Middle East is the name given to the Muslim countries of southwest Asia, north Africa and southeaster Europe. Many of these countries have rich deposits of petroleum, which are not only important to the people of those countries but also to the rest of the world.

The Ottoman Empire of Turkey ruled over the Middle East till 1918 AD. When the Turkey was defeated by the British in world war I (1914 -1918), the Middle Eastern countries hoped to regain their freedom.  However this did not happen and the European nations decided that Syria should be given to the France, while the fertile valley of Palestine should be occupied by the Jews, who had been expelled from there about two thousand years ago. In 1947 AD, the united nations (UN) passed a resolution to settle the Jews in that area, and Israel came into being the next year. It was an independent Jewish state supported by the united states of America. As the result of this long period of conflict between the Palestinians and Israel started, in which the Palestinians were usually supported by the USSR (Russia), who was an enemy of USA. Israel also went to war with Jordan and Egypt in 1956 and 1979, Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel, but other Arab states continued their struggle to liberate Palestine. The struggle grew weak after 1990 when USSR broke up, but it has once again developed into a major conflict in the recent years. The Muslim world strongly support the right of the Palestinians to reclaim their homeland.

Three other major conflict of the region were, the Suez crises, the Iraq Iran war which is started over a border dispute between the two countries but lasted for eight years, and Gulf war which started after the Iraq invaded the Kuwait, and the international armies led by the USA landed in the region to stop the Iraqi forces.