Defeat by a familiar tolerated minority provoked violent regime change across the Middle East

Evidence

Sometimes, as in Germany and Russia after the First World War, it can lead to far-reaching political and economic adventures. Sometimes, on the other hand, it may lead to a mood of sullen withdrawal and resentment, as happened to the South after the American Civil War and to Spain after the defeat in Cuba in 1898. The shock of defeat in 1948 was especially humiliating in that the victors were not the mighty imperial powers but the Jews, familiar as a tolerated minority. Defeat at their hands was especially galling, and led to the overthrow by violence of most of the regimes held guilty of allowing it to happen. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 915

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in how small acts of decorum toward corpses and perceived humiliations cascade into political violence; also resonates with moral-panic literature on status threat as revolt trigger.