Prelude

2020 ◽  
pp. 18-27
Author(s):  
Steve Tibble
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Holy Land ◽  
Human Actions ◽  
Entire Life ◽  
First Crusade ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Policy Objectives ◽  
Crusader States

This chapter describes a time before strategy, when the lands of the Middle East were intensely fractured, and trust and loyalty were scarce commodities. It looks at a time when self-interest was paramount and where chaos was so ingrained that an entire life could be lived without knowing anything else. It also talks about wars that are guided by politics, driven by policy objectives, and implemented through strategy but often lost in the rushed outpouring of human actions and emotions. The chapter discusses the liberation of Jerusalem and the end of the First Crusade, where most of the original crusaders returned home and some remained to defend the Holy Land. It also includes the four political entities that are collectively known as the “crusader states”: The Kingdom of Jerusalem, the County of Tripoli, the Principality of Antioch, and the County of Edessa.

The Coastal Strategy

2020 ◽  
pp. 28-65
Author(s):  
Steve Tibble
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Holy Land ◽  
First Crusade ◽  
Crusader States

This chapter mentions an English pilgrim named Saewulf, who made the trip in the summer of 1102 to the Palestinian coast, where he was caught in the midst of battle with crusaders. It talks about the Franks, European settlers in the Holy Land, who kept coming to the new crusader states even in the most dangerous of times and the most perilous of conditions. It analyzes the capture of Jerusalem and the extraordinary culmination of the First Crusade in which strategy exists only in the context of objectives and the decisions that lead up to them. The chapter explains the first phase of Frankish strategy on taking control of the entire coastline of Syria and Palestine. It also looks at the coastal strategy that followed a remarkable trajectory across the three crusader states that bordered on the eastern Mediterranean.

scholarly journals Metropolitan Philaret (Drozdov) and Russian Сhurch Policy in the Holy Land in the 1850s–1860s

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 25-33
Author(s):  
Irina Smirnova
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Far East ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Holy Land ◽  
New Approaches ◽  
Church Policy

The issues raised in the article refer to the problems of Church diplomacy of Russia and other great powers in the Middle East in the 1850–1860’s when Russian diplomacy, both secular and church, faced the task of developing new approaches, first of all, in shaping the sphere of Russian interests in the Middle and Far East. Church policy of Russia in the Christian East in the 1850s–1860s is observed through the prism of the position of the Metropolitan of Moscow Filaret (Drozdov, 1782–1867), an outstanding church figure whose position determined the development of Russian church presence abroad not only in the Holy Land, but also in China and North America. The role of Metropolitan Filaret is presented in the forefront of such issues as the development of inter-church relations between the Russian Church with the Patriarchates of the East, the formation of the concept of Russian-Greek, Russian-Arab and Russian-Slavic relations, the interaction and contradictions of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission and the Russian consulate in Jerusalem.

The Franks of Outremer and their Western Brethren: examining the conflict through Roman Expansion in the Principality of Antioch and County of Tripoli (1230’s—1280’s)

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
С.П. Брюн
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
21St Century ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Crusader States ◽  
Western Expansion

Статья посвящена одной из главных тем и концептов в историографии крестовых походов – конфликту между западными крестоносцами «первого поколения» и франками Заморской земли (Outremer), т.е. теми, кто был рожден на Ближнем Востоке и не знал иного дома, кроме городов и долин Леванта. Автор критически анализирует концептуальные воззрения на суть данного конфликта в историографии XIX-XXI вв. и рассматривает полувековой опыт экспансии римской знати в княжестве Антиохийском и графстве Триполийском (инициированной браком князя Боэмунда V со знатной римлянкой, Люсьен де Сеньи). В отличие от широко-известного конфликта между братьями Лузиньянами и палестинскими баронами в 1180-х гг., экспансия римлян в Триполи и Антиохии действительно может служить редким и полноценным примером острого конфликта между притязаниями западных нобилей и интересами местных, левантийских элит на Латинском Востоке. The article deals with one of the main themes and concepts in the historiography of the Crusades – the conflict between the western, «first generation» Crusaders and pilgrims with the Franks of Outremer, those who were born and knew no home outside of the Middle East. The author critically examines the perception of the conflict in the 19th—21st century historiography, and proceeds with a study of the 50-year period of Roman aristocratic expansion in the Principality of Antioch and County of Tripoli (made possible through the marriage of Prince Bohemond V with the Roman noblewoman Lucien de Segni). This expansion – unlike the infamous clash between the Lusignan brothers and the Palestinian nobility in the 1180’s – was perhaps the purest manifestation of the conflict between consolidated western expansion and the local Levantine elites in the Crusader States.

The Role of Gulf Cooperation Council in Conflict Management, 1981–2019: A Comparative Study

2021 ◽  
pp. 234779892110573
Author(s):  
Amira Ahmed Elsayed Abdelkhalek
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Comparative Study ◽  
Gulf Cooperation Council ◽  
North African ◽  
Mena Region ◽  
Member States ◽  
Intrastate Conflicts ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Border Conflicts ◽  
The Comparative Study

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is considered one of the most important regional organizations in the Middle East and North African (MENA) region, which effectively solves some of the crises in the sub-region and the wider Middle East. GCC has employed many diplomatic procedures to address regional crises, including mediation, negotiation, and arbitration. Undoubtedly, GCC has successfully resolved some intrastate conflicts, particularly border conflicts among its member states. However, despite these achievements, the GCC has failed to resolve several regional disputes, and the continuation of such crises threatens the region’s security and stability. This article seeks to explore why the GCC institutions are ineffective in resolving some regional crises. In doing so, it addresses the comparative study by focusing on two case studies (the Iraq–Iran War and the ongoing Yemen Crisis) and provides three main results: first, the GCC has not directly intervened as an institution to resolve certain disputes; however, some GCC members have acted on its behalf and represented it. Second, despite the GCC member states’ efforts, they are still unable to resolve and settle some disputes because they prioritize self-interest over collaboration. Third, the conflict of interest of various regional actors contributes to the lack of significant progress in resolving crises.

Stigmata on the First Crusade

2005 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
pp. 99-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
William J. Purkis
Keyword(s):  
Holy Land ◽  
First Crusade ◽  
Eyewitness Account ◽  
The Dead

In his eyewitness account of the First Crusade, Fulcher of Chartres described the shipwreck and drowning of a boatload of crusaders who were bound for the Holy Land in 1097. After the bodies of the dead were recovered, he explained how ‘they discovered crosses evidently marked on the flesh above the shoulders’. Fulcher supposed this incident to be a miracle, ‘divinely revealed’, and that the marking was a ‘token of faith’ (pignusfidei) bestowed by God upon his servants. It was a sign to the surviving crusaders that God favoured them and would fulfil the promise he had made that ‘the just, though they shall be taken prematurely by death, shall be in peace’ (Wisd. 4, 7).

The Emergence of the Military Order in the Twelfth Century

1985 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-195 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.J. Forey
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Ninth Century ◽  
The Body ◽  
First Century ◽  
Holy Land ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
First Crusade ◽  
Military Orders ◽  
Order Of Santiago ◽  
The Military

At the time when encyclopaedic works on the military orders began to be produced in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it was widely held that the military order was an institution which had existed for most of the Christian era. Many of the orders catalogued in these volumes were reported to have been founded well before the period of the crusades, although there were often conflicting opinions about the precise antiquity of a particular foundation. Various dates were, for example, given for the establishment of the military order which the knights of the Holy Sepulchre were thought to constitute: although some held that it had been founded shortly after the first crusade, its creation was attributed by others to St James the Less in the first century A.D., while its origins were also placed in the time of Constantine and in that of Charlemagne. The foundation of the order of Santiago, which in fact occurred in 1170, was often traced back to the ninth century; yet while some linked it with the supposed discovery of the body of St James during the reign of Alfonso 11, others associated it with the legendary victory of Clavijo, which was placed in the time of Ramiro i. The accumulation of myth and tradition recorded in these encyclopaedias has exercised a prolonged influence on historians of the military orders: disproof has not always been sufficient to silence a persistent tradition. It is, nevertheless, clear that the Christian military order, in the sense of an institution whose members combined a military with a religious way of life, in fact originated during the earlier part of the twelfth century in the Holy Land.

scholarly journals “Certainly Getting About the World”: New Zealanders’ Experience of the Middle East as a Place During the Second World War

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josh King
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Focal Point ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Holy Land ◽  
World War ◽  
The One ◽  
Second World ◽  
New Zealanders

New Zealand’s longest and most important campaign of the Second World War was in the Middle East. When New Zealand’s Middle Eastern war is discussed, the focus is usually on combat and the lives of New Zealanders on the battlefield. The limited discussion of life behind the lines is dominated by a picture of racism, drunkenness and debauchery with its focal point in Cairo. This article uses primary sources, including diaries, letters and soldier publications, and focusses on how New Zealanders saw the Middle East as a place, through the lenses of the desert, the city, the Holy Land and the ancient world. An examination of these topics reveals a complex and rich picture of respect and loathing, delight and disgust, wonder and disillusionment. Such a picture shows that the one-dimensional understanding of racism and poor behaviour is an entirely inadequate representation of New Zealanders’ Middle Eastern war.

scholarly journals From Greed to Justice

1992 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-107
Author(s):  
Mona Abul-Fadl
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Floppy Disk ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
Best Interest ◽  
Cultural Legacy ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The Many ◽  
Determining Factor ◽  
A Current ◽  
Do So

I would like to seize the opportunity of the theme of this conference tohighlight some of the flaws which taint and constrain American foreign policyin the Middle East and, more generally, in the Muslim world. I do so with thepurpose of exploring the possibilities for a change which would be to the advantageof all parties concerned, for while I believe that America’s Middle East policyis largely prompted by considerations of national self-interest and expediency,and that these might be subsumed under the category of ‘‘greed,’’ there still remainsa recurrent undertone and preoccupation with a moral self-justification that seeksgrounds of justice and right for all its pursuits. Beyond greed and morality,however, the determining factor for both dimensions is contingent upon ourperceptions, conceptions, and the ideas we have concerning the Other as wellas about what constitutes our own best interest and our particular morality. Thecontrols on our perceptions and self-understanding lie in a kind of treasure chestwhich we inherit or, to use a current idiom of the micro-chip generation, theylie in a floppy disk which lies in the eye of our mind. Whatever it is that we inherit,it comes not so much with our genes as with our cultural legacy, which istransmitted primarily through the process of our socialization. While suchperceptions may be decisive in shaping our attitudes towards the situations weencounter, they are not necessarily permanent, for acquired attitudes which havebeen learned can also be unlearned, although this is often a more complicatedprocess. In the realm of attitudes to the Muslim world, I feel that Americansare encumbered with a heavy legacy which lies at the root of the many enthusiasmsand complacencies which have time and again been reflected in American foreignpolicy and in American reactions to events in that region ...

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