Middle East
Middle East |
the region at the eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea. It includes the countries of Turkey, Israel/Palestine, and Egypt. |
Libya |
a county in northern Africa on the Mediterranean Sea. Its capital city is Tripoli. |
Afghanistan |
a landlocked country of southwest-central Asia. Its capital city is Kabul. In 1979, Afghanistan was invaded by the Soviet Union. In 2001, Afghanistan was invaded by the United States. |
Southwest Asia |
another name for the Middle East |
Arab |
related to the Arabian Peninsula; an ethnic group centered on the Arabian Peninsula. Arabs speak a language called Arabic and a majority (but not all) are Muslim. |
Israel |
a country in the Middle East that was established by the United Nations in 1948 as a “homeland for Jews.” |
United States |
a country in North America that also includes Alaska and the Hawaiian Islands. |
Iraq |
a country in the Middle East, located on the Persian Gulf. Its capital city is Baghdad. This country includes the region known as Mesopotamia. |
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The Middle East is a popular term for a region that includes Southwest Asia and northeast Africa, extending from Libya in the west to Afghanistan in the east. The terms Near East or Southwest Asia are sometimes used to identify parts of this region. We can trace Western culture back to the beginnings of civilization in the Middle East. It was also the birthplace of three major world religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Today the Middle East is important as the major oil-producing region of the world and as a hot spot of international tension including the Arab-Israeli conflict—a conflict between several Arab nations and Israel—and two recent wars fought by the United States against Iraq.
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