Modern Arab dictators who ruled Arab countries and terrorist organizations across the Middle East brought ruin and destruction not just upon their neighbors and their own countries but most dramatically upon themselves. A major result of the First World War (1914–1918) was that the former Turkish Ottoman Empire collapsed after it had aligned itself with the losing Central Powers of Germany and Austria–Hungary. The victorious Allies, mainly Great Britain and France, divided the former Ottoman Turkish controlled Middle East between themselves with the input of the new League of Nations.
The newly liberated Arab countries were mostly set up as new monarchies with ruling Arab kings at the helm. However, it did not take many years until they all suffered coup d'états and fell at the hands of bloody military dictators who all brought about ruin and damnation to those Arab countries they had taken over by force. (The following was researched with the help of various articles on Wikipedia).
Egypt: From King Farouk to Military Rule under Abdel el Sissi
In 1952 Egypt's Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918–1970) led a coup d'état that overthrew the Egyptian King Farouk (1920–1965). Nasser then ruled Egypt as its strongman dictator until his death by heart attack in 1970 having suffered the ignominy of provoking two wars with Israel in 1956 and 1967 that Egypt lost. Not to be outdone, his fellow revolutionary army officer and successor as dictator Anwar Sadat (1918–1981) attacked Israel in 1973 and lost, then in a feat of incredible Machiavellianism he sued Israel for peace and with the help of US President Jimmy Carter out-maneuvered Israel's Prime Minister Menachem Begin (1913–1992) at Camp David in 1978, manipulating Israel to give up its control of the Sinai Peninsula it had won during the 1973 Yom Kippur War that Sadat had cunningly launched.
For his efforts at making peace with Israel, Sadat was assassinated in public in 1981 by his own people, Islamic fundamentalists, during a military parade celebrating Egypt's treacherous attack against Israel on Yom Kippur 1973.
After Sadat came another military dictator, General Hosni Mubarak (1928–2020) who ruled Egypt after Sadat was assassinated in 1981 by means of several "single candidate referendums" and holding Egypt under a state of emergency in force since 1967, until he was ousted following the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. In 2012 Mohamed Morsi (1951–2019) and the Muslim Brotherhood won elections in Egypt but he was overthrown in 2013 when there was a coup d'état led by Egyptian army chief General Abdel Fattah el Sisi (born 1954) who still rules Egypt until the present time. Good luck!
Syria: From King Faisal I to the Fall of the Assad Dynasty of Dictators
The modern history of the various political leaderships of Syria is a murky winding road that eventually leads to the long-time dictatorship by the Assad family recently overturned in December 2024. After the First World War (1914–1918) Syria was handed over to French rule per the 1916 Sykes-Pikot Agreement between Britain and France dividing the Middle East between British and French spheres of influence. In 1920 Faisal I (1885–1933) was proclaimed king of "greater Syria" by the so-called Syrian National Congress, rejecting the French claim to the League of Nations' Mandate for Syria and Lebanon.
In response, France invaded Syria and after a few months the Franco-Syrian war ended in 1920 with French victory, the end of Faisal's brief reign in Syria, but with the British then appointing Faisal king of Iraq in 1921 as a compensation. French, and after 1941, British troops remained in effective control of Syria until 1946, with Syria falling under Fascist Vichy French control from 1940 to 1941. From 1930 to 1950 Syria was known as the First Syrian Republic and was involved in fighting the newly created state of Israel in 1948 and onwards.
From 1950 to 1963, during a period known as the Second Syrian Republic, Syria went through a few political mutations, including a short-lived dictatorship from 1951 to 1954 under General Adib Shishakli (1909–1964) who was eventually assassinated. In 1963 there was coup d'état by the Baathists who were ruled by a three man junta, one of whom was Colonel Hafez al Assad (1930–2000) who then in 1966 joined in a second follow-up coup d'état headed by Salah Jadid (1926–1993) who was then himself ousted in 1970 by Hafez al Assad.
From 1971 until his death in 2000 Hafez al Assad was the undisputed dictator of Syria. Upon his death he was succeed by his son Bashar al Assad (born 1965) who was overthrown in December 2024 by Syrian Islamists after a long civil war that reduced Syria to disunity and rubble that had started after the so-called Damascus Spring in 2000 and the subsequent Syrian Revolution and the Syrian Civil War (2011–2024).
Iraq: From King Faisal I to the Fall of Saddam Hussein
After failing at installing himself as king of greater Syria in 1920 and being pushed out by the French, King Faisal I (1885–1933) got a second chance at being king of an Arab country, this time in Iraq in 1921, thanks to the British. The Kingdom of Iraq was established under a British mandate in 1932. In 1952 a military coup d'état led by General Abdul Karim Qasam overthrew and killed King Faisal II (1935–1958) establishing the First Iraqi Republic. In 1963 there were two more coup d'états and by 1968 the Baathists took control of Iraq. From 1968 to 1979 Ahmed Hassan al Bakr ruled Iraq.
In 1979 Saddam Hussein (1937–2006) took over Iraq until he was overthrown by the United States and hanged in 2006. Since then Iraq has disintegrated with different Islamist factions and Iranian proxies taking control.
Dictator Saddam Husseim led Iraq from one blunder to another until his and Iraq's downfall. Saddam Hussein instigated the Iran-Iraq war that lasted from 1980 to 1988. From 1986 to 1989 Saddam Hussein conducted a war of extermination against the Iraqi Kurds. In 1979 Saddam Hussein began construction of the Osirak nuclear site that was bombed and destroyed by the Israelis in 1981. In 1990 Saddam Hussein invaded neighboring Kuwait starting the First Gulf War (1990–1991) and was defeated by an international coalition led by the United States.
During 1991 Iraq fired over 40 Scud missiles against Israel. In the wake of the 9/11 2001 attacks by Islamist terrorists against the United States US President George W. Bush decided to topple the Saddam Hussein regime completely in order to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), to end Saddam Hussein's support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people. An international coalition of forces led by the United States invaded Iraq in 2003 during the Second Gulf War, Saddam Hussein was captured and hanged in 2006, Iraq was a disunited shambles, and US forces remained in Iraq until 2011.
Lebanon: From Prized French Protectorate to the Ignominious Fall of Nasrallah
When the Turkish Ottoman Empire was formally split up by the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920, it was decided that four of its territories in the Middle East should be League of Nations mandates temporarily governed by the United Kingdom and France on behalf of the League. The British were given Palestine and Iraq, while the French were given a mandate over Syria and Lebanon.
The State of Greater Lebanon, informally known as French Lebanon, was declared in 1920, and became the Lebanese Republic in 1926. In 1941 the British sent in their army to fight Fascist Vichy French control of Lebanon and Syria.
In 1948 Lebanon attacked and was defeated by Israel. Lebanon's Arab people were divided between Christians, Sunnis, Shiites and Druze and from 1975 to 1990 a vicious civil war had broken out between them instigated by the aggression against the Christians inside of Lebanon by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) under arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat (1929–2004) who warred against Israel from bases in Southern Lebanon.
After the PLO was expelled from Jordan in 1970 it commenced armed conflict against Israel from Southern Lebanon that led to the ongoing Israeli-Lebanese conflict. This led to Israeli invasions of Lebanon in 1978, 1982 when the Israeli army laid siege to Beirut and forced the PLO to withdraw from Lebanon and destroyed the PLO's grip in Lebanon.
By 1985 a new enemy of Israel appeared, the Islamist Shiites armed by Iran and known as Hezbollah, eventually led by the dictator Hassan Nasrallah (1960–2024). From 1985 to 2000 Israel had the benefit of a buffer zone on its northern border with Lebanon from which it eventually withdrew of its own accord to its own eventual misfortune, as South Lebanon became a vipers nest of Hezbollah terrorists armed to the teeth by Iran. Due to attacks against Israel by Hezbollah and other terrorists from Southern Lebanon, Israel fought short inconclusive wars against them in 1993, 1996, 2006.
In 2023 Hezbollah joined in with Hamas in attacking Israel resulting in the 2024 Israel-Hezbollah war and the Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon to destroy Hezbollah bases. This has been devastating for Hezbollah, in particular Israel's assassination of Hezbollah's long-time leader, the rabid dictator Hassan Nasrallah and many members of Hezbollah's leadership. One enormous consequence of Hezbollah's losses to Israel has been that Hezbollah withdrew the terrorist fighters that were helping prop up the dictatorial regime of Bashar al Assd of Syria resulting in a vacuum that was taken advantage of by the Islamist rebels fighting Assad's forces and helping them to overthrow Assad in Syria.
Libya: From King Idris to the Downfall of Gaddafi
Libya was under the control of Italy from 1912 to 1940. In 1915, Italy joined the victorious Allies. From 1922 to 1943 Italy was Fascist and an ally of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan together known as the Axis. The Allies and the Axis fought in Libya from 1940 to 1943. From 1943 to 1951 Libya was under the control of the British. King Idris (1890–1983) ruled Libya until 1969 when he was overthrown in a coup d'état by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi (1942–2011). Gaddafi was subsequently overthrown and executed in 2011 after a brief and bloody civil war with Islamists combined with bombings of Libya by the Americans, British and French that splintered and ruined Libya.
Gaddafi was a highly eccentric flamboyant dictator with delusions of grandeur. He supported terrorism and aggression against neighboring countries and especially against Israel. His country planned and executed the bombing and downing of Pan Am Flight 103 in the Lockerbie bombing of 1988 that killed hundreds of people.
Beginning in 1969, Gaddafi determined Libya's foreign policy. The list of his crimes and blunders is very long. His principal foreign policy goals were Arab unity, elimination of Israel, advancement of Islam, support for Palestinian Arabs, elimination of outside influence in the Middle East and Africa, and support for a range of "revolutionary" causes.
Gaddafi helped fund many terrorist groups, including but not limited to; the Palestine Liberation Organization, the African National Congress of South Africa, the National Patriotic Front of Liberia, the Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Black Panther Party in the USA, the New People's Army of the Philippines, the Polisario Front, the Red Brigades, the Sandinista National Liberation Front, the Tupamaros and the Red Army Faction.
In 1978, Gaddafi sent Libyan troops to aid the bloodthirsty African dictator Idi Amin (1928–2003) in the Uganda–Tanzania War. The Chadian–Libyan conflict (1978–1987) ended in disaster for Libya in 1987 with France supporting Chad in this conflict and in revenge in 1989, a French airliner, UTA Flight 772, was destroyed by an in-flight explosion for which Libyan agents were convicted in absentia.
Following the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Gaddafi decided to abandon his weapons of mass destruction programs and pay almost 3 billion euros in compensation to the families of Pan Am Flight 103 and UTA Flight 772. Gaddafi aligned himself with the Orthodox Serbs against Bosnia and Herzegovina's Muslims and Kosovo's Albanians. Gaddafi supported Serbian dictator Slobodan Milošević (1941–2006) even when Milošević was charged with large-scale ethnic cleansing against Albanians in Kosovo. The list goes on and on. It is not a happy story.
Postscript: The end of Hamas dictators
Following the outbreak of war between Hamas and Israel after the attacks by Hamas starting October 7, 2023, Israel systematically and methodically eliminated the top leadership of Hamas leaving it bereft of its most notorious terrorist leaders who in effect ruled as dictators. In addition to the tens of thousands of individual Hamas terrorists and many of their leaders that have been killed in battle by Israel's armed forces, the three top leaders of Hamas going into the war were killed by Israeli forces: Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniya, Muhummad Deif in addition to the hundreds more below them in the ranks of Hamas.
As the old adage goes "crime does not pay" and certainly terrorism definitely does not pay. Hamas has been taught this in a deadly fashion by the Israelis, and even though it still continues with its self-destructive and murderous ways in its self-delusional struggle to destroy Israel and its Jews, Hamas has been dealt a blow from which it will not easily recover. Hopefully, Israel will return to fighting Hamas and finish of the barbarian terror force.
Conclusion
(a) Arab countries are hopelessly out of tune and out of sync with the fundamentals of democracy.
(b) The conquests of the Crusaders, and four centuries of the domination of Arab lands by the non-Arabic Turkish Ottoman Empire, ensured that most Arabs do not have a historical connection to their past days of glory when they had their own strong Arab empires such as the Rashiduns, Umayyads, Abbasids, Fatimids.
(c) There is no such thing as Arab "unity" either within their countries or among different countries.
(d) The new Arab monarchies that followed the First World War were weak and could not stem the tide of rising ideologies among the Arab masses such as Nationalistic Militarism, fanatical Islamism and distorted Socialism.
(e) The brutal military dictatorships that grabbed power in coup d'états from the weak Arab monarchies were disastrous for all concerned.
(f) The new dictators, while being ruthless, fell victim to Soviet meddling and hegemony, Communist and Socialist myths, Islamist fundamentalism and factionalism, nationalist jingoism, and eventually Iranian Islamic radicalism and expansionism that gave them a false sense of invincibility in their inevitable clashes with the West and with Israel. This choice eventually defeated all of them one way or another after they had all shot themselves in the foot domestically and internationally.
(g) After grabbing power from the various British and French appointed Arab kings and monarchies via coup d'états the Arab dictators created "republics" and faked "elections" in their countries, which while sounding popular and populist, were in fact cruel and cynical, manipulative and manipulated totalitarian dictatorships and oppressive regimes. The dictators themselves lived in supreme luxury and decadence and enriched themselves at the expense of the long-suffering robbed Arab masses.
(h) Hamas is no different from the other types of nationalist Arab dictatorships and has and will suffer the same fate and demise as the fallen and forgotten miserable Arab dictators who in the end, with God's help and mercifulness, lost to Israel and the West.
Rabbi Yitschak Rudomin was born to Holocaust survivor parents in Israel, grew up in South Africa, and lives in Brooklyn, NY. He is an alumnus of Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin and of Teachers College–Columbia University. He heads the Jewish Professionals Institute dedicated to Jewish Adult Education and Outreach – Kiruv Rechokim. He was the Director of the BelzerChasidim's Sinai Heritage Center of Manhattan 1988–1995, a Trustee of AJOP 1994–1997 and founder of American Friends of South African Jewish Education 1995–2015. From 2017–2024 he was a docent and tour guide at The Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in Downtown Manhattan, New York.He is the author of The Second World War and Jewish Education in America: The Fall and Rise of Orthodoxy.
Contact Rabbi Yitschak Rudomin at izakrudomin@gmail.com
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