E. The World since 1900 · The World since 1900

The Modern Middle East: Mandates, Oil, Israel and Palestine, and Revolution

E2 E1 E3 A1.3 A2About 75 minutes

Learning goals

I can explain how the First World War and the mandate system shaped the modern Middle East.
I can describe key events in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict from more than one perspective.
I can explain the role of oil, revolution and war in the region since 1950.
I can compare how different sources report a current event.

Words to know

Zionism
The movement to create and support a Jewish national homeland in the Land of Israel.

mandate
A territory governed by a League of Nations member after the First World War.

Nakba
Arabic for "catastrophe": the Palestinian term for the displacement of 1948.

occupation
Military control of territory outside a state's recognized borders.

intifada
Arabic for "shaking off": a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation.

Islamic Republic
Iran's system since 1979, combining elected bodies with rule by senior Shia clerics.

narrative
The story a group tells about its past, which shapes identity.

A region at the centre of the world

The Middle East connects Africa, Asia and Europe. It is home to sacred places for Jews, Christians and Muslims, and to much of the world's oil. Since 1900 it has seen the collapse of an empire, colonial rule, the creation of new states, revolutions and many wars. This lesson cannot cover everything, and many of these events are still deeply painful and disputed. Your job, as a historian, is to understand several perspectives, use evidence carefully, and separate facts from claims.

Handling contested history

Many people in Canada have family connections to this region. When you study it:

Use precise, neutral language and name your sources.
Distinguish evidence (what happened) from interpretation (what it means) and from narratives (how groups remember it).
Never treat a whole people as responsible for the actions of a government or an armed group.
Remember that antisemitism and anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab and anti-Muslim racism are all real and harmful.

From Ottoman rule to mandates

In 1900, most of the Arab Middle East belonged to the Ottoman Empire. During the First World War, Britain made promises that contradicted each other:

To Sharif Hussein of Mecca (1915–1916), support for Arab independence if the Arabs revolted against the Ottomans. The Arab Revolt began in 1916.
To France, in the secret Sykes–Picot Agreement (1916), a plan to divide the region into British and French zones.
To the Zionist movement, which sought a Jewish homeland, the Balfour Declaration (November 2, 1917): "His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people", adding that "nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine". At that time, Arabs were the large majority of Palestine's population.

After the war, the League of Nations made the Arab lands mandates under Britain and France. Turkey emerged as a republic in 1923 under Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who introduced sweeping secular reforms. The Kurds, a large people, were left divided among several states.

Britain and France drew most of the region's modern borders. Notice the Kurds: a large people left without a state.

Oil and outside power

Oil was found in Persia (Iran) in 1908 and later in Iraq, Saudi Arabia (1938) and the Gulf. Western companies controlled most production at first. When Iran's elected prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh nationalized the British-owned oil industry, he was overthrown in 1953 in a coup organized by American and British intelligence; the U.S. government later acknowledged its role. The Shah then ruled with U.S. support until 1979. In the 1960s and 1970s, oil-producing states took control of their own oil; in 1973, Arab oil producers cut exports to countries that supported Israel, and world oil prices quadrupled.

Israel and Palestine, 1917–1993

Under the British mandate, Jewish immigration grew, especially as Jews fled persecution in Europe. Arab Palestinians feared losing their land and majority; violence grew, including an Arab revolt in 1936–1939.
After the Holocaust, the UN proposed in November 1947 to divide Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, with Jerusalem under international control. Jewish leaders accepted; Arab leaders rejected the plan as unjust to the Arab majority. Fighting began.
On May 14, 1948, Israel declared independence. Neighbouring Arab states invaded. Israel won and held more territory than the UN plan had proposed. About 700 000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were expelled, and Israel did not allow them to return. Palestinians call this the Nakba ("catastrophe"). In the years that followed, hundreds of thousands of Jews left or were forced out of Arab countries and Iran, and many settled in Israel.
1956: after Egypt's president Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, Britain, France and Israel attacked Egypt. U.S. and Soviet pressure forced them out, and a UN peacekeeping force proposed by Canada's Lester Pearson was sent.
1967: after rising tensions, including Egypt's closure of the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping and the massing of Arab armies, Israel launched a pre-emptive attack. In this Six-Day War, Israel took the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, Gaza and Sinai from Egypt, and the Golan Heights from Syria. Israel began building settlements in occupied territory, which most of the international community, including Canada, considers contrary to international law.
1973: Egypt and Syria attacked Israel (the October or Yom Kippur War). In 1979, Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty after the Camp David talks, and Israel returned Sinai.
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), led by Yasser Arafat, fought Israel, including through attacks on civilians. Palestinians in the occupied territories rose up in the First Intifada (1987). In the Oslo Accords (1993), Israel and the PLO recognized each other, and a Palestinian Authority was created. Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by an Israeli extremist in 1995, and later talks failed.

The same year is remembered as independence by one people and catastrophe by another. Understanding both is part of historical perspective.

Revolution, war and uprising

Iran, 1979: mass protests overthrew the Shah, and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini established an Islamic Republic. Revolutionaries seized the U.S. embassy and held American hostages for 444 days.
Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988): Iraq's dictator Saddam Hussein invaded Iran. Hundreds of thousands died; Iraq used chemical weapons against Iranian soldiers and Iraqi Kurds.
Gulf War (1991): a U.S.-led coalition, including Canada, expelled Iraq from Kuwait. In 2003 the U.S. and Britain invaded Iraq and overthrew Saddam Hussein; Canada did not take part. Years of insurgency and sectarian war followed.
Arab Spring (2010–2011): protests beginning in Tunisia toppled leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen. In Syria, the government of Bashar al-Assad crushed protests, starting a civil war in which hundreds of thousands died and millions became refugees; tens of thousands resettled in Canada. The group calling itself the Islamic State (ISIS) seized parts of Syria and Iraq (2014–2019) and committed genocide against the Yazidis. Assad's government fell in December 2024.
Israel and Gaza since 2023: On October 7, 2023, Hamas, the armed group governing Gaza since 2007, led an attack on Israel that killed about 1200 people, most of them civilians, and took 251 hostages. Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza. By mid-2026, Gaza's Health Ministry reported that more than 73 000 Palestinians had been killed (its count does not separate civilians from fighters), much of Gaza was destroyed, and most of the population had been displaced. A ceasefire began in October 2025, and the remaining living hostages were released, but deadly violence continued, and Gaza's future was unresolved. This is a current event: check reliable, up-to-date sources.

More than a century of change. Notice how decisions made in 1916–1917 still shaped events a hundred years later.

Worked example

Modelled example: Reading one document from several perspectives (A1.3)

Analyse the Balfour Declaration (1917). How would a British official, a Zionist leader and an Arab Palestinian leader each have read it in 1917–1920?

British official: a wartime measure to win Jewish support for the Allies and to secure a British presence near the Suez Canal. The phrase "view with favour" promised sympathy, not a specific state or borders.
Zionist leader: a historic recognition by a great power of the Jewish people's connection to the land and of the goal of a national home, after centuries of persecution.
Arab Palestinian leader: a promise about their land made by a foreign power without consulting the majority population, who are described only as "existing non-Jewish communities", with civil and religious rights but no mention of political rights.
Historian's analysis: the text's ambiguity was itself significant. Each group could read it differently, and the contradictions with promises to the Arabs (the Hussein–McMahon letters) and to France (Sykes–Picot) helped set up decades of conflict.

One short document carried very different meanings to different groups. Recognizing the declaration's wording, purpose and silences explains why it remains so important and so disputed.

Just for fun

A true Canadian story: during the 1979–1981 hostage crisis in Iran, six American diplomats escaped capture and were hidden by Canadian diplomats, including Ambassador Ken Taylor. In January 1980 they left Iran using Canadian passports, posing as a Canadian film crew. The rescue became known as the "Canadian Caper".

Hands-on activity

Comparing news coverage

You need: a device with internet access and a grown-up's permission, a notebook.

Pick one current event in the Middle East from the past month.
Find reports on it from three different sources, for example a Canadian outlet (CBC or The Canadian Press), an international agency (Reuters or AP) and an outlet based in the region.
Make a table: headline, words used to describe each side, sources quoted, facts included, facts left out.
Identify which facts all three agree on. Then write: What does each report emphasize, and why might that be?

What to look for: careful, respectful note-taking, attention to word choice (for example, "killed" versus "died"), and a conclusion that separates shared facts from different emphases. This is the same skill historians use with primary sources (A2).

Your turn

Name the three contradictory promises Britain made during the First World War.

What was the mandate system in the Middle East?

What happened to Iran's prime minister Mosaddegh?

What is the Nakba?

What territories did Israel occupy in 1967?

What did the Oslo Accords (1993) do?

What began in Tunisia in December 2010?

More practice: warm-up

Who founded the Republic of Turkey?

On what date did Israel declare independence?

Who nationalized the Suez Canal in 1956?

Who led Iran's 1979 revolution?

Which two countries signed a peace treaty in 1979?

More practice: on your own

Why are the Kurds sometimes called the largest people without a state?

Explain how oil affected outside involvement in the region.

Why did Arab leaders reject the 1947 UN partition plan?

What were the consequences of the 1967 war?

Why is the Arab Spring considered a turning point?

Challenge

How did decisions made by Britain and France between 1915 and 1922 shape the Middle East for the next century? Give three consequences.

Using perspective, explain why 1948 is remembered so differently by Israelis and Palestinians, and why historians must study both memories.

Why is it hard to write the history of an ongoing conflict such as the war in Gaza that began in 2023?

Check your understanding

Quiz

What was the Sykes–Picot Agreement (1916)?

Which statement about the Balfour Declaration is accurate?

What happened to Iran's government in 1953?

Which territories did Israel occupy in the 1967 war?

What was the Canadian Caper?

Which statement about October 7, 2023, is accurate?

For parents and teachers

Big idea: The modern Middle East: the end of Ottoman rule, mandates, oil, Israel and Palestine, revolution and war (E2, E1), and how different groups understand their identity and history (E3). Skills: reading sources from several perspectives (A1.3) and applying historical thinking to current events (A2).

How to help: This topic can be emotional for many families. Model calm, respectful discussion. Ask your teen, "What facts do different sources agree on?" and "How might someone on the other side see this?"

Sensitive content: The lesson includes ongoing conflicts and mass civilian deaths. It aims for factual, balanced wording and points students to current, reliable sources. Watch for distress, especially if your family is personally affected.

Common difficulties:

Treating the conflict as ancient or purely religious; much of it stems from twentieth-century decisions.
Confusing peoples with governments or armed groups.
Relying on social media clips instead of credible sources.

Time-sensitive facts (checked October 2026): the Gaza ceasefire began in October 2025; Gaza's Health Ministry reported more than 73 000 deaths by mid-2026; Assad's government in Syria fell in December 2024. Check for updates.