In the mid-18th century, as France and Britain fought for power of India, both took a tactical concern in the Ottoman Empire and Iran, which lay across the route between Europe and India. Britain had gained preeminence in India by 1763, however in 1798 French emperor Napoleon I attempted to establish a stronghold in Egypt from which to attack the British in India. The Battle of the Nile resulted in the defeat of France and Britain's continued supremacy in India, as well as renewed European interest in the Middle East. As industrialization progressed, first in Britain and then in other European nations, demand grew for both raw materials and markets for manufactured products. The Middle East became a source of grains and wool, as well as cotton in Egypt and Syria, silk in Lebanon, and tobacco in Anatolia and Iran. Overall, the value of European trade with the region increased tenfold during the 19th century.
By the opening decade of the 20th century, a diversity of nationalist arrangements had come into being in the Ottoman Empire. Arab nationalism became accepted among intellectuals in Greater Syria, while Armenian nationalism also grew after the massacres of Armenians in Anatolia in the 1890s. Zionism (the movement to reunite the Jewish people in Palestine) had begun to gain momentum in Europe, and the first waves of Jewish settlement in Palestine began in 1882. A Turanian movement stressing the unity and solidarity of the Turkish people from present-day Turkey eastwards through Central Asia was growing as well.( Ben-Meir, Jason)
During the untimely years of British-mandated Palestine, Jewish arrangement enlarged. Jews created 11 percent of the population of Palestine in 1922 and 29 percent in 1936. Arabs opposed British support of Zionism, and they started a revolt that lasted from 1936 to 1939. In an effort.......
