This market will resolve to "Yes" if any conflict involving three or more recognized nation states in the Middle East occurs before the end of the day on December 31, 2024, Eastern Time. For the purpose of this market, a "conflict" is defined as an active disagreement or clash, specifically involving military actions or explicit diplomatic disputes that are publicly acknowledged and reported by major global news outlets, such as BBC, Al Jazeera, CNN, or Reuters. A "nation state" refers to a sovereign state whose citizens or subjects are relatively homogeneous in factors such as language or common descent. The Middle East refers to the transcontinental region in Afro-Eurasia which generally includes Western Asia (except for Transcaucasia), all of Egypt (mostly in North Africa), Iran (in South Asia), and Turkey (partly in Southeast Europe).
The conflict must be independently confirmed and reported by at least two of the aforementioned news outlets for the market to resolve to "Yes". If two or fewer nation states are involved in a conflict, or if no such conflict occurs before the expiry date, the market will resolve to "No".
Related questions
@NathanpmYoung I assume most people understood "nation state" as "any sovereign state" and did not pay attention to the ethnolinguistic definition. So it may be okay (at least for me) to just remove "nation" from the question and update the text accordingly.
@DanPowell Not Iran (only 61% of Persians), Lebanon, Iraq (Kurds vs. Arabs and Sunni vs. Shia), Kuwait (60% foreign-born), the UAE (90% non-locals), Saudi Arabia (40% foreign-born), Bahrain (53% of non-nationals), Qatar (90% of non-natives), Oman (45% of non-citizens), and Cyprus (Turks vs Greeks). Does Israel even qualify with "only" 73.5% of Jews (not even homogeneous in their mother tongue and coming from all around the world [except for Sabra])? What about Yemen (divided between Shia and Sunni)? Turkey (important Kurdish minority)? The "relatively homogeneous" definition is very vague. Excluding the aforementioned countries, it means "Will there be a conflict between Egypt, Jordan, and Syria before 2025?"
For the current Israel Hamas war would you count that as one nation state or two? Is there any scenario where Palestine gets counted as a nation state?
And what constitutes a conflict? The Israel Iran conflict already has three nation states that are in conflict - Israel, Iran and Syria. So shouldn't this market trivially resolve as YES? The diplomatic disputes related to the Israel Palestine conflict are also universally acknowledged.
@Akzzz123 I don't think Iran, with only 60% of Persians, is a nation state, per the question's weird definition ("A "nation state" refers to a sovereign state whose citizens or subjects are relatively homogeneous in factors such as language or common descent.").