Arab states lack legitimacy because imperial borders cut across ethnic and religious loyalties

Evidence

The frontiers, and the entities which those frontiers enclose, are, with few exceptions, early modern or recent creations. The older ones are Ottoman, the more recent are European imperial artifacts. Not surprisingly, these artificial entities, with their artificial frontiers, were for long not fully well accepted or understood by the people who lived in them. The legacy of imperial partition consisted of a whole series of disputes—over frontiers, over minorities, and a variety of claims arising from these. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1609 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Arab regimes risked their legitimacy by failing their own pan-Arab rhetoric. — Youssef Cherif, Neo-pan-Arabism: a renewed contract of…, 23; Imposing Western political categories distorts understanding of Middle Eastern loyalties; Arab states frame irredentist annexation claims as reviving pre-imperial unity — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting…, 1612 (+9 more)

Broader Connections

• Imperial partition of the Middle East created entities not accepted by their inhabitants #expands (0.93) — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1609