The protagonists: Islam Shiita and other creeds

 2nd part

The countries of the Middle East are countries without rains, with many deserts, arid soils, scorching suns and miraculous rivers, clear nights, crescent moonlight both in the sky and on the flags, territories with oil and gas, Countries of many religious beliefs sometimes fundamentalist and sectarian, often contradictory, conflict and war societies. Peoples who do not seem to know the concept of peace or remember it in their memories.

The protagonists are political and religious. It is generally difficult to tell them apart. Many political protagonists identify with a religion and many religious leaders act politically

From this point of view there are four great currents that are both religious and political. Sunni Islamism in its various versions, radical and moderate, Shiite Islamism, Christianity and Judaism.

 Here we try to decipher its historical, conceptual and strategic frameworks.

One of the most important currents of Islam is Shiism.

Shiism is a branch of Islam called twelfth referring to the transcendental belief in the 12 imams of the lineage of Muhammad beginning with Ali, husband of Fatima, who was the daughter of the Prophet, as well as the sons of Ali and Fatima, Hassan and Hussein and his descendants, of whom the last Imam al-Mahdi allegedly lives in hiding and will reappear at some point as the promised Mahdi impersonating the Dajjal (who is the impostor).

This current is the official religion of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which is a country with a great international and regional historical projection, with an area of ​​1,650,000 km2 and 83 million inhabitants.

Most of Iran's population is Muslim of which 89% are Shiites, Sunnis reach 11%. Among the minority religions, the Bahá'í faith, Zoroastrianism, Judaism and Christianity stand out.

Iran is a theocratic state in which there is no separation between the state and religion. The Islamic Republic's political system is based on the 1979 constitution that encompasses several intricately connected governing bodies. The Supreme Leader of Iran is responsible for the delineation and oversight of general policies, is commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and controls the Republic's intelligence and security operations.3 In the absence of the Leader, a council of religious leaders. He himself has the authority to declare war, as well as the ability to appoint and fire judicial leaders, state radio and television networks, and the top leader of the Guards Corps of the Islamic Republic.

A branch of Shismo are the Alawites who mostly inhabit Syria. The Alawites are considered a moderate syncretic branch of Imani Shiism, who also accept the twelve imams as legitimate successors to the prophet. The Alawite trinity includes three emanations of the only God, the Essence, the Name and the Door. In Syria, they are mostly concentrated within the Socialist Arab Baath, occupying the most important and strategic levels of the government, including the presidency. They are concentrated in the coastal province of Latakia. They are also allies of the Lebanese Shiite movement called Hezbollah.

The Hezbollah organization is a Lebanese Shiite organization with a political arm and a paramilitary one. It was founded in Lebanon in 1982 in response to Israeli intervention at the time with Iranian assistance. They supported Assad in the Syrian war. It is together with the Amal Movement (with approximately the same demographic strength), the main political and military expression of the Lebanese Shiite community, currently the largest religious group in the country. He was looking for an Islamic republic, now he changed his postulates and aspires to a democratic and secular society.]

Another predominantly Shiite movement is the Houthis or Houthis of Yemen. They call themselves Ansarolá (also spelled Ansar Allah) which means "supporters of God".

In September 2014, after a coup, the Houthis seized Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, temporarily confirming control of the country. This resulted in a civil war and a military intervention led by Saudi Araboa to prevent the collapse of President Hadi's pre-existing regime.

Saudi Arabia, since 2015, has exerted a blockade that prevents food imports, triggering one of the largest humanitarian crises in recent decades.

The other religious currents of the Middle East include Christians concentrated mainly in Lebanon where most are called Maronites. They constitute 22% of the population of that country, They are participants of an Eastern Catholic Church that follows the Antioquia (or Western Syria) liturgical tradition in which they use Western Syriac (or Aramaic) as their liturgical language and Lebanese Arabic as their auxiliary language.

And finally, other protagonists of geopolitics in the Middle East are the Jews, especially those affiliated with the Zionist currents or returning to Israel. The Jews used to exist as minorities in all the countries of the Middle East but that due to the Arab-Israeli clashes they emigrated from most of the territories of the region moving to the State of Israel that was established in Palestine since 1948. The Israeli government has International support from the various Jewish organizations worldwide, tolerance from the European powers and above all is subsidized by large sums and military equipment by the United States.

The state of Israel, which in practice has a Jewish denominational government, controls its own territory with an area of ​​22,140 km2 and occupies the Western Band of the Jordan with just over 5,600 km2, in turn maintains an almost total fence on the strip Gaza that has an area of ​​365 km2.

9 million people live in the territory of the State of Israel, of whom almost 7 million are Jewish-Israelis and 2 are Arab-Israelis. In the Western Band of the Jordan 3 million Arab inhabitants and some 400,000 Jews settled in colonies within this territory. In Gaza there are 2 million Palestinians, which means that in the traditional territory of Palestine that includes Israel, the Western Band and Gaza there are 7 million Jews and 7 million Arabs. The Arabs of Palestine are governed by the moderate Fatah movement that controls the Palestinian Authority Government and Hamas which is a radical movement based in Gaza. These two Palestinian streams, Fatal and Hamas, have vied for political control of the Palestinian population in the occupied and / or blocked territories. The political effectiveness of both organizations is very limited by the occupation that they suffer by Israel, as well as by the expansion of the Jewish colonies, in the case of the Western Band and by the isolation imposed by the Israeli blockade, in the case of the Gaza strip.