Reza Shah

During the reign of Reza Shah, women underwent many drastic, yet positive, changes. Women went from being expected to work in the home and bear children, to being able to become students and important members of the workforce. Reza Shah opened up schools for girls and also made it law that no woman shall wear a veil. Reza Shah did all he could to keep up with modernity, and in his eyes this meant dealing with women and the changing expectations of them around the world. Reza Shah paved the way for women to have more freedoms and becoem more prominent members of society. While roles for women are even more different today, I definitely feel that Reza Shah set the stage for women to emerge as important people in the Middle Eastern world.

Bringing Back the Troops

A classmate of mine recently posted a link to this video:

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2009/04/27/perry.iraq.suicide.shrine.cnn

The video questions as to whether or not the US will be able to remove the troops from the Middle East by June 30th. This is going to be a very difficult task. The war and violence in the Middle East regarding Sunnis and Shii'tes goes hand in hand with religion. I believe that as long as there is a passion for religion, the war will continue to go on, violence will ensue, and if the US thinks it still important for troops to occupy the Middle East in efforts to supress the violence, I believe that this will be impossible for our troops to be removed by June 30th. A peace agreement must be made, and I'm not sure whether or not either side of the conflict is ready to accomplish that feat.

Revolutions

The Iranian Revolution was shockingly similar to the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution. The Iranian Revolution, like the others, posed a threat to its neighboring Middle Eastern countries. The purpose of this revolution was to change the government, just as the French Revolution wanted to fix the class systems and the Russian Revolution did as well with the Bolesheviks. Although the French Revolution occurred in 1789, the Russian Revolution occurred in 1917, and the Iranian Revolution occurred in 1979, it is so interesting to see the patterns. Revolutions were necessary in all of these areas, and all three of these revolutions had taught other regimes what they needed to look for when partaking in revolution. A pattern is found through all three of these revolutions that comes with successful change in government.

Deir Yassin

The massacre at Deir Yassin on Palestinian citizens by Jewish rebel groups and armed forces marked the beginning of the exodus of Palestinians that occurred in 1948, affecting 750,000-900,000 men, women, and children. The documentary on the Deir Yassin foundation provides insight into the horrors that were inflicted upon innocent citizens during this time. Arabs living in Deir Yassin were “driven out simply because they were not Jewish.” Conveniently for the Jews, Deir Yassin was located right between Tel Aviv and Jersusalem, and was desired to be a Jewish land.

I found it particularly interesting that one month prior to this massacre, the village of Deir Yassin had signed a peace treaty with the neighboring Jewish town of Givat Sha’ul. Givat Sha’ul became the town to play a main role in the massacre. Women, children, and men over 60 were slaughtered within one hour, and men and boys were then marched through the streets of Jaffa Road to the sound of applause by Jews that this village had been taken over. These victims were mercilessly executued.

This was a large reason for the present day Arab-Israeli conflict. Propaganda played a large role in the impact of the massacre. Newspapers, such as the New York Times had advertised that more numbers of victims were killed than actually were. For Arabs, this exaggeration was an even bigger cry for help. For Jews, this was an even bigger warning to Arabs to flee their lands.

Today, Jewish groups hardly even recognize that this was a massacre. As shown in the documentary, the mental health clinic that currently inhabits the lands of Deir Yassin cannot even be filmed. The Jews are trying hard to hide that this place was ever even in Arab hands.

Deir Yassin is a huge factor in the current day struggle over Palestinian territory. Had this massacre never taken place, would the fight today be as bad? Would Arabs be as passionate about fighting for a land that is supposedly rightfully theirs? Would Jews be able to build upon that massacre to have the incentive to fight even more today?