1917-2017: nazionalismo ebraico e arabo a confronto nelle dinamiche del Grande Medio Oriente

This article aims to investigate the last hundred years of Middle Eastern history through the lens of the confrontation between two forces that have been able to shape the region’s historical and political evolution: Zionism and Arab nationalism. 1917 was a catalyst moment; the Ottoman Empire crumbled after WWI and this event made possible the realization of the regional asset envisioned by Great Britain and France through the Sykes-Picot agreements (1916); moreover, in the same year, the Balfour Declaration was published. From now on, these two movements mutually influenced, transforming their ideologies and ways for reciprocal interaction. Even today, it seems that the transformation of these dynamics is not accomplished and that the understanding of nationalist processes is going to be fundamental in order to adopt bottom-up criteria for the proposal of a stable balance in Middle East, increasingly affected by identity struggles.