end the long war and came to many agreements regarding self rule for Palestinians. Israel agreed to withdraw its forces from West Bank in addition to giving voting rights to the Arab residents of Palestine. However, this was not successful as Israel failed to implement its promises and continued to attack the Palestinians under one pretext or the other. Many countries agreed to recognise the PLO as the legitimate representative of the Palestinians state and Arafat as its President. Arafat died in 2004 due to flu fever. The Palestinians are still fighting for their homeland and peace under very difficult conditions of exile and warfare.

The continued support of the US to Israel and the plight of Palestinians created a widespread feeling against the US in the region. The US also became unpopular because it supported undemocratic regimes in this area so that the oil resources were available to the US and its allies. People, on the other hand, wanted the revenues from oil resources to be used for the welfare of common people who did not have any other resources in the desert area. In 1968, a coup took place in Iraq in which Saddam Husain came to power with the twin slogan of Arab Nationalism and Socialism. By socialism, they meant nationalisation of oil resources and the use of oil revenues by the state to fund welfare measures for the citizens. Similar developments took place in Libya in 1969 (you have read about this in class IX, chapter 18). These regimes combined welfare policies with autocratic and dictatorial rule of a ruler or a small group. They did not allow any opposition or democratic protest against themselves. In many cases, the opposition to the US and US backed regimes took religious colours. Nationalist forces, instead of supporting the idea of equitable distribution of wealth and opportunities, fostered the idea of establishing religious orthodoxy in those countries. A revolution took place in Iran in 1979 in which the old King of Iran (who was supported by the US) was removed and a new government jointly controlled by Shia Islamic clerics and democratically elected leaders was established. The Taliban, which took over Afghanistan after the withdrawal of Soviet troops, similarly established an extremist Islamic state. These states tried to force all the people to strictly follow the rules laid down in religious texts. In many cases, this meant the denial of basic freedom and equality of opportunity to women and religious minorities. The beginning of the twenty first century witnessed growing discontent among the Arabs which resulted in the growth of religious terrorism. Some Arab terrorists hijacked two aircrafts in the US and crashed them into the World Trade Centre in New York killing thousands of people. This led to a war against Taliban and eventually to a war against Iraq. Find out more about these recent events from the newspapers and magazines.