Maize had been a minor crop in…

The treaties with the British also involve Dubai and Bahrain.

Although Dubai and Bahrain are not pirate centers, they represent entrepôts where pirates can sell captured goods and buy supplies.

The inclusion of these ports brings two other extended families, the Bani Yas of Dubai and the Al Khalifa of Bahrain, into the trucial system.

The territory of the group of tribally-organized Arabian Peninsula sheikhdoms along the southern coast of the Persian Gulf and the northwestern coast of the Gulf of Oman has become known as the Pirate Coast, as raiders based there harass foreign shipping, although both European and Arab navies have patrolled the area from the seventeenth century into the nineteenth century.

Early British expeditions to protect the India trade from raiders at Ras al-Khaimah had led to campaigns against that headquarters and other harbors along the coast in 1819.

The next year, a general peace treaty had been signed to which all the principal shaikhs of the coast adhered.

An attempt by the Al Qasimi tribe to take over Dubai had been thwarted.

In 1833, the Al Maktoum dynasty of the Bani Yas tribe had left the settlement of Abu Dhabi and taken over the town of Dubai, "without resistance".

From this point forward, Dubai, an independent emirate from 1799, will be constantly at odds with the emirate of Abu Dhabi.

...the Bani Yas clan of Al Maktum is the ruling family in Dubai; and ...

The seat of the British political agent is moved from ash-Shariqah town to Dubai town in 1954.

Petroleum is discovered offshore at Dubai in 1966.

Domestic financial concerns impel Britain's decision in the late 1960s to eliminate its military commitments east of Suez by 1971.

As a consequence, the gulf shaykhs hold a number of meetings to discuss independence.

Leaders initially consider a state that will include all nine shaykhdoms; Qatar even draws up a constitution to this effect.

Dubai begins to profit from offshore oil deposits in the late 1960s.

Following the Yom Kippur War, PFLP leader Habash becomes the leading voice of the "Rejection Front," four Palestinian groups that oppose any diplomatic settlement to the conflict with Israel.

He attacks what he calls the "defeatist" attitude of the Palestine Liberation Organization's leadership, whose attempts at reconciliation with King Hussein he sharply criticizes.

On November 23, 1974, a British DC-10 airliner is hijacked at Dubai, UAE, by Palestinian rejectionist front operatives .

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Conflicts regarding centralization within the government in 1978 prompt Dubai and Ra's al-Khaymah to refuse to submit their forces to federal command, and Dubai begins purchasing weapons independently.

A proposal to form a federal budget, merge revenues, and eliminate internal boundaries is rejected by Dubai and Ra's al-Khaymah, in spite of strong domestic support.

Dubai ends its opposition to centralization when its ruler, Sheikh Rashid ibn Sa'id al-Maktum, is offered the premiership of the federal government; he takes office in July 1979.