📍Topic 8.6 Newly Independent States

📖 AMSCO p. 589 - p.594

Main Idea

Key Timeline

Image Courtesy of Lauren Hamlette.

✡️ Israel and the Zionist Movement

The Zionist Movement Begins

• Theodore Herzl kickstarted the modern Zionist movement in the 1890s after the Dreyfus affair
• Herzl said the Dreyfus affair showed that Jewish people would never be able to assimilate fully and be treated equally in European society.
• He called for the creation of a Jewish state at the first Zionist Congress.
• Zionists wanted to create their new Jewish state in Palestine, because it was the area from which their ancestors originated. They believed creating a nation for Jewish people would allow them to escape persecution
  • At the time, Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire and was majority Arab and Muslim.

Nation of Israel Established

• The Balfour declaration eventually allowed for Jewish people to move into Palestine as their new national homeland.
• At the same time however, another British officer promised Arabs in Palestine their own independent nation.
• Britain gained control over Ottoman lands in 1918, and Zionists began to immigrate into British Palestine. This caused many Arabs from the region to protest as they were losing their land and traditional ways of life.
• After the Holocaust, more European Jewish people began to move into the area as refugees and out of fear due to antisemitism in Europe
• In 1948, in order to accommodate increased Jewish immigration while also quelling opposition from Arabs in the area, the British partitioned the land into an Arab and Jewish section
  • The predominantly Jewish land was known as Israel, while the mostly Arab lands were Palestine

Wars and Conflict

• War broke out between Israel and Palestine
  • Israel was supported by the USA.
  • Palestine was supported by several Arab countries, including Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon.
    • These allies of Palestine invaded Israel, however Israel won and declared an armed truce. As a result, many Palestinians became refugees living near the Israeli border.
• Six-Day War
  • Israel and Egypt had some disputes over shipping rights in the Suez Canal. Israel ended up fighting many of its Arab neighbors on three fronts. In the end, Israel won several territories from its neighboring countries.
• Yom Kippur War
  • Israel fought an unexpected Syrian and Egyptian invasion.

Peace Between Israel and Egypt, Continued Conflict Between Israel and Palestine

• The Camp David Accords was a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt after two decades of conflict, facilitated by President Jimmy Carter.
  • Palestinians and other Arab nations did not accept this agreement, as Palestinians wanted occupied lands back.
  • The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) was created to fight for the creation of an independent Palestine on all land included in the former territory of Palestine.
• Palestinians eventually split into two groups: Fatah in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza.
• Israel had some security concerns, and began to implement stricter border controls around the West Bank and Gaza. This severely limited the movement of Palestinians living in these regions and increased anger among them.
• Israel then began settling more and more on Palestinian land, inciting more anger and violence.

🇰🇭 Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge

• Cambodia gained independence from France in 1953, and the Cambodian royal family held power over the country
• A communist guerilla force called the Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, spread communism to Cambodia. They enforced communism similarly to the Cultural Revolution in China. Their brutality and the resulting famine killing more than one fourth of the Cambodian population.
• Vietnam eventually invaded Cambodia to oppose Pol Pot’s rule, while hundreds of thousands of Cambodian refugees fled their country
• The Vietnamese took over the Cambodian government to help stabilize it, and withdrew from Cambodia after around a decade.
• In 1991, Cambodia began having fair elections, and they had a democratic constitutional monarchy.

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☪️ Partition of India

• In 1947, the British divided India into two sections: a Muslim majority Pakistan and a Hindu majority India
• The partition created a lot of violence and relocation
  • Many millions of people relocated, and hundreds of thousands of people died.
  • Hindus and Sikhs living in Pakistan fled to India
  • Muslims living in India fled to Pakistan
• Distrust and conflict between Pakistan and India increased
  • Pakistani and Indian conservative religious groups were against compromise between the two nations, while moderates wanted to end the conflict
• Kashmir was a particular region of conflict between the two nations.
  • This was a region on the border between Pakistan and India.
  • Since most Kashmir residents were Muslim, Pakistan claimed the region. However, their leader was Hindu, so India also claimed the area.
  • When India and Pakistan both began creating nuclear weapons, the conflict escalated significantly.
  • Ultimately, India, Pakistan, and China all ended up dividing up some parts of Kashmir

♀️ South Asian Women in Power

• In many South Asian countries, women began to gain political roles
• The first female prime minister in the world was Sirimavo Bandaranaike in Sri Lanka. She ran for the position after the assassination of her husband, who had previously held the position.
  • She promoted socialist policies in office and instituted strong socialist economic reforms
• In India, Indira Gandhi (the former prime minister’s daughter) became prime minister
  • She was very popular among Indians. Indira Gandhi changed direction from her father, and instituted many new policies that strengthened the economy
• In Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto was elected prime minister. Her father had been prime minister previously
  • Bhutto was the first female prime minister elected to lead a mostly Muslim country
  • She tried to alleviate poverty and improve the economy in Pakistan, but was not very successful, and was accused of corruption.

🇹🇿 Tanzania

• Tanzania gained independence from Britain in 1961, and began to modernize
• Under Julius Nyerere, Tanzania began to implement African socialist political and economic policies
• Nyerere based his policies in cooperative agriculture, such as collective farming. He also promoted free education and literacy programs. These were part of his framework for ujamaa*.*
  • Despite these policies Tanzania remained quite poor, and Nyerere faced difficulties due to conflicts with Uganda.
• Nyerere helped Tanzania move away from foreign aid.

✈️ Emigration

• After many formerly colonized countries began to become independent, many of its citizens began to move to the countries that had formerly colonized them
  • Ex. many people from Pakistan, Bangladesh and India moved to London, many Filipinos migrated to the USA
• Some common career paths for migrants were: medical careers, working on railroads, working in foundries, and working in airports
• This strengthened economic and cultural ties between newly independent countries and colonial powers.

Terms to Remember