World War I through Arab Eyes

A history resource article by Mary Harrsch © 2014

I received a press release from Al-Jazeera today about a new program they will be broadcasting on the Al-Jazeera English channel that examines World War I battles in the Middle East from the perspective of the Ottoman Turks.  It sounds really interesting and a way to gain a more balanced view of the the conflict as it unfolded in the colonial political environment of the Middle East.  I have to admit what little I know about World War I in that region was the result of watching David Lean's 1962 production of "Lawrence of Arabia", 1981's "Gallipoli", a film starring a very young Mel Gibson and the 1987 Australian production "The Lighthorsemen."

Unfortunately, I could not find the new documentary on the Al-Jazeera America channel schedule on DISH Network on November 18th or up on YouTube but I will keep an eye out for it.  Perhaps it is only available in Europe at this time.

Press Release - On November 18^th, 2014, Al Jazeera English will start broadcasting a three-episode documentary series commemorating one hundred years since the outbreak of the Great War.

In this series, Producer Journalist Malek Al Tureiki, provides a political and cultural reading into World War I from an Arab and Islamic perspective, citing the commencement date of the war as November 14^th 2014, when Arabs were involved in the “jihad” against the Allied troops upon the call of the Mufti of the Ottoman Empire in Istanbul. This is in juxtaposition to the date Britain commemorates the war on August 4^th, 2014 – the day it entered the war.

The series sheds light on how colonized nations, which had no say in their own fate, ended up being forced into wars which resulted in enormous sacrifices. As a result of this, the number of victims within the Ottoman population, including Arabs, is in fact much higher than that of the Europeans. While the percentage of victims in Germany was 9% and 11% in France, it reached between 14-25 % in Turkey and the Levant.

It was also in the Battle of Gallipoli that Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern day Turkey, began to rise as a military commander and political leader. The unknown truth until today, even in Turkey and the Arab World, is that two thirds of the troops involved in the Ottoman victory over Allied troops were from Iraq and the Levant.

World War I through Arab Eyes relies on archival materials presented for the first time, telling the fascinating story of how the war affected the Middle East – reverberations still being felt to the present day.

Broadcast Details on the English News Channel:

The first episode on Al Jazeera English screens on [Friday]? November 18th at 20:00
GMT, following which it will be available online.

Repeats (GMT)

Wednesday: 12:00
Thursday: 01:00
Friday: 06:00
Saturday: 20:00
Sunday: 12:00
Monday: 01:00
Tuesday: 06:00

2nd and 3rd episodes are running on the 25^th of November and 2^nd of December respectively, at the same times as the 1^st broadcast.

Related articles

• The Islamic State and the Legacy of World War I
• The Great War
• Rezori: The true cost of the First World War

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Studies of ancient pottery show milking animals occured as early as seventh millenium

Until now, researchers thought that the
processing, storage and use of domesticated cow, sheep and goats' milk
in the Middle East and the Balkans began around 5,000 BCE. But now an
international team of archeologists, including an Israeli from the
Hebrew University, have concluded on the basis of milk residue in over
2,200 pottery vessels from the area that it goes back 2,000 more years.

Dr.
Yossef Garfinkel of HU's archeology institute and colleagues in the UK,
the US, the Netherlands, Greece, Turkey and Romania published their
findings in a recent issue of Nature. The authors note that
"the domestication of cattle, sheep and goats had already taken place
in the Near East" by the eighth millennium BCE. "Although there would
have been considerable economic and nutritional gains from using these
animals for their milk and other products..., the first clear evidence
for this appears much later, from the late fifth and fourth millennium.
Hence, the timing and region in which milking was first practiced
remain unknown."

But the scientists examined thousands of pottery vessels from
the Middle East and southeastern Europe that were created seven to nine
thousand years ago and found clear organic evidence that they contained
milk lipids from domesticated animals.

The use of domesticated animals for milk, wool and pulling
without killing them for meat "marks an important step in the history
of domestication," they write. Some researchers have argued that as
soon as animals are domesticated, the benefits of these products would
have been exploited rapidly; others suggested that the lack of early
evidence of arts, plows and milking scenes shows that domesticated
animals were first exploited mostly for meat and hides.

Evidence of milk lipids on the pottery at Shikmim
and Sha'ar Hagolan in Israel showed that dairy products were consumed
here between the seventh and fourth millennia BCE, the article
reported. The earliest use was in Turkey.

"Organic residues preserved in pottery not only extend the
history, but show that milking was particularly important in areas more
favorable to cattle, compared to other regions where sheep and goats
were more common," they concluded. -

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