06 December 2014

A guide to who hates whom


Rico says it'd been easier to just say 'everybody hates everybody, and Israel twice', but Fast Company has a nice infographic about the ugly reality:
The relationships between all the players in the Middle East can seem impossible to unknot: a mass of countries, states, and political groups that are hopelessly intertwined. Thanks to David McCandless of Information Is Beautiful, we have a tool for trying to make sense of it all.
Using data from The New York Times, the Guardian, the CIA World Factbook, and other sources, McCandless has created a useful visualization of the relationships between parties with vested interests in the Middle East. That includes countries, extremist groups, and unrecognized political states. You can click on the name of a country or group and untangle how it is connected with another Middle Eastern player, as well as view a brief synopsis of the relationship between the two.
Even a cursory look will reveal some surprising facts. For example, America is often viewed as a loathed interloper in Middle Eastern affairs, but, at least officially, the US enjoys predominantly friendly relationships with most of the national players in the Middle East (with exceptions like Syria, China, and Iraq). Less surprisingly, extremist groups like the Islamic Jihad, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Hamas all have an axe to grind with us.
But America is not the most hated player in the Middle East, nor is Israel. Actually, it's the Islamic State, more often known as ISIS. The group is hated by everyone from the US to other violent jihadist organizations like al-Qaeda. There's practically no group in the Middle East that ISIS can call a friend. While the enemy of your enemy is often your friend, most groups still consider the guy who lops off the heads of your enemy's journalists to be a total psycho, even in the Middle East.
Check out the full interactive here.

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