against Jews in Jerusalem. Fewer than ten people died in the violence, but several hun-
dred were wounded and the experience convinced British officials to replace its mili-
tary government in Palestine with a civilian administration dedicated to improving
relations between the two communities.
Britain’s attempt to create the unified state of Iraq out of the disparate provinces
of Baghdad, Basra, and Mosul received a rude shock in June 1920, when rural tribes
revolted and proclaimed an Arab government. The imperial army took more than eight
months to suppress the revolt, and it lost approximately 450 soldiers in the process.
Britain allowed Iraq to become independent in 1932 but maintained significant influ-
ence in part through the retention of military bases there.
Meanwhile, France faced difficulties of its own in Syria, where it was to govern
under a still-pending League of Nations mandate. With British support, Faisal had
established a government in Damascus. In 1919 he gathered Arab notables from
Greater Syria—that is, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria—for a meeting known as the
General Syrian Congress. They demanded a completely independent Syrian state, with
Faisal at its head. Britain and France ignored them, and a year later the French sent
an army to Damascus, forced Faisal from office, and established a colonial-style gov-
ernment. France also designated coastal Lebanon as a separate entity because of its
interest in trade there and its Christian majority.
Widening regional resentment of European domination after World War I also
contributed to the growth of Arab nationalism and an Islamic resurgence, broad-based
movements that over decades would grow in importance. The concept of Arab nation-
alism had developed late in the nineteenth century, but not until the collapse of the
Ottoman Empire did Arab intellectuals and leaders began to agitate for independent
nation-states. The often heavy-handed reactions by the British and French to local
demands merely increased the desire for independence as illustrated by the spate of
violence in the years immediately after World War I. Movements to revive a “pure”
form of Islam similarly gained new traction in areas of the Middle East in part as a
response to European domination. The founding of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt
in 1928 represents one of the more prominent examples of attempts by some Arab
Muslims to assert cultural, rather than just political, independence from an outside
world that they believed to be corrupt and illegitimate. The better part of a century
later, Arab nationalism has lost much of its appeal, having produced a host of author-
itarian regimes in the region without improving the lives of average Arabs. By con-
trast, Islamist movements have grown in influence and popularity in much of the
Middle East in part in response to the dominance of the United States, which after
World War II assumed some aspects of the role played by European powers after
World War I.
FOUNDATIONS OF THE CONTEMPORARY MIDDLE EAST 7