Labour Monthly, January, 1944
Source: Labour Monthly, January, pp. 23-27, “The Middle East, Teheran, Lebanon and the Future,” I. Rennap;
Transcribed: by Ted Crawford.
The declaration concerning Iran signed by Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt on December 1, followed by the frank and friendly discussions at Cairo with the Turkish President, is bound to have a wide effect throughout the Middle East. It is in the light of these decisions and the atmosphere created by them that we must survey the recent crisis in the Lebanon, which reflects the profound changes, economic and political, brought about by the war, in the Middle East. The Atlantic Charter, the Allied victories, the industrial development brought about by the war needs of America and Britain – all this has given an enormous impetus to the already awakening national consciousness its people.
The mobilisation of the Middle East’s resources has given an unprecedented stimulus to its productive forces for which has been mainly responsible the Middle East Supply Council and the United Kingdom Commercial Corporation with their American counterparts. One of MESCs primary tasks has been the maximum development of existing resources, particularly food, and reducing imports to a minimum. It has thus reclaimed large areas of barren land in Persia, South Lebanon and Sudan, and introduced intensive cultivation in Syria it has set up tractor stations, giving the peasantry an opportunity of using the most modern machinery. The UKCC has largely been responsible for the development of local industries to supply war needs and the control of imports, exports and distribution generally among the Middle East countries, and has thus facilitated the exchange of commodities between the various countries. It has also imported large supplies for the Middle East armies, and for transhipment, via Persia, to the Soviet Union. Thus the large orders given by this corporation to supply war requirements have given an enormous stimulus to existing industries, as well as introducing new ones (Palestine: tents, rope, matches, glycerine, boots, water bottles, batteries, glass, superphosphate fertilisers, precision instruments. Egypt paper, cotton piece goods, canning plants. Iraq: crushing oil-seed plants).
Despite certain improvements in food production, the demands of the Middle East forces, as well as increased purchasing power, has given rise to inflationary tendencies with their concomitant speculation, hoarding, and black marketeering, particularly in food. Cost of living has risen sharply: Palestine over 100 per cent., Egypt 130 per cent., Persia 500 per cent. (Economist, February 20, 1943.)
These developments, brought about by war needs, in an area where feudal relations still largely prevail, have strengthened bourgeois relations, and with it, the nationalist bourgeoisie. Furthermore, large numbers of peasants have been brought into capitalist development through employment in war industries and the building of roads and communications. Together with the Axis defeats in the Soviet Union and the Middle East and the growing influence of the Atlantic Charter, as well as the “increasing attention being paid to the great westward move of Russia” (The Times, November 16, 1943) – all this has made a profound impression on the Middle East’s peoples. The united Arab-Jewish demonstrations in Jerusalem, the growing influence of the Syrian Communist Party and its paper, Sait al Shaud, and the expulsion of Axis agents from the Yemen, once an Axis stronghold, are indications of the growing anti-Fascist sentiments in that area whilst Iraq’s declaration of war on the Axis and Egypt’s opening of diplomatic relations with the U.S.S.R. as well as the many “aid to Soviet Russia” Committees that have sprung up all over the Middle East, are indications of a more positive participation in the anti-Hitlerite coalition.
What is, however, of particular importance is the deepening of national feeling and striving for independence, already stimulated by the extension of democratic institutions in the Middle East (the declaration in 1941 of Syria and Lebanon becoming independent republics; the Wafdist victory in Egypt; developments in Persia since the abdication of the former pro-Axis Shah). This has found expression in the movement for greater Arab unity through a Federation of Arab states which would eliminate those obstacles placed in the path of the economic, political and cultural development of the Middle East peoples by the Anglo-French settlement, 1920, which carved up the Arab lands.
Moves were begun in the spring of last year by the Egyptian Premier, Nahas Pasha, with the active collaboration of the Iraq Premier, Nuri Said Pasha, as well as with representatives from Palestine, Tranajordan and Syria. Preliminary talks in Cairo last August covered closer political as well as economic, relations between the Arab countries which would entail the abolitions of tariff barriers, unified posts, telegraphs and passport regulations, and a standard currency as well as prospective irrigation schemes to which the artificially created frontiers of 1920 are an obstacle. According to the Economist:-
The most concrete and practicable scheme is the plan elaborated by the Iraq Government which corresponds to an earlier plan discussed by a group of Arabs and Jews in Jerusalem under ... Dr. Magnes. The core of both schemes is the restoration of a single Syria by bringing Lebanon, Syria, Palestine and Transjordan together into a single state. The new Syria should federate with Iraq in a Union open for other Arab States and it provides for elaborate minority guarantees specifically for the Jews in Palestine. (November 20, 1943.)
It is highly significant that there should be common ground between responsible Arab leaders and those Zionist leaders led by Dr. Magnes who, in the face of opposition from the official Zionist leadership, have worked for an Arab-Jewish rapprochement. For there can be no successful Federation without the collaboration of Palestine Jewry which can play a vitally important part in Arab progressive advance and development. This is already recognised by Arab leaders. According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Nahas Pasha, Egyptian Premier, has “referred to the presence of the Jews in Palestine as an important factor which the Arab world must accept,” urging the Jews “to reach an agreement with Arabs and directly taking part in the (Federation) talks” (November 15, 1943). Falastin, Palestine Arabic daily, published a plea by its editor, Issa el Issa, “for an Arab-Jewish understanding ... to bring the talks on the establishment of an Arab Federation to a successful conclusion.”
The Arab recognition of the Jewish contribution to Federation and the invitation for Jewish participation is vitally important; it opens up great prospects, provided the Zionist leaders respond in positive fashion, for Arab Jewish cooperation and further Jewish economic and cultural advance in Palestine. It is also an indication of the Arab leaders attempts to concentrate all the progressive forces in the Middle East into an Arab Federation.
But from, and alongside these developments, has arisen the sharpening rivalry of British and American interests in the Middle East, which is having its influence on the movement for Arab Unity. Previously, this rivalry had been subordinated in the face of Fascist penetration into the Arab world. The weakening of Axis influence, however, together with the further penetration of Anglo-American capital into the Middle-East, has whetted the appetites of those rival interests (mainly oil) in London and Washington who are more concerned with getting a larger grip on the Middle East’s resources and its peoples and keeping the “other man” out than with welding the Arab peoples and their resources more securely into the war effort. Despite Mr Eden’s statement welcoming plans for closer Arab collaboration, there are still reactionary influences in the Colonial Office who support it because through Britain’s Treaties with Iraq and Egypt (which safeguard Britain’s strategic and economic interests in the Middle East), they hope to control any Arab Federation and thus keep out further American penetration. The American fear of this finds expression in the New York Herald Tribune, whose Middle East correspondent remarks that “Britain will not stand in the way of Arab aspirations towards unity .... the British, wanting easy access to raw materials in the Middle East, may find it easier to co-operate with an Arab federation”; as well as in the complaint of the five American Senators who accused Britain of “soft-pedalling” on her oil production in the Middle East, implying thereby the “need” for American “assistance” in developing the oil resources of the Arab lands. American interests with their big oil holdings in Persia, Iraq and in the Arabian peninsula, are watching the move for federation with certain misgivings. Whilst not opposing federation, they appear to be attempting to win over King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia as “their man” who will further American interests in the Middle East. This wily monarch, having given extensive concessions in the peninsula to such vast American oil concerns as Standard Oil and Texas Corporation, is nowise averse from playing off this Anglo-American rivalry to further his ambitions to become temporal and spiritual leader of the Moslem world. Hence his lukewarm attitude to a Federation in which Egypt or Iraq may play the leading role. Reynolds reports that the Saudi delegation which recently visited America offered, further concessions in the peninsula to American oil interests on condition they oppose the creation of a Jewish State in Palestine.
On this issue, drastic restriction of Zionist aims in Palestine, both the Americans and British have found common ground. Political Zionism which, in the post-Versailles period, facilitated the penetration of Anglo-American capital into the Arab countries (as well as assisting British political domination in Palestine), has now in a rapidly nationally awakening Middle East, become an impediment to both British and American moves to extend their control and influence among the Middle East peoples. Hence the growing anti-Zionist orientation in both British and American ruling circles.
Thus the manoeuvres and counter-manoeuvres of these great vested interests are not in the best interests of the war effort generally and the People’s Movement in particular.
This is to be seen in both their attitudes to the French National Committee, which, more and more, is assuming the role of France’s future provisional Government and is, therefore, a great liberation force in the Middle East. It is anathema to those American reactionaries who backed Darlan and General Giraud against De Gaulle to undermine Free French influence in North Africa, so that this territory’s rich resources and the aspirations of its peoples could be “controlled” from Washington against encroachments” from other (British) vested interests. It is anathema also to those reactionaries here who seek to gain control of an Arab Federation into which could be brought Syria and the Lebanon “liberated” from Free French influence, and closed to the further penetration of American interests. The Lebanese crisis was, in effect, an attempt by those elements to use the aspirations and grievances of a section of the Arab people to further their reactionary aims.
Strategically, the Lebanon occupies an important position in the Eastern Mediterranean Littoral. The building by the Ninth Army, (based on Syria and Lebanon) of strategic roads, the development of the Lebanon’s ports, the extension of the railway from Haifa to Tripolis (one of the western termini of the Mosul oil pipeline which brings oil from Iraq to the Eastern Mediterranean), has extended Britain’s hold on that country. Economically, MESC’s work of co-ordinating the economy of the Middle East countries, had further strengthened Britain’s position through the “agreement .... reached on the supply of manufactured goods from Palestine to Syria and Lebanon in exchange for primary products (Times, May 26, 1943.). Hence the definite orientation of the Lebanese nationalists towards Britain, despite their political and traditional ties with the French.
Moreover, whilst appreciating that “large powers must remain in the hands of the Allies for the duration and that anything to do with military security could not be handed over (Times, November 15, 1943) the Lebanese found it extremely difficult to accept, in the light of the Atlantic Charter, a “discreet administration” of the French Mandate. Furthermore, the existing food shortage with its inevitable black marketeering, for which were mainly responsible the Vichy elements, entrenched in the big concessionaires and against whom no firm action was taken, helped considerably to undermine French influence and stimulate the demand for complete independence. Hence the demand by the Lebanon Government for Lebanese administration of certain departments, customs, receipts, and harbour dues, etc., with Arabic, as the official language. The high-handed action of the ex-Vichy Governor-General, M. Helieu, in arresting the Lebanese Ministers (sharply criticised by General Catroux) indicates that the National French Committee had not yet rid itself of all those for whom the Atlantic Charter has no meaning, and has also to adopt a more positive Arab policy.
Nevertheless, this dispute could have been settled between the two parties. “But for foreign intervention,” said General Catroux, “the Lebanese crisis could have been settled.” Instead, it gave an opportunity to those British reactionaries who in the past as well as to-day have sought to undermine traditional French influence and authority in Syria and Lebanon. When the Free French in 1941 made the declaration promising Syria and Lebanon independence, the British elements and their American counterparts, warned the Free French that they must still administer the Mandate since it implied obligations to other States with interests in Syria and Lebanon. (News Chronicle, November 30 1943). To-day they “condemn” the Mandate over the Lebanon and demand “independence for the Arab people,” and grossly exaggerate (admitted by The Times, and News Chronicle) the disturbances in the Lebanon to show the “undemocratic” character of the Free French, and their diplomatic and administrative “incompetence.”
The prompt arrival of General Catroux, which was immediately followed by the release and reinstatement of the Lebanese Ministers, as well as the removal of M. Helieu and other reactionary French elements in the administration has, for the time being, deprived the reactionaries of their weapon.
Despite this, the Lebanon problem is not yet settled. Those reactionaries will deny democratic rights to the peoples of Palestine and India but who have suddenly become “concerned” about independence demands among the Druses and Alawites (minorities in Syria) as well as among the Lebanese, have not abandoned their aims. Hence the recent crisis in the Lebanon is a grave warning and calls for the utmost vigilance by the progressive forces here against those vested interests whose disruptive manoeuvres in the Middle East threaten to undermine the war effort. The Arab peoples must be on their guard against those “leaders” who, to further their personal ambitions, are prepared to become the willing tools of either British or American vested interests.
A recent indication of how reactionary Arab leaders who have long betrayed their movement are being primed far this purpose is the report in Great Britain and the East, unofficial voice of the Colonial Office, that two Palestine Arab leaders detained in Rhodesia may be released and “chosen to attend the talks with Nahas Pasha, Egyptian Premier, in Cairo on the question of Arab Federation.” These “leaders” are Jamal el Husseini, close collaborator of the notorious Axis agent, the Mufti of Jerusalem, now in Berlin, and Amin el Tmimi, another pro-Fascist Arab whom the Colonial Office is preparing to send as Palestine’s “Representatives” to the forthcoming conference in Cairo early this year.
But what is of paramount importance is the need for the progressive Arab movement to appreciate that the primary issue to-day is maximum mobilisation of the war effort to defeat Fascism to which everything must be subordinated. To resort to methods for the remedy of grievances in a fashion that threatens to disrupt the unity of the united nations is, in the last resort, a blow against the progressive movements, including their own. By refusing to negotiate with the Free French and unilaterally revising the Constitution, such progressive nationalists like Bikhari el Khouri, the Lebanese President, and Riad Bey Solhi, Lebanese Premier, have placed themselves in the position of being used as a lever against the representatives of the great traditional friend and ally of the Syrians and Lebanese, the French people, now in the vanguard of the fight for national freedom. They are also in danger of lending themselves and the aspirations of their movement to those reactionaries here and their representatives in the Middle East whose machinations in such a vitally strategic area threaten the war effort generally, and the people’s movement in particular.
Such are the lessons of the past crisis in the Lebanon, seen in relation to the movement for Arab federation. The settlement made by the French National Committee of Liberation with the Lebanese leaders indicates that a new stage of progressive advance may be looked for, not only in Lebanon and Syria but over the whole of the Middle East. This certainly is the effect of the Three-power Declaration concerning Iran. By its insistence on the principles of the Atlantic Charter, and its recognition of the assistance of Iran in the prosecution of the war “against the common enemy” the declaration will have the effect of welding all the peoples of the Middle East more firmly into the great anti-Fascist alliance of nations.