Текст книги "The Arabs: A History"

Автор книги: Eugene Rogan

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Текущая страница: 23 (всего у книги 47 страниц)

The day after the British withdrew from Palestine, the armies of the surrounding Arab states invaded. On May 15, 1948, the civil war between Palestinian Arabs and Jews was over, and the first Arab-Israeli war had begun. The governments of Egypt, Transjordan, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon each committed their armies, ostensibly to defend Arab Palestine and defeat Israel. In fact, the Arab League only decided to commit the regular armies of the Arab states two days before the British withdrawal from Palestine, on May 12, 1948. Had their intervention enjoyed a modicum of coordination and advance planning, a glimmer of trust and common purpose, the Arab forces might have prevailed. Instead, the Arabs entered Palestine more at war with each other than with the Jewish state. The Arab states were in complete disarray on the eve of the first Arab-Israeli War. The conflict in Palestine had gone worse than anyone had predicted. For all his bluster, Fawzi al-Qawuqji had proved a disaster on the battlefield, his ill-trained and undisciplined troops forced to retreat from every action against the Haganah. The Arab Liberation Army was by all accounts more of a burden than a relief to the beleaguered Palestinians, and the strategy of relying on Arab volunteers had proven an utter failure. As the date of British withdrawal neared, the neighboring Arab states came to recognize that they would have to commit their regular armies to prevent Jewish forces from conquering all of Palestine. The Arab states all faced a serious dilemma. They saw the conflict in Palestine as an Arab cause and felt a moral obligation to intervene to protect fellow Arabs in Palestine. This was only reinforced by the fact that the Arab states met under the aegis of the Arab League to coordinate common action. However, the individual Arab states each had their own national interests—they entered the war as Egyptians, Jordanians, and Syrians rather than as Arabs. And they brought their inter-Arab rivalries to the battle field. The Arab League convened a cycle of meetings in autumn 1947 and winter 1948 to address the Palestine crisis. The conflict of interests between the new Arab states became increasingly apparent. Each Arab country had its own concerns, and none of the Arab states placed great trust in the others. King Abdullah of Transjordan provoked the most suspicion among his Arab brethren. His support for partition revealed his ambition to annex the Arab territories of Palestine to aggrandize his own state. This earned him the hatred of Palestinian leader Hajj Amin al-Husayni, the rivalry of Egyptian King Farouq, and the suspicion of the Syrians. In Syria, President Shukri al-Quwwatli struggled to contain the threat of the “monarchist movement” among some of his officers, who supported King Abdullah of Transjordan and his call for a Greater Syria, uniting Syria and Transjordan under Hashemite rule. Much of what Syria did in the resulting war was calculated to contain Transjordan. The Arab states ultimately went to war to prevent each other from altering the balance of power in the Arab world, rather than to save Arab Palestine. The cynicism of Arab leaders was lost on Arab citizens, who applauded their governments’ intervention to protect Arab Palestine from the Zionist threat. The Arab public, and the soldiers fighting in the Arab armies, were moved by the rhetoric and believed in the justice of their cause. Public disenchantment with their politicians in the aftermath of defeat would lead to great upheaval in the Arab world following the “loss” of Palestine.

In May 1948 the armies of the Arab states were not ready for war, in large part because most of those states had only just secured independence from their colonial rulers. France had retained control over the armed forces of Syria and Lebanon until 1946 and had left little behind in the way of arms and ammunition when its forces grudgingly withdrew. Britain had a monopoly on the supply of weapons to the armed forces of Egypt, Transjordan, and Iraq. The British guarded the flow of supplies to their semi-independent allies to ensure their national armies never posed a threat to British forces in the region. The Arab armies were also quite small at the time. The whole of the Lebanese army probably did not exceed 3,500 soldiers, and their weapons were hopelessly out of date. The Syrian army did not exceed 6,000 men and was more of a threat than an asset to President al-Quwwatli?hardly a month had passed in 1947 without rumors of a plotted military coup. In the end, the Syrians committed fewer than half their total military strength?perhaps 2,500 men?to the struggle in Palestine. The Iraqi army contributed 3,000 men. The Transjordanian Arab Legion was the best trained and most disciplined army in the region, but it could only commit 4,500 of its total strength of 6,000 men at the outset of the war. The Egyptians had the largest force and sent 10,000 troops into Palestine. Yet in spite of these constraints, Arab war planners were predicting a swift victory over Jewish forces within eleven days. If sincere, such an estimate confirms how little the Arab side appreciated the seriousness of the conflict that lay ahead. Of all the Arab states, only Transjordan had a clear policy and interests in the Palestine conflict. King Abdullah had never been satisfied with the territory the British assigned him in 1921. He had aspired to restore his family’s rule over Damascus (hence the call for a “Greater Syria”) and since 1937 had supported the idea of a partition of Palestine in which the Arab territory would be annexed to his desert kingdom (hence the animosity between the mufti and King Abdullah). King Abdullah had enjoyed extensive contacts with the Jewish Agency dating back to the 1920s. These contacts developed into secret negotiations during the UN debate on the partition of Palestine. In November 1947 King Abdullah met with Golda Meyerson (who later changed her name to Meir and rose to be Israel’s prime minister) and hammered out a basic nonaggression pact two weeks before the passage of the UN Partition Resolution. Abdullah would not oppose the creation of a Jewish state in the territory authorized by the United Nations; in return, Transjordan would annex the Arab parts of Palestine that it bordered—in essence the West Bank.²⁵ Transjordan needed Britain’s approval to proceed with its plans to absorb the Arab parts of Palestine. In February 1948, Abdullah sent his premier, Tawfiq Abu al-Huda, to London, accompanied by his British commander, General John Bagot Glubb (better known as Glubb Pasha), to secure British consent for this plan. On February 7, Prime Minister Abu al-Huda set out Transjordan’s plans to the British foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin: upon the termination of the Palestine mandate, the government of Transjordan would send the Arab Legion across the Jordan to occupy those Arab lands of Palestine that were contiguous to the frontiers of Transjordan. “It seems the obvious thing to do,” Bevin responded, “but do not go and invade the areas allotted to the Jews.” “We would not have the forces to do so, even if we so desired,” Abu al-Huda replied. Bevin thanked the prime minister of Transjordan and expressed his full agreement with his plans for Palestine—essentially giving King Abdullah the green light to invade and annex the West Bank.²⁶ Thus, alone among the Arab nations, Transjordan knew precisely why it was entering the Palestine theater of conflict, and what it sought to gain. The problem was that the other Arab states were all too aware of King Abdullah’s ambitions, and they dedicated more effort to contain Transjordan than to save Palestine. Syria, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia constituted an undeclared bloc on Jordanian ambitions, and their actions actively hindered the sound conduct of war. Though the Arab League named King Abdullah commander in chief of the Arab forces, the commanders of the individual Arab armies refused to meet with him, let alone to accept any of his orders. Abdullah himself questioned the Arab League’s intentions, asking an Egyptian military delegation on the eve of war: “The Arab League appointed me as the commander-in-chief of the Arab armies. Should not this honour be conferred on Egypt the largest of the Arab states? Or is the real purpose behind this appointment to pin the blame and responsibility on us in case of failure?”²⁷ If the Arab states were hostile to Abdullah’s intentions, they were none the more sympathetic to the Palestinians, given their animosity toward the Palestinian leader, Hajj Amin al-Husayni. The Iraqis begrudged Hajj Amin for the support he gave to Rashid Ali al-Kaylani’s coup against the Hashemite monarchy in 1941. King Abdullah of Transjordan had long since fallen out with Hajj Amin over their rival ambitions to rule Arab Palestine. Egypt and Syria gave Hajj Amin only lukewarm support, particularly after the collapse of Palestinian defenses in April and May 1948. The Arab coalition thus entered the Palestine War with largely negative goals: to prevent the establishment of an alien Jewish state in their midst, to prevent Transjordan from expanding into Palestine, and to keep the mufti from forming a viable Palestinian state. With such war aims, it is no surprise that the Arab forces found themselves overwhelmed by Jewish forces driven by a desperate determination to establish their state.

Jewish superiority in the battlefield was more a matter of manpower and firepower than willpower. The image of a Jewish David surrounded by a hostile Arab Goliath is not reflected in the relative size of Arab and Jewish forces. When five Arab states—Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, and Egypt—all went to war on May 15, total Arab forces did not exceed 25,000 men, whereas the Israel Defense Force (as the army of the new state was designated) numbered 35,000. In the course of the war, both the Arabs and the Israelis reinforced their troops, though the Arabs never came near to matching Israeli forces, which reached 65,000 in mid-July, and peaked at over 96,000 by December 1948.²⁸ The Israelis needed their numerical advantage. In the first phase of the war, which ran from May 15 until the initial truce of June 11, they were forced to fight a mul-tifront battle for survival. The army of Transjordan, known as the Arab Legion, crossed into the West Bank at dawn on May 15. Though at first reluctant to enter Jerusalem, which by the terms of the UN Partition Resolution was declared an international zone, the Arab Legion took up positions in the Arab quarters of Jerusalem on May 19 to prevent Israeli forces from overrunning the city. Meanwhile, the army of Iraq secured the northern half of the West Bank on May 22 and secured its positions in Nablus and Jenin without going on the offensive against Israeli forces. Egyptian units swept up from the Sinai into the Gaza Strip and Negev Desert, heading north to meet up with the Arab Legion. Syrian and Lebanese forces invaded Northern Palestine. During this first phase of the conflict, all sides took heavy losses, though the Israeli position was perhaps the most vulnerable of all for having to take on so many armies simultaneously. With the outbreak of fighting between Israel and the Arab states, the United Nations convened to restore the peace. The UN called for a cease-fire on May 29, which came into effect on June 11. Count Folke Bernadotte, a Swedish diplomat, was appointed as official mediator in the conflict and entrusted with the mission of restoring peace in Palestine. The first truce was set for twenty-eight days, and a total embargo on arms was imposed on the region. The Arab states tried to secure arms for their depleted forces but found the British, French, and Americans scrupulously abiding by the terms of the embargo. The Israelis, in contrast, secured essential arm shipments via Czechoslovakia and increased their troop numbers to over 60,000 soldiers. When the cease-fire came to an end on July 9, Israel was better prepared than its adversaries for the resumption of hostilities. In the second phase of the war, the Israelis used their superiority of troop numbers and munitions to turn the tide against the Arab armies on every front. They mauled Syrian forces in the Galilee and drove the Lebanese back across their own border. They seized the towns of Lydda and Ramla from the Arab Legion and focused their energies on Egyptian positions in the south. The United Nations, alarmed by the humanitarian crisis in Palestine as tens of thousands of refugees fled the fighting, resumed intensive diplomacy to secure a fresh cease-fire. The UN diplomats found the Arab states—several of which had nearly run out of ammunition—all too willing to support a truce. The second cease-fire came into effect on July 19 and lasted until October 14. Whatever common aspirations the Arab states might have held before May 15 had been shattered by two disastrous months of war. The divisions between the Arab states, already deep before the start of the war, were seriously exacerbated by the losses their armies had suffered in the first two rounds of the war. Instead of a quick victory as the Arab League planners had optimistically foreseen, the Arab states saw their armies pinned down in a conflict that looked increasingly unwinnable. Nor did any of the Arab states see a clear exit strategy. Arab public opinion looked on in shocked disbelief as they saw their national armies subdued by a foe they had dismissed as mere ?Jewish gangs.? Rather than accept the blame for their own lack of preparation and coordination, the Arab states began to pin the blame on each other. The Egyptians and Syrians turned on Transjordan. Hadn’t King Abdullah met in secret with the Jews? Wasn’t his British commander Glubb Pasha fulfilling Britain’s promise to create a Jewish state in Palestine? The fact that the Arab Legion held the West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem against determined Israeli attacks was seen as proof of Jordanian treachery and collusion with the Zionists rather than valor. These squabbles had terrible consequences for the Arab war effort. The more the Arab states alienated each other, and acted in isolation, the easier it was for Israeli forces to pick off their armies one by one.

Count Bernadotte led UN efforts to find a resolution to the Arab-Israeli crises during the three months of cease-fire. On September 16 he proposed a revised partition plan for Palestine in which the Arab territories would be annexed to Transjordan, including the towns of Ramla and Lydda, which had fallen to the Israelis, and the Negev Desert, which had been allocated to the Jewish state by the original UN Partition Resolution. The state of Israel would comprise the Galilee and coastal plain, and Jerusalem would remain in international hands. Although both the Arabs and Israelis were quick to reject Bernadotte’s plan, his diplomatic efforts were brutally cut short when terrorists from the Lehi assassinated the Swedish diplomat on September 17. With no prospect of a diplomatic solution, war resumed upon the expiration of the cease-fire on October 14. In the third round of fighting, between October 15 and November 5, 1948, the Israelis completed the conquest of the Galilee region, driving all Syrian, Lebanese, and Arab Liberation Army forces back into Syrian and Lebanese territory. Thereafter, the Israelis concentrated all of their efforts on defeating the Egyptian forces. The Israeli army surrounded the isolated Egyptian units, and their air force pummeled Egyptian positions for three weeks. Egyptian losses in Palestine would have serious political implications in Egypt. A large detachment of Egyptian forces was under siege in southern Palestine, in the village of Faluja, some 20 miles northeast of Gaza. Pinned down for weeks with little relief, the Egyptian soldiers felt betrayed. They had been sent to war with inadequate training, arms, and ammunition. The more politically minded officers had plenty of opportunity to meditate on the political bankruptcy of Egypt’s monarchy and government. Among the officers trapped in Faluja were Gamal Abdel Nasser, Zakaria Mohi El Din, and Salah Salem—three of the Free Officers who later would plot the overthrow of the Egyptian monarchy. “We were fighting in Palestine but our dreams were in Egypt,? Nasser wrote.²⁹ As a result of their experiences in the Arab-Israeli War, the Free Officers would eventually turn defeat in Palestine into victory in Egypt, vanquishing the very government that had betrayed them. The Arab states continued to meet in a vain attempt at collective action to stave off disaster. On October 23 the Arab leaders convened in the Jordanian capital, Amman, to discuss a plan to relieve Egyptian forces, but mutual mistrust between Syria, Transjordan, and Iraq prevented any meaningful collaboration. The Egyptians, for their part, were loath to admit to their Arab brothers that they were beaten and refused to coordinate military action even when it would have brought their own besieged forces relief. Arab division played to Israel’s advantage. In December the Israelis not only succeeded in forcing a total Egyptian withdrawal from Palestine—aside from those Egyptian troops still encircled in Faluja—but actually invaded Egyptian territory in the Sinai. King Farouq’s government had no choice but to invoke the 1936 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty—much despised by nationalists for the way it perpetuated Britain’s influence in Egypt—to request British intervention to force an Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai. On January 7, 1949, a truce was struck between Egypt and Israel. The last Israeli offensive was in the Negev Desert, seizing territory down to Um Rashrash on the Gulf of Aqaba, where the port of Eilat would later be built. With the conquest of the Negev, the new state of Israel took final shape within 78 percent of the territory of Mandate Palestine. Transjordan had retained the West Bank, and Egypt held the Gaza Strip, as the last territories of Palestine to remain in Arab hands. With the defeat of the Egyptian, Syrian, and Lebanese armies, and the containment of the Arab Legion and the Iraqi army, the Israelis won a comprehensive victory in 1948 and could impose their terms on the Arab states. The UN introduced a new cease-fire and opened armistice negotiations between Israel and its Arab neighbors on the Mediterranean island of Rhodes. Bilateral armistice agreements were concluded between Israel and Egypt (February), Lebanon (March), Transjordan (April), and Syria (July). The first Arab-Israeli War was over. For the Palestinians, 1948 would be remembered as al-Nakba—the Disaster. Between the civil war and the Arab-Israeli War, some 750,000 Palestinians were reduced to refugees. They flooded into Lebanon, Syria, Transjordan, and Egypt, as well as to the surviving Arab territories of Palestine. Only the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, remained in Arab hands. The Gaza Strip came under Egyptian trusteeship as a nominally self-governing territory. The West Bank was annexed to Transjordan, which, now spanning both banks of the River Jordan, shortened its name to Jordan. At the end of the first Arab-Israeli war, there was no place left on the map called Palestine, only a dispersed Palestinian people living under foreign occupation or in the diaspora, who would spend the rest of their history fighting for recognition of their national rights.

The entire Arab world was stunned by the magnitude of the Palestine disaster. Yet in this moment of crisis, Arab intellectuals proved remarkably clear-sighted about both the causes and the consequences of the loss of Palestine. Two critical works appeared in the immediate aftermath of the first Arab-Israeli War that set the tone for Arab self-criticism and reform. The first was written by Constantine Zurayk, one of the great Arab intellectuals of the twentieth century. Born in Damascus in 1909, Zurayk had completed his B.A. at the American University of Beirut, his M.A. at the University of Chicago, and his doctorate at Princeton—all by the age of twenty-one. He spent his life between academic and public service in Lebanon and Syria, and wrote a string of hugely influential works on Arab nationalism. It was Zurayk who gave the 1948 war its Arabic name, al-Nakba, with his influential tract Ma’nat al-Nakba (or, “The Meaning of the Disaster”), published in Beirut at the height of the war in August 1948.³⁰ The second landmark book was written by a Palestinian notable named Musa Alami. The son of a former mayor of Jerusalem, Alami studied law at Cambridge before entering service with the mandate government in Palestine. He rose to the rank of Arab secretary to the high commissioner and crown counsel before resigning in 1937 at the height of the Arab Revolt, to enter private practice and support the nationalist movement. Alami represented Palestinian aspirations in the London conferences of 1939 and 1946–1947 and served as Palestinian representative to the formative meetings of the Arab League. His March 1949 essay ’Ibrat Filastin (“The Lesson of Palestine”), reflected on the Arabs’ total defeat and the route to national regeneration.³¹ Both authors recognized that the loss of Palestine and the creation of Israel opened a dangerous new chapter in Arab history. “The defeat of the Arabs in Palestine,” Zurayk warned, “is no simple setback or light, passing evil. It is a disaster in every sense of the word and one of the harshest of the trials and tribulations with which the Arabs have been afflicted throughout their long history—a history marked by numerous trials and tribulations.”³² Arab failure to confront this new danger would condemn them to a future of division and rule, not so unlike the colonial era from which they were only just gaining their independence. Given the similarities in their diagnoses of Arab ills, it is not surprising that Alami and Zurayk recommended similar cures. The spectacle of Arab divisions impressed on both men the need for Arab unity. The post–World War I settlement, and the partition of the Arab world between Britain and France, had fragmented and weakened the Arab nation. The Arabs, they argued, would only realize their potential as a people by overcoming the divisions of the imperial order through Arab unity. They recognized the contradictions between narrow nation-state nationalism (e.g., the distinct nationalism of Egyptians or Syrians) and the broader Arab nation to which they aspired. Zurayk believed formal union was impossible in the short term, given deeply entrenched national interests among the newly emergent independent Arab states. So, in the first instance, Zurayk called for ?far-reaching, comprehensive changes? to the existing Arab states in advance of the long-term goal of unity.³³ Alami placed his hopes in an “Arab Prussia” that might, through force of arms, achieve the desired unity.³⁴ The role of Arab Prussia would appeal to a number of nationalists in the upper ranks of Arab armies, as the military men prepared to take their place on the political stage in the aftermath of the Palestine disaster. In their response to the Palestine disaster, Alami and Zurayk both called for nothing short of an Arab renaissance as prelude to Arab unity, and as a prerequisite for the redemption of Palestine and Arab self-respect in the modern world. Their books enjoyed wide circulation and were hugely influential, precisely because their analyses reflected the spirit of their times. Arab citizens had grown deeply disenchanted with their rulers. The old political elites, who had led the struggle for national independence, had grown tainted by association with their imperial masters. They had been educated in European universities and spoke their language, they dressed in Western clothes, they worked through the institutions imposed by colonialism—all in all, they reeked of collaboration. They bickered over small gains, and their worldview had been narrowed to the borders of the states the imperialists had imposed on them. Politicians in the Arab world had lost sight of the greater Arab nation that still inspired so many of their fellow citizens. The bankruptcy of their politics had been revealed to all through the disastrous Arab performance in Palestine. Hence the remedies proposed by Alami and Zurayk, of a greater Arab nation composed of empowered citizens facing the challenges of the modern age with the strength of unity, struck so many Arabs as the obvious solution to their present weakness. The lesson of Palestine was that divided, the Arabs were sure to fall, and only if united could they hope to withstand the challenges of the modern world. The times were changing. Arab rulers were gravely weakened by their failures in Palestine. A new generation was rising to the call of Arab nationalism and took their own governments as their first targets.

Arab defeat in Palestine and the emergence of the state of Israel completely destabilized the newly independent Arab states. The months immediately following al-Nakba were stained by political assassinations and coups in Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan. Following the Palestine disaster, Egypt was thrown into political chaos. For a new religious party, the loss of Muslim land to create a Jewish state was nothing short of a betrayal of Islam. The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood had been founded in March 1928 by Hasan al-Banna, a primary school teacher in the Suez Canal city of Ismailiyya. Al-Banna was a charismatic reformer who fought against the Western influences that he believed were undermining Islamic values in Egypt. Between European-inspired reforms and British imperialism, al-Banna argued, the people of Egypt had “departed from the goals of their faith.”³⁵ What began as a movement for the renewal of faith within Egyptian society evolved into a powerful political force that had, by the late 1940s, come to rival in power the established parties, even the Wafd. The Brotherhood had declared the Palestine War a jihad and dispatched battalions of volunteers into Palestine to fight against the creation of a Jewish state. Like the other Arab volunteers in the Liberation Army, they had underestimated Jewish strength and organization. Unprepared for battle, they were equally unprepared for defeat. They saw the Arab failure in Palestine as a betrayal of religion and pinned the blame on Arab governments generally and on the Egyptian government in particular. They returned to Egypt to organize demonstrations and accused the government of responsibility for the defeat. The Egyptian government took quick action to suppress the Muslim Brotherhood. In the closing months of 1948, the organization was accused of fomenting riots and plotting the overthrow of the Egyptian government. Prime Minister Mahmud Fahmi al-Nuqrashi, who had declared martial law, approved a decree dissolving the Muslim Brotherhood on December 8, 1948. The assets of the society were frozen, its records seized, and many of its leaders arrested. The leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hasan al-Banna, was left at liberty, and he tried to reconcile extremists inside his own movement with the government. His efforts were undermined by intransigence on both sides. Prime Minister al-Nuqrashi refused to meet with al-Banna or to make any concessions to the Brotherhood. Extremists within the society resorted to violence. On December 28, the Egyptian premier was gunned down while entering the Ministry of Interior, shot at close range by a veterinary student who had been a member of the Brotherhood since 1944. Al-Nuqrashi was the first Arab leader to fall in the tense aftermath of the Palestine disaster. The government never arrested Hasan al-Banna for al-Nuqrashi’s assassination. The leader of the Muslim Brotherhood took little comfort in his freedom, knowing that so long as he was at liberty he would be at risk of a retaliatory assassination. Al-Banna tried to negotiate with al-Nuqrashi’s successor but found all government doors closed to him. He protested the Brotherhood’s innocence of all attempts to overthrow the political system, but to no avail. On February 12, 1949, Hasan al-Banna was shot and killed outside the headquarters of the Young Men’s Muslim Association. It was widely assumed that the assassination had been ordered by the government with the support of the palace. The two political murders in the space of six weeks raised political tensions in Egypt to unprecedented levels.

In Syria, the Palestine disaster provoked a military coup d’йtat. President Shukri al-Quwwatli had long feared that his army would overthrow him, and on March 30, 1949, his fears were vindicated. Colonel Husni al-Za‘im, army chief of staff, led a bloodless coup described by veteran Syrian political Adil Arslan as “the most significant and strangest event in recent Syrian history.” In his diary, Arslan elaborated: “The general public celebrated, and the majority of the students took the opportunity to hold demonstrations in the streets. However, the political elites were struck silent with anxiety over the fate of their country.”³⁶ Syria’s political elite were anxious to preserve the young Syrian republic’s democratic institutions. They feared military dictatorship, and with good reason. Though al-Za’im’s government lasted less than 150 days, his coup marked the entry of the military into Syrian politics. Except for a couple of brief hiatuses, military men would remained in control of Syria for the rest of the century. One of the strangest aspects of al-Za‘im’s rule, according to his foreign minister, Adil Arslan, was his willingness to come to terms with Israel so soon after Syria’s defeat. The armistice between Syria and Israel was concluded by Husni al-Za’im’s government on July 20, 1949. Behind the scenes, al-Za‘im was willing to go far beyond an armistice, to pursue a comprehensive peace treaty with Israel. With the full support of the U.S. government, al-Za’im relayed a series of proposals to Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion through the Syrian team at the armistice negotiations. Al-Za’im offered full normalization of relations between Syria and the Jewish state—an exchange of ambassadors, open borders, and full economic relations with Israel. Al-Za‘im’s proposal to settle up to 300,000 Palestinian refugees in Syria attracted the attention of both American and UN officials. It was already clear that the refugee problem would prove the greatest humanitarian issue and a major sticking point in resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict. Al-Za’im sought U.S. development assistance for the Jazira District, north of the Euphrates River, where he proposed to settle the Palestinians. He believed that the injection of Palestinian labor and American funds would help modernize his country and develop its economy.³⁷ The Israeli prime minister had no interest in al-Za‘im’s offer. Despite the best efforts of the Truman administration, UN mediator Dr. Ralph Bunche, and the Israeli foreign minister, Moshe Sharett, Ben-Gurion refused to meet with al-Za’im or even to discuss his proposals. Ben-Gurion insisted the Syrians sign an armistice first. He knew that al-Za?im wanted to adjust Syria?s boundaries to divide the Lake of Tiberias between Syria and Israel, which Ben-Gurion rejected out of hand. The Israeli prime minister was in no hurry to conclude peace deals with his Arab neighbors, and he certainly did not want to set a precedent of making territorial concessions to secure peace. If anything, Ben-Gurion worried that the boundaries of Israel, as reflected in the armistice agreements with its Arab neighbors, fell well short of the needs of the Jewish state. When Ben-Gurion refused to meet with al-Za‘im, the U.S. administration suggested a meeting between the foreign ministers of Syria and Israel. The U.S. ambassador to Damascus, James Keeley, approached al-Za’im’s foreign minister, Adil Arslan, to propose the meeting. Arslan was the scion of a princely Druze family who had entered government under al-Za‘im with some misgivings. In his diary he described the colonel as both a friend and a madman, though Keeley’s proposal, recorded by Arslan in his diary on June 6, 1949, convinced him that al-Za’im had lost his bearings. “Why do you want me to agree to hold a meeting with [Israeli foreign minister Moshe] Shertok,” Arslan asked the U.S. ambassador, “when you know that I have never been fooled by the bluffs of the Jews, and I am the last among the Arabs to make concessions to them?” “Your question forces me to give you a candid reply,” Keeley responded, “though I am not at liberty to discuss the matter, which remains secret. However, as I know you are an honourable man, I would ask for your word to keep the matter secret.” Arslan gave his word, and Keeley continued. “It was Za’im who suggested he meet with Ben-Gurion . . . who refused, so we [i.e., the U.S. administration] thought a meeting might be held between the foreign ministers of Syria and Israel. Shertok agreed, and put forward the suggestion which you have now rejected.” The astonished Arslan tried to hide his emotions as Keeley exposed al-Za’im’s secret diplomacy with the Israelis, and tried to dismiss the overture as a diplomatic ploy by the Syrian president. The American did not force the point and withdrew, leaving Arslan to contemplate his next move.³⁸ Arslan stayed in his office late that night. He conferred with a member of the Syrian delegation to the armistice talks, who was convinced al-Za’im intended to meet with Shertok himself. Arslan considered stepping down but decided to stay in office to keep the Israelis from achieving their objective of getting Syria to break ranks with the other Arab states by concluding a separate peace deal. He began to contact other Arab governments to warn them of “a great danger,” though he was careful not to reveal what it was. Arslan’s reaction indicates how out of touch al-Za‘im had grown with both Syrian public opinion and the views of the political elite. Coming out of a bruising defeat, the Syrians were in no mood to make peace with Israel—the army least of all. Had al-Za?im gone public with his peace plan, he would have faced insurmountable opposition at home. Even so, too many respected international figures, including U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson, UN mediator Ralph Bunche, and a host of Israeli political and intelligence agents, were sufficiently persuaded of the merits of al-Za?im?s plan at the time for us to dismiss it out of hand today. What does emerge from the story is that it was in fact Ben-Gurion who ruled out the first Arab peace initiative. Faced with a peace plan that had both U.S. and UN backing, Ben-Gurion said no. Al-Za‘im did not head Syria long enough to give peace a chance. His reforms (of which peace overtures with Israel represented but a small part) alienated the different social groups that had originally supported his rise to power, leaving him isolated. Some of the officers who had supported his coup now plotted against him. On August 14, 1949, they repeated the measures taken in the March coup, arresting leading government figures and securing the radio station. A group of six armored cars surrounded al-Za’im’s house and, after a brief shootout, arrested the deposed president. Al-Za’im and his premier were taken to a detention center, where they were summarily executed.