Talk:Middle East

Expansion

I added request for expansion. This is a lot shorter than similar pages. Glen Pepicelli 19:14, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Afghanistan and Pakistan

If your going to include Afghanistan & Pakistan with the middle east then shouldnt you include India as well? India, Paksitan, Iran, & Afghanistan, have the same blood & same freakin history ARYAN818 08:50, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

"...is the most important source of international terrorism." What does this even mean? It seems to be making a point that most terroists come from here. I don't think this should be here without at least some sort of source to back it up.

Agreed, I removed the sentence. Some people think many things, and a lot more are uninformed. This is much easier to back up than say a statement like the middle east is the major source of terrorism. Saying something is an important source is inherently biased anyways. - Dejitarob 07:24, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I don't consider Afghanistan or Pakistan to be part of the Middle East. In everyday conversation, when people use the term, they are normally referring to, what the map in this article calls the ""Traditional Middle East". Adding these two countries just brings confusion.

Actually, if you check the external links below many academics do include Afghanistan for sure and western Pakistan as part of the Middle East b/c these regions share Iranian cultural traits as well as historical and linguistic etc. Overlaping regions are quite common-place throughout the world. Tombseye 18:38, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the only area in Pakistan with any real solid connections to the Middle East, beyond mere religion and cursory influences, is Balochistan, particularly the Makran area. (It was even ruled by the Omanis up until the 50's.) The rest of it is pretty much South-Central Asian. Most academics I've read seem to put it this way and not really the way Tombseye put it, but perhaps mine are a bit outdated. A lot of them are from the 50's 60's and 70's. I dont really equate Iranian influence with Middle Eastern influence as Iranian influence was historically centered in Central Asia/southeast Russia more than in modern Persia/Iran. I think much if not most of the "Iranian" heritage of Pakistan derives from Central Asia then it does from the Middle East. Iranian central Asians were among the most prominent immigrants/invaders into the northwestern part of ancient India since antiquity. (Scythians, Parthians, Sogdians, Hepthalites?, Pashtuns). Their heritage is very strong in the genetic and cultural heritage of modern-Pakistan, particularly Punjab. Afghan Historian 03:02, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

!!!!!!!INDIAS GOT NO PLACE IN THE MID EAST!!!!

---

I'm responding to the first post:

Middle Easterners are not an ethnic group, so just because Iranians are Aryans and northern Indians are Aryans doesn't mean Indians are Middle Eastern. Middle Eastern refers to geography. Anyone born in the Middle East is a Middle Easterner in everyway.

Proposed unprotection

Well the offending anon has been inactive for a few days now. I'd like to unprotect the page, I'll that's alright with everyone. I'll do so, if there aren't any objections, in say... 24 hours or so. blankfaze | (беседа!) 08:53, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Yes, please unprotect. Adam 10:57, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

• Unprotected. blankfaze | (беседа!) 01:57, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • I take it your unprotecting it because it's so overprotected. I don't need nobody tellin me what I gotta do.

Eurocentrism?

"Some have criticized the term Middle East for its perceived Eurocentrism: The region is only east when considered from the perspective of western Europe. To an Indian, it lies to the west; to a Russian, it lies to the south."

This is silly...with regard to the internationally recognized Prime Meridian, the Middle East is exactly that. Not that this should be removed from the article...I just felt a need to say that

This is not silly; the paragraph makes a valid point. —Lowellian (talk) 09:30, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)

Whatever the case, the section doesn't tell us who these critics are, instead utilizing that wonderful collection of weasel words, "some have criticized", second only to "some critics believe". Even if the author believes this to be "common knowledge", and everyone else who contributes here is aware of these critics, that's not good enough for the Wikipedia. It shouldn't be too difficult to find a few references if the position is at least somewhat common in the international community, and for some reason I don't doubt that it is. 68.9.205.10 02:17, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

The Eurocentrism article contains similiar information and also does not offer references. 68.9.205.10 02:22, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

While I am not a fan of the criticism (which seems inane, any geographical reference is going to have some 'center' - and 'Middle East' is hardly inherently insulting), it hardly needs to be cited. The quoted phrase is blandly NPOV, although I suppose the "To an Indian...." part could be rephrased, but this is hardly all that important. (collounsbury 04:04, 6 March 2006 (UTC))

I agree that it is neutral, though perhaps response to the criticism should be included (even if that response is rather easy to envision).

I did remove the template, because it ultimately served no other purpose than to distract from the article, as I do not intend to remove the information even if no source is given. I would simply like to see some sort of reference. It's a pet peeve: unreferenced "some critics believe" claims infuriate me, regardless of the viewpoint introduced. 68.9.205.10 05:11, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I looked around and found an article that, among other things (most largely irrelevent to the Wikipedia or beyond the scope of the article) criticizes Western naming conventions. I'm adding that "West Asia" is sometimes used as an alternative name. [1] I'm going to add it to external links since it demonstrates that frustration over the term exists. 68.9.205.10 05:30, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I can't recall the alternatives offered, most times I have seen this criticsm (as such), it has been aimed at blasting "Eurocentrism." Nothing terribly interesting. (collounsbury 05:35, 6 March 2006 (UTC))

I agree. But it's late and I needed something to do to kill a few minutes. "West Asia", though, seems like it would be a fairly common alternative when one is actually offered. Anyway, I added the reference, even though much of it is probably irrelevent. Something better is needed, I think.68.9.205.10 05:37, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I wonder when the term came into play and why? It seems to be a recent term. Definitely not in Tacitus', Herodotus', or Josephus' writings, just to name a few. In the discovery of where Israel, Egypt, and Ethiopia are, do you think Europeans (the elite), were repugnant to discover that much of this area was considered Africa. Just a thought. I still think it is strange going to museums and seeing Africa and Egypt separated in exhibits. Kind of like separating Georgia from the United States. Interesting.

Up untill at least WWI 'near east' was the common term heard in Britain. It may be worth mentioning that in Hebrew the term 'mizrah ha-tihon' or 'eastern Mediterranean' is used.

It is my understanding that the term Middle East was invented by the US state department following WWII.

I never heard the US Dep. of State "invention" story, but in any case it is a usage that emerged slowly in the post WWII period. However, in re museums seperating Egypt and sub-Saharan Africa, it makes perfect sense. While Egypt clearly had historical contacts w N. E. Africa, ancient Egypt was largely part of the Mesopotamian world and more generally a rule to itself. The great Sudd marshes, plus the Sahara were quite effective barriers. I have no idea what the second sentence means. (collounsbury 04:08, 6 March 2006 (UTC))

MEast stub category

Hi, I was looking for a Wikipedia:Middle East-related regional notice board to drop a note onto, but there doesn't seem to be one. FYI, there is now a {{MEast-stub}} for the non-location related articles. - BanyanTree 03:09, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

To the authors of this article:

The opening paragraphs of this article shocks me, as there is no mention of the Kurdish language, one of the four great languages of the region prior to the addition of Hebrew in recent times. Surely, the twenty million or so Kurdish speakers deserve some recognition in this article!?!

But the great thing about Wikipedia is that anybody can be an author - all you have to do is sign in and you can add it yourself, along with any other information!!

Ramallite ^(talk) 5 July 2005 03:28 (UTC)

why is the history section so short? not to mention the run-on in the last sentence

The Map

All the Muslim nations from Moroco to Pakistan are part of Middle East. This my two cents. The map is a bit limiting as it seems to create hard borders for the ME even though the ME (like similar geocultural terms like 'Europe' 'the West' 'South Asia') is very flexibly defined geographically. It would probably be better to have a map like [[2]] with the current states in full green but with a light green for the rest of North Africa/Sudan/Pakistan/Afghanist etc. --CJWilly 21:12, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Good point. It would be cool if there could be a map that referred to the vague notions of the region and the arbitrary borders etc. Most of the maps I see go from one definition to the next and are copyrighted. Perhaps an administrator can lend a hand here so that one of us could generate a similar map, but one that includes what you refer to regarding the American south. Either way, it's a good idea. Tombseye 12:54, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Take also an example from Central Asia. CG 08:27, September 3, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, that Central Asia map is a good example of how Central Asia varies as well. Something like that for the Middle East section would be great. Especially how CJWilly described it with full green to light green. In fact, it would be ideal if it even overlapped over countries such as being light green for northern Sudan, but excluding southern Sudan which is more sub-Saharan. Tombseye 00:35, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

I've been playing with PhotoShop and here's what I got so far. As you might notice, I was quite generous with the very pale green as it includes all Arab League states, Xinjiang and Kazakhstan. I'm thinking of removing some of these as it's probably pushing the definition a bit too hard. --CJWilly 12:02, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree. Somalia is considered as "middle eastern" yet shares the same culture with a few other countries in the Horn of Africa and they are not middle eastern. However most of the north African countries (like Egypt) can definetly be considered as the middle east.

You're right, the horn of africa as well as morocco are very hardly considered middle-east countries. But, it stills a great map, great effort. CG 13:21, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Well that's the trouble with terms like 'Greater Middle East' it's connotation I think is much more cultural than strictly geographic so it's really hard to understand what is meant by the term. I've found the G8 definition and changed the map to have the traditional definition, the G8 definition and a broader definition which has essentially all the West Asian Muslims which I'm not sure what to do with and finally a third without the last colour.

I'm not sure whether to drop the last colour entirely or not. I think places like Armenia, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan can be described to have 'middle-east-style' politics and to an extent culture.

Standard, Greater Middle Easts and associated areas

Standard, Greater Middle Easts

--CJWilly 18:42, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Great maps CJ! One thing though, I'd exclude southern Sudan technically, but that's a small quibble. The variation from dark green, medium green, and light green works for me, but regardless the new map is vast improvement. Personally, I'd also put Somalia as lightest green because it lacks the aspect of geographic continuity with the other countries included as well. The lightest extending to the Caucasus and the southern portions of Central Asia would be ideal, and that's just my two cents. Tombseye 08:22, 1 October 2005 (UTC)cool

Great maps! In my opinion EVERY Wikipedia entry should have a map to go with the text. ;] The idea of having more than one shade of green to distinguish visually between "core" and "preriphery" makes good sense to me. Interestingly, the UN considers the three Caucasian states to be West Asian, while Iran is included in South Asia. Transcontinental Egypt is possibly both core Middle Eastern and North African. I would exclude Central Asia and westernmost China from both core and periphery definitions, though. Regardless of any subjective "feeling" or "vibes" that a visiting outsider might get from the architecture and mentality and general ambience of those societies, they are not seen as and do not see themselves as Middle Eastern. Perhaps the article need to be clearer on what criteria define this region in its stricter and wider senses, respectively? --Big Adamsky 21:21, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Hey BA, I added some information on the borders issue of the region. I think some parts of Central Asia do link to the ME, while others do not so I put that in and left western China out completely as it is explained quite well in the Central Asia article. Lastly, the Caucasus is sometimes considered European and sometimes Asian as the border between Europe and Asia is arbitrary and has not geologic significance other than maintaining Europe as a cultural zone and more accurately a peninsula (as is Asia) of the real continent of Eurasia. I think it's okay to have Egypt in both the ME and North Africa as the Middle East is clearly a culture zone rather than a geographic entity and the criteria are I think can be defined with common historical currents, linguistic similarities (with the big three 'Turkic', Indoeuropean, and Semitic represented), religious similarity (related Western semitic faiths of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity), and geographic continuity or connectiveness (thus I think Somalia can't be included because it's too far and is not geographically linked in any way). This is what I think defines the Greater Middle East that is actually composed of a core of West Asian states and outlying overlapping states that link the region to neighboring regions in various ways. Tombseye 21:24, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Update

Is anyone opposed to the new map we have here? I found this in the Southwest Asia article. If it's good enough for that article, then it's good enough for this. Also, the Middle East in not the same as the Greater Middle East. I've moved the old image there. The old map was a political map. Middle East is mosly a historical/cultural region. Aucaman^Talk 16:53, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Defining the extent and limits of an exotic region

Hm.. the more I click my way around on these pages, the more I come to realize that perspectives and understandnings on all these exotic regions and continents vary and are highly subjective and even biased. Perhaps the English usage is much more inconsistent, unprecise and overlapping than the native-speakers' usage. If so, this is similar to other vaguely-defined regions that are found in the minds of distant groups of people and mean different things to them. See also Talk:Siberia, Talk:Latin America, Talk:Scandinavia and Talk:Balkans, and also exonym versus autonym for similar discussions of namings and meanings. //Big Adamsky 18:06, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

"Exotic regions"? In any case, English usage is merely different than rather than more inconsistent etc. than in-region references. In region usage regarding identity is obviously going to be differant due to different focus. (Collounsbury 04:32, 19 February 2006 (UTC))

If this region is defined av "Middle East", where is now the former "Near East"? As far as I know the change is not geographic but politic. Before WW II the region was actually called The Near East, no one used "The Middle East". So who made the change of meaning, and who put the Near East in Europe?

The change in usage evolved. Nothing particularly sinister. Near East fell out of fashion, Middle East came into fashion. (Collounsbury 04:32, 19 February 2006 (UTC)).

"Hebrew, a Near Eastern language, is spoken in Israel, a Middle Eastern country." A crisis in the "Middle East" takes place on the same land, and sometimes even in the same cities, as described in a book about the "Ancient Near East". If that's not inconsistency, I don't know what is. The Romans referred to Egypt and everything east of the Mediterranean as "The Orient". That was apparently good enough for them, since their contact with anything east of Persia was fairly minimal. Still today, both German and French refer to Palestine as being in the Near East, as do most humanitic disciplines in English. In other words, "Middle East" as we know it in English today is a relatively recent term political in origin that has since eclipsed the previous usage, because it became convenient to British and American foreign policy to refer to one region. "The Middle East is a historical and cultural subregion of Africa-Eurasia traditionally held to be countries or regions in Southwest Asia together with Egypt". "Traditionally"? The usage referring to Egypt or Palestine is not even 100 years old. Janko 16:36, 21 July 2006 (UTC)Janko

Lower map - Jerusalem

I think that as the edit war in Talk:Jerusalem/capital ended with "Jerusalem is the capital of the State of Israel, although the status of the eastern part of the city is disputed." on the page, Jerusalem should have a star on it in the map, as right now Israel has no capitol there, and I think this is slightly not NPOV. Again, refer to that Talk article for the entire dispute, that I'm pretty sure ended with this conclusion. --Syxed 08:35, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Political of the middle east

Uhm, since the Israeli government sits at Jerusalem, the capital of the country is at Jerusalem. The larger question in discussion on Jerusalem is of course, the Palestinian assertion that at least part of the city belongs to them. They too, would like to set up their capital at Jerusalem. Israel's policy is that the entire city belongs to Israel, and it shall remain that way.

Right so my point would be to change the map to reflect the fact that it is a capital, and therefore, put a start there by it.--Syxed 06:17, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

The status of Jerusalem is and remains disputed. While the Israeli government operates from Jerusalem, very few governments, including Western governments, acknowledge the annexation, and thus maintain their embassies in Tel Aviv. The most widely internationally recognised capital is Tel Aviv. (collounsbury 07:56, 6 March 2006 (UTC))

How's any of this related to an article on the Middle East as a region? Aucaman^Talk 16:18, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Turkish

Is there any special reason why it's neccessary to have The Middle East (Turkish:Ortadoğu) as the first part of the opening sentence? Is the Turkish name for the region particularly important in this article? Surely the Arabic term would be more appropriate? Dewrad 02:10, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Factual accuracy dispute

Most people here don't seem to understand the difference between the Middle East and the Greater Middle East. They're two different things and have to be put in two different articles. If there isn't enough information to create a new article for the Greater Middle East, then it needs to be a section in this article until there's enough information to move it to a new article. But, as of now, the two definition are somehow combined in a very random way. Aucaman^Talk 02:09, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

It's explained in the article. It seems that a lot of people have trouble with a lot of things, but I'm not sure a new article is the solution, but a section might work out as regions such as the Maghrib and Afghanistan are clearly as Middle Eastern as either Iran or Egypt and thus require inclusion as many academic departments and int'l organizations do. Tombseye 06:12, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree that more description of the G8 Greater Middle East definition would be helpful, perhaps as a subsection of "Borders". As a separate article, I feel it would be very difficult to avoid being a POV fork. --Mgreenbe 12:05, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

As I work in the region I would say that I often find that the Middle East in popular English speaking imagination includes the entire 'Arab World' plus Iran. Sometimes as well Afghanistan and Pakistan. It seems worthwhile covering the G8 Broader/Greater Middle East insofar as it has no small overlap with popular usage (and in fact some academic and professional usage). (Collounsbury 00:26, 16 February 2006 (UTC)).

Factual accuracy dispute tagging should be reserved for those articles which are simply wrong, or in which key facts cannot be resolved. In this case, there seems to be a desire to make a change to the article. That's a fine thing, but rather than slapping a tag on the page, why not make or discuss the change. The factual accuracy tag calls the entire content of the page into question for a reader and that does not seem to be appropriate in this case. -Harmil 01:34, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Once again: this does not look like an actual dispute of the accuracy of the article, so much as a desire to clarify and expand a specific topic. I'll remote the {{Dispute}} tag unless someone can provide a specific list of the concerns about the accuracy of the article. -Harmil 17:45, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Update

I've made some changes to reflect some of my concerns. I've also taken off the dispute tag. The new definition is consistent with the definitions given in academia and various scholarly texts. I'm also going to create a new article, Greater Middle East, which deals with the modern political definition. Aucaman^Talk 23:52, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

This is all good, and I'm glad that you are creating a page to detail the Greater Middle East. Removing the image that depicts both the Middle East and the Greater Middle East, however, seems not to be useful. Just make the reference in the caption into a link to your new page. Having duplicate images (even though they differ slightly) is not the solution to this. Please, leave the image that many editors above have approved of where it is. Thanks. -Harmil 22:17, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I've already explained my reasoning above, but I guess you missed it? The map of the Greater Middle East is not relevant to this article. The map that you have right now is a political map (map of countries, not a region) and is not relevant to this article. The Middle East is a historical/cultural region. That's like putting a map of the American continent in the geography of the United States article. Just because the Greater Middle East contains the phrase "Middle East" it doesn't mean its image should be here! This should be pretty straightforward - I don't understand why you're making me repeat myself.

Here's your edit summary:"We do not need two images of the same thing." Well, they're not the same thing. The one I was putting up is the map of the Middle East. This other one is the map of the Greater Middle East. And they're not the same thing. Now, can we have a map of the Middle East (and nothing else) in the Middle East article? Aucaman^Talk 05:45, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

You misunderstood me. When I said, "we do not need two images of the same thing", I wasn't saying that I was RESTORING two images of the same thing, but that you had taken an image that put the Middle East in context of what the G8 refers to as the Greater Middle East with both highlighted (Image:GreaterMiddleEast2.png), and replaced it with a DUPLICATE (slightly different, but the same region and same infromation, Image:Middle east.jpg) of the map that occurs later on in the article (Image:MiddleEast.png). That's not helpful. The map of the eastern hemisphere with ME and GME highlighted is one that quite a few editors above said that they were happy with. You want to break GME off into its own article, that's great. You should just mark up the caption on the first image to link to your new article. The image gives the reader an excellent initial grasp of the concept of both regions. There's simply nothing wrong with it that I can see. Your suggestion that political borders are somehow a problem seems strange, given that the map you are inserting has the very same political borders, it's just a smaller map with more detail. I think they're both quite useful, and thank you for finding a good replacement for the second image, which was a little harder to read. -Harmil 13:36, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Well what do you say we just replace the first picture with the second and just take out the second one? (That way the article would have only one picture.) I'll also try to look for better pictures of the region. Aucaman^Talk 23:43, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Aucaman, you're trying to insist that this image that CJWilly created is a problem because it lists two pieces of information rather than one. Tombseye, Big Adamsky, and myself all felt that this image was an excellent addition that really showed off the difference between the two. Adding a link to GME gives the reader the ability to easily compare and constrast the two. Again, I don't think there's a need to reduce information here. The information presented is accurate, and well documented, and if there's any potential for confusion, you could just cal out in the caption something like, "The traditional (cultural) Middle East and the G8's (political) Greater Middle East." There. No problem, and still highly useful information when combined with the later map that you so helpfully found. -Harmil 23:55, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I have already explained my reasoning. I just don't think the Greater ME is notable or relevant enough to have a map in this article. That's like putting a map of the American continent in the geography of the United States article. Just because the Greater Middle East contains the phrase "Middle East" it doesn't mean its image is relevant to this article. And most of these other users commented on the image when we had the old definition. This is basically between you and I. But I don't really have the time to argue about this right now, so we get to keep the image you like. Aucaman^Talk 00:16, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I understand your concern. I do not share it (and wouldn't mind such an image at geography of the United States for context, either... actually, I think it's the Western bias of Wikipedia that makes us think we don't need such an image there, when in fact we do need to provide visual context). So then there's the question: what compromise can we reach? I've suggested a caption wording change, and also incorporated the image that you found. That doesn't seem to be good enough for you, even though you're the only one with a problem, and no one else seems to be confused by the image. -Harmil 00:39, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Definition of Middle East has changed

HI there I was wondering, wasnt Ethiopia and Eritrea considered to be apart of the Middle East? I mean in the 1950s when the Roosevelt had a meeting with the middle eastern leaders, they also included Ethiopia and its ruler (Haile Selassie) at the time? So how did Ethiopia and Eritrea become excluded? Eritrea (especially) almost always fits the map.

what was the British interest.............?

Before oil was discovered in the middle east what was the British interest in the region as the great power of the time ? --213.55.95.4 16:18, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

It was always the most direct route to India, particularly after the Suez Canal opened in the 1870s. -- Cranston Lamont 04:05, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Afghanistan?

Afghanistan is a region at the crossroads of Central Asia, Middle East, and South Asia. Also, linguastically, over half of the population speaks Farsi (which is a Middle Eastern language). And culturally (besides religion) they have many similiarties. Also, phenotypically, over half of them are indistinguishable. With these factors in mind, can we consider Afghanistan at least PARTLY Middle East??