The region called the Middle East was invented by imperial and Cold War interests

Evidence

If we look at the map of Europe, we see a number of lines on the map, most very irregular lines, except for a few that follow geographical features; lines drawn by a thousand years of history and struggle. The frontiers on the map of the Middle East are to a remarkable extent straight lines. They were mostly drawn by statesmen with rulers on maps—statesmen who were not Arab, not Persian, not Turkish, but British or French or occasionally Italian. In this respect the map of the Middle East looks rather like the map of North America where similar reasons produced similar results, with the extraordinary difference that this was not an area of new settlement but of ancient civilizations. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1608 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

In 1948, when President Harry S. Truman became the first head of state to recognize the state of Israel after Jewish militias violently expelled approximately 700,000 Palestinians, America dealt a decisive blow to Palestinian aspirations for self-determination. During an era when indigenous populations around the world were fighting European colonial powers for their independence, US support for Israel—which became nearly unconditional after 1967—coupled with US extraction of oil in the Persian Gulf established the United States as an imperialist nation in the Middle East. Since then, the United States has been a major player in regional geopolitics through economic and military aid to dictator allies, business dealings, military interventions, and covert intelligence operations against Arab nationalist leaders. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 100 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Cold War US hegemony in the Middle East collided with nationalist independence movements — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes…, 638; The Middle East itself is a product of Orientalist construction. — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 161; China began building a global Middle East policy in the late 1950s — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting…, 1182 (+13 more)

Broader Connections

• The Middle East itself is a product of Orientalist construction. #corroborates (1.00) — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 161
• Imperial partition of the Middle East created entities not accepted by their inhabitants #corroborates (1.00) — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1609
• Colonial power in the Middle East was modeled as an invisible, unobserved gaze #corroborates (1.00)
• Middle East frontiers were drawn by European statesmen with rulers on maps #corroborates (1.00) — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1608
• US support for Israel and oil extraction established American imperialism in the Middle East #corroborates (1.00) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 100
• Cold War US hegemony in the Middle East collided with nationalist independence movements #expands (0.95) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 638
• Cold War funding tied Middle East studies to US strategic needs #corroborates (0.95)
• Great-power rivalry over the declining Ottoman Empire shaped Middle East geopolitics #complicates (0.90) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 138
• US global dominance in the Middle East required Israel as the region’s key ally #complicates (0.85)
• Post-Cold-War superpowers neither could nor would keep imperial rule in the Middle East #complicates (0.85) — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1729
• The Middle East as a civilization extends past the Soviet border into Central Asia #complicates (0.80) — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1173
• Nationalism arrived in the Middle East as a European import that local use transformed #complicates (0.80) — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 2004
• Postwar Middle Eastern republics often masked continued dynastic dominance #complicates (0.80)