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The Middle East has problems you know it we know it your dog probably [Dog appears]

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knows it if he's even moderately news conscious the why are things so bad and

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why has that badness lasted for so long well for starters the Middle East as it

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exists today is the creation of European colonialism yep the people who actually [Man walking to a well]

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live in the Middle East didn't have a ton thing to do with how borders were

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drawn and resources were apportioned by Europeans right like Arabs and Jews got [Man puts down border at water well]

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along just fine for millennium before the Europeans came along well you can

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see why it might make some people look not like the West very much to put a

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mildly but colonialism has had other consequences too because of the

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way countries were put together by the Europeans in some places it's really

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easy for dictators to come to power and stay there it's also really easy for [Dictators appear]

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ethnic majorities to hate on ethnic minorities well the second key to

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instability in the Middle East is natural resources not only has oil [Oil drill in a desert]

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caused nations in the region to fight with each other it's also brought [Men fighting]

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countries on the other side of the world who are interested in the area into the

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equation cough! United States cough! yeah but water is another one of those

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natural resources worth fighting over right like good Israel was pretty much [Men fighting over water]

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the breadbasket for the Middle East for a really long time and the Middle East

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is well mostly desert and it's not like there's an Aquafina vending machine at [Man and a camel by a water vending machine]

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every dune the cultural issues also contribute to regional instability in

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the wake of World War one and World War two Westerners set up countries along

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cultural lines and of course they made it so only one religion or one ethnicity

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had all the power in the region smart that error in judgment is made life

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difficult for ethnic minorities in places like the only rack Syria Israel

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and okay pretty much everywhere we got another factor contributing to the

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instability in the Middle East is modernization many people in governments

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in the region abide by traditional religious customs the values and ideas [Men marrying at church]

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pushed by the West that you know you should treat people as equals and it's

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human beings well they're generally seen as being at odds with life in a lot of

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Middle Eastern governments so there you have it badly drawn borders [Man's face red looking at neighbor's well]

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cultural issues cat fighting over Natural Resources a changing world all

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factors that have made the Middle East and an interesting place interesting if

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you love the smell of napalm in the morning maybe that's from Vietnam so

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