller regions made arable by irrigation and most of these farmers are sharecroppers heavily indebted to the wealthy landlords who own the good land tilling the reluctant earth with methods unchanged in a thousand years or more for them and for the thousands who flock to the cities in a hopeless effort to find something better life is a primitive existence ridden with poverty and the companion conditions of illiteracy and disease but if poverty is a common condition of the arab world so too is the yearning to change this condition to break out of the prison of the past and reach for the promise of a better life the urge toward change is not peculiar to the middle east the 20th century has heard its challenging cry around the globe but nowhere more insistently than in this part of the world the manifestations of change are everywhere in the quiet modification of customs and social pattern centuries old in savage street demonstrations which defy the old authorities and create new ones overnight and most important of all in the application of new methods to ancient problems some of the countries of the middle east have seized upon industrialization as the answer to all their troubles and the fastest path to the promised land of tomorrow in the countryside land reforms and introduction of better farming methods are in many places combining to improve the lot of the farmer and increase his output the most ambitious and hopefully regarded projects are those which endeavor to make more land productive through irrigation and develop water power for industry most widely known such project is egypt's construction of the azwan high dam on the nile begun in 1960 it reached its first stage of completion in 1964. construction on the dam was begun with help from the soviet union it was not russia's first foothold in the strategic middle east egypt's president nasser had provided that several years earlier by turning to the ussr for military assistance and equipment and neither was it the last the influence of the communist world has been widely felt in an application of propaganda technique which the communists have used in every part of the world they have worked here to exploit the people's natural grievances to their own advantage and to stir up antagonism toward the west by playing on the people's fears and resentments of former colonialism however dead colonialism may be in actuality the fears and resentments of it are real and are still alive in the national memories of those who have experienced and in much of the middle east the tradition of outside control stretches back to the days of greece and rome this resentment was span to new life in 1956 after egypt's nasser nationalized the suez canal the vital artery through which commercial traffic has flowed for a century great britain and france whose interests had jointly controlled the canal were fearful of a disruption in the delivery of their oil supplies they sent in troops ostensibly to bring an end to warfare between egypt and israel which had come with israel's earlier invasion of the sinai peninsula but they quickly moved to create a buffer zone around the canal [Music] withdrawal of these forces was finally achieved but a residue was left behind of new bitterness toward western policies in the middle east [Music] the stand most of the major middle eastern countries taken the cold war is one of detachment sometimes it seems to us more like opportunistic politics but the leaders insist that their policy is neutrality [Music] if the voice of the middle east sounds with more vigor and insistence in the world today than it ever has before it is in great part because of the spirit of nationalism which has swept through the middle east as through most of the underdeveloped regions of the world since world war ii governments and empire outposts have toppled in the wake of that raging spirit nations have been born and new and powerful leaders have risen to eminence a distinctive feature of the nationalism of the middle east is that it spills across the borders of individual nations and embraces the dream of a pan-arab world in the middle east but it is a dream which up to now has been made of stuff too fragile to translate into political reality in the face of national rivalries [Music] the most ambitious attempt the union of egypt and syria in a single state the united arab republic lasted for three years until syria withdrew in 1961 complaining of egyptian domination but the dream of arab unity endures as evidenced by summit conferences which are held frequently among middle eastern heads of state to discuss and attempt practical solutions to their problems there are problems of plenty problems left from the long and bitter past problems such as the ever-present and explosive deadlock with israel woven into the violent fabric of the present problems on which the course of the future depends notably the challenge to tame the desert and make its rich oil deposits work for the benefit of all the people instead of the relatively few who enjoy those rewards now as it moves to meet these problems the world feels the stirring as centuries ago men felt the stir of great events in the desert lands where history began you