Levant (Many Wonderful Things)

The State of Levant is a nation on the Mediterranean coast of the Middle east. Originally under British condomonium after the Second Egyptian-Ottoman War, the Levant was granted independence in 1905 after decades of gradual Jewish immigration and the World Zionist Movement. In spite of many internal conflicts of ethnic and religious dominence, most notably the Levantine Civil Wars, the nation has remained largely one of the most well-organized and modernized state in the Middle East.

Background
In the 19th century, Judaism was experiencing an increasing amount of antisemitism and violence with the rise of nationalism in Europe. This was much more of a concern in Eastern Europe with increasing pogroms from Russia and Poland, while Western Europe was becoming more liberal. However, even that was not to last. The Dreyfus Affair during the Franco-Prussian War brought dissilusionment to Jews in France who thought that the Republican system kept them protected. These forces came together to spark Jewish nationalism, initially sending millions of Russian and Polish Jewish immigrants to the United Kingdom and the United States.

Starting in the late 1870s, Theodore Herzl led the Zionist movement to push for Jews to return to the Holy Land in the Levant. The first settlement of this movement was established in Jaffa as an agricultural community in 1878. Starting in 1883, the Jewish Aliyah saw over 30,000 Jews moving to settlements in Levant. These initial communities saw an early revival of the Hebrew language and Messianism. In 1896, Herzl published The Jewish State where he asserted Zionism as the solution to the Jewish Question in Europe.

After numerous conflicts within the Muhammad Ali Dynasty, Britain assumed more direct control of Palestine and Syria first as a joint condomonium, then a direct protectorate. The British administrated Levant similar to the Ottomans, divided between the Emirate of Mount Lebanon, the Mustaffirate of Jerusalem, and the Governate of Beyrut. The Emirate was an autonomous Muslim protectorate, initially allied to Napoleon III before the Mahdist War placed it under British rule. The governate, by contrast, was a direct British military outpost, ruled by a number of governors starting with Sir Garnet Wolosey. As the British primarily supported the Druze of Lebanon, this caused many resentment and violence among the Marionite Christian community.

In 1897, Herzl founded the World Zionist Congress in Switzerland, gathering the most eminent minds across European Jewery to solve the Jewish question. The subsequent seven Congresses between 1897 and 1905 mainly worked at the logistics and administration of the Jewish colonies in Levant, especially as a possible second Aliyah was causing rapid growth among these communities. At the same time, local Arab Christians unsatisfied with British rule, mainly from the Marionites, began allying with the Zionists to help establish a joint Judeo-Christian nation. Herzl was skeptical of mixing the purely Jewish nationality with other religions, but after he died in 1904, the two movements worked closer together.

Shortly after the Seventh Zionist Congress in 1905, the British Prime minister Arthur Balfour permitted the independence of Levant, in a statement known as the Balfour Declaration. This new state was to annex the three provincial governments that existed up to that time, but allow universal male sufferage to the various ethnicities within the nation.

Early Years of Independence
Even though Jews themselves made up a significant minority of Levant's population, they nonetheless made up the largest part of the government for the first generation of the nation's history. Although some attribute this to a sense of early Jewish nationalism, others see this as a necessary evolution of the state as a former British colony, until the native Arabs became more assimilated in the 1920s. Although there was a steady stream of Jewish immigrants to the nation, it was much more stade and gradual than the original Aliyah.

The established Parliamentary government over Levant, although ostensively based on the British model, was originally mostly made up of former members of the Zionist Congress. The Polish immigrant Nahum Sokolow, being one of the most politically active at the time, was appointed as the first Prime Minister. Sokolow's administration was instrumental to establish the initial military and political structure of the nation, but he mainly focused on ensuring international recognition of Levant.

Sokolow was considered a great diplomat, and managed to secure support from most of the secular world, although more conservative nations following Pope Pius X and Tsar Nicholas II were active against him. Sokolow was also considered a visionary leader, bridging the gap between liberal and conservative factions. After the Russian Revolution of 1905, large numbers of Marxist Jews immigrated to the Levant, leading to the Labour party founded in 1909. By 1912, Solokov was considered more biased towards the Conservative party, and was voted out in favor of the more neuteral Leo Motzkin. He continued in politics afterwards as Secretary of State.

Motzkin was more involved and proactive in raising and modernizeing the military of Levant. Due to the limit of Jewish population, military units were open to Arab volunteers starting in 1913, although highly segregated. It was also at this stage that Pope Benedict XV, successor of Pius X, gave recognition of Levant as an independent, secular state. This new military was immediately put to the test, as the Ottoman Empire declared war on Great Britain in November 1914 at the start of World War One. In January 1915, the Ottoman commanders Mustafa Kemal and Djemal Pasha coordinated an attack on British Levant, seizing control of the Golan Heights and invading across the West Bank with a total of 20,000 troops. The subsequent defense of Palestine throughout the war was a cooporative effort between the Egyptian Expeditionary force under Edmund Allenby and the Levantine National Army under General Joseph Trumpeldor.

The initial fighting across central and northern Levant reached a stalemate in Spring of 1915, and continued with little progress until the summer of 1916. In early 1916, corresponding to the disasterous Galipoli Campaign, the conservative government collapsed in Levant and was replaced with the leftist Labour party, appointing Nachman Syrkin as Prime minister. In June, the Arab Revolt led by King Hussein of Hejaz and T.E. Lawrence completely disrupted the Ottoman control across the Middle East. By the end of the Summer, the Ottomans had completely been forced into retreat, allowing the allies to invade in borth Transjordan and Syria.

The offensive campaign to sieze control over Jordan continued until the beginning of 1917, capturing Jericho in October. It was during this time that a secret correspondance between Mark Sykes and Georges Picot worked out how to divide Syria and Iraq for after the end of the war. That summer proceeded to push into Syria, capturing Aleppo on July 25, 1917. In October, the British and Arab forces began invading Anatolia itself. In the beginning of 1918 they met up with the Mesopotamian campaign, having completely seized the Middle East away from the Ottoman Empire.

After the end of the Syrian campaign, Syrkin directed his attention more domestically, creating more universal economic opportunity and an initial welfare system. At the same time, the wake of the Arab Revolt and the McMahon-Hussein correspondance created a sense of Arab nationalism within the Levant, seeking more fair economic representation within a nation thus far run by the Jewish minority. Syrkin ran for re-election in 1920, but the labor party was largely voted out in favor of the moralists led by Max Nordeau. Nordaeu's administration pushed for greater social reform, emphasizing individualism and building local communities, mainly by modernizing the military.

In the 1919 Paris Peace Conference that ended World War I, it was believed at first that the borders of Levant would be increased to include the occupied territories, but this was removed by the suggestion of Winston Churchill. The Marionite Patriarch Elias Hoayek and King Faisal of Iraq were invited to represent the Christian and Arab interests, respectively. After the Hashemite control of Syria was crushed by the French in July 1920, a social movement began in Levant pushing for more Arab representation in government, primarily led by Aref Al-Aref. In opposition to this, however, both the Jewish and Druze communities feared what treatment they would face being placed in the numerical minoritied they belonged.

In 1923, a comprimise was created where the constitution would require parliament be divided between the ethnicities of Levant: equal parts Jewish, Muslim, Marionite, and Druze. The constitution was fully reformed in 1924, at the end of Nordaeu's tenure. Shortly after, in 1926 Charles Debbas was appointed the first non-Jewish Prime minister. During this period, the Levant experienced a rapid economic growth as a more fully modernized nation, seeing an annual GDP increse of 9.9%, and a per capita increase of 4.1%. In addition, much infrastructure was created, which included railroads, roads and factories for the nation.

Debbes himself, however, acted more as a figurehead while more complex politics occurred behind the scenes. The rising power of Marionite and Arab influence in parliament pulled national legislation in different directions, the Christian factions leaning towards more support from Europe while the Arabs sought influence from the monarchies in Syria and Jordan. In 1932, Debbes was voted out in favor of Bechara El Khoury, a moralist politician who worked towards codification and enforcement of the constitution. Khoury was well loved and charismatic, and helped keep the Christians, Jews and Arabs satisfied throughout the 1930s. This was an especially difficult time, due to the increasing persecution of Jews by Nazi Germany created more tension among the Jews of Levant.

World War Two
After Berlin hosted the 1936 Olympics, a national-socialist movement came through the Levant, allied between the nationalist and labor parties, allowing the Marionite Pierre Gemayal to be elected Prime Minister in 1938. At the outbreak of the Second World War, the polarized Parliament of Levant declared neutrality, sypathizing more with the nationalist governments of Europe, and especially the Vichy French government after the Fall of France in 1940. At the same time, their economic dependence to Britain compelled them to send supplies and arms for the allies on the Western Front.

In summer of 1942, as Erwin Rommel was moving his Afrika Corps into Egypt towards the Sinai, the Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden related to Prime Minister Churchill that something suspicious was going on. It was clear for a long time that the Arab populations of Egypt and Levant both had resentment towards the British Empire, and would rather grant support to Nazi Germany, if secretly. That same year, a military expedition landed in Cairo and forced the Muhammad Ali King of Egypt to abdicate. Although the British had plans to invade Levant as well, Gemayal's regime was quickly exposed, and pressure from the Jewish populace forced him to resign office that year.

The Muslim former mayor of Jerusalem Raghib Al-Nashashibi was appointed to succeed Gemayal, and continued to administrate through the end of the war. His administration was more passive, working to settle ethnic tensions from the recent political scandle, and normalize relations with Britain. In June of 1944, Levant organized its first multi-ethnic military force, and dispatched it to aid the allies during the liberation of France. After Germany surrendered in May 1945, Raghib was voted out for the much more dynamic and politically-active Izzat Darwaza.

The effect of World War II left a lasting impact on the people of Levant. The massacre of Jews and other minorities in Europe, many of whom were closely related to immigrants to Levant, caused a larger rise of Jewish nationalism and a sense of ethnic paranoia. At the same time, so much assimilation and political diversity had existed in Levant by this point, that the original goals of Zionism had been almost compeletely forgotten. Darwaza's government itself was especially focused to that end, as he worked to establish many religious and cultural institutions within the nation.

Post colonialism and Arab Nationalism
In May 1945, two days after the surrender of Germany, the British government concluded an agreement to grant the full independence to the nation of Levant. This would allow the nation to elect its own President, and act as an executive office completely independent of Britain. That day is henceforth celebrated as the Independence Day of Levant. The wake of post colonialism, and the growing power of Transjordan, Egypt, and Syria, created a greater feeling of entitlement among the Arab population. Coupled with the feeling of ethnic paranoia among the Jewish population, this quickly led to increasing tensions in the nation.

When Prime Minister Darwaza was assassinated by Musa ben Moisha in 1948, these tensions would start to come to a head. Although it was clear Moisha was insane and a lonely assassin, this nonetheless caused outbreak of violence across the nation by various disorganized Arab mobs. Known as the 1948-49 Levant Conflict, this was eventually put down by the federal government, but the psychological damage had been done. Arab Nationalism quickly became a demonized concept within the nation, and the subsequent conservative government that succeeded Darwaza pushed many discriminatory, repressive policies through the 1950s.

In spite of domestic issues, the general economy and standard of living rose dramatically in Levant during this same period, known as the "Age of Austerity". Public education was also established, compulserary up to 14 years old. The tension between Jewish, Muslim and Christian worldviews forced a de-facto secularism, creating neuteral policies for economy and education. Increased immigration from Arab nations caused a staggaring growth of labor as well, by as much as 700,000 people. The military was also modernized more than it had been in previous years. When the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, it revolutionized Biblical archaeology and helped the reinvention of aegyptography.

In foreign policy, Levant was admitted to the United Naitons very early on, and became an observor state of the Arab League in 1949. The Levantine Secret Service (LSS) was founded that same year, and known as its chief foreign spy agency. Over the years, the LSS succeeded to kidnap and arrest various Nazi war criminals, starting with Adolf Eichmann in 1960. In 1952, Levant opened close relations with West Germany, in spite of the more Stalinist Labor party that persisted in the Parliament. Even after France's withdrawl from Africa in 1966, the nations of the United States, West Germany and France jointly took the obligation of ensuring stability in the Middle East.

When Egypt was taken over by a military coup of Arab nationalists under Abdel Nasser, the influence of Arab Nationalism and Nasserism affected Levant tremendously. Some extreme parties in the nation even wanted to join Nasser's proposed United Arab Republic. However, when Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal in 1956, Britain and France approached the Levantine government to attack Egypt and take additional territory from them. Levant refused to be involved, but in a controversial move the government authorized selling large amounts of amunitions and supplies to the allied invasion. This would further cause deteriation of the nation's infrastructure as soon as Nasser came out politically victorious.

Two years later, a brief civil war broke out in the nation known as the 1958 Levant Conflict. This was initially caused by the formation of the United Arab Republic between Egypt, Syria, and possibly Iraq, spaking the Nasser-supporting agencies that existed in the nation already. This resulted in splitting the Parliament in half, between the supporters and dissenters against the UAR. This led to direct intevention of the United States in Operation Bluebat, which occupied the ports of Beirut and Haifa during the summer. At the same time, Egypt threatened to directly invade across the Negev, but this was never followed through.

At the end of the conflict, the Arab Nationalist ministers of parliament were all suspended or dismissed. In the following election in 1959, the Labor party of mostly Jewish members took a much larger portion of the seats, and continued the previous descriminatory policies. Domestic violence from Nationalist supporters continued sporatically in the following few years.

The years following Operation Bluebat saw relative peace and prosperity. Levant's economy in the 1960s was one of the fasterst growing in the world, mostly due to its export of oil in competition with the gulf states, and established a national bank in 1966. In this same year, public television was first introduced. In 1964, Levant created a national water service that provided water piped from the Jordan river. Transjordan saw this as an illegal front on their natural resource, and led to a brief military skirmish in Galilee in July 1964, known as the Water War. Following that conflict, Levant decided to further modernize their military, adopting the Uzi as well as modern tanks.

Throughout the 1960s, various Jihadist organizations gathered underground among the Arabs in the military, drawing on the common military training and armaments afforded to all Levantine citizens, known collectively as the SSNP. On June 6, 1967, the SSNP executed their plan of attack, launching a large-scale revolt around the central parts of Levant, mostly at the religious and rural areas. Within six days, a third of the nation was under de-facto rebel control. The following conlfict was known as the 1967-73 Levant Conflict, more commonly called the Levantine Civil War.

Due to a miscommunication by the Jihadist rebels, the capital city of Levant was not under attack for the first phase of the war, which allowed the government to set up proper defenses and quickly organize a counter-strike. The SSNP placed their headquarters in the Old City of Jerusalem, hoping to use the significance of the site as cover against air strikes. Within the second week of the war, the United Nations drew up a resolution in the hope of bringing a resolution to the conflict. Known as the "Land for Peace" comprimise, it proposed partitioning Levant into zones of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish sctors in return for mutual peace. This proposal was rejected by both sides.

Starting in July 1967, the United Arab Republic consisting of Egypt and Syria began supplying the Jihadist rebels with arms and ammunition. The Jewish and Marionite populations in Levant accused the UAR of having planned this attack in advance. Late in 1968, the Levant government began surgically bombing the northern pocket near Beyrut, as a way of driving the rebels from their encampments. The UAR responded that this was an act of aggression on the Arab people, and sent military intervention into the conflict. Syria deployed Soviet fighters into the airspace of Beyrut and the Golan Heights, while Egypt invaded Gaza and used their navy to blockade the strait of Tiran. This military operation, albeit light and eventually withdrawn in 1970, nonetheless succeeded to prolong the conflict.

In the Cairo Agreement of 1969, Egypt recognized the SSNP as the legitimate government, and even after their withdraw of troops continued to supply the jihadists through the end of the war. The Levantine government increased their ruthlessness against the rebellion, leveling whole infrastructures in order to limit their mobility. This caused the SSNP to start supporting more international terrorism. In the 1972 Munich Olympics, nine Levantine citizens were kidnapped by jihadist sympathizers, most of whom were eventually murdered.

Relations with neighboring Arab nations deteriated, and fearing an attack from Levant, the UAR coordinated a pre-emptive strike in October 1973 against Levant again. This escalated the conflict internationally, leading to both the US and USSR to supply opposite sides. A ceasefire was finally declared on October 31, and an agreement was settled throughout the end of the year and into spring 1974. The resulting declaration, known as the Yavne Agreement, rescinded most of the segregation laws between Arabs and Jews formally made, and promised universal sufferage and opportunity for all religions. This was a monumental document, considered to be a move for Civil Rights within the Middle East.

The remainder of the 1970s saw a push towards more assimilation and cooporation between the three ethnic groups within the nation. A joint housing program saw many Jewish and Christian settlements built within the previous rebelious zones, which helped relations in the long run, but for a long time was a cause of great controversy. This was coupled with a period of hyperinflation in the economy, thought to be due to a logistical strain on attempts to expand the military. In November 1977, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat began re-opening negotiations with Levant, and ended all hostilities in the 1978 Camp David Accord in March.

Civil Conflicts
Starting in 1981, three years after the Camp David accord, various individual conflicts started by jihadist groups such as Fatah, SSNP and the Lebanon Nationalist Front (LNF) have sporadically caused episodes of violent terrorist activity, often requiring the intervention of the Levant military and foreign governments such as Syria, America, and the United Nations. The main point of contention is an ambigious stretch of territory in the north-central part of Levant, which Muslim extremists and Arab nationalists refer to as "The State of Lebanon", or alternatively "the Arab State of Lebanon" or "the Islamic State of Lebanon".

In essense, by the early 1980s Levant had become a full melting pot of ethnic groups, and the most diverse nation of the Middle East. By 1981 they had large minoritieis of both Marionite and Orthodox Christian, Shia and Sunni Muslim, Hasidic and Orthodox Jews, as well as Druze, Armenians, and Kurds.