Timeline of the Middle East in the 20th Century

– Britain forces the Ottomans to cede the Sinai peninsula to Egypt.

– Spain occupies the northern tenth of Morocco (the Ifni region on the Atlantic coast and the enclaves of Ceuta and Melila).

– Kuwait, which is part of the Ottoman province of Basra, is declared a protectorate by Britain, with the aim of blocking a potential Ottoman challenge and a planned German-sponsored railway through the region, which might pose a threat to British interests in the area and in India.

-The Ottoman government determines that the Armenian population is a wartime security threat to the empire. Vast numbers of Armenians are uprooted from Anatolia and forced to migrate into Syria. The migration becomes genocidal; as many as one million Armenians die or are killed along the way.

– Yemen gains independence from Turkish rule, and Imam Yahyia is declared ruler. He immediately annexes neighboring lands in what is now Saudi Arabia. The armed clashes over border disputes with the Saudis will continue for decades.

– In Tunisia, the Liberal Constitutional (Destour) Party presents the Bey and the French government with demands for constitutional reforms that would give the Tunisians the same rights as Europeans.

-Mohandas Gandhi begins his movement of non-cooperation with the British in India.

– In Moroccco, Abd el-Krim launches a rebellion and sets up the “Rif Republic.” It will require more than 250,000 combined French and Spanish troops to force him to surrender in 1926.

– Saad Zaghlul founds the Egyptian nationalist party Wafd, which demands greater national autonomy, a constitutional government, control over the Suez Canal, and more civil rights.

– Mustapha Kemal (Ataturk), a former Young Turk and hero of the Ottoman army, proclaims Turkey a republic.

-France determines that the Druze and the ‘Alawites should each have a separate state within the Syrian mandate, effectively cutting the two groups off from political participation in greater Syria.

The renunciation of Turkish claims over non-Turkish territories of the Ottoman Empire is formalized in the Treaty of Lausanne. The British mandate acquires jurisdiction de jure over Palestine. Click here for video.

Egyptian feminist Huda Sha’rawi founds the Egyptian Feminist Union.

-Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin dies.

– Abd el-Krim’s Rif Rebellion is put down in Morocco, and he is deported to Réunion.

– An outbreak of violence between Arabs and Jews in Palestine is caused by a dispute over Jewish use of the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem.

– French colonial policy attempts to divide the Arab and Amazigh populations of French-controlled Morocco through the “Berber Dahir” ( Berber Decree ), which puts predominantly Amazigh regions under tribal law. The Moroccan people overwhelmingly reject the divisive decree and Moroccan nationalism gains momentum.

– Birth of the enormously popular female Lebanese singer Fairuz.

– France negotiates a draft treaty of independence with both Syria and Lebanon. However, with the collapse of Léon Blum’s Popular Front government in France in 1938, the treaties will never be ratified and France’s heavy-handed occupation of both countries continues. See a video clip here.

– Crown Prince Farouq of Egypt ascends to the throne following the death of his father, King Fouad. Egypt gains formal independence from Britain, but the latter nation continues to control many aspects of Egypt’s affairs.

– The British Royal Commission on Palestine recommends the partition of Palestine to establish separate Jewish and Arab states.

– The Vichy government comes to power in France and tries to compel the Moroccan Sultan Muhammad V to comply with his government’s anti-Jewish legislation. The Sultan refuses to do so.

– After Lebanon and Syria fall under the control of the French Vichy government, Britain invades them and put Free French supporters in charge.

– Birth of Mahmoud Darwish, a leading poet of the Palestinian resistance.

– The Casablanca Conference, the first war conference between Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt, takes place in Morocco to establish an Allied Powers strategy. It is the first time any sitting American president has travelled to Africa. See an image here.

– The League of Arab States is founded in Cairo by Egypt, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria to work for Arab independence and to oppose Zionist aspirations in Palestine.

– French forces repress a massive demonstration for independence in the eastern Algerian towns of Setif and Kherrata. It is estimated that around 54,000 Algerians are killed.

– The beginning of the Nuremberg trials on October 28th sheds light on the extent of Nazi atrocities in Europe.

– Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria achieve independence from Britain and France.

– Irgun, a Jewish terrorist organization led by Menachim Begin, blows up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, the headquarters of the British Palestine Administration, killing 91 people.

– Violence between Arabs and Jews reaches uncontrollable levels as Jewish forces begin to remove the Arabs from the territory allotted by the UN partition plan to a Jewish state. The resistance of Palestinian irregulars and volunteers from neighboring Arab countries is no match for the experienced Irgun and Hadanah Jewish groups. By the spring of 1948, more than 400,000 Arabs will have fled their land or been expelled. A human disaster has begun, with thousands of Palestinian refugees pouring into neighboring Arab states.

– Transjordan is renamed the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

– Hassan Al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, is assassinated.

-Mao Zedong declares the formation of the People’s Republic of China.

– Birth of the Lebanese lutist Marcel Khalifa, one of the most prominent composers and performers of modern Arabic music.

– King Abdullah of Jordan is assassinated in Jerusalem by Palestinian nationalists opposed to the Jordanian annexation of West Bank.

– Hussein Ibn Talal, grandson of the assassinated King Abdullah, is declared King of Jordan at age sixteen.

– King Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia dies.

– General Muhammad Naguib is granted a three-year term as dictator in Egypt.

– Democratic elections are held in the Sudan.

– Soviet leader Joseph Stalin dies.

– Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser seizes power in Egypt. Click here for video footage. During the next two years, the governing Revolutionary Command Council, led by Nasser, will suspend the constitution, disband parliament, abolish political parties, and initiate an ambitious and widely popular plan for agrarian reform which confiscates land held by the rich and redistributes it to poor peasants. Negotiations with the British will eventually lead to an agreement for total evacuation of British forces from the Suez Canal Zone by 1956 Click here for video footage. In the early years of the Nasser regime, the Muslim Brotherhood is viewed favorably by Egypt’s leadership, but as their opposition to government policies increases, the Muslim Brothers will be forcibly repressed and their organization banned. Hundreds of Muslim Brothers will be imprisoned and tortured, and thousands will flee to other Arab countries.

– The first democratic Sudanese government takes office; Sudan is now officially an independent republic.

– Moroccan Sultan Mohammed V returns from exile in triumph after being deposed by the French in 1953.

– Morocco gains independence from France on March 2nd and King Muhammad V returns triumphant from exile. See an image here.

– Tunisia gains independence from France on March 20th.

– A truce is established between Jordan and Israel.

– Israeli troops seize the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt.

– The Maghreb Unity Congress, held in Tangier on April 27th-30th and attended by Moroccan, Algerian and Tunisian nationalists, recommends the establishment of an Algerian government-in-exile and the establishment of a permanent secretariat to promote Maghreb unity. On June 2nd, American Senator John F. Kennedy delivers a speech before the Committee on Foreign Relations of the U.S. Congress in which he calls for the independence of Algeria. This public stand annoys the French and some American officials, but encourages Algerian nationalists. A Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic (GPRA) is set up on September 19th.

– Israeli forces withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula and hand Gaza over to UN control.

– In Jordan, King Hussein declares martial law.

– Algerian novelist and filmmaker Assia Djebar publishes her first novel, La Soif (The Thirst) .

– Rawiya Attiya is elected as Egypt’s first female member of parliament, after women in Egypt have had the right to vote since the year before.

– Abdul-Karim Qasim, an army officer, becomes the ruler of Iraq after overthrowing the pro-Western monarch and prime minister.

– Oil is discovered in Libya.

-Fidel Castro leads the Cuban Revolution.

– Kurds in northeastern Iraq rebel against the rule of Abdul-Karim Qasim, whose inability to put down the revolt will contribute to his downfall two years later.

– Hassan II becomes king of Morocco after the death of his father, Muhammad V.

– Algeria wins independence from France after 132 years of colonial rule and a seven and a half year war which left 1.5 million Algerians dead and the country devastated. Ahmad Ben Bella, one of the leaders of the Algerian revolution, is declared president of a new regime characterized by populism and a socialist orientation.

– St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital is founded in Memphis, Tennessee.

-Anti-Apartheid activist Nelson Mandela is jailed in South Africa until 1990.

– Moroccan forces invade Algeria’s Tindouf area in the southwest in an attempt to capture territory that it argues was annexed to Algeria by colonial France. A short war ensues and Algeria seizes Moroccan territory in the northeast. A deal brokered by the Organization of African Unity makes both countries relinquish the captured territories. However, the border agreements between the two countries will not be ratified by Morocco until more than twenty years after they are signed.

-China’s Cultural Revolution.

-The Association of Arab-American University Graduates is formes as a pan-Arab representative lobby.

– In Iraq, The Revolutionary Command Council takes power in a coup. They hold absolute authority in the country. General Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, the council’s chairman, become president of Iraq. Saddam Hussein became vice chairman of the council in 1969.

– Yasser Arafat is elected chairman of the PLO Executive Committee. No longer a passive organization under the Arab League control, the PLO, inspired by its largest constituent group al-Fatah, emerges as a political organization committed to armed struggle for the liberation of Palestine. Thousands of young men and women from the refugee camps join al-Fatah, and Arafat becomes a major player on the Middle East scene.

– On September 1st, Colonel Mu’ammar Al-Qadhafi leads a military coup that overthrows the Libyan King Idris. All American and British military personnel stationed in Libya are expelled from the country; by 1970, their military bases (Wheelus, Tobruk and al-Adam) will be closed. Al-Qadhafi allies himself with Nasser and begins a wave of nationalizations, especially in the oil industry.

– General Jafar Numayri leads a military coup in Sudan that overthrows the Mahdi government.

– King Hussein of Jordan, viewing the PLO’s increasing power and influence among his Palestinian subjects as a threat to his regime, orders his forces to attack Palestinian militants in refugee camps. Thousands of Palestinians, both civilians and military personnel, are killed in what comes to be known as “Black September.” Nasser calls for an emergency Arab Summit in Cairo to arrange for cease-fire. The PLO apparatus and leadership are expelled from Amman and forced to relocate to Beirut, in Lebanon.

– President Nasser of Egypt dies of a heart attack owing in part to a severe fatigue he suffered while trying to arrange the Jordanian-Palestinian truce at the Arab Summit in Cairo. Video footage of Nasser’s funeral can be seen here.

– Nasser’s vice president, Anwar al-Sadat, is elected president of Egypt. As one of the original Free Officers of the 1952 coup, Sadat has held many official positions: editor of the newspaper Al-Jomhouriyya, Head of the Nation’s Assembly, Secretary General of the Conference of Islamic States, and Vice President. Prior to the 1952 coup, Sadat had been engaged in violent activities against the British presence in Egypt, and was imprisoned for his role in the assassination of Amin Othman.

– Hafez al Assad, the Alawite commander of the Syrian Air Force, leads a coup in the wake of the resignation of President Nur al-Din Attasi, and takes his place. He will remain president and supreme ruler of Syria and the Ba’ath Party until his death in 2000. Under his regime, Syria becomes tightly controlled by the Alawite minority and remains a secular state. The Ba’ath Party is the only existing political organization and all forms of free expression are severely curbed by a notoriously brutal secret police.

– In Morocco, Abdelkrim Moutii and Kamel Ibrahim create Jam’iyat al-Shabiba al-Islamiyya (Association of Islamic Youth), a radical Islamist group, which does not, however, succeed in mobilizing people for a regime change.

– Anwar al-Sadat in Egypt seeks to consolidate his hegemony over the squabbling factions of the Revolutionary Command Council. In the skillfully orchestrated “May Reform Movement,” he accuses the council’s members of plotting to overthrow his government, and imprisons or exiles most of his fellow former Free Officers.

– Sheikh Ahmad Yasin, a Palestinian refugee in Gaza, founds Mujamah (Congregation) and campaigns against the PLO and its secular nationalism. This social welfare movement receives support from Israel.

– Britain completes its withdrawal from the small princedoms of the Persian Gulf region. The United Arab Emirates is declared an independent state under the leadership of Abu Dhabi’s ruler, Sheikh Zayid Ben Sultan Al Nahayan.

– King Hassan II of Morocco survives a military coup attempt.

– East and West Pakistan (later Bangladesh) erupt into civil war.

– King Hassan II survives a second military coup attempt and executes or jails all those who participated in the plot or who are connected somehow to its authors, including their families.

– Death of Taha Hussein on October 28. Hussein was a pioneer in the modernist movement in Arabic literature. Born on November 14, 1889, poor and blind from a young age, he became best known as a novelist. Hussein, who served as Egyptian Minister of Education from 1950 to 1952, was also the author of a very controversial thesis on pre-Islamic poetry.

– Libya invades the Aouzzou strip in northern Chad, claiming it as Libyan territory. The action fails, though it will be tried again later, twice. See also Frontiers in North Africa

– Libya and Algeria sign the Hassi Messaoud Accords of Union, but they are never implemented.

– Mu’ammar al-Qadhafi, leader of Libya, proclaims in a speech at Zuwara the “Third Universal Theory,” which comprises four elements: socialism, popular democracy, Arab unity, and progressive Islam. This theory will form the backbone of Libya’s official ideology and is published in Qadhafi’s Green Book.

– Yasser Arafat addresses the General Assembly of the United Nations, which recognizes the Palestinians’ right to sovereignty and grants the PLO the status of Observer in the General Assembly.

– Libya and Tunisia sign the Djerba Treaty of Unity, under the terms of which Tunisia will hold the presidency and Libya the defense ministry. The Tunisian leader, Habib Bourguiba, quickly comes to realize that such a union is likely to work against Tunisia, denounces the treaty, and pulls Tunisia out of it within a month of its signing.

– King Hassan II of Morocco is challenged on religious and historical grounds by a school teacher, Abdesslam Yacine, who will later become the leader of the most important Islamist movement in Morocco, Adl wa Ihsan (Justice and Benevolence) . Yacine sends Hassan II an open letter admonishing him to accept a six-point program for the “religious political redemption and salvation” of king and community. Yacine questions the legitimacy of King Hassan II and suggests that he redeem himself by doing away with injustice, by committing himself to the renovation of Islam, and by making himself accountable to a council elected according to Islamic principles. This public challenge earns Yacine several years’ internship in a psychiatric hospital and in jail, and he is later placed under house arrest. He will be released by King Muhammad VI in the year 2000.

– US president Nixon resigns.

– Oum Kalthoum, the most important singer in the history of Arabic music, dies.

– Moroccan King Hassan II orders “The Green March” in November. Thousands of Moroccans march into the western Sahara to assert Morocco’s claim to the territory being vacated by Spain. The indigenous population, led by the Polisario Front, with backing from other countries in the region begins an armed struggle for an independent Sahrawi state. A cease-fire will be agreed upon in 1991, but as of this writing Morocco and the Polisario have not yet reached an agreement on the conduct of a U.N.-sponsored referendum to determine the final status of the territory. Read more here.

– Maronite Christian leaders in Lebanon, seeking to maintain the political and economic status quo and to contain PLO guerilla attacks, which are being launched against Israel from south Lebanon, clash with reformist Muslim groups, including poor Shi’ites whose plight the government has ignored. The PLO is drawn into the conflict when Maronite militias attack Palestinian refugee camps in and around Beirut. The civil war that ensues will last fifteen years and result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, as well as the destruction of Lebanon’s economy and infrastructure. 30,000 Syrian troops, initially sent to protect the Christian militias, become permanently stationed in strategic locations in Lebanon. See, also, “The Tragedy of Lebanon” for more about these events.

– Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin are both awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to reach a peace agreement.

– Civil war breaks out in Yemen.

– President Houari Boumediene of Algeria dies of illness. The army replaces him with Colonel Chadli Bendjedid. Over the next several years, Bendjedid’s policies will strengthen the power of the sole legal party, the National Liberation Front (FLN), and will engage in liberal economic reforms intended to dismantle the socialist system build by his predecessor.

– Edward Said, a prominent Palestinian-American intellectual, publishes Orientalism, one of the most influential works of cultural criticism to appear in the latter half of the 20th century. The book critically examines Western depictions of the Orient — in particular, the Islamic World.

– The Shah of Iran is ousted by a popular rebellion led by Ayatollah Khomeini, who assumes leadership of the new Islamic Republic of Iran on his return from exile in France. American embassy staff will be held hostage until 1981. The Iranian revolution becomes an inspiration for Islamist movements worldwide.

– Soviet forces enter Afghanistan in December to prop up the allied regime there. The United States begins to train and support resistance forces. Muslims from all over the world, and particularly from Arab nations, go to Afghanistan to help join in the struggle against the Soviets.

– In November, an Islamic radical Juhayman al-Oteibi and a band of armed followers seize control of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, charging the Saudi royal family with un-Islamic behavior and allowing Western influence to permeate society. The scandal shakes the foundations of the Saudi dynasty, whose claim to legitimacy rests on their protection of the holy places. After two weeks police raid the Grand Mosque, causing approximately 200 casualties on both sides. Two months later, Juhayman and 63 followers are publicly beheaded, but the incident leads to an “Islamic Awakening” led by Wahabi clerics.

-The National Association of Arab Americans is formed as a foreign policy lobby group, which advocates for a nonpartisan US policy in the Middle East.

– Libya again invades the Aouzzou strip in northern Chad, and this time goes on to a full invasion and occupation of the capital city, Njamena, on behalf of the Chadian opposition, the Transitional National Government (GUNT). The action is again a failure, due primarily to local resistance and to active French and American opposition to the Libyan effort. Libya loses thousands of men and millions of dollars in military equipment.

– Amazigh (Berber) Spring in Algeria. After the government forbids a March 9th lecture on Amazigh poetry by writer Mouloud Mammeri at the Tizi Ouzou University in the Kabyle region, people take to the streets in a massive protest march, the first of its kind in the history of independent Algeria. The protest is brutally suppressed by security forces. In later years, the event will be commemorated annually as the “Amazigh Spring,” and will serve as a yearly opportunity to demand that Tamazight, the Berber language be considered an official national language of Algeria and be taught in schools. For more perspectives on this issue listen to the interview with Rachid Aadnani.

-The American Arab Anti-Discrimination committee is formed by US senator Jim Abourezk to advocate for Arab-American rights and a balanced US policy in the Middle East.

– Israeli army units, under the direction of Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, invade Lebanon in order to drive the PLO out and prevent further attacks on northern Israel. After months of heavy shelling of Beirut and other Lebanese cities, as well as hundreds of casualties, Israel withdraws from all of Lebanon except southern border regions. During the course of the Israeli invasion, Phalangist militia, allies of Israel, massacre hundreds of Palestinians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila under the watchful eyes of the Israeli forces. Defense Minister Ariel Sharon will be forced to resign in 1983 after a commission of inquiry finds him indirectly responsible for failing to take action to prevent the massacre. Hizbu Allah (Hizbullah), an organization of Lebanese Shi’ites in the southern border area of the Biqaa Valley, calls for an armed resistance movement. Hizbullah quickly develops into a powerful political organization whose influence among poor Shi’ite Muslims in Lebanon is increased through the group’s benevolent social and economic services. The organization will become the main instrument of resistance to the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon.

– Raï music, formerly banned in Algeria, begins to get radio play in that country. Artists like Cheb Khaled and Cheb Mami will eventually give this music worldwide appeal. For much more about Raï music, see the unit on music, popular culture and the performing arts

– The Arab American Institute is founded by James Zogby to increase Arab American access to and participation in US politics.

– The beginning of the Intifada (uprising) in Palestine catches Israel (and perhaps even the PLO) off-guard. The Palestinians, armed mostly with stones, are vastly outgunned and thousands will be killed in the first three years alone.

– The Moroccan Tahar Ben Jelloun becomes the first Francophone writer from the Arab World to receive the prestigious Prix Goncourt in France, for his novel La Nuit Sacré (The Sacred Night).

– A declaration of independence for a Palestinian state is issued in November by the 19th session of the Palestine National Council (PNC). Within days, more than 25 countries recognize the Palestinian government-in-exile. In December, Arafat announces that the PNC recognizes Israel as a state and condemns terrorism in all its forms — including state terrorism, i.e, that being perpetrated by Israel. At a special meeting of the UN General Assembly convened at Geneva, Arafat publicly accepts UN Resolutions 242 and 338, implicitly recognizing the State of Israel.

– Iraqi forces use chemical weapons to attack Kurds in the north of the country.

– Young people riot in the Algerian capital as a result of increasing economic hardship and lack of freedom. The riots, which soon spread to other major cities in Algeria, are harshly repressed, at the cost of the lives of hundreds of young people. President Chadli Bendjedid initiates a series of rapid political reforms that opened the door to multipartism and to the freedom of association and expression. Dozens of magazines and newspapers spring up, and 62 new political parties are born in a country that has until this point been governed by only one party, the FLN.

– The Egyptian Naguib Mahfouz becomes the first Arab writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.

– Death of Michel Aflaq, the Syrian scholar and nationalist militant who played a key role in the development of an Arab nationalist ideology at the end of the colonial era. He believed that the nationalist struggle had to fight against the native aristocracy as well as foreign rulers.

– The Arab Maghrib Union (UMA), which is meant to be an integration scheme involving Algeria, Mauritania, Morocco, Libya and Tunisia, is established. The UMA will largely lie dormant, however, blocked by rivalries between the two main players, Algeria and Morocco, and by their opposing views on the resolution of the western Sahara problem. For more on the Maghrib Union listen to the interview with Azzedine Layachi.

– The new Algerian Front of Islamic Salvation (FIS), a broad coalition of various Islamist organizations, wins most offices in the first multiparty local elections, effectively displacing the former ruling party, the FLN.

– Iraq invades and annexes Kuwait. These actions are based on the Iraqi claim that Kuwait was historically part of Iraq before the British created it artificially as a means of protecting their interests in the Arabian Peninsula. Iraq also claims that Kuwait has been cheating on its exploitation quota for a jointly-owned oil well located on their common border. The international community condemns the invasion, and on August 6th strict economic sanctions are imposed. These sanctions will have a devastating effect on the Iraqi economy. A 32-country international coalition, led by the United States and including some Arab forces, gathers 500,000 soldiers in Saudi Arabia in preparation for a military action to push the Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. A list of UN Security Council Resolutions relating to Iraq can be found here.

– Ali Belhadj and Abassi Madani, top leaders of the Front of Islamic Salvation in Algeria, are arrested and jailed for having called for mutiny in the army, and for inciting people to revolt. Thousands of other Islamists are also arrested and interned in camps specially set up in the south of the country. These arrests follow the first major clash between the Islamists and the government, when the army had to intervene to end a long sit-in organized by the FIS in support of early presidential elections and a change in the new electoral districting law, which was believed to have been tailored to benefit the FLN. In spite of these clashes and tension, on December 26th Algeria holds the first balloting of its first multiparty elections since independence. The Islamist party, the FIS, seems to be on its way to a landslide victory; the second balloting is scheduled for January 1992.

– The collapse of the USSR deprives many Arab states of a major diplomatic ally and a supplier of military and other assistance.

Muhammad Boudiaf, a well-respected leader of the Algerian war for independence who has been living in self-imposed exile in Morocco, is invited by the Algerian military to return and lead the country out of the crisis. He returns on January 16th. Six months later, on June 29th, President Boudiaf is assassinated by one of his security guards during a public meeting in the eastern city of Annaba.

– In Egypt, an Islamist insurgency begins which will eventually leave more than 1,000 Egyptians and foreigners dead. Details are in a report from the Ploughshares Project

– War breaks out in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo

– UN Resolutions 731 and 748 impose sanctions on Libya for its alleged role in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, and for the bombing of a French UTA plane that exploded over Niger.

– In May, Libya sends a delegation to Israel for pilgrimage to the al-Aqsa mosque. The rest of the Arab world is shocked.

– Yasser Arafat and other Palestinian leaders return to Jericho in the West Bank, as stipulated by the Oslo I agreement, and create the Palestinian Authority, which will assume administrative and security control over the areas evacuated by Israel in the West Bank and Gaza.

– Twenty-nine Palestinians are murdered in the Hebron Mosque by a Jewish extremist. Hamas decides to retaliate by beginning a campaign of suicide bombings against Israelis.

– In August, King Hassan II of Morocco permits a new fifteen-minute TV news broadcast in Tamazight (the Berber language), every five minutes of the segment to be delivered in one each of the three major Berber dialects.

– Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli Prime Minister and co-recipient (with Yasser Arafat) of the Nobel Peace Prize, is assassinated at a rally for peace in Israel on November 4th by a Jewish radical. Arab leaders were among the foreign dignitaries who attended his funerals.

– In Morocco, a major constitutional reform adds a House of Counselors (upper house) to the parliament and alters the structures of representation and election to make them more accountable.

– In Algeria, the Army of Islamic Salvation (AIS), the military wing of the banned Front of Islamic Salvation, decides to observe a unilateral truce in the war it has been waging against the state and the civilian population.

– Abd al-Rahman Youssoufi, a socialist and opposition leader, is appointed Prime Minister in Morocco. This is a unique event in Morocco’s modern history, being the first time the opposition has been allowed to lead the government.

– King Hussein of Jordan dies of cancer after forty-six years of rule. Two weeks before his death, he designated his eldest son, Abdullah, as successor, replacing his brother Hassan who was Crown Prince for over four decades. Abdullah is crowned King of Jordan.

– King Hassan II of Morocco dies after a thirty-eight year reign. Although the end of his rule was marked by a few steps towards political opening and acknowledgement of human rights, King Hassan had largely ruled Morocco with a strict authoritarianism, crushing political dissent and allowing only occasional truces with the opposition. His son, Prince Muhammad VI, succeeds him, and will exhibit a much different style of leadership and a willingness to deal with the country’s most pressing problems, such as poverty and illiteracy.

– Abdesslam Yacine, a leader of the Moroccan Islamist movement Adl wa Ihsan is released in May from a six-year house arrest. By this time, most opposition figures jailed or exiled during the reign of the late Hassan II have been released or allowed to return to Morocco.

– The Muslim Brothers are allowed to participate in parliamentary elections in Egypt.