9.4- Conflicts in the Middle East

Intifada

Palestinian Arab uprising against the Israeli occupation

Sadam Hussein

a member of the Ba'th Party and spent several years in prison when the Ba'thists were not in power. In 1968, he participated in a coup where the Ba'thists took over the government, and by 1979 he had total control of the government. Hussein was the dictator of Iraq until the 2003 Iraq War. In 2006, he was convicted in an Iraqi court of crimes against humanity and executed shortly afterward.

Militia

armed group of citizen soldiers

Yitzhak Rabin

born in Jerusalem and served as an important military leader both before and after the creation of Israel. He served as prime minister twice, from 1974 to 1977 and from 1992 to 1995. In the 1990s, he reached a peace agreement with the PLO, for which he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Shimon Peres and Yasir Arafat. Rabin was assassinated in 1995 by a Jewish extremist.

Jerusalem

capital of the Jewish state of Judea in ancient times and capital of the modern state of Israel; city sacred to Jews, Muslims, and Christians

Yasir Arafat

fought for Palestinian independence most of his life. He was a founder of Al-Fatah, a group that resisted Israel, and also of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). In 1969, he became chairman of the PLO. In the early 1990s, he reached a peace agreement with Israel. In 1994, together with Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin, he won the Nobel Peace Prize. He then became the president of the newly created Palestinian Authority.

No-fly zone

in Iraq, area where the United States and its allies banned flights by Iraqi aircraft after the 1991 Gulf War

Weapon of mass destruction (WMD)

nuclear, biological, or chemical weapon

Insurgent

rebel