THE PAN-ARAB MOVEMENT
ALEXANDER, MARK
The Pan-Arab Movement Young Intellectuals Plan Union of the fertile Crescent' By Mark Alexander New Leader Correspondent in the Near East TEL AVIV. SOTCE THE CAPTURE of Akaba by the Israel...
...On the whole he mighJhbe characterized as the most liberal and progressive of the Arab politicians, although sharply anti-Zionist...
...this might not be a formidable invective in the eyes of most Americans, but in the Middle East it is...
...According to Moussa Alami territorial unity alone, however, will not effect substantial changes unless accompanied by far reaching social and political reforms, which in the end would lead towards the transformation of feudal Arab society to a modern democratic, moderately socialist state...
...Moussa Alami, a lawyer by profession, had been deputy Attorney General of the British Palestinian government until 1937, when he entered Arab politics...
...The former aim of Arab unity was temporarily shelved...
...The great advocate of Arab unity between the two world wars was Abdullah of Transjordan...
...It was opposed, however, by the Egyptians, Palestine Arabs, led by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Syrian politicians and Lebanese Christians...
...In Moussa Alami's blueprint there is no provision for the domination of the Arab union by the Hashemite Kings of Amman and Baghdad...
...however, behind the scenes...
...In his book he traces the reasons for the Arab failure in Palestine and reaches the conclusion, that only through greater territorial and organizational unity can the Arabs prevent similar defeats in the future...
...The borderlines between the successorstates were fixed sometimes quite haphazardly, mostly according to the wishes of the big powers...
...The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and his clique were thoroughly discredited and Palestinian Arabs compelled to seek military assistance from King Abdullah...
...Colonel Husne Saim who engineered the coup declared on April 8 that "he would welcome such an enterprise (the Union of the Fertile Crescent) and whatever other steps would unite the Arab countries...
...It is not generally realized nowadays that the ;'cantonization" of the Middle East is of very recent date...
...his desire was however quite rightly considered to be motivated by persontl ambitions...
...SOTCE THE CAPTURE of Akaba by the Israel army there has been little military action, nor will there be any in all probability...
...Moreover, Abdalla was regarded throughout the Mittdle East as a British puppet...
...Egypt has retreated for the time being from the Middle Eastern scene and reorientated itself towards North Africa...
...When Turkey was dismembered in ,the peace treaties of Sevres and Lausanne after world war I, frontiers were hardly drawn according to the wishes of the native population...
...An important change took place in Egyptian foreign policy...
...Moussa Alami spent the last three years abroad, heading Arab Information Bureaus in London and New York and defending the Arab cause in general...
...Great Britain and France had in 1916 come to an agreement about the division of the Ottoman territory between them, the famous Sykes-Picot report...
...He became a member of the Mufti-dominated "Arab Higher Executive," but left it, when this body came out for war against the Jews...
...This class has - bean greatly strengthened in recent years by the activity of oil Interests in the Middle East...
...As a first step towards the realization of the All-Arab unity, he* proposes the establishment of the Union of the Fertile Crescent...
...Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon and the AraB parts of Palestine...
...The Arab national movement was still extremely weak at that time, confined to a few thousand intellectuals who, to be sure, apposed violently this wanton frustration of Arab national aspirations...
...Verymuch political activity is going on...
...In the years that followed, however, the Arab nationalist struggle became regional...
...fight against England in Egypt and Iraq, a revolt against the French in Syria and the Lebanon, riots against the Jews in Palestine...
...He believes, moreover, that the necessary internal reforms will have to be carried out against the wish of the ruling feudal class...
...At the same time a book appeared in Arab Jerusalem, The Lesson of Palestine by Moussa Effendi, which, in the course of a few weeks became the political bible of the Arab intelligentsia...
...while there are now nine Middle Eastern states (excluding the Sultans of Asir and Maskat and other dit minores gentium), in 1914 there were only two, Turkey and Egypt...
...The old gang of politicians in Syria has been replaced by a new gang which happens to be in favor of Arab unity...
...Abdullah's blueprint for a "Greater Syria" had been approved by his relatives, the Kings of Iraq and their stalwart Nuri Said, the strong man of Iraqi politics...
...The coming weeks and months will bring the establishment of the "Union of the fertile crescent" (consisting of Iraq...
...WITH THE DEFEAT of the Arab armies in Palestine last year, new impetus was given to the movement for Greater Arab Union...
...The area of this new state will be 230,000 square miles, its population about 10 millions...
...MUCH DIPLOMATIC ACTIVITY has been going on in the Arab capitals during the last few weeks, as a result of which the establishment of the unified Arab state seems not to be far off...
Vol. 32 • May 1949 • No. 22
