The Makers Of Modern Syria: The Rise and Fall of Syrian Democracy 1918 – 1958 9781350988880, 9781786734556

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To the courageous Syrian people who fought for an independent, democratic and equitable Syrian nation. These outstanding men and women envisioned a peaceful and prosperous Syria. May their resolve and sacrifice serve as a source of inspiration and hope to today’s generation of young Syrians. This book is also dedicated in loving memory of Ahmad and Skaidra Sharabati by their family.

List of Plates

All images are courtesy of the Sharabati family. Plate 1

A rare photo of Hajj Uthman Sharabati.

Plate 2 A marble plaque at Arwad Island, honouring the national leaders arrested at its infamous prison during the Great Syrian Revolt of 1925 –1927. Ninth on the list is Hajj Uthman Sharabati. Plate 3

Abdul Rahman Shahbandar in 1925.

Plate 4

Ahmad Sharabati.

Plate 5

Skaidra Vapa.

Plate 6

Skaidra Vapa as an equestrian champion in Damascus.

Plate 7

Rudolph Vapa and his family.

Plate 8

The triumphant leaders of the National Bloc on Syria’s first

Independence Day, 17 April 1946. From left to right: Former President Hashem al-Atasi, Prime Minister Saadallah al-Jabiri, President Shukri al-Quwatli, Parliament Speaker Fares al-Khoury, and Jamil Mardam Bey’s bureau chief Assem al-Naili. Standing in the back is Education Minister Muhsen al-Barazi. Plate 9

Prime Minister Saadallah al-Jabiri in the early 1940s.

List of Plates

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Plate 10 Syria’s leadership during the Palestine War, from left to right: Defence Minister Sharabati, Justice Minister Said al-Ghazzi, Prime Minister Jamil Mardam Bey, President Shukri al-Quwatli, and the Golan MP Emir Adel Arslan. Plate 11 President Shukri al-Quwatli and Defence Minister Ahmad Sharabati in 1948. Plate 12 Sharabati during the Palestine War in mid-May 1948. Plate 13 Defence Minister Sharabati touring a US warship in 1948. Plate 14

Prime Minister Fares al-Khoury at the United Nations in

1948. Plate 15

Fawz al-Qawuqji, commander of the Army of Deliverance

in 1947 – 1948. Plate 16

General Husni al-Za’im, engineer of Syria’s first coup d’e´tat

in March 1949. Plate 17 The Syrian Parliament, right before it was overrun and closed by Husni al-Za’im in 1949.

Acknowledgements

The idea for this book was the brainchild of a conversation I had with Ahmad Sharabati’s family in mid-2014. They had recently discovered the personal diary he kept during the Palestine War. I asked that we work together to transform that diary, along with the story of Ahmad Sharabati and his generation of Syrian nationalists, into a book about the founding fathers of the Syrian Republic. They agreed and this book would never have seen the light if it were not for the unwavering support of Sharabati’s three children, Issam, Aida and Nora, and his grandchildren. Seeing the tragedy unfold currently in Syria, they wanted to document how different it could have been for the nation had Syrian democracy not been curtailed in 1949. They spent hours reviewing the text, editing and helping with the historical narrative, providing muchneeded photographs and documents. They all helped polish the work into its present form, and other relatives of the Sharabati family took the time to see me for interviews, notably Zuheir Bakdounes and Nadia al-Ghazzi. Needless to say, this book is as much theirs as it is mine and I am eternally grateful for all their time and efforts. I would also like to thank Jennifer Muller, the senior editor at the American University of Beirut who transformed this book into its final form, and my friend, Fadi Esber, who read the text during its early and middle different stages. Garry Thorp facilitated my research at The British National Archives in Kew, while Joanna Godfrey at

Acknowledgements

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I.B.Tauris saw promise in the early drafts of the work and agreed to help transform it into a book – a vital project at this specific juncture of Syrian history. All the opinions expressed in this book are strictly my own and none of the above mentioned friends and colleagues bear any responsibility for them.

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CHAPTER 1

Hands That Give, Never Take

The mood was sombre in the Syrian capital on Sunday, 22 January 1950. Very little trade took place beneath the covered arcade of the magnificent Hamidieh Souq of Old Damascus, which bore a striking resemblance to the ancient markets of Europe. The same lack of activity was recorded nearby at the Midhat Pasha and Bzurieh Markets, where traders were usually unloading and selling merchandise by early morning. Despite the small number of automobiles, traffic was tight and regulated by a handful of policemen operating manual traffic boards rather than lights. In the small overcrowded offices of the Damascus press, young journalists were busy writing eulogies of an elderly city gentleman who had died in Beirut earlier that morning and was being brought to his final resting place in Damascus. His name was Uthman Sharabati and he was known throughout the Syrian capital. The funeral procession started after midday prayer, as is customary in the Muslim tradition. One hundred men, wearing dark morning suits and red Ottoman fezzes, flocked from all over the city to take part in the funeral. Amongst the crowd were former prime minister Fares al-Khoury, the nationalist poet Khalil Mardam Bey, the Damascus MP Fakhri al-Barudi, and the director of protocol at the Presidential Palace, officially representing President Hashem al-Atasi. Leading the funeral was Uthman Sharabati’s eldest son and political heir, Ahmad Sharabati. Although out of office at the time, the ex-MP and cabinet minister was accompanied by some of the

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most prominent members of Syria’s political, intellectual and economic class. Uthman Sharabati wasn’t celebrated because of his wealth or his connections to the upper echelons of power. It was because ‘Hajj’ Uthman, as the Damascenes affectionately called him, was a nationalist leader, and a philanthropist. The city itself was just recovering from years of turmoil. The pain and anguish of World War II was still fresh on everybody’s mind, as were the death toll and psychological scars from the Palestine War of 1948. Since that ill-fated war, three coups d’e´tat had rocked the young republic and democratic life had been restored only recently. Familiar leaders had disappeared and been replaced by inexperienced newcomers. In a rapidly changing world, Uthman Sharabati was a man the Damascenes had known for years and whom they trusted. The Sharabatis were one of the prominent political families of Syria during Ottoman and French rule. The long list of these families included the Azms, traditional eighteenth-century governors of Ottoman Damascus; the Atasis, the ranking political family of Homs; the Barazi notables of Hama; and the Jabiris, a landowning family from Aleppo that produced statesmen and politicians. The family unit was an important pillar of Syrian society, embodying strong values and social continuity. Young men often chose to continue in the footsteps of their fathers and grandfathers, be it in business, medicine, theology or politics. The enigmatic Hajj Uthman was a tough, dignified, self-made millionaire who was a fixture in the public life of Damascus during the late Ottoman period well into the 1940s. He was a community leader and public figure, although he never held any political office. In an obituary in the popular Damascus daily Alef Bae, Hajj Uthman was described as The front-page Damascus).1 His nationalists like

‘a cornerstone of nationalism and Syrian industry.’ story called him ‘Fakid Dimashq’ (The Loss of name often comes up in the memoirs of ranking Abdul Rahman Shahbandar, Hasan al-Hakim and

Sultan al-Atrash, who describe him as a friend and ranking member of the Syrian resistance. Hajj Uthman and his son Ahmad were similar in many ways, but also quite different. Although politically engaged, Hajj Uthman stood

Hands That Give, Never Take

3

at arms-length from government office. His son, however, excelled at it: first as MP, then as minister of education, and finally, as minister of defence. Although the People’s Party was founded at his home, Hajj Uthman refused to join any political party, despite monumental pressure from his friends. But he didn’t mind his son cofounding the League of National Action and then the National Party in post-French mandate Syria. Hajj Uthman spoke only Arabic and Ottoman Turkish, while his son conversed flawlessly in five languages: Arabic, English, French, Turkish and German. Yet both father and son shared an unwavering commitment to Syria. Both had suffered at the hands of foreign occupiers and both took great pride at being founding fathers of the republic. A SELF-MADE MAN Uthman Sharabati was born into a small family in the conservative alSalhieh neighbourhood of Damascus, a middle-class district famed for its mosques, schools and cemeteries. Its name is derived from ‘Al-Saliheen,’ which roughly translates as ‘good and saintly’ residents of the neighbourhood. Al-Salhieh was a relatively new neighbourhood of Damascus, originally inhabited by pious emigrants from Greece, Spain, Turkey, the Hejaz, North Africa and Palestine. It lay to the northwest of the old walled city of Damascus, perched on the slopes of Mount Qassioun, and was highly attractive to newcomers for its fertile land and fresh air. When the Sharabati family settled in al-Salhieh, they were known as ‘Armawi,’ after the town in northern Spain, Ermua, from which they had come. At the time of Hajj Uthman’s birth in 1878, al-Salhieh was approximately 800 years old, and had no more than 300 inhabitants. By 1936, it had grown to include 2,814 residents: 2,622 Sunni Muslims, 182 Christians and ten Jews.2 Al-Salhieh evoked modernity and stood in stark contrast to the narrow, cobbled alleys of the Old City. Only al-Salhieh and other densely populated parts of town were well-lit and safe after dark.3 Hajj Uthman’s father was a workingman who dressed and lived like the other ordinary folk of al-Salhieh; devoted completely to his small family and daily prayers. He had no land, no steady income and

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no connections at government offices in Damascus or Istanbul. None of his relatives were prominent in the Ottoman Army or the Damascus Municipality. He had three sons – Uthman, Abdulhamid and Subhi – and one daughter, Fatima. They were never poor, but money was never abundant for the family.4 Unlike his siblings, Hajj Uthman did get some proper schooling at one of the numerous schools of al-Salhieh. He was taught Islamic history, penmanship, mathematics and grammar until sixth grade, when he was pulled out to work at a wholesale trade shop in the al-Bzurieh spice market, owned by Rushdi al-Rikabi al-Sukkari, a prominent city merchant.5 While at school, he earned extra income by helping wealthier boys write their homework, in exchange for one barghout (penny in Ottoman currency) per assignment.6 The money he made was not his to spend – he always gave it to his father and siblings. Uthman Sharabati was an intelligent young man; full of life and with a sharp analytical mind that allowed him to excel in mathematics and calculate risk and opportunity. He learned the streetwise methods of the Damascene markets and the centuries-old business ethics, which emphasised chivalry, philanthropy, trust and word of honour – as well, of course, as tough bargaining. By the age of fifteen, he was buying and selling any item he could get his hands upon – sugar, rice and burghul (parboiled wheat). In time, he made a small fortune and set up shops of his own. With money came dramatic changes and upward social mobility, enabling Uthman Sharabati to marry, at the young age of twenty-two, into the prominent Tabba family from the ancient Bab Srijeh neighbourhood. By that time, Hajj Uthman had bought a new house, not far from his father’s house in al-Salhieh, in Zukak al-Hayet near the al-Afif Mosque.7 It was a brand-new house, built by Europeantrained Ottoman architects with two large rooms at the entrance – one for the family and one for guests – separated by a long corridor that led to the living quarters. This is the house where Ahmad Sharabati was born in 1907. Despite Hajj Uthman’s efforts, however, his marriage did not last long, ending shortly after the crib death of his third child. Hajj Uthman remarried Muhibeh Eid, who also hailed from a prominent Damascene family. She gave birth to Ahmad Sharabati’s three half-siblings: two girls and a boy. The eldest,

Hands That Give, Never Take

5

Mounira, was born during World War I, then Mustapha in 1919 and Hiba in 1921. The young Ahmad Sharabati developed an extremely close relationship with his half-brother and sisters, and became like a father to them after Hajj Uthman’s death in 1950. A SEASONED BUSINESSMAN Having put his family troubles behind him, Hajj Uthman concentrated on running his numerous businesses, which soon expanded to include importing steel and exporting dried fruits to Egypt and Palestine. His daily routine included a stroll to his office via a small alley facing the main gate of the Damascus Citadel, a huge medieval fortress located in the northwest corner of the city walls. From his office, Hajj Uthman ran his daily affairs and met regularly with members of the charity organisation he had established in al-Salhieh in 1932, to care for the neighbourhood’s poor and needy. It provided morning classes for children and evening classes for illiterate working adults, and ran an orphanage for twenty young boys. Hajj Uthman paid for the orphanage’s electricity, books and student desks. Hajj Uthman’s most successful venture was a tobacco factory that he set up in 1921 overlooking the River Barada in al-Baramkeh, near the main campus of the Syrian University. In 1883, a French firm had obtained concessions to produce, package, sell and tax tobacco in Ottoman Syria. The Ottoman government had been forced into signing this painful concession to evade foreclosure by French creditors. The French had invested heavily in Ottoman Syria, to the sum of 200 million French francs.8 They had paved the first road linking Damascus to Beirut in 1853, constructed the port of Beirut in the 1890s and built the main railroad linking Beirut with Damascus and the Houran province in southwest Syria.9 Tobacco was a highly profitable industry. It was harvested from the vast agricultural fields surrounding Alawite villages on in the Syrian coast and sold in Europe to the continent’s pipe-smoking notables, who favoured its freshness and taste.10 The Regie de Tabac, as this monopoly came to be known, dominated the tobacco trade for decades, and tobacco-makers like Hajj Uthman had to produce and sell under its auspices. When the

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license of the Regie de Tabac expired in 1930, production then went to the private sector, in which Hajj Uthman was king of the trade. The French, firmly in control of Syria by the time, taxed him with a staggering forty per cent of income and forced him to regulate both price and production.11 During the early 1930s, Uthman briefly introduced ‘Sharabati Cigarettes’ into the Syrian market, which were branded using nationalistic slogans starting with, ‘Oh Patriots!’ When the worldwide depression reached Syria in the mid-1930s the cigarette industry crashed, inflicting painful losses. Hajj Uthman started to produce cheaper cigarettes for ordinary folk, Bafra, which became to Syrians what Marlboros were to Americans during World War II. Furious with his success, the French granted a new monopoly to a privately owned Franco-Lebanese company, the Campagnie Libano-Syrienne de Tabacs, which sold cigarettes at a low price in order to ruin Uthman Sharabati. In December 1932, his friend Fakhri al-Barudi, the charismatic leader of the National Bloc, staged a dramatic protest at the Grand Umayyad Mosque in Damascus. From its pulpit, he spoke out against the tobacco monopoly and asked the assembled masses to endorse his ‘Made in Syria’ campaign. ‘Buy Syrian products – from wedding gowns and trousers, to Syrianmade cigarettes!’12 Hajj Uthman retired at the age of sixty-eight, shortly after French troops left Syria. The tobacco business was very profitable for the Sharabatis, and it was eventually bequeathed to his son in 1946, the year of Syria’s independence. While running it, Ahmad Sharabati financed his political career, arranging street demonstrations and providing services to his supporters, which is how the patron-client system worked throughout the Middle East. Politicians would distribute money generously at election time, during the Eid holidays and throughout the month of Ramadan. They would provide services for their constituencies, such as paving roads, collecting garbage and bringing both running water and electricity to neighbourhoods within their sphere of influence. Aside from the tobacco business, the Sharabati family possessed many assets around Damascus. In addition to the main office in al-Asrounieh near the Damascus Citadel, Hajj Uthman owned eight shops in the al-Bzurieh Market, where he had first learned the secrets

Hands That Give, Never Take

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of the business world. He also owned a bakery in al-Salhieh, near Hammam al-Muqqadam. Among his most important assets were large tracts of land in the Abu Rummaneh district, a stone’s throw from the electricity company in al-Sakhr Alley, near the famous Havana Cafe´. The Syrian government eventually transformed these lands into an upscale residential quarter in the 1940s. A presidential palace was erected at the top of the street, followed by banks, shops, restaurants and modern buildings with elevators on both sides of Abu Rummaneh. This is where Ahmad Sharabati moved with his family in 1952, into a two-floor villa behind Jahez Park, which later became the premises of the Papal Embassy in Damascus. Money and material possessions, however, never really mattered to Hajj Uthman. Reputation always came first, as he had learned as a child in the spiced alleys of the al-Bzurieh Market. In March 1949, Army Commander Husni al-Za’im came to power in Syria, toppling Hajj Uthman’s old friends – President Shukri al-Quwatli and Prime Minister Khaled al-Azm. His own son, Ahmad, was forced into exile during al-Za’im’s four-month rule in Damascus. Al-Za’im sent an envoy to Hajj Uthman, however, saying that he wanted to discuss politics with the aging notable. Although Hajj Uthman had little affection for rebellious officers and particular distaste for Colonel al-Za’im, who had brought down the country’s constitutionally elected president and unleashed a series of disastrous coups, he accepted al-Za’im’s invitation. At the time, Ahmad Sharabati was the licensed agent for General Motors in Syria and owned a brand new yellow 1949 convertible, which people gawked at and took pictures with on the streets of Damascus. The car happened to be parked at the doorstep, so Hajj Uthman drove in it to the Presidential Palace on a hill overlooking Damascus. When al-Za’im saw the car, his jaw dropped in lust. ‘What a beautiful car you have there, Hajj Uthman,’ he said, completely forgetting why he had called him in for an audience in the first place. Rudely, he added: ‘Can I keep it?’ Although this man had toppled Syria’s democratic government – one which Hajj Uthman had helped craft with care – and despite the fact that his son was in exile because of him, Hajj Uthman did not object. He just nodded and smiled. When al-Za’im asked if he wanted anything in return, Hajj Uthman

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shook his head, ‘Nothing at all, Your Excellency.’ He simply presented the keys to Husni al-Za’im and went back home.13 The time had not come, he grumbled, when he would let Husni al-Za’im say that the old wise man of Damascus had asked him for a favour. ‘I spent my life extending my hand to others. A hand extended never asks for something in return. A hand that gives, never takes!’

CHAPTER 2

Damascus Occupied

Uthman Sharabati belonged to a generation of nation-builders deeply immersed in political life. They led street demonstrations, disappeared when necessary to avoid arrest, issued declarations, bankrolled political parties and helped elect parliamentarians and cabinet ministers. The two Sharabatis never considered themselves politicians; it was almost condescending to describe them as such. Instead, they were called ‘zu’ama,’ or the nationalist leaders of Syria – a rank much higher than that of ‘politician’ in the Syrian political lexicon. A famous example of a za’im was President Hashem al-Atasi, who led the anti-French struggle in the 1930s. He couldn’t conceive himself morphing into a traditional politician, competing for public office or taking sides with one party against another. He was a leader of all Syrians, seen by many as ‘grandfather’ of the nation. As a result, when independence was achieved, Hashem al-Atasi willingly took a backseat and retired to his native home in the city of Homs. Hajj Uthman was exactly the same; when the last French troops marched out in 1946, he too retired from public life, claiming that his mission had been accomplished: to see Syria independent. ‘I am not a politician’ he would repeatedly tell his friends, ‘I never was and never will be.’1 Two of his closest friends, however, were frontline statesmen and politicians renowned throughout the Middle East. They had a towering influence on Syrian politics during the 1920s and a profound influence on Hajj Uthman’s son.

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Fares al-Khoury was a Protestant lawyer the same age as Hajj Uthman, who had served as MP in the Ottoman Parliament and then as the first finance minister in post-Ottoman Syria. Al-Khoury was a brilliant legal mind, a renowned essayist, a mathematician, a gifted poet and an academic who founded and headed the Faculty of Law at Damascus University. In 1920, he helped pen Syria’s royalist constitution and in the mid-1940s he became Syria’s first Christian prime minister under President Shukri al-Quwatli. Abdul Rahman Shahbandar, like al-Khoury, was a graduate of the American University of Beirut (AUB). He trained as a medical doctor, and rose to fame during the waning years of the Ottoman Empire. Historians consider him the godfather of secular political thought in modern Syria. Shahbandar worked clandestinely against the Ottomans, joining a military uprising launched against the empire from Mecca, in 1916. Both he and al-Khoury were respected professors at Damascus University (originally named the Syrian University until 1958), and cabinet ministers during the short-lived Arab government of King Faisal I. Shahbandar, a charismatic statesman and impassioned orator, was the last foreign minister of pre-French mandate Syria. Although it might seem remarkable that a conservative like Uthman Sharabati would be so close to two Westernised intellectuals with outspoken views on religion and secularism, this mirrors the social and political matureness of the Damascus elite in the 1920s. Shahbandar was vocal in his criticism of traditional Islam, and often penned articles in Arabic and English criticising mainstream interpretations of the Muslim faith and Holy Quran. He strongly supported the unveiling of women, for example, and challenged views of a state ruled by Islam. Hajj Uthman, of course, frowned upon such unorthodox views, but this didn’t prevent him from remaining exceptionally close to Shahbandar, seeing him as the only figure worthy of real leadership throughout the turbulent 1920s. Such radical views would one day cost Shahbandar his life, when fanatics gunned him down in the summer of 1940, accusing him of being an atheist and a British spy. So angry was Hajj Uthman with the murder that he put a bounty on the head of the culprits: a staggering 5,000 SP. When the gunmen were apprehended in the orchards of al-Midan, south of the Old City, he promptly paid the money to the man who reported them to Syrian Police.

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The term ‘Hajj’ means that Uthman Sharabati had performed the sacred Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca – at least once during his lifetime. He never missed prayer time and strictly observed the fast during Ramadan, along with the other pillars of Islam. What mattered to him was not al-Khoury’s religion or Shahbandar’s secular views, but rather what they were doing for the nationalist movement in Syria. Inspired by Shahbandar and al-Khoury, Hajj Uthman sent his son Ahmad to study at AUB in 1924 just like his two friends. In Beirut, Sharabati excelled in mathematics at the International College (AUB’s preparatory school), and was promoted academically in class well beyond his years.2 When visiting home on weekends, Ahmad Sharabati would often join these seasoned adults in in-depth political conversations. Hajj Uthman and his friends analysed the world around them, debating politics, economics, religion, culture and philosophy. Sharabati listened attentively, jotting down mental notes. All ideas were discussed around his father’s dining table, especially when Fares al-Khoury and Abdul Rahman Shahbandar were in the room. Quite unintentionally, they taught him the reality of politics in a way that no university could. Their mentoring was to prove vital for Sharabati’s future career, as were the monumental events that he witnessed first-hand as a young man, from a small dormitory room on Bliss Street in Beirut. From there, the young Sharabati watched the birth of an entirely new Middle East. EYEWITNESS TO HISTORY Since 1876, the Ottoman Empire had been ruled by the powerful Sultan Abdulhamid II. The Ottomans themselves had come to Syria in 1516, ejecting the Mamluks from the city. At the time of Hajj Uthman’s birth the empire spanned three continents with a population of approximately twenty-five million inhabitants.3 They were anything but homogeneous: Turks, Arabs, Persians, Greeks and Armenians were included, along with a combination of Muslims, Christians, Druze and Jews. Sultan Abdulhamid II was an insecure man obsessed with safety, and constantly haunted by memories of his deposed uncles and brother. An assassination attempt in 1905 only added to his fears, sending him into self-imposed isolation behind

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the high walls of Yildiz Palace. ‘Effendina’ was how the Damascenes referred to Sultan Abdulhamid II, who ruled between the years 1876 and 1909. Hajj Uthman knew no other ruler, as the sultan assumed the throne at the time of Hajj Uthman’s birth. Some remembered him with scorn, others with some affection as he had introduced some modernity to Damascus, like electricity, a tram system and the Hejaz Railway, linking the old capital of the Umayyads to Medina in presentday Saudi Arabia. Sultan Abdulhamid II ruled with an iron grip for thirty long years. He did this with no parliament or constitution, until a military coup forced him to introduce democratic reforms in 1908. That didn’t last long, and soon Ottoman officers imposed tight control over the Turkish and Arab press, and stationed secret police on every street corner from Istanbul to Damascus. The Sultan’s spies exchanged information on Ottoman subjects through the modern telegraph system that he had introduced to the empire. World War I broke out in the summer of 1914. The young men of Damascus were hauled off to battle in the dreaded Safarbarlik. Some returned, but thousands perished on the battlefield. Of the 2.8 million sent to fight, 325,000 died in combat between the years 1914 and 1918. Another 240,000 died of disease, while no fewer than 250,000 were listed as ‘missing’ or ‘prisoners of war.’4 Additionally, an estimated 1.5 million deserted the Ottoman Army, fifty per cent of whom were Arab soldiers.5 The grief caused by the massive death toll of the war cast a shadow of fear over the lives of an entire generation of Syrians. Hajj Uthman and his family watched in horror as loved ones and neighbours disappeared behind the front lines of the Ottoman Army, fighting for a cause they did not believe in. The anguish of war was destructive to both the rich and poor in Ottoman Syria, thanks to an Allied embargo of all goods coming into the empire. A sharp decline in heating fuel led entire families in Damascus to spend the winter of 1915 in cold and darkness. As if death and psychological trauma were not enough, a famine broke out in Beirut that same year, and soon crept towards Damascus. It hit Hajj Uthman’s business badly, destroying the annual harvest of apricots and peaches that he dried and exported to Egypt and Palestine. Beirut notables either escaped on European liners before the Port of Beirut was shut down, or came to Damascus for sanctuary.

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The population of Beirut dropped from 180,000 in 1914 to 75,000 in 1916.6 The US consul in Beirut described its streets in July 1916, saying: ‘They were filled with starving women and children. In my early evening walks I see people lying dead in the gutter.’7 This nightmare, which Syrians read about in the daily press and heard first hand from the inhabitants of Beirut flocking to Damascus, hit Syria next. A Christian pastor from Minneapolis who visited Syria during World War I said that in Damascus people were dying in the streets every single day. ‘Starvation and famine are everywhere’ he wrote, adding that ‘the men of Damascus are either in military service or hiding. The women and children are reduced to beggary.’8 The Damascus police collected no fewer than seventy unidentified dead bodies daily.9 By October 1917, the crisis had reached as far south as Jerusalem. Years later, Sharabati would close his eyes in pain when recalling images from these years. ‘I saw people digging through garbage, looking for something to eat. Some were eating orange peels – others found nothing to feed off. Many died of hunger right before my very eyes.’10 The anguish and pain of World War I was deeply imprinted in the mind of the young Sharabati. It shaped his personality and that of an entire generation of Arabs. The Great War lasted four painfully long years, and the last Ottoman troops evacuated Damascus at 6:00 am on 26 September 1918. Ironically, this was the very same day they had entered the city 402 years earlier, on 26 September 1516. On 1 October 1918, Arab troops marched into the liberated city, which had been destroyed by four days of looting.11 Emir Faisal, the son of Sharif Hussein of Mecca who had led the revolt against the Ottomans, marched triumphantly into Damascus two days later accompanied by 1,500 horsemen and his British advisor Colonel T.E. Lawrence. Thousands took to the streets to welcome him. Women threw rice and rosewater from balconies and young men danced on the sidewalks, while gunshots were fired into the air from old rusty weapons. Children carrying flags of the Arab Revolt waved for the young Emir. Sharif Hussein’s troops headed toward Marjeh Square in central Damascus and before sunset hoisted the Arab flag over the Damascus Town Hall. Lawrence’s superior officer, General Edmund Allenby, made an even more dramatic entrance into the Syrian

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The Makers of Modern Syria

capital, wearing his parade uniform and riding in a convertible white Rolls-Royce.12 The Damascenes watched in bewilderment and awe, having never before seen such an automobile. In his classic, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Colonel Lawrence describes the scene: ‘Every man, woman, and child in this city of a quarter-million souls seemed on the streets, wanting only the spark of our appearance to ignite their spirits. Damascus went mad with joy!’13 Syrians watched the Ottomans leave Damascus in a panic, burying their gold and destroying their weapons. Before making their final exit, Ottoman officers set their stockpile of ammunition ablaze.14 Lawrence adds: ‘They fired the dumps and ammunition stores, so that every few minutes, we were jangled by explosions, whose first shock set the sky white with flames. I turned to (Colonel) Stirling and muttered, “Damascus is burning,” sick to think of the great town in ashes for the price of freedom.’15 One week later, Beirut fell to the Arab Army, followed by Tripoli (in modern-day Lebanon) and Aleppo in the Syrian north. At the Grand Umayyad Mosque of Damascus, prayers were conducted the following Friday in the name of Sharif Hussein, ‘King of the Arabs.’ Emir Faisal declared that an Arab government would be established in Damascus, appointing an ex-Ottoman officer, Rida Pasha al-Rikabi, as military governor and prime minister of ‘liberated Syria.’ The young Emir pardoned all those arrested during the Great War, confiscated Ottoman property, abolished the Turkish system of education, and packed his new state with Arabs from all stripes and colours to give them a share in nation-building. Fares al-Khoury became Faisal’s finance minister, and Shahbandar became his adviser, interpreter, and foreign minister. The two men were also voted MPs in the first Syrian Parliament. THE MAYSALOUN TRAGEDY A devastating blow for Hajj Uthman and other Syrian nationalists came less than two years later, in July 1920, with the ill-fated Maysaloun Battle and the death of its commander, War Minister Yusuf al-Azma. Little did Ahmad Sharabati know that twenty-eight years later he would become General al-Azma’s third successor at the Ministry of War (by then renamed Ministry of Defence). Yusuf al-Azma was a

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national hero embodying the values of nationalism in the psyche of all Syrians for generations to come. While growing up, al-Azma was an inspiring figure for Sharabati. Later in life he would draw parallels between what Yusuf al-Azma went through in the summer of 1920, and his own experience at the very same job, in the spring of 1948. The young General al-Azma was born into a prominent and influential family in Damascus in 1883. He was energetic and handsome and had studied at the Military Academy in Istanbul. After joining the Ottoman Army, he served in the Caucasus during World War I. When the Ottomans left Syria, al-Azma returned to Damascus, and in May 1920 became minister in the cabinet of Hashem al-Atasi. French troops had already landed on the Syrian coast and were preparing to march on Damascus. On 14 July 1920, the French High Commissioner to Syria, General Henri Gouraud, issued an ultimatum to King Faisal, demanding that he dismantle his government, arrest all anti-French activists, and dissolve the newborn Syrian Army. The king was given a deadline until midnight, 18 July. If no response came, Gouraud noted: ‘We shall have freedom of action.’ Senior officers were summoned to the royal palace and asked to give an assessment of the current state of the young Syrian Army. ‘The guns that passed before you during the parades, Your Majesty; we only have a small number of bullets for them. They wouldn’t last for more than an hour on the battlefield.’16 This was the view of Faisal’s senior officers. Al-Azma thought otherwise, reporting to the king: ‘We will fight when we are ordered to do so, without thinking about whether we will win or lose.’17 Asked if there were enough weapons for the army, one officer replied: ‘The truth is that we don’t have enough weapons. God (praise be to Him) will help by enabling us to capture supplies at the first clash between our forces and the French. We will fight the enemy with what we take from them.’18 Based on these facts, Faisal realised that accepting the ultimatum, then improving its terms through negotiations, would certainly be wiser than going to war. Accordingly, he accepted the French dictate. When citizens objected, Faisal had them thrown in jail, and ordered his brother Crown Prince Zaid to crush any uprising.19 Demonstrators were stopped at the gates of the palace, accusing Faisal of treason. The king sent word to Gouraud within the given deadline, but the French general claimed

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The Makers of Modern Syria

that it had arrived one hour late on 18 July. Gouraud argued that ‘armed bands’ had sabotaged the wires in the Damascus countryside, which accounted for the delay. He used the delay to further advance on Damascus. Al-Azma toured the countryside recruiting troops, and asked Muslim imams to use anti-French rhetoric at mosque pulpits. On 21 July, Faisal sent Education Minister Sati al-Husari to Aley in Mount Lebanon for talks with Gouraud aimed at delaying the mandate, or by some miracle, at cancelling it altogether. ‘You claim that the cable arrived late. One hour late. But it finally arrived and now that it has, why don’t you order your troops to stop advancing on Damascus?’20 French troops were marching from Shtura and Zahle toward Majdal Anjar and Wadi al-Harir (near the present Syria – Lebanon border), heading straight to the Syrian capital. Gouraud calmly explained: ‘You are not a military man, so you don’t understand the significance of certain problems. When an army has begun to move, it cannot just stop anywhere.’21 Al-Husari was sent back home empty-handed. Faisal tried again, this time sending a delegation to meet him at the magnificent Sursock Palace in Beirut. Walking slowly on the palace’s marble floors, Gouraud bluntly told his Syrian guests: ‘Syria is ours! We have arranged everything with the British.’22 Frantic, Faisal’s government started a contingency plan: how to transfer the capital to Daraa in southern Syria, should the French advance on Damascus and occupy the city.23 Meanwhile, General al-Azma was parading his army through the streets of Damascus, to lift public morale and encourage civilians to volunteer for service. Husari whispered into his ear: ‘Didn’t you say that your troops are ready for war.’ Azma replied: ‘My dear friend, I was bluffing, to fool the French.’24 Stunned, Husari remarked: ‘But you can see that things have passed the stage of bluff. We are now facing a real threat. Can we repel the enemy?’ Azma thought hard before replying. ‘Something could have been done at an earlier stage, but now . . . I don’t know.’25 On Saturday, 24 July the battle began at 6:30 am at the Khan Maysaloun pass on the Damascus–Beirut highway, twenty-five kilometres west of the Syrian capital. The Syrian Army was commanded by General Tahseen Pasha al-Fakir, a friend of Azma and, like him, a native of al-Shaghour. The Syrian Army included over 600 foot soldiers, sixty Royal Guards, twenty cannon soldiers and sixty horsemen,26 and

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approximately 1,500 civilian volunteers. Another 1,700 people volunteered for battle from the summer town of Zabadani near Damascus, but did not show up on the day of the battle, fleeing with the arms that had been distributed to them in advance.27 On the other side, the French Army at Maysaloun stood at a total of 11,000 soldiers with forty-eight cannons, one hundred transport trucks, fifteen tanks and five aeroplanes.28 Within al-Azma’s camp, soldiers carried old and outdated weapons, some dating back to the Arab Revolt and others to the 1890s. Others carried swords and even slings.29 Yusuf al-Azma, commanding his troops on the battlefield with his service revolver in hand, was wounded in the chest and head when a French tank opened fire on him. He tried crawling back to his original position, as soldiers rushed to save him.30 But it was too late; the Syrian minister of war died on the battlefield at approximately 10:30 am on 24 July 1920. At thirty-six, he was the only officer from the Syrian Army to die during the battle. The tiny army on which all Syrians had pinned high hopes had been eliminated completely. It did not re-emerge for another twenty-six years, when Ahmad Sharabati re-created it in preparation for the Palestine War. There are conflicting figures for the death toll at Maysaloun. The British government put it at 2,000 Syrians either wounded or dead, while in a letter of objection to the French, Faisal himself mentioned the figure 1,500.1 The French lost 800 men, four cannons, and one plane downed in a farm belonging to the Hasibi family near Sabbura, a tiny village in the vicinity of Damascus.31 Sitting behind his office desk in the old markets of Damascus, Hajj Uthman heard the horrific news of the battle, emerging slowly from Maysaloun. Bitter and crestfallen, he saw everything he had dreamed of collapse before his eyes. The next day, King Faisal fled Damascus to al-Kisweh, a small town on the outskirts of the Syrian capital. He traveled by automobile; his ministers by train.32 The train cabins were transformed into offices and sleeping quarters for the king’s entourage.33 He continued to entertain an illusion – that somehow, someway – he could reach an agreement with Gouraud and return to his throne. French aeroplanes dropped leaflets on al-Kisweh asking its residents to eject Faisal, or suffer military consequences. He was given twenty-four hours to leave Syria, with orders never to return. Only one of his ministers showed up to bid him farewell.34

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The Makers of Modern Syria

When Henri Gouraud marched into the Syrian capital after Maysaloun, some Damascenes even came out to greet him, chanting: ‘Vive la France! Vive Gouraud!’ The sound of thousands of marching boots echoed through the cobbled alleys of Old Damascus. Some opportunists carried Gouraud shoulder-high when he asked to be taken to the tomb of Saladin, the twelfth-century Islamic sultan who fought off Christian crusaders and recaptured Jerusalem. The historic site is located behind the Grand Umayyad Mosque in the Old City. What remained of the city’s elite came out to introduce themselves, flanked by French soldiers, Syrian clergymen and foreign consuls. Gouraud saluted the French flag and decorated soldiers who had fought in Maysaloun. The next day, he attended Sunday Mass and visited the Grand Umayyad Mosque, reminding everybody that he was now fully in control of Syria. Gouraud carved Syria into citystates, creating the modern state of Lebanon, the state of Aleppo, the Sanjak of Alexandretta and the state of Damascus. Maysaloun was a turning point for Syrian nationalists. One battle had been lost, but the war with France was far from over. As Sharabati grew up, he got more and more involved with the Syrian underground, working hard to liberate his country from French occupation. He was a young boy of thirteen when the French took Damascus, and a city notable of thirty-nine when they walked out in defeat twenty-six years later. The infamous battle of Maysaloun convinced most Syrian nationalists that a foreign leader like King Faisal would not do for their country. When certain of his defeat, Faisal just packed up his belongings and left for Europe, begging the British for a throne – any throne – in exchange for the one left behind in Damascus. Ordinary Syrians realised that only local leaders could lead the antiFrench struggle; men of high moral fibre, social standing and a history of resistance against the Ottoman Turks. Instead of breaking national pride and consciousness, Maysaloun actually pulled Syrians together. CHARLES CRANE IN DAMASCUS In April 1922, Shahbandar, al-Khoury and Hajj Uthman hosted US diplomat Charles R. Crane in Damascus. The American visitor had first come to Syria in 1919 as part of a commission sent by President

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Woodrow Wilson. It was co-headed by another American, named Henry King, and was charged with inquiring into popular Syrian sentiment regarding a French mandate. Abdul Rahman Shahbandar had talked the US President into sending such a fact-finding mission when they first met at the Paris Peace Conference. It was supposed to include representatives of the four major Allied countries – Great Britain, France, Italy and the USA – but all European states backed out, forcing President Wilson to commission it on his own. King was an educator who taught theology and philosophy at Oberlin College, while Crane was a wealthy philanthropist who knew the Middle East and had helped finance Wilson’s presidential campaign in 1912. The King-Crane Commission spent six weeks in the region, visiting thirtysix towns and receiving petitions from 1,520 villages. Throughout its short stay in Syria, the commission asked the same questions: ‘What do you think of Great Britain and France?’ and, ‘Do you feel that Syria needs a Western power to help its people march confidently into the twentieth century?’35 The inhabitants of Syria, they estimated, stood at ‘around 1.5 million, meaning twenty-five people per kilometre.’36 They included 1.2 million Sunnis, 175,000 Christians (Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant), 6,000 Druze, 25,000 Shiites (Alawites included), 12,000 Jews and 15,000 Ismailis.37 Along with other community leaders, Shahbandar, al-Khoury and Hajj Uthman advised that all peoples once controlled by the Ottoman Empire should become ‘completely and definitively free.’ They also recommended ‘serious modification’ to Zionist ambitions in Palestine. The commission noted, ‘Only two requests – that for a united Syria and independence – had larger support.’ On 1 July 1919, Hajj Uthman was invited to attend a meeting of the Shura Council at the Abed Building in Marjeh Square, chaired by Council President Mohammad Fawzi Pasha al-Azm. A wide assortment of city notables was present, including al-Khoury and Shahbandar. Collectively, the attendees presented a ten-point declaration to the King-Crane Commission, which was later known as the Damascus Programme. They acknowledged Emir Faisal I as the first post-Ottoman ruler of Syria, strongly denounced Zionist claims in Palestine and rejected the idea of a French or British mandate in the Middle East. The most striking thing the Syrians told the commission was that although they refused a

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The Makers of Modern Syria

European mandate, they would nevertheless welcome an American one, believing that America would tutor, rather than conquer, the people of the East. Of the 1,863 petitions received, 1,084 asked for a US mandate in Syria.38 After much delay, the King-Crane Commission finally published its report in 1922, but by then it was too late for Syria. French tanks had already rumbled through Damascus, fully occupying the city in the summer of 1920. Although Wilson remained in office until March 1921, he was incapacitated after suffering a severe stroke in 1919 and therefore he did not stand up in Syria’s defence that summer. His illness worsened shortly after the King-Crane Commission returned from Syria. No follow-up of the commission’s findings took place and, eager to see an end to the troublesome US president and his anti-colonial agenda, France and Great Britain went ahead with their plans for the Middle East. Wilson was now useless to Arab nationalists and his successor, Warren Harding, a newspaper publisher and senator from Ohio, was clearly uninterested in the Middle East. Two years later, Crane decided to visit Syria once again, to see how the country was faring under French occupation. On 1 April 1922, AUB President Edward Nickoley sent word to Shahbandar that Crane was coming to Damascus as a private citizen, ‘to meet old friends.’39 Crane arrived by train, via Haifa, on 5 April. Shahbandar wrote to Hajj Uthman, ‘Don’t go to sleep until all his meetings are arranged.’40 Hajj Uthman facilitated Crane’s tour of the capital, taking him to Sunday Mass at a church in Bab Touma and to visit Fares al-Khoury at his home in al-Qassa, the Christian neighbourhood of Damascus. Hajj Uthman also arranged for Crane to visit the conservative al-Midan, Shaghour and Qanawat neighbourhoods, both within and beyond the walled city. Accompanying him were future prime minister Hasan al-Hakim, Ismail Tabbakh and Hajj Uthman’s son-in-law, Rashid Bakdounes.41 Hajj Uthman suggested holding all future meetings at his home, ‘because hotels are filled with spies and informers.’42 That evening, city elders met at Hajj Uthman’s house, including three clerics, a handful of artisans and the merchants Abdul Hamid al-Attar, Abdullah al-Kuzbari and Kamal al-Halabi. Hajj Uthman also invited the widows of Syrian nationalists executed by the Ottoman Turks in Marjeh Square back in 1916.

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Shahbandar addressed the political grievances of the Syrian people and Hajj Uthman spoke of their economic woes. Hajj Uthman talked about the trade barriers that were killing industry in Syria. Before World War I, Syria used to export an annual 1.5 million Turkish pounds’ worth of silk, textiles and food to Palestine, Egypt and the Hejaz.43 ‘Collectively, the ancient textile industry used to employ 30,000 families. This industry has come to a halt, because of the artificial borders that carved up our country.’44 Additionally, Damascus used to benefit from Muslim pilgrims arriving from Persia, Turkey and Afghanistan, who came annually to take the Hejaz railway to Medina and then Mecca. They stayed at Damascus hotels and shopped at its bazaars, generating an estimated 500,000 Turkish pounds annually for the city’s treasury.45 The Great Powers truncated the 2,000-kilometre railway after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, which left Syria in control of no more than 150 kilometres.46 The rest went to Transjordan, Palestine and the Kingdom of the Hejaz. Because of custom barriers imposed by the French, Muslim pilgrims now preferred making the holy pilgrimage via the Red Sea port of Jeddah, rather than Damascus.47 Hajj Uthman also criticised the taxation system imposed under the French mandate. ‘For the past twenty years, I used to pay an annual income tax of 50 quroush (piasters) to government authorities. Now, we are still in the first quarter of the year, and I have paid 17,000 quroush to the French government.’48 The money being collected was ostensibly being used to build bridges and a telegraph line to the ancient city of Palmyra in the Syrian Desert, he added. ‘In reality, however, they are stealing the gold and riches of Syria. This explains why the price of gold has gone sky high over the past two years.’49 Hajj Uthman then took out a list of salaries paid by the French government to its agents and prote´ge´s in the Syrian civil service. The salary of the Damascus governor Haqqi al-Azm, he noted, was 360 SP monthly. ‘One Ottoman pound today equals 2.5 Syrian pounds.’50 ‘Under the Ottomans, the vali of Damascus used to get 150 Ottoman pounds per month. This of course was when the vilayet of Damascus included Homs, Hama, Tripoli and Beirut. Haqqi Bey is being paid twice as much, while he rules territory half the size of the original Ottoman vali.’51 This meant a huge drain on the Syrian government’s treasury, he said, which would soon lead to

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The Makers of Modern Syria

certain bankruptcy. Additionally, Haqqi al-Azm was making 8,500 SP annually ‘for protocol and festivities’ and 6,000 SP for travel expenses, in addition to 400 SP for newspaper subscriptions. ‘Meaning, the governor of Damascus accounts for 20,000 SP monthly – a staggering number, considering that the country is in debt and people live in crippling poverty.’52 Hajj Uthman added that French professors were being paid double the salary of Syrian academics at the Faculties of Law and Medicine (which one year later would form the nucleus of the Syrian University). A French academic was making 1,000–1,200 piasters per month, while Syrians were making no more than 500. ‘Do note that twenty-five per cent of the male population of Damascus and Aleppo alone are unemployed, Mr. Crane. Many of them are university graduates.’53 Everywhere he went, Crane heard uniform grievances: political repression, nepotism, embezzlement, corruption and economic disaster. Shahbandar angrily added, ‘Less developed countries like the Philippines are about to get independence from the United States, while we in Syria might get stuck with the French forever!’54 The moment Crane ended his two-day visit the French authorities had Shahbandar arrested. He was charged with receiving funds from the US government to topple the mandate government in Syria.55 Fares alKhoury defended him before French courts, to no avail. Shahbandar was sentenced to twenty years of hard labour for the possession of US$2,000 found on him. The amount, he claimed, was scholarship money made out in his name by Crane, to send two schoolgirls to university in the USA. One of them, Alice Qandalaft, was a Christian writer and activist from Damascus. In 1948 she became the first Arab woman at the United Nations, serving on a diplomatic delegation headed by Prime Minister Fares al-Khoury. The other was Nazeq al-Abed, the daughter of Damascus notable Mustapha Pasha al-Abed, who chaired a women’s NGO and had founded a first aid organisation, the Red Star, predecessor to the Syrian Red Crescent. In this humanitarian capacity, Nazeq al-Abed had joined the Syrian Army at Maysaloun in 1920. She had a profound effect on Crane but turned down his grant to study in the USA, recommending one of her students instead. One day after Shahbandar’s arrest, an estimated 8,000 men gathered at the Umayyad Mosque to hear impassioned speeches in

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his defence. By the time Friday prayer was over, the crowd had reached 10,000 and broke out of the Grand Mosque, heading towards the Citadel of Damascus where Shahbandar and his comrades were being held. They marched through the Hamidieh Bazaar carrying portraits of Shahbandar and, armed with knives, slingshots and sticks, they threatened to liberate him by force. A French garrison immediately dispersed the crowd, arresting forty-six Damascenes. The same pattern was repeated daily until 10 April, when the demonstrators adopted a new approach. This time, forty women headed by Shahbandar’s wife, Sarah Mouayyad al-Azm, took part in the demonstration against the French. Prosperous merchants in the marketplace, headed by Hajj Uthman, all shut down their establishments in solidarity with Dr Shahbandar. Many women marched unveiled, while some ululated at high pitch, chanting slogans calling for the long life of Shahbandar and Charles Crane. Once again, the French intervened, arresting thirty-six people.56 FUNDING AND FOUNDING THE PEOPLE’S PARTY Shahbandar was eventually released, after spending seventeen months in jail, and embarked on an ambitious project: establishing the first political party in French-mandate Syria. It was to be called the People’s Party and its goal was to create a constitutional monarchy in Damascus after liberating the country from foreign control and reuniting the whole of Syria. The founding conference was hosted at Sharabati’s home, put under Shahbandar’s service for the occasion.57 In May 1925, he came knocking on Hajj Uthman’s door, asking him to join the People’s Party Political Committee. In addition to himself, it included Fares alKhoury, the Paris-trained politician Jamil Mardam Bey and Deputy President of the Damascus Chamber of Commerce Lutfi al-Haffar. All three of them, al-Khoury, Mardam Bey and al-Haffar, were to become future prime ministers of Syria. Hajj Uthman politely turned down the offer. In one of his letters to Hasan al-Hakim, at the time working as a banker in Palestine, Shahbandar wrote: ‘It’s no use. We tried our best with our big brother Hajj Uthman. He refuses to speak to the press, run for public office, or to join our party. We tried everything, with no luck!’58

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The Makers of Modern Syria

Three hundred and fifty politicians, bureaucrats and retired officers from the Ottoman Army were joining Dr Shahbandar. The party called for the unification of Syrian lands, reuniting the Alawite and Druze districts that had been detached into autonomous regions in 1920, and the eventual unity of Greater Syria. To show his support, Hajj Uthman donated money to the new party – a total of 150 Syrian pounds.59 Hajj Uthman advised Shahbandar to buy shares in the party’s name in order to generate periodic revenue. ‘Don’t rely on membership fees or donations. One day they will dry up. Invest money, and give the party an economic lifeline of its own.’60 At the launch in June 1925, al-Khoury and Shahbandar took turns at the podium, stressing the secular cross-sectarian character of their new party, arguing that religion and politics shouldn’t mix. Making use of Hajj Uthman’s advice, Shahbandar charged no membership fee, making the People’s Party accessible to a large segment of Syrian youth who for financial reasons were unable to join parties that charged upfront membership fees. At Hajj Uthman’s urging, he bought shares for the party in the newly established Ayn al-Fijeh Water Company, a money-generating enterprise bringing clean spring water to the homes of Damascus. It was the first public-private partnership enterprise in Syria, relieving the burden on the River Barada which until then had been used for both irrigation and drinking, and would provide fresh drinking water to the citizens of Damascus for years to come. The People’s Party, inspiring as it was, was a very short-lived project. It died a few months later, after the Great Syrian Revolt of 1925. THE AUB AND MIT INFLUENCE While all of this was happening back home, Sharabati was completing high school in Beirut and preparing to join the prestigious American University of Beirut, probably at the advice of his father’s friends, Shahbandar and Fares al-Khoury. Both had studied and taught at AUB and often stressed that the university had a profound effect on their life and careers; it was the only institution in the entire Middle East left unscathed by the anguish of war and occupation. Originally named the Syrian Protestant College, it opened its doors to students in December 1866, changing its name to AUB in 1920. Although

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established by Daniel Bliss, a Christian missionary from the USA, AUB sought to serve ‘all conditions and classes of men without regard to colour, nationality, race or religion.’ AUB’s transition to secularism had started to bear fruit from the late nineteenth century, when Shahbandar led a student demonstration on campus, objecting to mandatory Sunday Mass at the university’s church. Later, AUB’s chapel was transformed into a secular lecture room, now called the Assembly Hall. By the time Sharabati joined its student body, AUB was already fifty-nine years old and had earned a reputation for liberal education, secularism and firebrand nationalism. In future years, celebrated Syrian figures were to study at AUB including President Nazem al-Qudsi, the world-famous novelist Ghada al-Samman, the historian Constantine Zureik and poet Omar Abu Risheh. So did leaders of the Palestinian resistance, George Habash and Wadih Haddad, and Lebanese Prime Minister Saeb Salam. Lawrence of Arabia noted in his memoirs that ‘quite unintentionally, AUB taught revolution.’ AUB created a space where intellectual discovery could flourish, helping develop the character of its students, enhancing their values and empowering their civic engagement. Because it was an American institution on Lebanese soil neither the Ottoman Turks nor the French could really meddle with its curriculum, enabling Arab students to bond and exchange bold ideas about revolution and nation-building. Sharabati spent one year at AUB before taking the unusual decision of traveling to the USA to complete his studies in mechanical engineering at the world-reputed Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), graduating in 1928. Travelling to the USA by boat, and studying at one of its top universities, was a complete novelty for Damascus; no other young man of his generation had even visited the USA, much less gone there to study. MIT adopted a polytechnic university model and stressed laboratory instruction in applied sciences and engineering. It was chartered during the American Civil War and, by the time Sharabati joined in the mid-1920s, MIT boasted a huge 168-acre campus addressing rapid scientific and technological advances. At MIT, Sharabati led an academically oriented life that was strikingly different from the one back home. He started developing into an athletic young man; playing football, tennis and bowling. He also swam weekly,

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The Makers of Modern Syria

a habit he learned during his time at AUB where he swam from alManara to the Pigeon’s Rock along the coastline of Beirut. Despite his young age, Sharabati was starting to develop into a full-fledged nationalist in his own right; influenced by his father, no doubt, yet independent of Hajj Uthman, and very different. AUB and MIT introduced Sharabati to the modern world and how it was operating; a world very different from the one left behind by the Ottomans in Syria. MIT gave Sharabati the intellectual depth, scientific knowledge and cosmopolitan education that made him stand out among his peers in Syria. The MIT experience helped him revamp Damascus University in 1943 when he was minister of education, and his training in aeronautical and mechanical engineering helped him excel five years later at the Ministry of Defence. It also gave him a first-hand understanding of American politics that no other Syrian politician had, making his advice all the more important in Damascus during the Cold War. He soon returned to his native Damascus and found himself walking in his father’s footsteps. Upon retirement, Hajj Uthman left behind a vast business empire, a solid reputation on the streets of Syria, and big shoes that Ahmad Sharabati was expected to fill in the Syrian resistance. It wasn’t going to be easy, coming at the heels of the Great Syrian Revolt and the world economic depression of 1929. Intellectually and politically, however, Sharabati was ready for the job. BIRTH OF A POLITICAL CLASS The ‘Founding Fathers’ of Syria were brought together, perhaps unintentionally, by a common fate imposed by the monumental events of World War I and its immediate aftermath. Resistance to Ottoman rule and the anguish of the Great War were turning points in their careers, as was the failure of the Faisal government and the French occupation after Maysaloun. This generation watched the rapid collapse of three empires after World War I and the birth of new countries, like Syria. Arab historians have commonly grouped them as ‘Al-Rae’el al-Awal’ or the First Generation, in reference to men like Hajj Uthman, Shahbandar, Hashem al-Atasi, Shukri al-Quwatli and Fares alKhoury. None of them were trained as politicians but learned to operate in the complex web of Middle East politics via trial and error; marked by

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a painful learning curve of rapid intellectual evolution. They are categorised as Ottoman-trained or -influenced, born in the mid- to late nineteenth century, socially conservative and intellectually charged by the philosophical and ideological trends of their time and era: Arabism, Ottomanism and Islam. While growing up, these figures identified themselves as Ottoman subjects before discovering their Arab identity, and only after middle age did they start describing themselves as ‘Syrian citizens.’ Sharabati’s generation sometimes referred to, as ‘Al-Ra’el alThani’ is the one that played no role during this crucial period of modern Arab history, but was tremendously influenced by it. They used its grave injustices as a catalyst to lead the resistance against French and British colonialism during the inter-war years, empowered by modern education, exposure to mass media, modern travel like aeroplanes and trains and the liberal thought that came with collapse of the Ottoman order. They used their university education – in law, engineering and medicine – to generate income, develop their societies and to tackle the resistance with a more ‘scientific approach’ that was notably different from that of the first generation. They were born Syrian and lived by this national and political identity. The grand injustice done to Syrian nationalists only empowered Sharabati and his peers, giving them ammunition to pursue their goals. All the sacrifices of the first generation could not have been in vain, they argued. One battle had been lost, they prophesied, but the war with France was far from over. Their audacity lifted the spirits of the entire Syrian nation in the years to come.

CHAPTER 3

Syria in Revolt

In 1925, a delegation of Druze notables, most of them religious leaders, traveled to Damascus for a meeting with the new French High Commissioner, Maurice Sarrail. A stern officer and avowed atheist, Sarrail had no time for local complaints, particularly from clerics.1 He viewed Christian priests, Sunni imams, and Druze sheikhs with equal disdain, mocking their ways and religious beliefs.2 He refused to respond to any of their requests and, after they left, took steps he thought would silence the Druze once and for all. He invited the same delegation to return for another meeting in Damascus. When they showed up, he had them arrested and sent to the notorious Palmyra prison in the Syrian Desert.3 This treachery reverberated throughout Syrian society and aroused fury in the Druze Mountain. Even the British consul in Damascus remarked that this was not how sophisticated European generals ought to handle colonial affairs, adding that it reminded him of Turkish ‘methods of deception.’4 On 18 July 1925, Druze fighters opened fire on a French plane circling the Druze Mountain. The conflict escalated and by the end of July, the French had 10,000 troops stationed in the Mountain, whose entire population did not exceed 50,000.5 General Roger Michaud was sent to the Druze Mountain to force Sultan Pasha al-Atrash and his Druze fighters into submission. On 2 August, the French forces were attacked by al-Atrash’s men: fourteen were killed, 385 were wounded, 432 troops were taken hostage and 2,000 rifles

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were captured.6 Michaud himself fled the scene and, in disgrace, his second-in-command committed suicide after being defeated by the Druze.7 The 2,000 rifles were distributed to al-Atrash’s men and thousands flocked to his rebel army. By late August, this army was estimated at 10,000 men, equal to the number of French troops stationed in the Druze Mountain.8 At first, the Syrian capital was indifferent to the Druze uprising, but the city’s elite could not ignore it. Soon young men from the Damascus countryside were taking up arms and pledging support for Sultan al-Atrash, putting the city’s nationalists in danger of becoming politically irrelevant. On 21 August 1925, Hajj Uthman called for a secret meeting at his residence in al-Salhieh. The invitation and location of the meeting was conveyed to each participant through a shoe-shine stationed by the Cinema Ghazi, behind the Grand Serail in Marjeh Square.9 This is where Shahbandar’s men would come to receive secret instructions, while casually having their shoes shined. They were instructed to arrive at specific times, to avoid arousing suspicion. ‘Preferably come walking – please don’t take a taxi or carriage.’10 By 6:00 pm, the gathering was complete. Chairing the meeting was Shahbandar himself, flanked by his brother-in-law Nazih Mouayyad al-Azm on the left and Hajj Uthman on the right. Seated around the table were the Bakri brothers Nasib and Fawzi, Fares alKhoury, Jamil Mardam Bey and Hasan al-Hakim.11 The Bakris were sons of a Damascene aristocrat who had served at Sultan Abdulhamid II’s court. Nasib al-Bakri was an established leader who had served as Damascus MP in Faisal’s Parliament. Jamil Mardam Bey had served as Shahbandar’s assistant at the Foreign Ministry and al-Hakim was Shahbandar’s right-hand-man in the People’s Party. All of them were co-founders of al-Fatat, the leading underground movement that worked to bring down the Ottoman Empire. Fares al-Khoury, Jamil Mardam Bey and Hassan al-Hakim would later become prime ministers. That evening, they decided to bring the Druze revolt to Damascus. The men swore on their honour to ‘never rest until Syria is freed from all foreign intervention.’12 Hajj Uthman briefed them about support within the old souqs of Damascus, saying that thirty-six merchants were ready to offer financial backing for the insurgency.

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One of them, Yusuf Linadu, was Jewish, while the others were Sunni Muslims and Christians.13 Shahbandar added that friends of his wife had sent him their jewellery to sell in order to buy arms for the rebels. Hajj Uthman bought them all for 200 gold coins and then asked Shahbandar to return the jewellery to its generous owners, saying that the price of 200 gold coins would be his downpayment for the Damascus revolt.14 The list of women donors included Naziq al-Abed, the daughter of Mustapha Pasha al-Abed; Subhiya Tanneer, the director of an all-girls school in Arnous; a wealthy Kurdish lady from the Shamdin Agha family; and Mrs Shahbandar herself, Sarrah Mouayyad al-Azm. Two other women took part in the rebellion. The first, Aziza Husrieh, was commissioned to spy on French officers and collaborators, while Rashida al-Zebak was tasked with distributing rifles in the Damascus countryside.15 Shahbandar thanked Hajj Uthman and then assigned roles to those in the clandestine group. He would serve as the Damascus rebellion’s leader. Hajj Uthman would be its main fundraiser and coordinator. Al-Khoury, Mardam Bey and al-Hakim would be political advisers while al-Bakri would be their liaison with the rebels in the Druze Mountain and al-Ghouta. None of them had ever carried a rifle in their lives, but they were committed to realising their dream of a free Syria. Using mules and arms provided by Hajj Uthman, Shahbandar and two of his men went to the Druze Mountain to brief Sultan Pasha and coordinate their strategy with the Druze commanders. To throw off French intelligence, they spent the night in disguise at Hosh alMatban, a small village in al-Ghouta, and then moved to the summer resort of Bloudan, fifty-one kilometres northwest of Damascus.16 From there, they traveled to Suweida by taxi, pretending to be agricultural experts from the municipality of Damascus. Shahbandar swore to dedicate himself fully to the revolt, closing his private clinic in Damascus to take up arms with the Druze rebellion and putting himself and his family at the Pasha’s disposal. The French responded with brutal force. First, they outlawed the People’s Party, arrested many of Shahbandar’s allies and inflicted harsh collective punishment on the Damascus countryside, burning homes, bombing villages and shooting anyone with ties to Shahbandar. Rebels in the countryside were already attacking French

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police stations at night and cutting telephone and telegraph lines to and from Damascus.17 All People’s Party documents were confiscated, and on 27 August three ranking party members – Fares al-Khoury, Ihsan al-Sharif and Abdul Majid Tabbakh – were bundled into cars and taken to the Arwad Prison off the coast of Tartous.18 Fakhri al-Barudi, another ally of Hajj Uthman, was arrested at his home in al-Qanawat in the heart of the old city, as was the brilliant attorney Fawzi al-Ghazzi, a professor at the Damascus University Faculty of Law.19 Joining the rebellion was an enormous departure for these seasoned politicians who had built their careers on political engagement rather than military resistance; refusing, for example, to take up arms against the Ottomans during World War I. Their opposition to military rule had been based on constitutionalism, democracy and rule of law. On 23 August, pink and blue handbills were distributed in Damascus, signed by ‘Sultan al-Atrash, commander-in-chief of the Syrian Revolt.’ Printed at Ibn Zaydun Press by Fakhri al-Barudi, the leaflets were scattered in the streets at night, to be picked up and read by locals the next morning. The declaration began: To Arms! To Arms! Oh sons of glorious Arabs! Let us seek death that we may win life. Syrians; remember your forefathers, your history, your heroes, your martyrs, your national honour. Remember that the hand of God is with you and that the will of the people is the will of God.20

The document took the Damascenes by surprise. It called for the complete independence of ‘Arab Syria.’ Emancipation was a national demand, and so were a democratically elected government, a parliament and a constitution. The declaration demanded that Syrians be given the same ‘rights given to Frenchmen after the French Revolution.’21 Damascus was being pulled out of its slumber and into a military confrontation it had avidly tried to avoid since 1920. For his part, Hajj Uthman continued to send money to the al-Ghouta orchards – or what remained of them – financing countryside rebels from his own fortune. Hajj Uthman also contacted his trusted friend, Shahbandar’s political rival, Shukri al-Quwatli, who transformed his Bala village in al-Ghouta into a storehouse for ammunition and a shelter for rebels escaping the French dragnet. When the French heard of the arms arriving in Bala, they bulldozed the village to the

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ground. Hajj Uthman’s allowance to the rebels varied from half a gold pound to two gold pounds per month.22 From his hideout in the Druze Mountain, Shahbandar sent a bundle of letters to Hajj Uthman in Damascus, asking him to send them on. One was addressed to President Calvin Coolidge at the White House and another to Pope Pius XI at the Vatican. Shahbandar was pleading with them for international intervention to ‘save the people of Syria.’23 The French intercepted the letters and went after Hajj Uthman who, remarkably, did not blink when he learned the couriers were arrested. To avoid raising French suspicion, he had carried on with his daily routine, walking along the same streets and meeting the same people at his home every evening. Shortly after dawn on 1 September 1925, Senegalese soldiers serving in the French Army of the Levant burst into Hajj Uthman’s house, smashing the front door and windows with their bayonets. ‘Ou est Hajj Osman?’ they shouted as they searched the house, room by room, destroying furniture and mirrors as they went along. When he was dragged out in chains, he found that the Bab Touma notable Tawfiq Shamiya was already in French custody. The two men were first taken to the state dungeon in al-Hassakeh, in the far northeastern corner of the country. Two weeks later, they were escorted at gunpoint to Arwad.24 This is where Hajj Uthman spent the next two years, in a small damp cell, shared with three prisoners from Aleppo: Saadallah al-Jabiri, Salah al-Din al-Jabiri and AUB-trained medical doctor Abdul Rahman al-Kayyali.25 They were prevented from sleeping for days on end by having cold water thrown on their face as they began to fall asleep. They were strapped down on wooden benches while droplets of water fell on their forehead every minute in an attempt to drive them mad. Prison guards swore at them and threatened to arrest members of their family if they did not lead them to the whereabouts of Abdul Rahman Shahbandar. None of them ever stood trial but were held on charges of ‘high treason’ against the mandate regime. As of 2018, a marble slab still stands at Arwad Prison with the names of Syrian nationalists who had served time there during the Great Syrian Revolt. Ninth on the list is Hajj Uthman Sharabati.

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THE FIRST SHELLING OF DAMASCUS While Hajj Uthman was in jail, chaos broke out in Damascus. On 18 October 1925, approximately 400 armed horsemen marched into the Syrian capital, on orders from Shahbandar, and headed for the Azm Palace in the heart of the Old City.26 One hundred of them, led by the nationalist leader Nasib al-Bakri, entered the old alleys from al-Qaboon, a suburb six kilometres northeast of Damascus. Two hundred were commanded by a night guard from the orchards of alShaghour named Hasan al-Kharrat and the remaining one hundred were from al-Ghouta.27 The eighteenth-century Ottoman governors of Syria had used the ancient Azm Palace, with all its treasures, as their home, and the French had used it as lodgings for senior personnel since 1920. Shahbandar had believed a rumour that Maurice Sarrail would be arriving from Beirut to spend the day at the palace.28 The rebels had orders to arrest the French High Commissioner to be traded later for hundreds of Syrian prisoners the French were holding. Sarrail, however, did not come to Damascus that day. In his memoirs, however, Shahbandar insists that Sarrail was at the Azm Palace but escaped in an armoured vehicle when the rebels approached.29 Whatever the case, French forces sealed off the Old City and bombs began shelling the Azm Palace. Damascus merchants literarily begged the rebels to leave the city, to no avail. The shelling continued non-stop for two days.30 Nearly every shop in the old market surrounding the Umayyad Mosque was destroyed either by machine-gun fire or shelling. The Midhat Pasha and Bzurieh markets, just outside the gates of the Azm Palace, were the worst hit, followed by the al-Midan and Shaghour Markets.31 Nearly one hundred metres of the Hamidieh Market roof were destroyed, collapsing onto the small shops inside.32 The streets of the Old City, usually swarming with commercial activity, were covered with shattered glass, destroyed merchandise and remains of the dead. In the areas of Bab al-Jabieh, al-Kharabeh and Shaghour, 150 homes were destroyed beyond repair.33 The intense shelling led to the death of 1,416 Syrians and the displacement of 336 others.34 A delegation from the Damascus Chamber of Commerce led by Lutfi al-Haffar visited General Sarrail, demanding an immediate ceasefire.

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Sarrail said he would only agree to stop the onslaught if an astronomical fine was imposed on the city, as punishment for having supported Shahbandar, and if all arms were surrendered to French authorities within four days. The delegation refused.35 FUNDRAISING FOR THE REVOLT Shukri al-Quwatli was among the few Syrian nationalists who evaded jail during the revolt, fleeing to Egypt before the French issued a warrant for his arrest. From Cairo, he gathered a small team to help him raise funds across the Arab world and even as far away as North America. It included Mohammad Ali Taher, the Palestinian publisher of the political daily Al-Shoura, Syrian journalist Muhib al-Din al-Khatib, Abdul-Aziz al-Thaalbi, leader of the Tunisian movement Tunis al-Fatat and the Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, who raised 13,000 pounds for relief work in Syria from wealthy Palestinians.36 In Cairo, the celebrated Egyptian nationalist Mustapha Nahhas Pasha, head of the Wafd Party, donated one hundred pounds in support of the Syrian revolt.37 In the USA, al-Quwatli opened a relief office in Oklahoma, and Syrian-Americans opened another four, in Detroit, Chicago, Washington DC and Louisville. Soon, international newspapers were referring to the Damascus events as a ‘French massacre.’ The French press accused Sarrail of being a ‘despot’ who was ‘liquidating Syria.’ Worried that anti-French sentiment would spread to North Africa, Paris recalled General Sarrail in late 1925. Onboard the Sphinx, the Egyptian liner that took him back to France, the disgraced Sarrail spoke to a journalist from Le Petit Parisien on 10 November 1925. ‘What could have I done? Given the city over to the bandits? Attempted to fight them on the streets? Should I have appeared on the balcony and addressed the crowd? Or should I have done nothing and allowed Christians to be slaughtered as in 1860?’38 When Sarrail arrived in Paris, demonstrators marched outside his home shouting ‘Assassin!’39 General Sarrail was replaced by Henri de Jouvenel, the first civilian to hold the post of French High Commissioner. A journalist by training, he had been editor of the popular newspaper Le Matin before coming to Syria in late November 1925. Eager to put an end to the

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conflict, de Jouvenel offered Syrian rebels an honourable exit, promising not to arrest them or punish them in any way if they lay down their arms. All of them had been ‘fooled’ into taking up arms by Shahbandar and al-Atrash, he claimed, and called on them to ‘return to their senses and realise that change cannot happen through military force.’40 Some of them were pardoned, and de Jouvenel began approaching moderates like Fares al-Khoury and Lutfi al-Haffar, promising to respond to their political demands if they would help him end the revolt. ‘What do you want? A constitutional assembly? A parliament? A government? Take all of that, and you will be considered partners in the new Syria. All I want from you is to use your influence to call on the bandits to lay down their arms and have faith in French justice.’41 In 1927, de Jouvenel released Hajj Uthman from jail, whose name had twice been excluded from amnesty lists announced by the mandate regime.42 By this time, however, the French felt confident enough to completely turn the page with Syria’s nationalists. The country’s new French-appointed head of state, Damad Ahmad Nami, invited Hajj Uthman for an audience on 15 November 1927.43 A Circassian aristocrat from Beirut, Nami was the son-in-law of Sultan Abdulhamid II. He came to power with the intention of ending the revolt, reaching an agreement with the nationalists, and rebuilding Syria through reconciliation committees and a massive reconstruction programme bankrolled by Syrian industrialists. The Damad (which means son-in-law of the sultan in Ottoman Turkish) invited Hajj Uthman to join the central reconciliation committee, headed by Sheikh Badr al-Din al-Hasani, the leading Islamic scholar of his generation in Syria and respected throughout the Muslim world. Hajj Uthman accepted the offer. His first mission was to travel to Amman for talks with the exiled Sultan Pasha al-Atrash.44 Hajj Uthman was asked to find middle ground with the Druze leader – either a temporary or comprehensive ceasefire – in exchange for a general amnesty for him and Shahbandar. Both men refused and remained in exile until 1937. As the talks stagnated, military operations continued. By mid1927, de Jouvenel had asserted French control over the Damascus countryside – at horrific cost in human life – and had driven all the

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Druze warriors across the border into Transjordan. After turning down the French offer, both Shahbandar and al-Atrash were sentenced to death. Devastated by this turn of events, Hajj Uthman moved to Cairo, politely apologising to Sheikh al-Hasani, saying that he couldn’t carry on with reconciliation talks given France’s refusal to allow Shahbandar and al-Atrash to return home. His stance infuriated French authorities. By the end of 1927 the revolt, which had become the symbol Syrian nationalism and chivalry, had been squashed. Approximately 150,000 were left unemployed, representing fifteen to twenty per cent of the labour force.45 Hajj Uthman and his friends had to come up with creative ways to ease the suffering of the people of Syria. It wasn’t going to be easy, with him now living in Egypt and with other nationalist leaders either in exile or jail. Damascus lay in ruins, its countryside completely destroyed and its national movement eradicated. LIFE IN EGYPT A few months after arriving in Cairo, Hajj Uthman was joined by his son, who had just completed his studies at MIT in the summer of 1928. Ahmad Sharabati arrived in Cairo with big dreams, boundless ambition and an outpouring of bitterness at what the French had done to his father and his country. Hajj Uthman had lost weight from his years in jail, with poor – if any – medical treatment. A car accident in Egypt had injured his leg and left him with a permanent limp, which made him look older than his fifty years.46 Ahmad Sharabati soon developed a veracious appetite for politics. At only 21, he found himself immersed among Arab nationalists of all stripes and colours. Egypt was going through its own democratic transition, which the two Sharabatis witnessed first-hand. Egypt’s first elected parliament opened in March 1924, while Syria had no parliament and was ruled with an iron French fist. Anti-colonial revolutions were happening around the world, and no doubt this influenced the young Syrian rebel. In Egypt, a revolt had broken out against the British less than ten years earlier, led by Saad Zaghloul Pasha, and its aftershocks could still be felt throughout Egyptian society. Ahmad Sharabati believed that since the Syrians had been able to crush the

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Ottoman Turks they would, one day, also be able to defeat the French. It was only a matter of time and patience. His idealism was born of a mythical Syrian nationalism. He failed to realise that it was the British who had led the expulsion of the Ottomans from Syria, not the will and might of the Syrian people alone. As it developed, it was the British who would drive the French from Syria twenty years later. Ahmad Sharabati’s first exile was not his own doing; he was paying the price for his father’s role in what came to be known as the Great Syrian Revolt of 1925. Cairo, however, initiated him into the complex and controversial world of Arab politics, introducing him to high-calibre politicians often twenty to thirty years his senior, similar to the calibre of men he had met at his father’s house in Damascus. Shahbandar also had moved to Cairo and was a regular guest at the Sharabati home. Egypt’s inter-war status as a centre for Arab nationalist activity, along with its rich culture, cosmopolitan community, liberal environment and large number of Syrian refugees, made it a perfect venue for the young Sharabati. Collectively, Egyptians called Syrian e´migre´s shawam. In addition, Egypt was less oppressive than most Arab capitals at the time – certainly less so than Damascus, Beirut or Jerusalem. The Syrian community in Cairo, with its shops, restaurants and newspapers, was well established by the early 1920s and welcomed the more recent Syrian exiles. During the day, he sometimes led the life of a young politician, attending overcrowded and smoke-filled meetings where Arab orators would take turns delivering impassioned speeches denouncing the British and French. They lashed out at everyone and everything; the partition of Syria that France had imposed, the creation of modern Lebanon, the British occupation of Palestine and the 1925 destruction of Damascus. Ahmad Sharabati listened carefully and remembered well. When not immersed in politics, he spent time with his father’s Egyptian business associates. Having brought new technology from the USA, Sharabati promptly set about opening a small iron and steel welding factory in Cairo, producing the first wrought iron furniture in the Middle East and North Africa.47 He also began investing in the Egyptian stock market, buying and selling cotton stocks, which

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was a booming market in Egypt.48 Egyptian cotton had been a prized commodity since the 1800s, when Mohammad Ali Pasha developed it as a cash crop to support his massive army. During the American Civil War when the supply of cotton from the USA was interrupted, the British government began to rely heavily on Egyptian-grown cotton, which was more durable, softer and less expensive than American cotton. The cotton was grown in Egypt but the cotton trade was dominated by foreigners. Of the thirty-five registered cotton brokers in Egypt in 1928, only two were Egyptians. The directors of the Egyptian cotton bourse were a mixture of Egyptians and several Middle Eastern nationalities, including Syrian Jews. The president of the bourse was a Syrian friend of Hajj Uthman named Jules Klat Bey. Even the cotton mills were monopolised by nonEgyptians. Ahmad Sharabati traded at the Cairo Stock Exchange which, when considered together with the Alexandria Stock Exchange, was one of the world’s top five exchanges. It was located at the old Ottoman Bank office on Maghraby Street. In 1928, there were 228 listed companies at the Cairo bourse. Ahmad Sharabati succeeded amongst these international giants, securing his first million pounds. It was self-made money, not the inherited fortunes of Hajj Uthman. The success did not last. The Wall Street stock market crash of 1929 – also known as Black Tuesday – reverberated around the globe. When the London Stock Exchange crashed, so did the Cairo Stock Exchange, destroying the price of cotton in Egypt. After only fourteen months in Egypt, Ahmad Sharabati was back at square one, exiled and financially bankrupt. He vowed to return to Syria, never trade in the stock market again, dedicate himself to his family’s business and focus on driving the French from Damascus. Two of these vows were fulfilled by 1933. The Sharabatis moved back home and Ahmad joined the family business, slowly taking over the administration of the cigarette factories from Hajj Uthman. The French were still there, however, and with so many frontline nationalists either exiled or jailed, Ahmad and his friends looked for ways to drive the French out, whatever the cost. This conviction gave birth to one of the most sophisticated but short-lived political movements of inter-war Syria, the Usbat al-Amal al-Qawmi, or League of National Action.

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ASSESSMENT OF THE GREAT REVOLT The Great Syrian Revolt of 1925 was a turning point in the life of the nation and the lives of Syria’s founding fathers. Although glorified by nationalist historians for years to come, the revolt was a disaster for Syria. Not only did it completely fail at ejecting the French, it resulted in tighter security and the emergence of a police state under French commissioners, much harsher and more autocratic than before 1925. It crippled the Syrian economy and left the Damascus countryside in rubble. It also led to the banishment of such frontline nationalists as Shahbandar and Sultan al-Atrash, who were removed from the political stage for a full decade and almost sent into political oblivion. When measured by nationalist criteria, however, the Great Revolt was impressive. It showed that the people of Syria were proud, patriotic and would rally to arms when needed to achieve their independence. Making a point, however, was not the issue. Syrian nationalists wanted independence, which seemed farther away than ever after the Great Revolt. The older generation, which had accomplished the Arab Revolt of 1916, knew no other way of getting rid of an occupying force. When they took up arms a decade earlier it had helped topple the Ottomans and they saw no reason why it would not work against the French. But something had to be done differently. This is where Sharabati and his friends came in, learning from the mistakes of 1925 while providing a new plan, with new faces, and a different approach to resistance. Military force alone would never drive the French out of Syria, they argued. Military force was needed but had to go hand-in-hand with a political process that invested in the very same institutions France had introduced to Syria: a constitution, parliament, municipal elections and presidential office. The Syrians had to play by France’s rules of engagement, earning their independence by ballots instead of bullets. They needed to organise into political groups, or parties if possible, and persuade world opinion to support them. They needed to pressure the mandate authorities through strikes, campus sit-ins, street demonstrations and opinion articles in the Syrian press. Exposing French tyranny to the outside world would benefit the Syrian cause far more than shooting a French officer or overrunning French barracks.

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This required leadership, organization, discipline and vision, far more than individuals alone could provide. They also needed a functional political entity, but Syrians had not had a proper political party since the mandate was imposed. Shahbandar’s short-lived People’s Party had determined its own demise when it openly supported Sultan Pasha’s revolt. The younger generation of Syrian nationalists began to rally around big ideas and emerging leaders, giving birth to a colourful variety of political parties that included the Syrian Communist Party, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, the Arab Baath and the League of National Action. These parties slowly emerged between 1927 and 1945, forming what would become the country’s traditional political fault lines. All of them started with the same purpose of liberating Syria from French rule. The birth of these modern political parties was a direct result of the failure of the 1925 revolt, which was a vital turning point in the country’s political transformation.

CHAPTER 4

The League of National Action

Ambitious young Syrian men wanting to have political careers in the 1930s had only a few ideological parties to choose from in Damascus. One was the Communist Party of Syria and Lebanon, founded in Beirut after Vladimir Lenin’s death in 1924. It was anti-French and internationally well-connected thanks to the support it received from the Bolsheviks in Moscow. The Communist Party was attractive to schoolteachers, intellectuals, women wanting to break away from the restrictions of a male-dominated society, atheists and factory workers, all with very different ideological creeds and socio-economic backgrounds than Ahmad Sharabati. Another possibility was the nascent Damascus branch of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, led by a turbaned cleric from Homs named Sheikh Mustapha al-Sibaii. The Brotherhood, which had been founded in Egypt by Imam Hasan al-Banna in 1928, called for a caliphate-headed Islamic state and the end of British colonialism in North Africa and the Middle East. It was popular among the urban poor and lobbied against all kinds of foreign influence in the Muslim world, from music and cinemas to constitutions and parliaments, considering all of them imported and un-Islamic. The third possibility was the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP), the Nazi-influenced paramilitary organisation established by the enigmatic Lebanese philosopher Antune Saadeh. Founded in Beirut in 1932, the SSNP was anti-colonial, secular and revolutionary, attractive to young intellectuals studying at AUB in the early 1930s.

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Saadeh envisioned a greater Syria encompassing today’s Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Cyprus and the Sinai Peninsula. The pan-Syrian programme of the SSNP was too narrow for Ahmad Sharabati who, at this stage of his career, sought to liberate the entire Arab world, from Egypt and Tunisia to Syria, Lebanon and Palestine, from foreign control. THE NATIONAL BLOC A nationalist coalition founded by Hashem al-Atasi in October 1927, the National Bloc was the most important and organised anti-colonial movement in the Middle East.1 The party’s founding conference lasted for six days in Beirut and its attendees included Ibrahim Hananu, commander of the Aleppo Revolt of 1919; Aleppo physician Abdul Rahman Kayyali; Said al-Jaza’iri, the Damascus-based wealthy Algerian emir; Hama landowners Najib alBarazi and Abdul Qader Kaylani; Homs aristocrat Mazhar Pasha Raslan; Palestinian journalist Yusuf al-Issa; Beiruti notable Abdul Rahman Bayhum; Damascus attorney Ihsan al-Sharif; the mufti of Tripoli Abdul Hamid Karami; and two prominent citizens from Tripoli, Aref al-Baysar and Aref al-Rifaii. All of them were leading members of the first generation of Syrian nationalists. At its founding conference, the Bloc outlined its ten-point programme, demanding the end of martial law, freedom of the press, a general amnesty, a halt to arbitrary arrests and a roadmap for when and how the French mandate would end.2 The National Bloc would be willing to deal with the mandate regime and offer it de facto recognition only if the party were told specifically when and how it would finish. The party were unwilling to become stooges of the French, but were clearly open to talks with Paris. They believed that military opposition had been suicidal for Syria and placed all of the blame for the Great Revolt’s collapse on Shahbandar and his friends. The National Bloc leaders stressed that they sought to change French policy by influencing French public opinion, not by armed resistance. The National Bloc hoped to win Syria’s independence from the French by cooperating with French-created institutions, one step at a time. This was a far cry from the nationwide revolution that Shahbandar had been calling for

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since 1920, seeking nothing less than immediate and unconditional independence, with no French privileges whatsoever in Syria’s future. Members of the Bloc derided his oratory and claimed that his leadership had led them to nothing but destruction. Now that he seemed to be in permanent exile, they argued, Shahbandar was no longer entitled to speak on behalf of the nationalist movement. The National Bloc dominated the Syrian political scene from 1927 to 1946. During these years, its leaders would assemble in the old mansions of Damascus and Aleppo, to discuss how Syria should be run and with what form of government following the departure of the French. The Bloc founder and lifetime president, Hashem al-Atasi, emphasised that the National Bloc was a coalition of like-minded men with good intentions, and not a political party. All its members were prominent, wealthy landowners united by the desire to see a free and independent Syria. They also shared the belief that armed resistance alone would never end the mandate and that it must be dismantled politically rather than brought down militarily. They vowed to eject the French using institutions the French had created such as the Syrian parliament, municipalities and the presidency. The National Bloc’s three goals were the unification of Syrian lands, independence and the establishment of a democratic parliamentary republic. The National Bloc was born out of the failures of Shahbandar and the Great Revolt, as well as the desire of the Syrian people for real leadership. By 1927 – 8, Shahbandar’s People’s Party had been completely discredited. Many Syrians blamed Shahbandar for dragging them into an ill-planned and costly confrontation with the French, resulting in a more oppressive occupation regime. Many of those who joined the National Bloc had been members of Shahbandar’s People’s Party, such as Fakhri al-Barudi; Damascus statesman Shukri al-Quwatli, later the first president of independent Syria; Lutfi al-Haffar, deputy president of the Damascus Chamber of Commerce; Jamil Mardam Bey, the Paris-educated politician; and the veteran Fares al-Khoury. Each of these men was of strong character, influential and had many supporters within particular sectors of Syrian society. Jamil Mardam Bey, for example, had a large following in the old bazaars of Damascus, where his family’s mansion was

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located. Fares al-Khoury was influential among university students, being dean of the Faculty of Law at Damascus University, while alBarudi enjoyed popularity among high school students. Thanks to these people, the National Bloc soon became known throughout the country. The founding members of the National Bloc came from two different generations. Hashem al-Atasi, Fares al-Khoury and Ibrahim Hananu were born between 1850 and 1870, while Shukri al-Quwatli, Jamil Mardam Bey and Saadallah al-Jabiri were born between 1880 and 1890. The youngest of the National Bloc’s founding leaders were nearly twenty years older than Ahmad Sharabati and his comrades. Most were Ottoman-educated, having studied either at the Ottoman Military Academy or at the elite Muluki School in Istanbul. They had endured brutal internment from the Turks and had been exiled by the French. Most of the National Bloc leadership, which was fully established in 1932, were Sunni Muslims, with some Christians but no Alawite or Druze. Furthermore, fifty per cent of its leaders came from Damascus and forty per cent from Aleppo, with the remaining ten per cent from Homs, Hama, Latakia, Tripoli, Sidon and Beirut. Around ninety per cent of Bloc members had received a secular education, while only eight per cent had received a religious education. This was unusual because there were far more religious than secular schools in Ottoman Syria. Almost twenty per cent were educated in Western schools, either in Europe or at the American University of Beirut, and more than half had studied in Istanbul. Major financial support for the National Bloc came from Hajj Uthman Sharabati and Aref Halbuni, the long-time president of the Damascus Chamber of Commerce. Hashem al-Atasi was elected president, unopposed, and Ibrahim Hananu was made za’im (chief) of the National Bloc. Other leaders included Fares al-Khoury as dean, Saadallah al-Jabiri as vice-president and Shukri al-Quwatli, Jamil Mardam Bey and the AUB-trained doctor Abdul Rahman Kayyali as members-at-large of the Permanent Office.3 Collectively, this small team ran the daily affairs of the National Bloc for the next fifteen years. They formulated policy, issued political declarations, listened to complaints of the locals, provided stipends for the families of those killed or injured, staged rallies, convened the General Assembly at

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regular intervals and negotiated with the French. As a gesture of goodwill towards Shahbandar, the Permanent Office inscribed his name on the Bloc’s founding document in 1932, although he was never officially invited to join. Ahmad Sharabati liked the National Bloc and respected most of its founders, but he never became an official member. In 1943 and 1947 he ran for Parliament on a joint ticket with some of these same men and, although generations apart, sat across the cabinet table at the Grand Serail with them as friends and colleagues. LIFE IN DAMASCUS The Damascus that Ahmad Sharabati returned to from Egypt in 1933 was very different from the city he had left in the early 1920s. Its population had swollen from 160,000 in 1920 to 200,000 by 1933.4 Many newcomers from the countryside had come to live behind its high walls after the French laid waste to the countryside in 1925. The old quarters had lost much of their intimacy. Political leadership had become competitive, costly and complicated; he had to introduce himself to people from scratch. Although Ahmad Sharabati excelled in future years when speaking with kings and pashas, he was more at ease with labourers, shopkeepers and the ordinary citizens of Damascus. He would show up at their weddings and funerals, visit them in the hospital, show interest in the careers of their children, and shower them with gifts during Eid and the month of Ramadan. Ahmad Sharabati realised that if he wanted to rise to pan-Syrian leadership, he needed to establish himself in Damascus first. He had to start one neighbourhood at a time, making himself the uncontested leader of his native al-Salhieh, as his father had been, and then expanding to other districts of the capital. Al-Salhieh, with a population of 2,814 and close to Old Damascus, was a gateway to the modern neighbourhoods of al-Shuhada, Arnus and al-Jisr, which were created by the French during the mandate years after 1920.5 Europeans living in Damascus had their homes in al-Salhieh and the future Syrian Parliament building was later constructed there. Ahmad Sharabati conducted his first parliamentary campaign here in 1943 and it remained his political power base for years to come.

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Fortunately for Sharabati, national consciousness was developing into a unifying force as people were eager to place themselves under the command of local leaders in order to see Syria liberated. Most Damascenes under Ottoman rule identified themselves either as Muslims or Ottomans, or according to their neighbourhood, either inside or outside the gates of the Old City. The concepts of Arabism and Syrianism did not exist. By the early twentieth century, loyalty to neighbourhood was replaced by loyalty to local leaders, or za’im in Arabic. Under Faisal, loyalty to the state had just begun to emerge, but it was hobbled by the weakness and brief existence of that Arab government. Under the mandate, local leaders began to call on their followers to pledge loyalty to Syria, demanding the unity of Syrian lands and independence. As with much of the world, Syria in 1933 was caught in the clutches of the Great Depression. The devastation wrought in the process of quelling the Great Syrian Revolt was still being felt throughout the country. In the years 1930 – 4, over 150,000 people were officially registered as unemployed, accounting for nearly twenty per cent of the Syrian work force.6 According to the Damascus Chamber of Commerce, the collapse of traditional handicrafts, for example, had left nearly 77,000 Damascenes jobless.7 In 1932, there were only 700 trades operating in Damascus. Within one year, the number had dropped to just below 400.8 Devaluation of the French franc led to a sharp drop in the value of the Syrian pound. As the currency crashed, clients at Syrian banks defaulted, leading to many cases of bankruptcy.9 Prominent businessmen in Damascus were ruined, seemingly overnight. The value of Syria’s total exports between the years 1929 – 33 fell by half, while the value of imports fell by thirty-eight per cent, increasing the trade deficit by eighteen per cent.10 Exports of Damascus wool fell by eighty-six per cent, for example, while cocoons and raw silk dropped by eighty-one per cent, and wheat by sixteen per cent. Mill owners in the al-Midan neighbourhood went on an open-ended strike, objecting to the reduction of import duties on flour. Syria was importing five times more flour than it was producing, forcing the largest mills in Damascus to close down in the winter of 1932–3.11 Agricultural imports rose by nineteen per cent

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while exports – which were the pride and joy of Syria – had dropped by a staggering forty-seven per cent. A severe drought in the Houran province led to the mass migration of 30,000 Houranis to nearby Damascus, further draining the city’s resources.12 Although water was never in abundance in southern Syria, the situation now became so severe that the residents of Houran were dying of thirst. The government sent water by train twice a week, but it was not nearly enough. A massive frost in al-Ghouta and the Kalamoon mountains, accompanied by violent winds, damaged sixty per cent of the apricot trees in 1933.13 Everywhere he went, Sharabati heard the same grievances and demands: a general amnesty, unification of Syrian lands, compensation for property damaged or lost during the revolt, a constitution and admittance to the League of Nations. The number of French troops had swollen throughout Syria, adding to populist anger. In 1920, for example, France had 12,889 troops stationed in Syria. By 1932, the number stood at well over 100,000, mainly leftovers from the battles of 1925 –7.14 Frustrated with devastating economic hardships, the people of Syria were in desperate need of two things: hope and leadership. The older generation was hearing the same demands, but the party structure of the National Bloc was bulky and the age of its members did not allow for the type of spirited action that was badly needed on the Syrian street. The time was ripe for a new generation of leaders to emerge, giving birth to what the historian Philip Khoury has described as ‘the most important interwar gathering’ in the Middle East, the League of National Action.15 It was important indeed, but it was too idealistic and, perhaps, too good to last. THE LEAGUE OF NATIONAL ACTION In early 1933, rumours circulated within intellectual circles in Damascus about the formation of a new party by the second generation of Syrian nationalists. It promised to be young, dynamic and very different from the National Bloc. Fractures had already arisen within National Bloc ranks when two of its members joined the French-backed government of Prime Minister Haqqi al-Azm, against

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the will of the Bloc elder Ibrahim Hananu. They were eventually forced to resign from al-Azm’s government under monumental pressure from the Syrian street, whipped up by Hananu and hardliners within the Bloc’s Damascus Branch. Earlier that year, Hananu himself had failed to secure a seat for himself in the country’s first nationwide parliamentary elections and the National Bloc had failed in its attempt to elect Hashem al-Atasi to the presidency. Al-Atasi backed out when he did not receive enough votes in the first round and supported the independence candidate Mohammad Ali alAbed instead, who became Syria’s first president in June 1932. As soon as he was in office, however, al-Abed abandoned the National Bloc and turned to pro-French politicians, putting al-Atasi in a difficult position. In early 1933, Ahmad Sharabati held a series of secret meetings at his home with Abdulrazzaq al-Dandashi, Irfan al-Jallad and Shafik Suleiman, with whom he was to launch the League of National Action. Abdulrazzaq al-Dandashi, only 34 years old, was a charismatic Brussels-trained lawyer from the city of Talkalakh in northwestern Syria. He was active in student politics and his family had led an anti-French revolt in 1920. Irfan al-Jallad’s family owned land in al-Ghouta and shops behind the Grand Umayyad Mosque of Damascus; they were an affluent family but no member of the family had ever been a frontline politician. Shafik Suleiman, born in 1905, was a Shiite lawyer from South Lebanon who had studied at Damascus University. Suleiman’s anti-French activities had eventually landed him in jail, sentenced to fifteen years of hard labour. He fled to Amman and joined a Palestinian revolt against the British in 1929. Sharabati singled out these three men to help him launch the League of National Action. They developed an excellent working relationship that lasted until al-Dandashi’s untimely death in a train accident two years later in 1935. All of them were politely critical of the National Bloc, whose founders they considered elderly and oldfashioned. They disagreed with the National Bloc’s concentrated focus on Syria, believing that Syria’s independence would always be tenuous as long as Palestine remained under British occupation. They also believed that independence required more action than

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words, and demanded that leadership be handed down to the younger generation. Ahmad Sharabati was not new to party politics, despite his young age. In 1929, he had joined the short-lived Arab Liberation Society in Geneva, founded by a twenty-three-year-old Syrian Druze named Farid Zayn al-Din, who had studied at AUB and was completing his higher education in Switzerland. Shukri al-Quwatli had recruited Sharabati into the Arab Liberation Society through his friend, the Geneva-based philosopher and writer, Emir Shakib Arslan. They established a central committee and opened clandestine branches in Beirut, Baghdad, Tunis, Morocco and Yemen.16 But constant harassment from French intelligence in the aftermath of the Great Revolt soon stopped this effort, which remained virtually unknown until Farid Zayn al-Din, long retired, revealed its brief existence in 1975. Sharabati and his friends were keen on reviving the Arab liberation movement through the League of National Action. He and alDandashi decided to hold the founding convention of their new party in Qurnail, a small town in Mount Lebanon, which was less likely to arouse French suspicion than Beirut or Damascus. They singled out potential recruits, and after obtaining confirmation of their willingness to join, sent out invitations for the conference to be held on 20 August 1933. Many of those invited to attend were being watched by French or British authorities. Nonetheless, on 19 August, fifty young men traveled to Lebanon from Palestine, Iraq and Syria. They met at a small and shabby restaurant in Shtura, a town near the Syrian border, where they were given a sealed envelope that read, ‘Go to Qurnail; the conference starts tomorrow!’ The next morning, the invited guests met at the banquet hall of the modest Saad Zaghloul Hotel in Qurnail. It was an informal gathering; no bowties, no morning suits, no silver cufflinks and, in some cases, only sport jackets and slacks. This stood in stark contrast to the founding conference of the National Bloc, where delegates had arrived in formal suits, wearing their red Ottoman fezzes. A slight chill was in the air, as is usual in the Lebanese mountains, unlike the blazing sun of nearby Beirut. Al-Dandashi chaired the meeting in his capacity as founding secretary general of the League, surrounded by Sharabati, Zayn al-Din, Suleiman and al-Jallad. This is where they were to

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debate the future not only of Syria but of the entire Arab East. They pledged their loyalty to the Arab nation, not to their respective countries, emphasising a Qawmi identity, rather than Watani. They wanted independence from foreign occupation, the unification of Arab lands dissected by artificial European borders, and economic integration and development to stop foreign exploitation of Arab resources. They flatly rejected the policy of ‘honourable cooperation’ with the French mandate regime, as supported by the founders of the National Bloc in 1927.17 The League of National Action founders were not landowners and capitalists, as were their counterparts in the National Bloc, nor were they socialists or Marxists. Instead of class struggle, they spoke of a nationalist struggle to liberate the Arab world from the chains of European colonisation. The founding delegates were reformist, populist, and some of them turned out to be very authoritarian. They wrote off other political parties they considered backward, reactionary and fundamentally wrong, a mistake later repeated by Syrian communists and the SSNP. At the Qurnail conference, secret cells were created for Damascus, Homs, Beirut, Baghdad, Mosul and Jerusalem. Each cell was made up of a core group of two to five men who were not informed about the names of their comrades in other cities – a tactic they copied directly from communist parties in Europe. Programs for each cell were printed in small booklets, differentiated by the colours yellow, green, orange and red. Soon, other prominent people joined the League. These included the Palestinian intellectual Wasfi Kemal from Nablus; Mahmud al-Hindi, a veteran Syrian officer who had fled with King Faisal from Damascus to Baghdad in 1920 to help establish the official Iraqi Army; Constantine Zureik, a Columbia University-trained professor of history from Damascus working at AUB; the lawyer Gibran Shamiya, son of Hajj Uthman’s friend Tawfiq Shamiya; and George Tomeh, another AUB professor from Damascus. Two prominent Lebanese joined the League in 1933: the anti-French activist Kazem al-Solh and a future prime minister of Lebanon, Takkidine al-Solh. The League’s founding charter, a 27-page pamphlet, was handed out to the delegates and then distributed to the Damascus press. It covered all aspects of the League’s vision, from politics and

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economics to social life and the future of Syria’s minorities. It urged Arab people to eschew loyalty to family, clan, sect or artificial national borders. There would be no such thing as Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq or Syria – all of them were one entity and would henceforth be referred to as the Arab nation. Loyalty to Syria was downplayed in favour of loyalty to the Arab nation. The League charter encouraged entrepreneurship, calling on small businessmen to think big and hunt for capital to set up large enterprises that would help empower the Arab nation in its struggle against France and Great Britain. It called for trade barriers to be lifted, allowing the free flow of goods to nearby territories viewed as part of the same nation (like Lebanon and Palestine), something that Uthman Sharabati had passionately lobbied for since the Sykes – Picot border had gone into effect more than a decade earlier. It also urged members to boycott European products and consume only what was manufactured in the Arab world. All the rights and privileges enjoyed by foreign companies operating in the Middle East must be abolished, and members of the League were asked to deal strictly with Arab banks, namely Bank Misr in Egypt and the Arab Bank in Palestine. The charter also promised to promote and facilitate marriage in order to create ‘a new generation of Arab fighters’ in their war against European colonisation. The League strictly banned any of its members from holding government office under the French mandate regime, referring to National Bloc members joining the Haqqi al-Azm government in 1932, asserting that ‘a government created by the occupation force is more dangerous than the occupation itself.’18 The League of National Action was a modern party with a clear hierarchy and political programme, comparable only to the Syrian Social Nationalist Party and the Communist Party when it came to structure and organisation. The distribution of power within its central committee was clearly defined, as were the roles, rights and duties of all members. Both the National Bloc and the League of National Action had their own media outlets but the Bloc’s newspaper al-Ayyam was a mass circulation Damascus daily and far more influential than the League’s small four-page newspaper, Al-Amal al-Qawmi. The first edition of Al-Amal al-Qawmi was published on 6 June 1938, edited by newcomer Abu al-Huda al-Yafi, whereas the editor of

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al-Ayyam was the doyen of Syrian journalists, Nasuh Babil. The League copied the National Bloc in setting up its own militia, Ashbal al-Uruba, in early 1934. Inspired by European armies, they wore green shirts and paraded, without arms, through the streets of Damascus promising to create ‘three-dimensional men’ out of Syrian youth, excelling in martial arts, politics, mathematics and poetry.19 In their own words, they wanted to take the nation – through reason, logic and organised populism – towards independence. Within the League of National Action, seventy-six per cent were Sunni Muslims, fifteen per cent were Greek Orthodox and five per cent were Roman Catholics. The remaining four per cent were a combination of minorities including one Alawite, the Sorbonneeducated Zaki al-Arsuzi, one Shiite, Ahmad al-Shihabi of Hasbaya, and one Druze, the AUB-educated Farid Zayn al-Din. The founders of the League were upper-class intellectuals, with strong connections to universities and schools but not to the mercantile class and artisans of Damascus and Aleppo, something at which the Bloc excelled. Members of the League were all university-educated, most having studied in France or at the Syrian University. Despite their Westernised education, all of them were Arab nationalists, inspired by the West but very critical of its policies towards the Arab world. Ahmad Sharabati was the only US-educated member of the League. This was in sharp contrast to the National Bloc, where only twenty per cent were Western-educated and fifty-six per cent had studied in Istanbul. This gave the League a more sophisticated and intellectual foundation than the National Bloc. Most members of the League came from the professional urban middle class and were either the sons of merchants or of aristocrats who had lost all their wealth. The few who came from big landowning families were from the poorest branches of these big families and themselves landless. In contrast, sixty per cent of the National Bloc founders were powerful and wealthy absentee landowners.20 Their income came from rent and agriculture, while the founders of the League lived off their monthly salaries as university professors, lawyers, engineers and journalists. Sixty per cent of the League members were licensed professionals – such as lawyers, journalists and engineers – as opposed to only forty per cent in the National Bloc. Two doctors from

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Damascus joined the League: Abdul Karim al-Aidi, a dentist, and Rushdi al-Jabi, a physician. Many of the members were practising lawyers. Half of the country’s lawyers were based in Damascus and among the prominent names to join the League were Ali Abdul Karim al-Dandashi, Fahmi al-Mahayri, Farid Zayn al-Din, Ghaleb al-Azm, Sabri al-Asali and Montpellier University graduate Muhsen al-Barazi. Both al-Barazi and al-Asali were to become future prime ministers of Syria in 1949 and 1955, respectively. Members of the League of National Action believed that the National Bloc was constructed upon personal loyalties and the patron-client system for which the Middle East was famous. Members joined the Bloc because they liked certain leaders or were on their payroll, and not because of the National Bloc’s political vision. In fact, members of the League believed that the National Bloc had no vision beyond wanting to see Syria independent. They were willing to settle for just that, regardless of what happened to the Egyptians and Palestinians under British rule, for example, or the Libyans under Italian rule. Members of the League realised, however, that the Bloc was far too powerful for them to tackle head-on. The National Bloc was deeply rooted in Syrian society, thanks to the prominent positions of its aging members and their unparalleled control of politics and business throughout Syria. Instead, Ahmad Sharabati and his friends decided to first confront the Bloc’s militia, the National Youth, before engaging politically with the National Bloc itself. The National Youth had been founded by Fakhri al-Barudi back in 1929 as a prototype for the future Syrian army. The National Bloc leaders were traditional patrons of the local strongmen of Damascus (qabadayat); inspired more by ardent nationalism than structured vision. This was clear from the educational and professional background of the National Youth founders. Apart from al-Barudi himself, who was a patron of the arts and a gifted poet, they ranked very poorly. The Bloc’s Mahmud al-Bayruti, for example, owned a novelty shop in Rami Street off Marjeh Square and could barely read or write, while Khaled al-Shalak was an unemployed attorney from the Qanawat neighbourhood of Damascus. Along with al-Barudi, these two men played instrumental roles in establishing the first scouts in Damascus in 1914, called al-Kashaf al-Muslim, but their

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activities were suspended during World War I and yet again during the Syrian Revolt of 1925. They re-emerged in July 1927 as the al-Ghouta Troops, with 3,000 members. When Christians were invited to join, the number skyrocketed to 15,000 in 1935.21 It was a source of great pride for the League of National Action that two of the Bloc’s scout leaders, Ali Abdul Karim al-Dandashi of Talkalakh and Ahmad al-Shihabi of South Lebanon, both defected to join the League in the summer of 1933. Not surprisingly, supporters of the Bloc and the League eventually came to blows, with a highly embarrassing brawl in the Souq Saruja neighbourhood of Damascus in July 1933.22 Small contrasts between the National Bloc and the League of National Action were noteworthy. The second generation of nationalists who founded the League were on average twenty years younger than their Bloc counterparts. The oldest, for example, was 34-year-old Makram al-Atasi, a lawyer from Homs, whose uncle in the National Bloc, Hashem al-Atasi, was sixty years old. The elderly Bloc members met regularly at the Globe Cafe´ in the Damascus suburb of Shaalan, whereas Ahmad Sharabati and his friends met at the Ghazi Cafe´ in Marjeh Square. This is similar to what happened in Lebanon many years later, when communists sat at one cafe´ on Hamra Street, facing members of the SSNP, who met at the coffee shop across the street. These Lebanese activists never entered each other’s cafe´s, and neither did the National Bloc and the League activists. Members of the National Bloc always wore Western suits with a traditional red Ottoman fez (tarboosh) while members of the League dressed in casual sports jackets and, occasionally, the sidara (headgear worn by King Faisal during his brief rule in Damascus). This didn’t indicate loyalty to Faisal, but was a way to differentiate themselves from the elders of the National Bloc. League members spent their free time sipping coffee and debating political articles published in the Egyptian press, for example, or analysing European philosophy and Renaissance literature over a glass of strong whiskey at night. In addition to its Damascus base, the League was well established in Homs in the Syrian midland. A city of 70,000 inhabitants in the early 1930s, Homs was almost completely under the control of National Bloc President Hashem al-Atasi. His own son Adnan, who had a law degree from the University of Geneva, however, was a

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member of the League and so were his two cousins, Makram and Hilmi al-Atasi. Because of the strong al-Atasi family presence within the League, Hashem al-Atasi turned a blind eye to its activities and allowed it to grow in Homs.23 The League also established branches in Talkalakh, Deir ez-Zour, Antioch and Hama. Two prominent lawyers handled its affairs in Hama: Muhsen al-Barazi and Ghalib al-Azm. The only Syrian city not represented in the League of National Action was Aleppo, capital of the north. Aleppo was under the unwavering command of the National Bloc chief Ibrahim Hananu, a military man-turned politician who had led an unsuccessful popular armed uprising against the French in 1919 – 21. Unlike his friend Hashem al-Atasi, Hananu looked down upon the League, seeing its programme as amateurish and its members as too young to lead a serious party. Hananu was forty years older than Ahmad Sharabati. When invited to send a delegate to attend the founding conference in Qurnail, he refused and asked his followers to boycott the League. When the founders of the League tried to recruit AUB alumnus Nazem al-Qudsi, who had recently earned his PhD in international law from the University of Geneva, Al-Qudsi replied, ‘I must ask Hananu first.’24 Hananu said no. Shukri al-Quwatli was also invited to join the League of National Action but refused, having his eyes set on a seat on the National Bloc’s Permanent Council. His relationship with the League was similar to that of Uthman Sharabati with the National Bloc: always a friend and a supportive ally, but never an official member. Two days after the League was founded, al-Quwatli invited Ahmad Sharabati, Sabri al-Asali and Farid Zayn al-Din to his home in Damascus, introducing them to Fouad Hamza, the special envoy to King AbdulAziz of Saudi Arabia. Al-Quwatli, who had an excellent relationship with the House of Saud dating back to World War I, promised to use his pan-Arab connections to promote the League in Arab capitals. He also donated money to the League’s treasury and appointed members of the League to the board of his National Canning Company, a leading industrial firm that preserved fruits from the al-Ghouta orchards and sold them to markets in Palestine and Egypt.25 Despite al-Quwatli’s urging, however, the League failed to branch out as horizontally as the National Bloc had done.

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In March 1934, for example, the National Bloc chief Jamil Mardam Bey went to Saudi Arabia, in his capacity as head of the Syrian Red Crescent, to assist with casualties of the Saudi – Yemeni War. He was received by King Abdul-Aziz, where he helped promote the National Bloc. In July 1934, Hashem al-Atasi went to Alexandria, where he was received by Egyptian Prime Minister Mustapha Nahhas Pasha, leader of the powerful Wafd Party. In March 1935, Fakhri al-Barudi and Mardam Bey went to Baghdad, where they were welcomed by the powerful Prime Minister Nuri al-Said Pasha.26 None of the League members did such networking during the League’s short life in Syria. SAD TIDINGS On 15 August 1934, Ahmad Sharabati hosted the League of National Action at his home in Damascus. It was a high-profile meeting, held on the first anniversary of the League’s founding in Qurnail. The League members met to assess their first year of operation, and the results were not pleasing, despite all their passion and good intentions.27 The League had been the first party to seek Arab help in obtaining Syrian independence and the first to draw serious attention to the massive Zionist emigration from Europe to Palestine.28 It also boasted of inviting famed Palestinian writer May Ziadeh to Damascus, where she gave a lecture at the League’s office.29 There were few other achievements. The National Bloc was still powerful and still entrenched in the old bazaars of Damascus. They still commanded absolute support in Aleppo, where the League had not managed to weaken Hananu’s control. The League of National Action appeared to have failed, both at capitalising on their earlier reputation and transforming their flashy slogans into reality. They had not persuaded people that their theories could produce practical results and improve the living conditions of ordinary Syrians. The Syrian Communists were sharply critical of the League in the leftist press, accusing them of remaining silent in the face of Italian atrocities in Libya. The SSNP accused them of failing to show up at the annual meeting in Marjeh Square on 6 May 1934, in commemoration of the twenty-one nationalists hanged there by Jamal Pasha during World War I. The Bloc daily al-Ayyam asked where

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the League had been in October 1933, on the first anniversary of the execution by the Italians of Libyan resistance leader Omar al-Mukhtar.30 The League was so obsessed with measuring up to the National Bloc that they failed to do anything serious to outflank them on the Syrian street. In 1933, the National Bloc’s Fakhri al-Barudi launched a boycott of the Franco – Belgian-owned Damascus Electricity Company (Socie´te´ des Tramways et d’E´lectricite´), repeating a successful campaign that had been carried out two years earlier. The company had raised its rates following a surge in world prices, causing anger among young people, labour unions and the Syrian Communists. Tramcars were set ablaze and young agitators took to the old bazaars, forcing shop owners to switch from electricity to petrol.31 People were prevented from boarding the French-owned tramcars, which were the only form of public transportation in Damascus at that time. The boycott lasted throughout the long hot summer and ended only when the company finally reduced its rates by one piaster.32 The larger the crowds behind al-Barudi, the more worried the League became. While al-Barudi was taking over the streets of Syria, the League members were often found in the coffeehouses of Damascus discussing theory and ideology, flipping through Arabic magazines or reciting al-Mutanabbi poetry. Something had gone horribly wrong for them to become so insignificant just when they were presented with their first real political challenge. That summer the League members disappeared from public life, heading to their summer houses in Aley and Bloudan to avoid questions from the Damascus press. Three sudden deaths in the next few years also contributed heavily to the demise of the League. The first was that of King Faisal I at a hospital in Berne, Switzerland in September 1933. Faisal had been supportive of the League, mainly due to his long-standing hostility toward the National Bloc. His death left the League without a highlevel patron in the Arab world since neither his son and successor King Ghazi nor his brother Emir Abdullah of Transjordan were willing to bankroll their activities or support their programmes. The League didn’t like Abdullah, considering him too pro-British, and the mistrust was mutual.

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Abdulrazzaq Dandashi, one of the most charismatic of the League’s founders, died in 1935. He was killed in a train accident at the age of 36. In November 1935, Ibrahim Hananu died from tuberculosis he had caught during his years on the Syrian battlefield and in French prisons. To young Syrians growing up in the 1920s, no name was more revered. All the mosques of Damascus began calling the athan simultaneously, reading verses from the Holy Quran while announcing Hananu’s death. Hananu’s revolt represented the cornerstone of nationalist sentiment and the backbone of the struggle for emancipation. Although reeling from this major loss, the National Bloc used the occasion of his death to drum up anti-French and anti-League sentiment on the Syrian street. The League had been highly critical of Hananu and the National Bloc now took this opportunity to take their revenge on the League. Hananu was given a hero’s funeral in Aleppo, attended by over 150,000 mourners. Hashem al-Atasi, Jamil Mardam Bey, Fakhri al-Barudi and Shukri al-Quwatli led the procession at the head of the Aleppo branch of the National Bloc. Members of the League of National Action, wanting to be part of the historic event, walked behind Hananu’s flag-draped coffin in solemn silence. Loud antiFrench slogans were shouted and clashes broke out between young Syrians and French police. Over one hundred people were arrested, including Hananu’s prote´ge´ and the rising star of the National Bloc, Saadallah al-Jabiri, another outspoken critic of the League. After the funeral, the French raided Hananu’s home, harassed members of his family and confiscated his private documents. Riots broke out throughout northern Syria over the next two days, leading to two deaths and the arrest of 160 people.33 Damascus closed down in protest to the crackdown in Aleppo and 20,000 people marched through the Old City.34 The French opened fire, killing two civilians, and then shut down the Bloc’s headquarters in al-Qanawat. On 20 January 1936, the French arrested Fakhri al-Barudi for igniting the anti-French demonstrations in Aleppo and Damascus.35 He was handcuffed and dragged out of his home by French police. The League was taken completely off-guard by these dramatic events and soon found itself in the backseat, watching the National Bloc win over popular Syrian sentiment.

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The arrest of al-Barudi, who was greatly respected throughout Syria, was a turning point in the history of the National Bloc and the League of National Action. On 21 January, young members of the National Bloc held a massive student rally at the Umayyad Mosque to demand al-Barudi’s release. French troops opened fire, killing four young men. In Homs, al-Atasi called on residents to rally in support of their countrymen in Aleppo. French soldiers killed three of the demonstrators and wounded twenty.36 The French banished Jamil Mardam Bey to northern Syria and Nasib al-Bakri to Azaz in Aleppo province.37 The French then fired Fares al-Khoury from his post as dean of the Faculty of Law at Damascus University, charging him with instigating anti-French protests on campus. In response, the university closed down completely.38 Those members of the National Bloc leadership who remained free called for a general day-long strike throughout Syria. They demanded, among other things, the release of al-Barudi, the lifting of martial law, a general amnesty, setting a timetable for the end of the French mandate, and the resignation of President Mohammad Ali al-Abed. These National Bloc leaders also stressed their demands that the government decree expelling all anti-French students from schools and universities be cancelled and the National Bloc offices in Damascus and Aleppo be allowed to reopen. Damascus, Aleppo, Homs, Hama, Latakia and Deir ez-Zour all responded promptly to Hashem al-Atasi’s call to strike, as did Beirut, Tripoli and Sidon. Never had the country seen such a widespread popular movement, not even during the Syrian Revolt. Only bakeries remained open. On 4 February, Hama closed down. The French responded by arresting the National Bloc’s leader in the city, Tawfiq al-Shishakli. Crowds attacked a French military unit, whose soldiers opened fire, killing seven and wounding forty.39 On 8 February, three more people in Hama were killed. By 10 February, the violence had spread as far as Deir ez-Zour. A delegation from the Damascus Chamber of Commerce visited the French High Commissioner and threatened that they would halt all trade if the violence did not stop immediately.40 Alarm bells were ringing in Paris as people went to bed hungry throughout Syria. Food prices had soared, hoarding was common and

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goods rotted in storehouses. The French, who realised that they now had a nationwide revolt on their hands, tried to ease the tension by asking President al-Abed to replace his pro-French Prime Minister Taj al-Din al-Hasani with the Bloc-backed Ata al-Ayyubi, a seasoned administrator from Ottoman times. Al-Ayyubi asked three members of the National Bloc to participate in his government. The League of National Action was completely ignored and not invited to the cabinet-formation talks. On 26 February, Prime Minister al-Ayyubi convinced the French to grant an amnesty, releasing all those arrested with no warrant. Nonetheless, over 8,000 young men who had been hauled before the military courts remained in French jails. On 1 March al-Ayyubi accompanied al-Atasi, al-Quwatli and Mardam Bey to Beirut, where they had two days of intensive talks with French High Commissioner Henri de Martel. The next day, it was announced that a deal had been struck. The French would issue a general amnesty, setting everybody – al-Barudi included – free. Exiles like Shahbandar would be allowed to return home, National Bloc offices would be reopened, and their two suspended newspapers, al-Qabas and al-Ayyam, would return to print. In exchange, the Bloc leaders would call off the strike and go to Paris for talks with the French government.41 Living up to their part of the deal, the National Bloc called off the strike on 3 March. They then went to the Hamidieh Market, where a green cord was strung across its main entrance. Shoulder to shoulder, al-Quwatli and al-Atasi cut the cord as the crowds chanted their names.42 The symbolic event spoke volumes about the National Bloc’s victory. Only National Bloc leaders had the power to close down Syria, and only they could bring it back to life. The general strike had bolstered the Bloc’s reputation and reduced the League of National Action to insignificance, but at a very high human and material cost. It had left Syria in shambles, with the population scrambling for food. Hashem al-Atasi quickly instructed members of the National Bloc to begin supervising the distribution of food and the restoration of commerce. In March 1936, the National Bloc delegation left for Paris to hold independence talks with the French government. It was headed by President al-Atasi and included Fares al-Khoury, Saadallah al-Jabiri

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and Jamil Mardam Bey as his top negotiators. They returned to Damascus six months later, in September 1936, with a treaty promising gradual independence over a twenty-five-year period. The Bloc agreed to grant the French the right to use Syrian airspace and territory if a war was to break out in Europe and the French agreed to reunite the Alawite and Druze Mountains with the rest of Syria. The Syrians were allowed to establish their own army of at least one infantry division and cavalry brigade, but it would have to be trained and armed by the French government. France was given two military airbases near the four interior towns, along with harbour and transit facilities.43 Syria was closer than ever to independence, thanks to the National Bloc. On 10 September, news reached Syria that the treaty had been signed at the Salon de l’Horloge at the Quai d’Orsay in Paris. Government offices closed in celebration and, for the first time since 1920, Syrian and French flags were hoisted on balconies, side by side.44 Electric lights were placed at the gates of the old markets of Damascus, rugs were hung on balconies, and young men took to the streets, dancing and chanting for the National Bloc. The Bloc delegation returned to Aleppo and traveled with an entourage through Hama and Homs, finally reaching Damascus on 29 September. In the Syrian capital, police were unable to control the crowds assembled at the Hejaz Station, who carried al-Atasi on their shoulders beneath triumphal arches all the way to government headquarters at the Grand Serail.45 Celebrations in Damascus lasted for four solid days.46 Mohammad Ali al-Abed resigned the presidency a few weeks later and elections were held throughout Syria. The League of National Action boycotted the elections and the National Bloc won a landslide victory, Hashem al-Atasi was elected president, with seventy-four out of the eighty-five parliamentary votes. Mardam Bey became his first prime minister, and Fares al-Khoury was voted speaker of Parliament. The League of National Action and Abdul Rahman Shahbandar took a firm stand against the Franco–Syrian Treaty of 1936, claiming that it gave France too much for too little. They also considered Mardam Bey’s cabinet to be a tool in the hands of the mandate regime, claiming that he had been ‘bought off’ by the French. Ahmad Sharabati, however, thought otherwise. He saw promise in the treaty,

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and a chance to wisely yet slowly shake off the hated mandate system. Military revolt and hardline policies had led to one defeat after another. It was time to play politics, if even by French rules. He believed in President al-Atasi, Speaker al-Khoury and Prime Minister Mardam Bey, who named Shukri al-Quwatli as minister of defence and national economy. In defiance of League orders, Sharabati issued a statement in support of the National Bloc, congratulating its leaders on their victory in Paris.47 Its authors, he said, had bravely and selflessly defended Syria’s right to independence, and refused to return home before uniting the Alawite and Druze Mountains, thereby securing the ‘bare minimum’ for the Syrian nation.48 Furious, the League Council met in Damascus and had him expelled.49 Sharabati was relieved to be free from the burdens of a rigid party structure that he had helped create but had failed to live up to the challenges of securing Syria’s independence. His stance encouraged others to defect. Sabri al-Asali resigned days later and then ran for Parliament on a National Bloc ticket. The League publicly disavowed him, as it did to Adnan al-Atasi when he agreed to serve as the National Bloc’s ambassador in Ankara. Soon both Makram and Hilmi al-Atasi also resigned, effectively ending the League’s presence in Homs. The Hama branch also collapsed when two of its members, Mustapha al-Hawrani and Ghalib al-Azm, defected to form their own association, al-Shabab al-Hamwi (Hama Youth). When Rushdi al-Jabi took a job at the Bloc-led Department of Health in Damascus, he too was expelled, as was Farid Zayn al-Din when he became director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.50 The attractiveness of political office quickly tore the League apart and it completely disappeared by mid1939.51 In 1954, shortly after the downfall of Adib al-Shishakli’s military regime, Ahmad Sharabati and other former members of the League tried to re-establish the party. This was shortly after the downfall of Adib al-Shishakli’s military regime. The League, however, was long dead and its revival never happened. WHY THE LEAGUE OF NATIONAL ACTION MATTERS The League of National Action is perhaps the most understudied political party in modern Syrian history. Scholars have paid far more

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attention to the SSNP, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Baath Party. One reason for this is that the League was short-lived and failed to achieve any of its declared objectives. Nobody has searched through what remains of its papers or assessed its role as an incubator of patriots and the first serious challenge to the old-school urban elites of Syria. The League of National Action broke the taboo of criticising the traditional beys and pashas of Syrian society who formed the backbone of the National Bloc. People listened because the League’s ideology was sensible and because they knew and trusted its founders. Unlike the Muslim Brotherhood, they did not have a religious programme; unlike the communists, they were not under foreign control; unlike the Baath, they didn’t covet wealth and did not wish to overturn the entire social order. They wanted to reform society and introduce youthful elements and modernity. Members of the League did not like what was happening in Syria, both during and after the Great Revolt, and wanted to make themselves heard as a younger generation of nationalists. The League enabled new leaders to emerge on the Syrian national stage. Some, such as Sabri al-Asali, went on to join the National Bloc itself, while others charted their own careers, contributing a great deal to Syrian political and cultural life in years to come. Two League members, Sabri al-Asali and Muhsen al-Barazi, became prime ministers; Farid Zayn al-Din became Syria’s ambassador to the USA in the 1950s; and Constantine Zureik became a famous historian, president of Damascus University, and then president of AUB. Zaki al-Arsuzi became the ideological founder of Baathism. George Tomeh was appointed Syria’s representative to the United Nations during the Six-Day War of 1967, then taught at AUB, briefly served as minister of economy in Syria, and later became the first president of Balamand University in Lebanon. When the Baath Party came to power in 1963, it rewrote history to suit its own version of the anti-French struggle, erasing many names from the history books. All mention of both the National Bloc and the League of National Action was dropped from high school and university textbooks. Apparently, no one – not the French, not the Baath and not the National Bloc – wanted history to remember the League of National Action. In addition, most members of the League

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did not leave memoirs, unintentionally contributing to the League’s elimination from Syrian history books. What makes the League of National Action stand out is the audacity of its founders and the boldness of their ambitions. It wasn’t easy for the younger members of long-established political families in Syria to come out and challenge their families. These young members of the League were not overawed even by their own older relatives who were widely respected for their struggle against the Ottomans. For centuries, the al-Atasis and al-Azms, for example, had dominated the political and social hierarchies of Homs and Hama. Before the League of National Action arrived in 1933, no one dared question their political behaviour or try to penetrate their power base. The League drew a line between the first and second generations of Syrian nationalists. Throughout the turbulent 1920s, these generations had been firmly united against French occupation and military rule. In the 1930s, allegiances were formed along party lines and age groups, both horizontally and vertically. The younger generation gravitated toward the League, the Baath and the SSNP, while the older generation dominated the National Bloc and the Shahbandar coalition. Both generations claimed that they knew what was needed to expel the French from Syria. The competition was not clean – it often involved slander – which played right into the hands of French intelligence. When the National Bloc was finally removed from office in 1939, Syrian nationalists realised that they had wasted an entire decade quarrelling, while the mandate regime simply strengthened its grip on Syria. They joined ranks, this time within a cross-sectarian and cross-party coalition that presented a united front of nationalists from all ages and backgrounds to lead the nation in its final battle against the French from 1941 to 1946.

CHAPTER 5

Encounter of a Lifetime

In early 1938, Ahmad Sharabati boarded a ship headed to Cyprus. The thirty-one-year-old was on a business trip searching for new tobacco markets. Life in Syria was starting to wear him out. The sluggish economy was still trying to recover from the Great Depression, the political elite were bickering, and the French occupation was well into its eighteenth year. Political demonstrations were nearly constant, crippling commerce in Damascus and Aleppo. Everybody wanted to bring down the cabinet of Prime Minister Jamil Mardam Bey. Two years after it had been agreed, Mardam Bey had not yet ratified the 1936 treaty with France that had promised Syrians gradual independence. A Syrian-inspired uprising was boiling in Palestine and the Sharabatis, both father and son, were busy collecting flour, food, money and arms for the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini. Marriage was not the main subject on Ahmad Sharabati’s mind that winter. For Skaidra Vapa, the young Latvian from Riga that he met in Cyprus, Ahmad Sharabati seemed to come from another planet. Despite its long prominence as a thriving commercial centre on the Baltic Sea, few non-Europeans visited Riga. Only twenty years old, it is unlikely she had ever seen an Arab before in her life, and certainly not a Syrian. Cyprus was the dream destination she visited after winning a beauty contest that crowned her ‘Miss Riga 1937’. Skaidra and her older sister Austra left Riga on the German Imperial Railway (Deutsche Reichsbahn) for Istanbul, where they

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spent one night at the magnificent Pera Palace Hotel before moving on to Cyprus. Skaidra first met Ahmad Sharabati at a dinner party in Nicosia hosted by her brother-in-law Charles Raymond Jacombe. They conversed in German, which Ahmad had learned while procuring industrial machinery for his factory in Damascus. She spoke fluent German, which was a mandatory second language in all Riga schools. Skaidra was born to Rudolf and Lizette Vapa on 26 April 1918. She had five sisters and one brother. Skaidra was just a few months old when her country obtained its independence at the end of World War I. Her father was a Latvian with no Russian ancestry. He was tall and blue-eyed, with striking Nordic characteristics. The Vapa family were middle-class, church-going Lutherans. Rudolf Vapa, who Ahmad Sharabati never met, had served as an officer in the army and ran his family like officers run their barracks, stressing values such as ‘efficiency, austerity, and discipline.’ Skaidra, in turn, instilled these values in her own children. Skaidra brought a photograph with her to Damascus, carefully kept by her children, of her father in full military dress. Like Hajj Uthman, Rudolf was also religious and preached occasionally in his local church on Sundays. Ahmad Sharabati decided that he wanted Skaidra Vapa to be the mother of his children. He didn’t need a second opinion. Shortly after returning to Damascus, he wrote an ingeniously blunt letter in German asking for her hand in marriage and mailed it to Nicosia from the Damascus Post Office. He didn’t consult his family, but Skaidra asked for her father’s blessing. Rudolf acquiesced, at least in part because the storms of conflict were growing in Europe. He correctly predicted difficult times for Riga and wanted to protect his daughter from the hardships that lay ahead. Ahmad Sharabati and Skaidra Vapa took the decision to marry with remarkable speed. Both of them were rebelling against their native lands, worlds apart yet similarly strict and conservative. Ahmad and Skaidra had different nationalities, different mother tongues, different ages, different religions and very different life experiences. Nevertheless, the young couple got married in a civil ceremony at the French Consulate in Nicosia on 23 February 1938. The marriage ceremony was presided over by the French consul in

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Cyprus, a stiff one-armed bureaucrat who Skaidra would later say reminded her of Henri Gouraud, the loathed French officer who occupied Damascus in 1920. It was a low-key event, with no family members present except for Skaidra’s sister and brother-in-law. Ahmad Sharabati had to return home quickly because his League of National Action was falling apart, as was the National Bloc government, and his tobacco factory was badly in need of new markets. He and his bride set sail from Cyprus for the Syrian port city of Latakia. Along the way he narrated endless tales about his family, his city, the French occupation and his cause. Ahmad Sharabati was a great storyteller, Skaidra soon realised, as were many Damascenes. They all spoke about their city with great passion. They were obsessed with its distant past and one-time glory, highly conscious of who they were, where they came from and how much they had suffered from different empires and foreign occupations. Events that happened hundreds of years before were still relevant to the people of Damascus. Ancient characters like Muawiya Ibn Abi Sufyan, the first Umayyad caliph, or Hulagu Khan and Timur were spoken about as if they were still living. The young couple also talked about music, movies and horses – Skaidra was an accomplished equestrian who later won many horseback riding trophies in Syria. WELCOME TO DAMASCUS As they drove from Latakia to Damascus, Skaidra saw the acres of green fields and pastures looking very much like the areas surrounding major European cities such as Riga. Inside the high walls of the Old City the buildings were tightly packed, but modern Damascus was clean and spacious. For public transportation, Damascenes used coaches, buses and cabs but they were particularly fond of the Damascus tram, famed for its punctuality. Along Abu Rummaneh Street, which was soon to become the city’s main thoroughfare, small palm trees had just been planted, giving the city a Parisian look. In surrounding neighbourhoods, four-storey stone buildings with deep staircases were proliferating on both sides of the road. Colourful flowerpots hung from balconies, often with overflowing streams of white jasmine tumbling down to the sidewalk.

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Damascenes were fond of spending long summer evenings on their flowered balconies, sipping tea and eating fresh fruit from the orchards of al-Ghouta. The balconies were tiled and large enough to fit an entire family. The city had a faded elegance but was still a source of pride to the locals. Policemen in white and navy blue suits directed traffic with cardboard traffic signs of green and red. Gas stations were infrequent but a colourful variety of brand new DeSotos, Cadillacs, Fords and Chryslers could be found all over the city. Some were convertibles with expensive leather upholstery, driven by cigar-chomping men wearing Western suits, silver cufflinks and crimson fezzes. Although conservative and modest, Damascene girls were very fashion conscious, inspired by Hollywood starlets such as Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich. High heels, which had been imported from Europe in the 1920s, were regularly worn by teenage girls in Damascus. Women wore bolero jackets and clutch coats, replacing buttons with trendy zippers at their local seamstress. They attended cinema matinees and smoked slim Khanom cigarettes, produced by Hajj Uthman’s tobacco factory and sold at affordable prices. Women rarely wore trousers in Damascus when Skaidra first arrived, but she was the first to set the trend in later years, as she walked the streets in pants with locals gazing in bewilderment. Women covering their heads with the traditional hijab – now commonplace in Damascus – were nowhere to be found. Europeans were seen everywhere, often employees of the mandate regime and their families. The city looked remarkably modern, clean and organised. All the main streets of Damascus were lit with streetlights; electricity was brought to the city in 1907. The first building to have electric light was the historic Umayyad Mosque, and the first private residence to be lit was that of Abdul Rahman Pasha al-Yusuf, the emir of hajj, on the night of his daughter’s marriage to the city notable Hussein Ibish. During World War I the Ottoman authorities turned the electricity off for one year, leaving the city in haunting darkness. By 1920, over 70,000 of the city’s homes and stores had electricity. When Skaidra arrived, most residences had replaced their kerosene lamps with electric lamps and chandeliers. Telephones were common as well; large and bulky black objects adorned with a golden emblem

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of the Syrian Republic. Local calls could be dialled directly by endusers but calls outside Damascus had to be placed through an operator. Shopping in Damascus could be a pleasure. A pedestrian wandering through the Old City might see a hundred hidden alleys with shops selling aromatic spices and colourful assortments of handmade Damascus silk and brocade. A wide variety of foreign products could be found in the new districts of Damascus, from canned sardines and corned beef to chocolate biscuits, music records and aspirin, which the Damascenes called bizer and gulped down as often as they consumed nuts and watermelon seeds. Damascus also offered many opportunities for social interaction, with hundreds of Turkish baths, clubs, cafe´s, cabarets, cinemas and theatres. Egyptian actors performed in Damascus theatres and, by the mid-1930s, Syria was already making its own motion pictures. By 1939, Syria had forty cinemas, ten of which were fully equipped with sound, with annual sales of 2.3 million tickets. Damascenes were the most active moviegoers in the Middle East. Most movies were still silent, however, much to the pleasure of an entire generation of Damascenes who spoke Arabic and Turkish but did not understand either English or French. That, along with lower rental fees for American films, explains why Syrians liked spectacular American movies – mainly cowboy Westerns and the slapstick comedies of Charlie Chaplin. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Chaplin appeared everywhere in Syria – in newspapers and magazines and on cinema billboards – and was discussed in cafe´s and private homes. So popular was the ‘Little Tramp’ in Damascus that he visited Syria on his way to Egypt on a publicity tour in 1929. This was right after Chaplin’s classic The Circus had topped boxoffice sales throughout Syria, surpassing all French productions. The Syrians also adored Tarzan and his jungle thrillers, as they did motion picture cartoons, which first came to Syria with Walt Disney’s Steamboat Willie, introducing Mickey Mouse to Damascus in 1936. A few years after Skaidra arrived in Damascus, Clark Gable’s timeless Gone with the Wind premiered at a women’s matinee hosted by the wife of France’s delegate general to Syria, George Catroux.

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A NEW HOME Damascus was also a biblical city, known by Christians worldwide for The Street called Straight mentioned in the biblical story of St Paul’s conversion to Christianity. It runs from east to west in the Old City, extending 15,000 metres. Instead of touring the Old City, however, Ahmad Sharabati took Skaidra straight to the luxurious Victoria Hotel by the Barada River. The Damascus notable Ahmad Izzat al-Abed had built this four-star hotel in 1879 in a style that resembled the classical buildings of Berlin and Paris. When the German Emperor Wilhelm II visited Damascus in 1898 he stayed at the Victoria Hotel. In the late 1930s, parts of the building were turned into government offices for the departments of mandate investigation, prosecution and health. Skaidra and Ahmad soon went to Hajj Uthman’s home, where she was immediately welcomed as part of the family. Hajj Uthman looked carefully at Skaidra, smiled paternally and patted her on the shoulder: ‘Meet Ahla wa Sahla’ (A hundred welcomes). Photographs of family members, many dating back to the nineteenth century, were displayed in mosaic frames throughout the house. Skaidra recognised many of them because Ahmad had shown her photos of the entire family before bringing her to Damascus. His sister Mounira, only a few months older than Skaidra, was a godsend for the Latvian bride. Mounira became Skaidra’s friend, companion and guide in Damascus. The ceilings of the Sharabati home were exceptionally high with floors decorated by orange and green tiles and covered by fine Persian rugs in the main rooms. The rooms were heated by a furnace, which the Damascenes called ‘soba’. Had it not been for the soba, the house would have been very cold during winter, particularly at night when most people in the city cocooned themselves beneath large handmade wool quilts. Murano chandeliers were suspended from the high ceilings on solid chains, with bell shapes of blown glass surrounding their light bulbs. Giant mirrors in mosaic frames stood at a tilt in the main salon. Several green and red sofas on pencil-thin legs surrounded the living room, with magazines and newspapers on coffee tables, as in many European homes. Women in the family washed the rugs once a month and mopped the house daily. They did

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the cooking, which involved a great deal of peeling and slicing, and spent one day each week on ta’zeel, a thorough cleaning of the entire house. Life was slow in Damascus, despite long working days. People still had time to chat with a neighbour before heading to work, often asking intimate questions. The most disturbing to Skaidra was when women pointed to her stomach and asked, ‘fi shi?’ (What’s there?). This was a socially accepted way of asking a woman whether she was pregnant or not. Skaidra found other habits equally strange and unfamiliar. For example, while Europeans drank their coffee in large mugs, the Damascenes drank strong coffee in tiny cups and it was always flavoured with cardamom. Skaidra also learned how to properly address her social peers: khanom for women (an Ottoman title for lady), bey for male notables and friends of her husband and sayyed for other men. Women always kissed other women at social gatherings, often just by touching cheeks and blowing their kisses into the air, but never other men – not even family members – just shaking their hands instead. Skaidra found the Arabic language extremely difficult, but tried to learn at least ten new words per day. When she decided to convert to Islam, she took daily Quranic lessons and chose the Arabic name ‘Laila’ for her Syrian documents, but used her given name for the rest of her life. Skaidra spent most of her early months in Damascus writing long letters to her family and reading whatever English or German book she could get her hands on. There were no bookstores selling English books in the city, so these books were borrowed from foreigners living in the city or purchased by her husband during his constant business trips. The only other foreign woman Skaidra knew in Syrian high society was Helga, the Hungarian wife of Said al-Yusuf, a wealthy Kurdish notable. To help her overcome homesickness, Sharabati got her a short-wave radio so that she could listen to the BBC for its onehour daily broadcast in English which featured songs, film reviews and talk shows. Apart from reading and horseback riding, Skaidra was also a fine gardener and an accomplished piano player. Skaidra settled into a quiet and comfortable life in Damascus, until politics got in the way. In 1939 she was forced to leave the city, just as she had started adapting to its peculiar ways, after French intelligence

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came after her and her husband for smuggling arms to Syrian rebels. The French searched the homes of Ahmad and Hajj Uthman, and a French court sentenced Ahmad to forty years in jail for anti-French activity. Ahmad fled to Jordan, where he was given asylum by King Abdullah, and moved into a house in Aqaba on the Red Sea that Lawrence of Arabia had used during World War I. Skaidra, together with their newborn son Issam, soon followed. She crossed the border wearing her sister-in-law’s pelerine, a Damascus-style women’s hijab. She presented French border authorities with Mounira’s identification, which had no picture, claiming it as her own. An automobile sent by the King of Jordan was waiting at the border and took them to Amman where Sharabati was waiting. Skaidra, Ahmad and their infant son lived for more than two years in Aqaba. Ahmad Sharabati, always an entrepreneur, started a block icemaking plant for the fishermen of Aqaba, delivering fresh fish to the Jordanian capital on a daily basis. The Sharabatis only returned to Syria after the ouster of Vichy in July 1941, thanks to an amnesty by the Free French forces of General Charles de Gaulle. They were once again forced to leave during the short-lived military dictatorships of the late 1940s and early 1950s, and again in 1963 after the Baath Party came to power. These were epochal times fraught with great danger for Skaidra and her small family. Her love for Damascus never waned, however, and her bond with the city grew. She came to identify closely with its people, their plight and their cause. She learned their language, fell in love with their habits and, like them, became a great storyteller. She always felt welcome, always one with the Damascenes. Politics kept her away from Damascus for many years after 1963, but part of the city always lived within her, and towards the end of her life she finally returned to live in it again.

CHAPTER 6

The Enemy of My Enemy

The small Sharabati family was still in Aqaba on the northern tip of the Red Sea when Nazi Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, igniting World War II. Ahmad Sharabati and his wife watched helplessly as Adolf Hitler’s troops marched through Warsaw, destroying whatever sense of security was left in Europe. These were difficult times for Ahmad and Skaidra; Syria was still occupied and Latvia fell under Soviet occupation in 1940. It was their first full year in exile and there was no indication as to when they would be able to return home. The French authorities had placed a bounty on Sharabati’s head, classifying him as ‘dangerous.’ Despite being a guest of King Abdullah, Jordanian intelligence monitored all his phone calls, visitors and correspondence to and from Damascus. Still only in his mid-thirties, Ahmad Sharabati felt like a retired man and he knew that something major was needed to break this impasse. Sadly, this ‘something’ came in the form of World War II. The terrible war had a profound effect on Sharabati and his beloved Damascus, but this was nothing when compared to the tragedy it brought upon Riga. On 17 June 1940, the Soviets invaded Latvia just days after the Nazi Army had marched into Paris. It was a dramatic month in the history of Europe. The Soviet forces occupied bridges, post offices, telegraphs and broadcasting stations. Critics were shot and resistance leaders were mutilated. Stalin delivered an ultimatum to the helpless Latvian government, demanding the establishment of a pro-Soviet regime under the protection of the Red Army and the free passage of

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Soviet troops through Latvian territory. The Soviet occupation of Latvia was short-lived, however, lasting only one year. Nazi Germany turned on its former ally in the summer of 1941, invading the USSR in June. Nazi troops started their offensive against Soviet forces in Latvia on the morning of Sunday, 22 June 1941. The Soviets suffered a crushing defeat and began to retreat in late June under heavy German aerial bombardment. By 10 July 1941, the Nazi occupation was complete and Latvia was formally declared part of the Third Reich’s Reichskommissariat Ostland – the provincial council of Latvia. Locals who tried to resist were rounded up and shot or sent to the concentration camps. For nearly twenty days, Riga was completely cut off from the outside world; letters, phone calls and foot messengers were prohibited by the Nazis. Skaidra waited for what seemed like an eternity for news about her family. For two weeks, she did not know if they were alive or dead. She was later to hear about the horrors their family went through. Like many Latvians, Skaidra’s family suffered immensely from the Soviet and Nazi occupations. Her brother Olgerts, an officer in the Latvian Army, was arrested and deported to Siberia for refusing to accept the Soviet occupation of Latvia. For nine long years he languished in a small damp cell at one of the forced labour camps of the Arkhangelsk region. During his imprisonment, Skaidra’s sisters would travel across Soviet territory, sometimes on foot, through high snow and harsh winter weather, carrying food to their brother.1 Back home in Riga, they had to share their home with the hated Soviet occupiers. All Latvians were forced to open their homes to Soviets who flocked to Latvia. Red Army troops and their families, Soviet commissars and Russian peasants all claimed the big mansions of Latvia. The incoming Russians occupied living rooms, bedrooms and even kitchens and bathrooms. The Vapa home, once calm and peaceful, was transformed into a house of misery and hardship. The population of Riga in 1935, for example, was sixty-three per cent Latvian and nine per cent Russian. By the mid-1940s, the ethnic balance had shifted and Latvians became a minority in their own country. The lucky ones managed to escape, either to safer parts of Europe or to the USA. Thousands were deported to Siberia and other remote territories of the Soviet Union. This is the fate that wise old Rudolf Vapa had

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wanted his daughter Skaidra to avoid. He had seen disaster coming, which is why he agreed to have his daughter move to the faraway lands of the Middle East. Even with the hardships of the French occupation, Syria was bound to be different – and safer – than her native Latvia. The Riga that she knew was gone, never to be the same again. SYRIA AND WORLD WAR II The situation was slightly better for Ahmad Sharabati’s family back home in Syria. As Hitler’s troops were wreaking havoc in Europe, The French government realised that its troops in the Levant were badly in need of a major refit. They had not engaged in serious combat since the 1925 Syrian Revolt. Although there was no shortage of foot soldiers from French colonies, many of the officers were World War I veterans who were too old and had gotten accustomed to the easy Mediterranean lifestyle. In its present form, the French Army of the Levant was incapable of standing up to Hitler and his formidable German troops. The French government frantically called General Maxime Weygand out of retirement, making him commander of French troops in the Levant. He had served as High Commissioner of Syria in the 1920s after replacing Henri Gouraud. A small, sharp-eyed man of 71, Weygand knew Syria and Lebanon well. His first step was to declare martial law throughout Syria. Weygand dug trenches in public gardens throughout Damascus, expecting the worst from Nazi Germany. The war in Europe was not going to be swift, and France needed to utilise all of its resources in the Middle East, he reasoned, to ward off an almost-certain German invasion of France. When the National Bloc presented Weygand with a long list of demands, including fifty million French francs to combat unemployment, the French officer declined: ‘The inhabitants of the Levant have been accustomed by us, perhaps too quickly, to consider the republic as a wet nurse, with an inexhaustible breast.’2 Instead, streetlights were shut off completely in Damascus and automobiles were instructed to use low headlights at night.3 Power cuts occurred on a daily basis, forcing the Sharabati

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family and others in Damascus to spend the entire winter in darkness. Syrian newspapers were heavily censored for any inkling of support for the Nazis. In many cases, they were restricted to one sheet per day.4 The Arabic translation of Hitler’s 1925 autobiography Mein Kampf was banned from Syrian bookstores.5 German citizens living in Syria – businessmen, archaeologists and spies – were detained by the mandate regime and, eventually, their residency permits were revoked. 5 Doing business with Nazi Germany became a crime, punishable by arrest. The Syrian public ¨ hrer, following the old Arabic was naturally drawn to the German Fu proverb that says: ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend.’ They believed that German victories in Europe would lead to French defeat. If that happened, they reasoned, perhaps Adolf Hitler would set them free. Starting in 1939, three Arabic radio broadcasts were made from Zeesen, south of Berlin, totalling ninety-five minutes each day.6 The broadcasts addressed the Muslims of the Middle East, delivering carefully calculated Nazi propaganda. Hitler was promising to emancipate the Arabs from European control. He pledged to eject the British from Palestine; to do away with the promise of a Jewish state; and to liberate Syria, Lebanon and Algeria from French control. The ex-Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, was a frequent speaker on Nazi radio. After the British crushed his rebellion in Jerusalem he escaped to Germany and had a high-profile meeting with Hitler, thanking him ‘again and again’ for addressing the plight of the Palestinians. He also said that ‘the Arab people pledge to Your ¨ hrer, sentiments of friendship and admiration.’6 Excellency, Great Fu Hajj Amin said that Hitler was ‘admired by the entire Arab world’ and suggested training young Muslims from Europe, namely Bosnians, to fight alongside the Third Reich. Hitler told the Mufti: ‘When we have arrived in the southern Caucasus, then the time for liberation of the Arabs will have arrived – and you can rely on my word.’7 Amin alHusseini’s photo with Hitler was distributed the next morning throughout the Arab world. French intelligence had the photo confiscated, but German sympathisers managed to slip it into books and secret manifestos, promising locals that, via Hitler, freedom was now within reach.

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Syrians would gather at local cafe´ s to listen to Hitler’s inflammatory speeches on the radio. Whispering, to avoid being overheard by French informers, Syrians would refer to him by the codename ‘Abu Rashid.’ In Beirut, he was called ‘Abu Said.’8 Gathering in coffeehouses to listen to Hitler also became a crime, with penalties ranging from three months to three years in prison, and a fine anywhere between 20 – 200 Syrian pounds.9 French intelligence even spread a rumour that Hitler ranked Arabs next to apes in terms of human genealogy, hoping that this would quell Syrian fascination with him.10 It did not, and some Syrians went so far as to name their children ‘Hitler.’ The National Bloc was divided on what to think of Adolf Hitler. American-educated politicians like Fares al-Khoury and Frenchtrained ones like Jamil Mardam Bey were categorically opposed to the Third Reich, firmly stating, ‘If soldiers take over Europe, this will soon spell out disaster and more autocracy for the Arab world. Let us all pray that Hitler never wins.’11 Abdul Rahman Shahbandar held a similar view, putting his full weight behind the Allied forces.12 Other Arab nationalists, although not overly fond of Hitler and his Nazi ideology, decided to place their bet on a Nazi victory. Leaders like King Farouk of Egypt and Shukri al-Quwatli were not blind to Hitler’s faults – disliking the cult image of the German leader, his Aryan racism and his brutality in dealing with dissent – but supported him nonetheless. After the fall of France, Damascus came under direct control of the Nazis. Ahmad Sharabati, who hated dictators, argued that one occupation was as bad as another, be it French, German or Russian. Perhaps because of the heart-rending letters that arrived periodically from Skaidra’s sisters in Riga, Sharabati knew better than most what the Nazis were really doing in Europe. News of Nazi atrocities in Latvia received no more than a brief mention in the Damascus press and those who supported Hitler in Damascus didn’t fully comprehend the extent of the ¨ hrer’s madness. Influenced by the teachings of his American Fu professors at AUB and MIT, Sharabati was a staunch democrat. It came without question that he would oppose any kind of European tyranny and would do all he could to spare his country from yet another military occupation.

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THE FALL OF FRANCE On 10 May 1940, Hitler launched his Blitzkrieg against Belgium and France. Within one month, 70,000 French troops were killed and Paris fell to the Nazis on 14 June. Overnight the people of Syria found themselves under the direct command of Hitler’s proxy in France, decorated World War I officer Marshal Philippe Petain. Petain became prime minister of France on 16 June, abolished the constitution of the Third Republic, and formed a pro-German cabinet; first in Bordeaux and then in Vichy, a city in central France. From London, the relatively unknown brigadier general, Charles de Gaulle, declared the creation of the Free French Army to fight the Nazis and expel them from France. Prior to the German invasion de Gaulle had served in a relatively junior capacity as undersecretary of state for national defence. His call to arms was made from London via BBC on 18 June 1940. ‘Vive la France libre dans l’honneur et dans l’inde´pendance!’ He urged his fellow Frenchmen to resist the Nazis and not capitulate to them. While Hitler’s speeches were widely followed by Syrians, de Gaulle’s famed declaration of war went relatively unnoticed on the streets of Syria.13 The fall of France ignited panic among Arab tourists spending their summer in the French-controlled resort towns of Bloudan, northwest of Damascus, and Aley in Mount Lebanon.14 Approximately 14,000 Arabs from the Gulf and Egypt packed their belongings and returned home. This was a heavy blow to the Syrian tourism sector, leaving apartments and villas empty and real estate owners alarmed at what the future might have in store.15 Communication lines to Syria were temporarily cut off, prompting Arab tourists to travel back to their countries by land via mandate Palestine. Among them was the young King Faisal II of Iraq, the grandson of Faisal I, who had assumed the throne after the 1939 death of his father, King Ghazi.16 Meanwhile, French troops stationed in Syria were faced with the difficult task of choosing between Marshal Petain, a national celebrity, and Charles de Gaulle, a political newcomer. If they sided with Petain, they would be legitimising a Frenchman who had willingly agreed to collaborate with the Nazis. If they stood with de Gaulle, they would be putting their careers – and lives – at stake. Syrians had a hard time hiding

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their smiles as they watched the mighty French get a dose of their own medicine. After twenty years of harsh occupation, many viewed it as sweet revenge. The economic situation in Syria was dire. The British had enforced a land and sea blockade of all French colonies now held by the Nazis, causing the price of medicine, coal and wood to skyrocket throughout Syria. Basic commodities like sugar, rice and petrol disappeared from the market.17 Syrian resources were rationed and producers and farmers were required to provide their goods to the French at no cost. The British, although opposed to Vichy France, did not have enough troops at their disposal to fight them out of the Middle East. Meanwhile, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini had put his full weight behind Hitler. Mussolini commanded 500,000 troops across Libya, Eretria and Ethiopia, while the British army in the Levant stood at no more than 50,000 men.18 Many Syrians were infatuated with Hitler, but they did not like Mussolini due to his country’s brutal occupation of Libya in 1911. Mussolini had tried to win the hearts of Syrians by setting up a printing press and missionary schools in the 1930s, but he never received half the support that Hitler enjoyed in Damascus.19 ¨ hrer was more interested in central Europe than the Middle The Fu East, but Arab territories were important to the Nazis for their military bases, lines of communication and oil. It was important to keep Arab nations out of British and Free French hands, so Hitler sent Baron Baldur von Schirach, a senior youth leader in the Nazi Party, to Damascus in December 1937. His task was to single out potential allies for Nazi Germany in the Arab world. Von Schirach met with Shukri al-Quwatli, Fakhri al-Barudi, Munir al-Ajlani and Nabih alAzma at an intellectual forum that had been transformed into a tool for Nazi propaganda, the Arab Club (Al-Nadi al-Arabi).20 When von Schirach came to Damascus, he was particularly interested in a military organisation called the Steel Shirts, which had appeared on Syrian streets in March 1936. Inspired by the Brown Shirts of Italy and the Nazi Black Shirts, the Steel Shirts wore metallic-coloured uniforms with an armband similar to the Nazi Swastika: a torchbearing hand.21 The organisation, founded by al-Barudi and the Sorbonne-educated al-Ajlani, had been closed down by the

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French authorities, which accused it of being a Syrian branch of the Nazi Party. Weeks later, Hitler dispatched Herr Walter Beck, another senior Nazi official, to Syria. Beck offered seventy scholarships to Syrian students wanting to study in Germany.22 The students were transported, lodged and educated entirely at the expense of the German government.23 Then in January 1941, Hitler sent his most senior official to date, Herr Werner Otto von Hentig, for a monthlong tour of the Middle East. Hentig headed Section VII at the German Foreign Ministry, which was responsible for a vast territory stretching from Turkey to India. In Beirut, von Hentig met with Riad al-Sulh, Omar Bayhum and Emir Adel Arslan. He prophesied the dawn of a German era in the Arab world. If Germany won the war, he promised, it would grant independence to the Arabs and do away with the hated mandate system. If the British won, he warned, they would give Palestine to the Zionists and all of northern Syria to the Turks. At the lobby of the Hotel Metropole in Beirut, he showed them a German-made film about the occupation of France, Sieg in Westen (Victory in the West). The Germans were brilliant at employing motion pictures, radio and print media to promote their achievements and ambitions.24 On 25 January 1938 von Hentig arrived in Damascus, where he stayed for four days. A Damascus tailor was commissioned to make Nazi flags for his welcome ceremony. Rudolf Roser, a member of the German intelligence service Abwehr, accompanied him. Staying at the Umayyad Hotel in the city centre, von Hentig invited Sharabati’s friends, Shukri al-Quwatli and Fakhri a-Barudi, for a meeting. He promised the creation of a united Arab nation with Damascus as its capital, should Germany defeat Great Britain. He also pledged that Hitler would return the Sanjak to Syria.25 Roser told the Syrians that, after overtaking Paris, they found a bundle of letters from Zionist leader David Ben Gurion to French Prime Minister Leon Blum asking him not to ratify the Franco – Syrian Treaty of 1936 until the Syrians pledged to support Zionist ambitions in Palestine. When the Mufti of Jerusalem visited Berlin, Hitler handed him these documents, which he then gave to President Hashem al-Atasi.26 The Syrians listened to the Nazis with great interest. The war at that stage was playing out in

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Hitler’s favour. After Field Marshal Rommel took over Benghazi in Libya, Hitler ordered the invasion of Greece and Yugoslavia. In May 1941, Major Alex von Blomberg landed at the Mezzeh Military Airport just outside Damascus and stayed at the Orient Palace Hotel in the Syrian capital.27 The last of Hitler’s envoys to visit Syria was Princess Stephanie von Hohenlohe, a member of the Austrian royal family who was generally believed to be a Nazi spy.28 She had close ¨ hrer and held extensive talks with the National Bloc. ties to the Fu Furious with Nazi diplomatic activity in the Levant, General de Gaulle dispatched his trusted ally General George Catroux to Cairo on 27 September 1940. He came from Algeria disguised as a Frenchspeaking Canadian businessman with a fake passport under the name ‘Monsieur Chartier.’ Catroux knew the Arabs well and spoke Arabic, having served twice in the Middle East. From 1919 to 1920, Catroux had been France’s representative in the Hejaz and, four years later, director of intelligence in French-mandate Syria. Catroux’s tour of the Middle East had one purpose: to challenge Nazi promises and assert that, should France be liberated, it would not hold on to its colonies in Syria and Lebanon. Catroux faced fierce resistance from the new pro-Hitler High Commissioner of Syria, General Henri Dentz. A staunch Petainist, Dentz came to the region to promote loyalty to Nazi Germany and stamp out any local sympathy for General de Gaulle. His first task was to offer Syrian airbases for German use, sending shockwaves throughout Europe and the Middle East. On 28 February 1941, Dentz arrived in Damascus to find shopkeepers protesting an increase in the price of bread, led by the National Bloc chief Shukri al-Quwatli.29 Grain was scarce due to the poor crop that winter and merchants were hoarding their stocks, causing prices to soar.30 The strike quickly spread to Homs and Hama, and by March had reached Beirut, Tripoli and Sidon. In his memoirs, Dentz wrote: ‘I must absolutely win the battle of wheat, and I have everybody against me; the people, the merchants, the English!’31 In one of his reports to the National Bloc, Shukri al-Quwatli commented: Arrests are in the hundreds and the number of people searched for in their homes, causing them to flee, is over five hundred. The prisoners

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like Subhi al-Qudmani (a Bloc patron) and our agents in the various quarters are being forced to do hard labour. There is much oppression and injustice knows no bounds. Despite all of this, the nation is standing firm. The Senegalese are everywhere. The strike is general. The army and its tanks are in the streets. Yesterday, there were casualties. All the Syrian towns are on strike. We have not yet seen any results from our pressure on Vichy.32

Dentz responded with brute force. Public meetings were banned and private ones required written approval from the hated Deuxieme Bureau.33 Street gatherings of more than five people were prohibited and cafe´s were forced to close by 8:00 pm. All telegraph and trunk lines to and from Damascus were cut off and the city’s main entrances and exits were sealed off by armoured cars.34 French troops were stationed on street corners with submachine guns, ready to shoot at anybody breaking the curfew. On the night of 25 March, no less than eighty local strongmen (qabadayat) were taken from their homes and sent to jail, accused of working with the Free French. The Vichy regime in Damascus also banned the Aleppo leader Saadallah al-Jabiri from entering Syria from Iraq, and ordered the arrest of Shukri al-Quwatli and Lutfi al-Haffar, deputy president of the Damascus Chamber of Commerce. The arrests only sparked more violence throughout Damascus. Furious strikers attacked French soldiers with clubs, smashed the windows of French institutions and closed down entire markets, even in the Christian parts of town. Soon afterward, Mount Lebanon joined the bread strike, following Maronite leader Pierre Gemayel, an ally of the Syrian National Bloc. Gemayel, alHaffar and al-Quwatli had been seen as allies by the Nazis earlier in the war, but were now seen as potential troublemakers because of their nationalist aspirations. Under populist pressure, General Dentz was forced to release al-Quwatli and al-Haffar a few days later and then summoned them to a meeting in Beirut. Dentz suggested restoring Parliament if Syrian nationalists promised to call off the strike. He went so far as to promise complete independence for Syria ‘once the international situation stabilises.’35 He even pledged to restore Hashem al-Atasi to the presidency should the nationalists agree to rule with a ‘moderate’ (meaning pro-French) prime minister.36

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Hashem al-Atasi, however, was unwilling to return to politics, having suffered enough at the hands of the French after their failure to ratify the 1936 treaty. He didn’t seem to care if they were pro-Nazi Vichy French or Free French, seeing both as two faces of the same occupation. Dentz then suggested calling on ‘Damad’ Ahmad Nami, Sultan Abdulhamid’s in-law who had served as head of state during the Great Revolt, to assume the presidency. A voluble Circassian aristocrat of Egyptian origins, his family came to the Levant with Ibrahim Pasha in the mid-1880s. Ahmad Nami’s name was associated with the Great Syrian Revolt and many blamed him for accepting to hold office while French troops were burning the Damascus countryside. None of the country’s frontline nationalists would ever accept Damad, who they considered a French collaborator.37 Al-Quwatli and al-Haffar then made a counter-proposal: making the independent Ata al-Ayyubi head of state, with Hashem al-Atasi as president. Al-Ayyubi, a mild-mannered civil servant, had briefly served as premier in 1936. He could preside over another cabinet and supervise parliamentary and presidential elections under the monitoring of the Vichy authorities. But the French did not trust al-Ayyubi due to his support of the National Bloc, judging that a Blocfriendly premier and president would prove too much to handle for Vichy France. Instead, the French appointed Khaled al-Azm, another independent, to rule for what remained of the war with limited presidential powers. Like Hajj Uthman, Khaled al-Azm was a friend of the National Bloc but never an official member. He compensated by donating generously to Bloc activities whenever fundraisers came knocking on his doors. Al-Azm believed that military confrontation with the French was suicidal, insisting on diplomacy and statesmanship rather than bullets. On 5 April 1941, al-Azm announced his cabinet. It included the Bloc chief Nasib al-Bakri as minister of agriculture and the Montpellier University-educated Muhsen al-Barazi as minister of education. Al-Azm appointed himself minister of interior and premier. On the same day, forty Bloc supporters were shot dead by French police in Damascus during the bread riots. The National Bloc agreed to call off the strike, wanting to give al-Azm the benefit of the doubt.

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TURNING THE NAZI TIDE On 29 May 1941, British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden walked into Mansion House, the residence of the Lord Mayor of the City of London. He was expected to address major developments in Syria. Damascus was listening. Reflecting the thoughts of Prime Minister Churchill, Eden boomed: ‘Many Arab thinkers desire for the Arab people a greater degree of unity than they now enjoy. His Majesty’s Government would give full support for any scheme that commands general approval.’38 He was cautious, deliberately ambiguous and brief. This carefully crafted statement was intended to win over doubters and anti-British politicians in Syria. A similar declaration followed, this time from Winston Churchill to Charles de Gaulle: ‘You know that we have sought no special advantage over the Free French and have no intention of exploiting the tragic position of France for our own good. I welcome therefore your decision to promise independence to Syria and Lebanon, and as you know, I think it is essential that we should lend to this promise the full weight of our guarantee.’39 Churchill then gave instructions to Minister of State Oliver Lyttelton that Great Britain’s objective was ‘to gain the Arab world by establishing at the earliest Syrian independence in whatever form is most acceptable. Our policy is to give the Syrian Arabs independence!’40 The British were making a point: the French should not try to hold on to their mandates in the Middle East. On 8 June 1941, a joint British and Free French Army arrived in Syria headed by General Henry Wilson. They had one objective: driving the forces of Vichy France out of Syria. The plan was to have the Fifth Indian Brigade enter Syria via Daraa, a sleepy town on the Syria– Jordan border, and al-Quneitra, the capital of the Golan Heights. Druze warriors would facilitate their entry and open the way for the Free French to march on Damascus and liberate it from Vichy forces. Meanwhile, the Seventh Australian Division would march into Syria via Haifa in Palestine, while the Tenth Indian Brigade would come through Iraq up the Euphrates River towards Deir ez-Zour, alRaqqa and Aleppo.41 Their task would be to seize all of Northern Syria and cut off Vichy lines of communication. It was a British – French

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war on Syrian territory. De Gaulle commanded 6,000 troops in Syria along with twelve aeroplanes and ten tanks. Vichy France, under the command of General Dentz, stood at 35,000 troops, including four battalions of the highly trained Foreign Legion and 7,000 recruits from North Africa. General Dentz also had fourteen battalions with ninety tanks, seventy armoured cars and 250 aeroplanes. He had enough petrol and munitions to last six weeks.42 The first battle – that of the Litani River – started on 9 June, followed by al-Kisweh near Damascus. On 18 June the Allies took Damascus. Vichy troops put up fierce resistance in the ancient city of Palmyra on 1 July, and in Deir ez-Zour three days later. Sharabati and his friends stood by and watched, incapable of influencing the outcome of the war or protecting the ruins of Palmyra from British tanks rumbling through the Syrian Desert. The Syrian cause had been sidetracked. The battle was no longer between Syria and France, but rather between European countries on Syrian territory. The fall of Damascus was marked with a remarkable ceremony that was reminiscent of the 1918 fall of the Ottomans. General Catroux drove into the Syrian capital like a war hero escorted by Circassian cavalry and accompanied by Paul Legentilhomme, commander of the First Division of the Free French Army. Damascenes came out to watch the procession, but did not shower the Free French with flowers and rice or cheer for General de Gaulle. By 1941, the Syrians were fed up with being pawns in the political game being played by London and Paris at the expense of their war-torn and tired country. The Allied war in Syria cost Dentz 6,000 troops. Five thousand were arrested and 1,000 were killed on Syrian battlefields.43 On 12 July he approached the British pleading for an armistice, which was signed between him and General Catroux in Acre, Palestine on 14 July. Dentz returned to Paris a defeated man and died shortly afterward, in 1945. The Acre Agreement, to de Gaulle’s horror, made no reference to the Free French. To the dismay of Ahmad Sharabati, it also failed to mention Syrian independence. The British had lied to them yet again. The British denied General de Gaulle the right to recruit Vichy troops into his own army and forbade any contact with them. The Free French were only allowed to communicate with Vichy troops via loudspeakers, letters and pamphlets – never face-to-face.

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De Gaulle was furious and felt betrayed by his British allies. He landed in Cairo on 20 July to negotiate amendments to the Acre Agreement. De Gaulle made such a fuss that the British considered keeping him out of Syria altogether.44 One suggestion was to stage a coup and replace him with General Catroux. Fearing a schism in Allied ranks, however, Churchill eventually agreed to co-administer Syria with Charles de Gaulle.45 The British would control military affairs while Free France would be left in charge of politics and government. Although the agreement led to an amnesty that enabled Ahmad Sharabati to return home, he saw it as just another manifestation of European occupation. At Churchill’s advice, de Gaulle agreed to abolish the title of ‘High Commissioner’ and replace it with that of ‘Delegate General’ in Syria, but it was merely a cosmetic change. The French were still in control of Syria.46 De Gaulle appointed Catroux as his proxy in Damascus and Beirut, charged with negotiating a treaty with the locals based on the 1936 agreement. De Gaulle explained, ‘The mandate entrusted to France by the League of Nations has to run its full term.’47 If France were to restore its previous position as a world power, he reasoned, then it had to reestablish its empire. In an exchange of letters with the British minister of state to the Middle East, de Gaulle was informed that London ‘has no interest in Syria and Lebanon, except to win the war.’48 Prime Minister Churchill added, ‘Our policies towards the Arabs must run on parallel lines. We must not in any settlement of the Syrian Question endanger the stability of the Middle East.’49 The British and French were clearly suspicious of one another. France had not forgiven Britain for allowing Syrians to receive money and arms from Jordan and Palestine during the Great Revolt and now they felt that they owed the British everything in Syria. Shortly after the AngloFrench invasion, Prime Minister Churchill spoke to the House of Commons saying: ‘We have no ambitions in Syria. We do not seek to replace or supplant France, or substitute British for French interests in any part of Syria. We are only in Syria in order to win the war . . . Syria shall be handed back to the Syrians, who will assume at the earliest possible moment their independent sovereign rights.’50

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THE SPEARS MISSION The new Syria that emerged in the midst of World War II was no longer run by a Frenchman but by an English gentleman named Sir Edward Spears. He was Great Britain’s new ambassador to Syria and Lebanon, handpicked for the job by Prime Minister Churchill. Spears knew almost nothing about Syria when first arriving in the spring of 1941. He was exceptionally smart, however, as well as dashing, courageous and a close Churchill prote´ge´. This gave him direct access to the British prime minister, often over the head of his superiors at the Foreign Office. He spoke perfect French, knew French society inside out, and had served as a liaison between the intelligence services of Paris and London during World War II. After the occupation of Paris by the Nazis, he masterminded the escape of Charles de Gaulle to London, right under the nose of Marshal Petain. Shortly after his arrival to Syria, General Spears argued that winning Syrian support was more important for Great Britain than pleasing the Free French. ‘De Gaulle will require most careful handling. If he were given a free hand in Syria in the mood in which he now is, the country would be out of hand within a fortnight.’51 Spears added, ‘Success difficult to achieve. Disaster possible.’52 Something had to be done to prevent the country from imploding and to make Syria a safe base for Allied forces to operate from. He knew that the French were viewed with resentment throughout Syria and trying to re-legitimise them would be a waste of time. Moreover, the population was armed to the teeth. The British needed to prevent a spill over of violence from Syria to neighbouring Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan. Otherwise, he cautioned, Britain would have to use force ‘against those very Arabs whose goodwill we are so anxious to cultivate.’53 General Spears, slender and sophisticated, disliked the manner in which the French mandate had been run since 1920. He argued that France had created a weak republic in Damascus based on a colonial mentality from a bygone era. State foundations were too feeble for Syria to serve as a proper cornerstone for Britain’s future ambitions in the Arab world. General Spears was unwilling to expend the effort

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required to craft a new Syrian state. Instead, he argued in favour of giving power to the nationalists who truly represented Syrian popular opinion. Men like Shukri al-Quwatli suddenly became the focal point of Great Britain’s interests in the Middle East. Instead of driving them underground or sending them off to jail or exile, Spears pushed for engagement and empowerment. He wrote to the Foreign Office, warning that Catroux ‘will turn Shukri back at the border if he attempts to cross (from Iraq).’54 He warned that ‘such action would do us great harm’ and noted, ‘my impression is that Shukri al-Quwatli is a sincere patriot who wishes to cooperate with us.’55 Another British report tells more: ‘Shukri has been lying low for the past six months. There is no evidence that he has been in touch with the Axis during this period.’56 Spears made a point of befriending al-Quwatli upon assuming his duties in Syria and allowed his wife, a strongminded American woman, to socialise with al-Quwatli’s wife, Bahira al-Dalati.57 That same month, Charles de Gaulle arrived in Syria. From his office in al-Muhajreen, which later became the French Embassy, de Gaulle received 112 politicians from different parties, including Shukri al-Quwatli, who would soon become the new president of Syria, with the initial backing of Great Britain.58 In a remarkable communications campaign, de Gaulle toured every Syrian town and city, polishing his image and that of the Free French in order to counteract the negative propaganda put out by the Vichy regime. In Homs he took photos with children who presented him with flower necklaces.59 In Deir ez-Zour he had lunch with the city’s notables. In Damascus he gave a speech at the main auditorium of Damascus University, attended by all the Syrian capital’s elite.60 The mood was highly anticipatory, and Shukri al-Quwatli was in the audience, waiting to hear a major policy shift from the enigmatic leader of Free France. Instead, de Gaulle poured cold water on the aspirations of the Syrian nationalists. In a grandiloquent speech, he announced that he had no intention whatsoever of ending the mandate.61 Far from it, he was working on reasserting French control in the Levant. The time for Syrian independence had not yet come, he asserted. Al-Quwatli was offended by de Gaulle’s audacity, as was General Spears.

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De Gaulle watched the rising influence of Spears in Syria and Lebanon with immense displeasure. Edward Spears was becoming too independent, too immersed in local politics and too sympathetic with the nationalists, to the extent that he now represented a threat to Free French interests in the Levant. In March, Spears received a knighthood from the king of England, making him even more powerful. He had also been promoted to ‘minister’ of Great Britain to Syria and Lebanon, no longer a mere envoy to the Free French. Upon his return to Damascus, Spears called on Syrian officials to present him with his new credentials and completely ignored General Catroux, acting as though the French mandate no longer existed. He once told al-Quwatli that by 1942 the French mandate had become nothing but ‘legal fiction.’62 Spears’ criticism was sharp, and it injured the pride of Frenchmen in Syria and Lebanon. When Catroux appointed Alfred Naccache as president of Lebanon against the will of Lebanese nationalists, Spears graphically said, ‘as if we were holding down the Lebanon to be raped by the Free French.’63 On 14 April, de Gaulle sent a note to Churchill protesting the current situation in the Middle East. The sad deterioration, de Gaulle noted, was due to Spears’ mishandling of Syria and recommended that he be dismissed at once. Churchill ignored this advice, reminding de Gaulle of his earlier pledge to grant Syria its independence. Great Britain, he added, would honour its pledge, made before the entire world, to give Arabs their freedom. In September Churchill went a step further, instructing the British Treasury to stop sending funds to de Gaulle. Until then, London had been paying £300,000 to the Free French every month, followed by another £200,000 – 300,000 for affairs in the Levant.64 On 30 September, the two leaders met in London and exchanged harsh words over Spears and Syria. De Gaulle saw Spears as a threat to France’s future and the very essence of its empire. Churchill reminded him of Catroux’s pledge, dropped in leaflets over Damascus and Beirut just seven months earlier. De Gaulle said that this did not affect the legality of the mandate. It only meant that the process leading to independence should start now, but not necessarily end in the near future. Churchill stood firmly by his minister to Syria,

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saying: ‘Spears has certainly defended, with great energy and ability, British rights in Syria.’65 RESTORING THE SYRIAN PRESIDENCY Swayed by Churchill for financial reasons rather than political ones, given that Free France was completely dependent on the British, Charles de Gaulle decided to restore a limited form of self-rule to Syria. There was only one politician in Damascus who still retained power and had presidential ambitions. His name was Taj al-Din al-Hasani. Approaching his sixtieth birthday, the ex-prime minister had greatly matured since he first surfaced on the Syrian stage back in the mid-1920s. He had served as premier in 1928 for three years, with no parliament or constitution, and returned to the job briefly during the presidency of Mohammad Ali al-Abed. A turbaned cleric, he stood as a veteran statesman completely independent of the mandate regime. Sheikh Taj returned to Damascus from Paris after the 1940 occupation of France as a politician reborn. During the early stages of World War II, he had been residing in the French capital, familiarising himself with a new generation of officials at the Quai d’Orsay.66 His comeback, after an absence of nearly five years, created a stir in political circles. Townsmen and community leaders showed up at his mansion in alHalbuni to welcome him back. Given his well-known connection to French intelligence it was generally assumed that his views reflected those of policy makers in Paris. General Dentz was automatically suspicious of Sheikh Taj, accusing him of being a puppet for the Free French and the British. Dentz stationed troops around the al-Hasani residence, making a note of his visitors.67 The siege was eventually lifted after the Axis defeat in Syria during the summer of 1941.68 During de Gaulle’s visit to Damascus, he met with Taj al-Din alHasani for three long hours. The Syrian statesman said, ‘Running Syria strictly through French proxies will never work anymore. If I were to return to office, it would have to be through some kind of pairing with the National Bloc.’69 He advised that a partnership be made, under French auspices, between him and Jamil Mardam Bey. Sheikh Taj and Jamil Mardam Bey held several back-to-back meetings,

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although they had been archenemies in the past. Mardam Bey – true to his past history – carried out these negotiations without informing what remained of the National Bloc leadership.70 The two men shook hands on a verbal deal: if either of them were called upon to become president, he would appoint the other prime minister.71 In a flurry of diplomatic activity, Sheikh Taj informed the US and the British consuls of his agreement with Mardam Bey.72 Shukri al-Quwatli was left in the dark on this agreement and would have never approved it, having set his sights on the Syrian presidency for himself. When de Gaulle consulted with Syrian politicians, Shahbandar’s supporters put forward Sheikh Taj’s name for the presidency in order to prevent the return of a National Bloc figure.73 The National Bloc suggested making Hashem al-Atasi president, even though they knew that the aging politician would refuse the job and also that the French would be against such a comeback. The only two Bloc members who refused to endorse the nomination of al-Atasi were Fares al-Khoury and, not surprisingly, Jamil Mardam Bey.74 De Gaulle finally concluded that Sheikh Taj was the best man for the job. He was reliable, sober, tough and wellversed in Syrian politics and international affairs. General Catroux was tasked with informing Sheikh Taj that he would become the new president of Syria. Taj al-Din al-Hasani was very pleased. The presidency was the perfect crowning achievement to a political career that had spanned two decades. He nevertheless set forth conditions, one of which was the unification of Syrian lands. If he were to assume the presidency, he asserted, it must be of a united Syria that included both the Alawite and Druze Mountains. He added: ‘I am automatically going to be coloured pro-French, and the nationalists will tear me apart, as I will be ruling with no constitution and no parliament.’75 Catroux bluntly told him that the time was not right for a full democracy and that Free France could not hold parliamentary elections in times of war. Sheikh Taj added, ‘If I am appointed president, in theory, I can also be dismissed. All it takes is a swift signature from Your Excellency.’76 He suggested being formally asked to assume the job, rather than being parachuted into it. Sheikh Taj took out a copy of the letter the British had sent to King Faisal back in 1921 ‘requesting’

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that he assume the throne of Baghdad. ‘I would highly appreciate it if such a request is made in the name of Free France. I cannot say yes before I am officially asked, and the suggestion has to come from your end, not mine.’77 Catroux agreed, sending an official letter asking him to assume the presidency on 12 September 1941. The letter started out addressing Sheikh Taj as ‘Your Excellency’ and ended with ‘Respectfully yours, Mr. President.’78 The very same day, Sheikh Taj responded with a written acceptance, thus becoming the third president of the young Syrian Republic. True to his word, Sheikh Taj immediately called upon Jamil Mardam Bey to become prime minister, but this was vetoed by both Shukri al-Quwatli and General Catroux. Neither the Free French nor the National Bloc would even consider it, putting a damper on Mardam Bey’s ambitions.79 Instead, Sheikh Taj invited Abdul Rahman Shahbandar’s former right-hand man, Hasan al-Hakim, to fill the position. The Shahbandarists, frantically trying to salvage what could be saved of their careers, agreed with the nomination. Sheikh Taj also called on Zaki al-Khatib, another Shahbandarist, to act as minister of justice. In addition, Sheikh Taj appointed an Alawite and a Druze as cabinet ministers, for the first time since 1918. Munir al-Abbas, a cunning politician from the Alawite Mountains, was made minister of public works. He was charged with building roads and aqueducts and improving irrigation and infrastructure in the Alawite villages that would soon be re-incorporated into Syria. Abdul Ghaffar Pasha al-Atrash, uncle of Sultan Pasha, was made minister of defence. All of the ministers had unblemished records, with the exception of the pro-French Interior Minister Bahij al-Khatib. On 12 January 1942, the Alawite and Druze Mountains were permanently returned to Syria.80 One week later, Sheikh Taj hosted a gala reception at the Grand Serail, celebrating this victory that the National Bloc had failed to achieve when it had been in power. Nationalist leaders, Alawite and Druze notables and French officials mingled in the main reception hall, paying homage to the new Syrian president. Shukri al-Quwatli attended the event along with Ahmad Sharabati, who was now appearing in public as a prote´ge´ of al-Quwatli. Both men were given the red carpet treatment at the

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behest of President Taj al-Din.81 In celebration of the event, Sheikh Taj issued a collection of postal stamps carrying his picture in the tricolours of Syria. On 27 April 1942, Foreign Minister Fayez al-Khoury sent a cable to governments around the world announcing that, in accordance with General de Gaulle’s pledge, Syria was independent.82 The cable noted that French and British armies would remain stationed in Syria until the end of the war in Europe. Letters of recognition soon flooded the Syrian Presidential Palace. The first to write to Sheikh Taj was King Farouk of Egypt, followed by Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia and King George VI of Great Britain. Belgium, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia all followed suit.83 King George II of Greece even paid a state visit to Damascus, followed by the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Iraq refused to recognise Sheikh Taj, furious that the job had not gone to a Hashemite royal. When the new president wrote to Regent Prince Abdul-Illah, he got a brief and impolite response from Baghdad.84 The success was short-lived, however. Sheikh Taj died while in office on 17 January 1943, at only 58 years of age. According to Islamic custom, he was given a speedy burial the next morning and no autopsy was performed on his body. His funeral was attended by General Spears, General Catroux, the president and prime minister of Lebanon and all of the National Bloc leaders.85 He would remain the only president to die in office until Hafez al-Assad’s death in 2000. To date, nobody knows for sure if Sheikh Taj died of natural reasons or if he was poisoned, as many speculated at the time. His sudden demise, however, created a difficult situation for the fledgling Syrian state. Neither the French nor the British were ready for the power vacuum, and nor were leaders of the National Bloc. In March 1943, Ata al-Ayyubi was called upon to supervise parliamentary and presidential elections, set for July. Hashem al-Atasi promptly summoned National Bloc leaders to his residence in Homs, asking them to sort out their differences and participate in the upcoming elections. The fractured Bloc leadership appeared ready to reunite under Shukri al-Quwatli. At fifty, he exhibited the wisdom that came with age, but still had a good deal of vigour and youthful energy. Al-Quwatli decided to run for Parliament and, from there, for the Syrian presidency. Although January is

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usually a gloomy month in Damascus, this particular day was not; it was a bright, sunny morning and the day seemed full of promise. For Ahmad Sharabati, however, it was a time of great anxiety and fear at what the future might hold, for himself and for Syria. On the one hand, he felt that it was his mission to serve a nationalist Parliament, but on the other hand, he did not trust the French. Both the French and the National Bloc had shown that they fostered great malice toward him, trying to undermine him overtly and covertly. The French remained powerful in Syria, and they despised him. They still had the power to bribe the electorate, rig elections, or call them off completely if they were not satisfied with the results. What if Sharabati ran for office and France tampered with the ballots? A defeat at this stage of his career would be painful and deeply embarrassing. Two factors, however, were working strongly in his favour. One was the popularity he enjoyed in Damascus. Some of this was due to his father, Hajj Uthman, but also to his short yet prolific political career. Ordinary Syrians had respect for Ahmad Sharabati. They saw him as a fearless leader and selfless patriot. Unlike other Damascus politicians, his political history was clean, with no suspicion surrounding him of corruption, embezzlement or double-dealing. People did not associate him with the failed 1936 Treaty or with the 1939 loss of the Sanjak. He managed to avoid being tarnished by the failures of both the National Bloc and the League of National Action. His decision to ally himself with al-Quwatli, an old family friend, was a crucial part of his political development. The president-in-waiting was a respected nationalist, admired throughout the Arab world. He had spent a lifetime resisting both the Ottomans and the French. All other veteran politicians were either retired, like Hashem al-Atasi; dead, like Sheikh Taj and Shahbandar; or suffering from political decay, like Jamil Mardam Bey. Meanwhile, al-Quwatli and Spears were getting along exceptionally well and they would spend long hours debating regional affairs and poking fun at their common enemy, George Catroux. Wherever Spears went, he was welcomed with lavish banquets and red carpet treatment at the homes of Syrian notables. He spared no occasion to say that Shukri al-Quwatli would make a fine president.

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Over time people began to associate al-Quwatli with the young politician now showing up with him wherever he went in Damascus. In January 1943, Ahmad Sharabati announced that he would be running for Parliament as an independent. He would run on the National Bloc list, headed by Shukri al-Quwatli. Appreciating the value of having young, dynamic, urban nationalists on board, alQuwatli welcomed Sharabati with open arms, eschewing old-timers like Lutfi al-Haffar and Fares al-Khoury. These veteran politicians – perfect for the 1920s – no longer appealed to the masses. Young politicians were showing up on the political stage as members of a nascent socialist organ called the Arab Baath Party, as well as the Syrian Communist Party headed by Khaled Bakdash. They were around Sharabati’s age, but with very different educational and social backgrounds than the MIT-trained engineer. If al-Quwatli was going to compete with these youthful politicians on the streets of Damascus, he needed young people on his team. Ahmad Sharabati, nearly fifteen years his junior, seemed perfect for the job. It was a turning point in Sharabati’s career, one that brought him to the seats of power in Damascus after a decade in the underground. Overnight, Sharabati became a household name in Syria and a member of the national government that was to declare Syria fully independent three years later, in April 1946. The events of World War II had a great impact on Syrian nationalists and played out in favour of the Syrian resistance. The learning curve was tough, without a doubt. They learned their lessons from numerous mistakes committed since the Ottomans were driven out in 1918. One was to never let an outsider run Syria; another was to never take the promises of superpowers at face value. They learned to make compromises, like suppressing their admiration for Hitler in order to score points in Washington and London. The new era required discipline, which prompted them to unite behind one man – Shukri al-Quwatli – and to work with him as one team, doing away with the centuries-old Arab practice of individualism and oneman shows. It was petty rivalries that had destroyed the first National Bloc era of 1936 – 9. Even men who thought themselves more worthy of presidential office than al-Quwatli played it wisely in the summer of 1943. He ran for office unopposed, although France had tried to

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encourage others to run against him. Interestingly, this effort was never orchestrated or planned; it was the natural evolution of a political class that had watched and learned from the events of the last two decades. For the first time in many years, Syria’s founding fathers were back in command, influencing events rather than being influenced by them.

CHAPTER 7

A New Dawn: August 1943

Six months before election day in 1943, the National Bloc was disbanded and renamed the National Party by Shukri al-Quwatli.1 It was an audacious decision to break with the older generation of veteran politicians and create the image of a new, fresh political movement. The city was in dire need of new leaders, as was all of Syria. Shahbandar’s People’s Party of 1925 had been torn apart and never allowed to re-emerge. A monarchical party had briefly arisen in the early 1930s, calling for the restoration of the Hashemite crown to Damascus, but fizzled out with King Faisal’s death in 1933. The League of National Action had been dead since 1939. As the older generation of nationalists passed into obscurity, young leftists were emerging within the Syrian Social Nationalist Party and the Syrian Communist Party, eating away at the National Bloc’s power base in Syria. The National Party was different than these other political machines; it had no ideology and no official programme, apart from wanting to achieve Syrian independence and unify its lands. Although outspoken against colonialism, the new party did not address the big issues of the Arab world and had no territorial ambitions outside of Syria. Its founding documents said nothing about socialism, liberalism, Islam or Arabism. It didn’t strive to restore Lebanon to Syria, for example, or to bring down the proBritish monarchies in Baghdad and Amman. It was the perfect example of a ‘Syria First’ party. The National Party founders believed

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that Syrian independence came first and other Arab affairs second. Only when free and united could Syria take part in the struggle to create a united Arab world, with its capital in Damascus. This was their ultimate and far-reaching goal, although more idealistic than practical. The National Party was supported by the Damascus merchant class and bankrolled by men like Hajj Uthman who had served as the backbone of the National Bloc. It was perceived as being ‘close’ to Saudi Arabia and Egypt, due to al-Quwatli’s alliance with Ibn Saud and King Farouk. This put the new party at odds with Hashemite Iraq and Jordan, whose kings were traditional enemies of Cairo and Riyadh. The National Party originally relied on many of the old faces of Syrian politics, such as Saadallah al-Jabiri, Lutfi al-Haffar, Fares alKhoury, Jamil Mardam Bey and Fakhri al-Barudi. These men banked on their credentials as patriots who had helped free Syria from the Ottomans and had led the anti-French struggle. Most Syrians, however, were below the age of 25. Many had not even been born when these men had begun their political careers during World War I. Many of these politicians were already in their mid-fifties by now, and some much older. Fares al-Khoury and Hashem al-Atasi were already past retirement age, now in their early seventies. Others, like Jamil Mardam Bey, had suffered disrepute during their tenure in government and were becoming more of a liability than an asset for the nationalists. For years, these veteran politicians had drawn their popular base from high school and university students, but now found themselves almost thirty years older than the students of the 1940s. Young Syrian students were less dogmatic and wanted leaders who better mirrored their political and social aspirations. Al-Quwatli argued that trying to lead the nation with the same old faces would spell disaster for Syria. He decided to bring a new generation of politicians into the National Party, namely the sons of his former colleagues who had been raised in political families and knew the nationalist struggle inside out. He had watched these young men closely for years and handpicked them to be his allies in the summer of 1943. They were men with talent and character, whom he could trust and task with difficult duties. Ahmad Sharabati was one of them, as were Asaad Haroun, the

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son of the Latakia notable Abdulwahid Haroun; Zuheir, the son of Jamil Mardam Bey; and Suheil, the son of Fares al-Khoury. The Geneva-trained lawyer and political scientist Adnan al-Atasi, the son of Hashem al-Atasi, was also invited to join but defected four years later to help found an opposition party in Aleppo. All of them were schooled at the finest universities in Europe and knew what the new Syrian street wanted. The National Party succeeded in bringing about a smooth transfer of power within the nationalist movement, from the first to the second generation. This new generation of Syrian nationalists was destined to lead the nation for the next two decades, until they were collectively destroyed, along with their party, by the Baath coup of 1963. Al-Quwatli never became president of the National Party but positioned himself as a father figure to the nation; more of an arbitrator and elder statesman than a party partisan. He appointed Sabri al-Asali and Lutfi al-Haffar to head the party branch in Damascus, while Saadallah al-Jabiri and the AUB-trained medical doctor Abdul Rahman Kayyali chaired its offices in Aleppo. The National Party received his formal blessing, however, and everyone knew that it was his proxy in the Syrian Parliament. In addition to handling party affairs, Sabri al-Asali also became Shukri al-Quwatli’s campaign manager in the summer of 1943, charged with handling the National Party list in the upcoming elections. Sharabati had known al-Asali for years, and called him ‘Abu Shujaa,’ as most people addressed him. They were the same age and both had been raised in Damascus. Al-Asali was brilliant at organising parades, rallies, and anti-French demonstrations, and drew support from his large and prosperous family of merchants. He grew up under the dominating influence of his uncle, Shukri, an attorney who had led the Damascus underground from 1908 to 1914, serving as a deputy in the Ottoman Parliament until his execution by Ottoman authorities in May 1916. Sabri al-Asali studied law at Damascus University, graduating in 1925. Immediately afterward, he joined the Druze revolt, smuggling arms and money to the rebels in al-Ghouta. At the age of twenty-three, the French exiled him to the Hejaz, with orders never to return. It was between Mecca and Riyadh that al-Quwatli and al-Asali became friends and allies. A general amnesty allowed both men to

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return home in 1932, where al-Quwatli moved into politics while alAsali opened a legal practice, working with oil firms in the Levant. In August 1933, al-Asali joined Sharabati in the League of National Action and wrote frequently for its publication, al-Amal al-Qawmi. In 1936, he defected to join the National Bloc. Later, during the Palestine War, Sharabati presided over the Ministry of Defence while al-Asali took the powerful portfolio of the Interior Ministry, which required the two men to work hand-in-hand. In addition to al-Asali, Sharabati’s parliamentary allies included former Prime Minister Lutfi al-Haffar and Hajj Adib Kheir, an oldschool nationalist who owned al-Maktaba al-Umumiya, a popular bookstore that served as a meeting point for politicians and scholars of different stripes. Both were twenty years older than Ahmad Sharabati, as were his other running mates: Fares al-Khoury, Fakhri alBarudi, Nasib al-Bakri, Nasuhi al-Boukhari, Jean Sehnaoui, Najib alRayyes, Said al-Ghazzi, Nazareth Yaacoubian, Yusuf Linadu and Abdul Hamid al-Tabba, a political newcomer from the Islamic group al-Gharra. Only Khaled al-Azm was close to Sharabati’s age, born in 1903. Nasib al-Bakri, aged fifty-five, was a good friend of Hajj Uthman and a veteran of the 1925 Syrian Revolt. His father Ata Pasha had been a top adviser to the Ottoman sultan, Abdulhamid II. Sihnawi was a ranking member of the Damascus Chamber of Commerce who headed two large factories, making sugar and glass in Syria, and had briefly served as minister of economy and finance in 1941. Yaacoubian was a wealthy Armenian businessman and contractor, while Linadu, aged 71, was an affluent Damascene Jew who had been a member of the Chamber of Deputies since 1928. Al-Barudi, of course, was the popular and charismatic leader from Damascus whose nationalist career started during World War I. Despite his advanced age, he was still the respected leader of Syrian youth. Najib al-Rayyes was the brilliant editor of the mass-circulation daily al-Qabas, which was once pro-Shahbandar and now supported Shukri al-Quwatli. He had been arrested by the French and tortured at Arwad Island, off the coast of Tartous. Said al-Ghazzi was a former minister of economy and justice who had helped draft Syria’s first republican constitution in 1928. He would later become prime minister in the 1950s while alAzm, al-Haffar and al-Boukhari had all served as premiers during the

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years 1939 – 41. Sharabati knew them well, from the countless times he had seen them debating politics in his father’s house when he was a child. They were among the most highly respected names in all of Syria. He was the youngest of the al-Quwatli team and, along with Adnan al-Atasi, the only ones from the second generation to run for Parliament in 1943. Al-Quwatli’s choice of allies spoke volumes about the kind of leader he aspired to become. Projecting himself as a Damascus chief, or za’im, was too belittling for a nationalist of his clout and calibre. Al-Quwatli wanted to be seen as the leader of all Syrians, regardless of city, sect or age. For that reason, he insisted on including Aleppines like al-Jabiri on his list and young men like Sharabati, along with three Christians and one Jew. He also understood how important it was to appeal to conservative Muslims, who were dominant throughout the countryside and among the urban poor of Damascus. Although a pious Muslim himself, he did not have leverage in those circles, but Abdul Hamid al-Tabba helped him in this regard, placing the al-Gharra’s house of worship, Danqiz Mosque, at al-Quwatli’s disposal during the campaign. Abdul Hamid al-Tabba was born and raised in a family of Islamic scholars and studied Islam with private tutors in Damascus. He began his career as a merchant, actively involved with the Damascus Chamber of Commerce. In 1924, al-Tabba co-founded the al-Gharra society with Sheikh Ali al-Daqr. It was a society of religious men, schoolteachers and middle-class merchants who were attracted to the principles of Islamic Sharia and wanted to wrest France’s secular curriculum from Syrian schools. Al-Tabba donated hefty sums to orphanages, schools and mosques and was an old friend of Hajj Uthman, with whom he had worked at the Chamber of Commerce. Al-Quwatli’s investment in young people paid off. On 13 June 1943 a declaration was published in the Damascus daily, al-Qabas, signed by twenty self-proclaimed ‘Damascus intellectuals,’ all in their late twenties and early thirties.2 They gave full support for al-Quwatli’s presidential bid. Among the signatories were the Oxford-trained AUB professor Adib Nassour and two Sorbonneeducated schoolteachers from Tajheez High School, Michel Aflaq and Salah al-Bitar. Influenced by French Marxism, Aflaq and al-Bitar were

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middle-class working professionals who were critical of the Damascus landowning elites. Aflaq was a Greek Orthodox and al-Bitar a Sunni Muslim, while Adib Nassour was an Alawite. All of them had supported Shahbandar during their teens. Dhouqan Karkout, a Druze schoolteacher and early founder of the Baath Party, recalled later how he approached al-Quwatli’s campaign office that summer, on behalf of Michel Aflaq. The future Baathist was eager to join the National Party. Lutfi al-Haffar politely turned him down, saying: ‘Shukri Bey apologises. The list is closed!’3 It is likely that these men were upset at being denied a seat in Parliament in favour of Sharabati and al-Atasi. Four years later, Aflaq and al-Bitar became al-Quwatli’s fiercest critics after they founded the Baath Party in 1947. They denigrated him and his colleagues as ‘reactionary and decaying politicians’ or ‘bloodsucking capitalists’ who ‘alienated the countryside from Syrian politics.’ Although Salah al-Bitar eventually served as foreign minister under al-Quwatli, during his third and last tenure as president in the late 1950s, he and Aflaq never forgave Lutfi al-Haffar’s rebuttal of 1943. Later, after the Baath Party came to power in 1963, the two men stood by as the party’s military wing crossed al-Quwatli’s name off all monuments and schools, erasing it completely from public display and from Syrian history books. They did the same with Sharabati, removing his name from schools opened during his tenure as minister of education and taking his name out of history books. Before al-Quwatli would officially declare his candidacy for president, he wanted a show of support from the Damascus street. Accompanied by his entourage, he headed to Danqiz Mosque for Friday Prayer in late January 1943. He introduced his list to the crowd, describing each as a ‘noble patriot and brother.’4 He then folded his written speech and tucked it back in his pocket, purposely omitting his own name from the list. Lutfi al-Haffar took the signal, climbing the podium to declare: ‘The people of Damascus will never recognise a Parliament that does not include Shukri al-Quwatli!’5 The frenzied crowd began to passionately shout al-Quwatli’s name, ‘Shukri Bey.’ The piercing chant echoed against the mosque walls and lasted for a solid five minutes. Al-Quwatli feigned surprise and then waved to the crowd in a commanding gesture. The mosque fell silent. Buckling his jacket and fixing his fez, he slowly returned to the

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podium to deliver a supposedly impromptu speech about how important it was to reunite the nationalist leadership in order to drive the French out of Syria, once and for all. ‘If this is the desire of Damascus, I will never turn it down!’ He made reference to the Holy Quran and to ancient Muslim history, two topics that were dear to the hearts of those present. ‘I am willing to move heaven and earth to see Syria independent.’ Speaking clearly to articulate every word, he added: ‘I announce from this mosque, at the request of the noble people of Damascus, my nomination upcoming presidential elections next into jubilant applause and carried him mosque to the Ministry of Interior at

for Parliament and for the August.’6 The crowd broke on their shoulders from the the Grand Serail, where he

submitted his full list. The National Party’s election campaign was given a boost by a sharp increase in bread prices, from 8 to 8.5 piasters per kilo.7 Wheat on the black market rose to four times its controlled price, leading to widespread riots against the French and Acting President Jamil alUlshi, the last vestige of the Sheikh Taj era. Al-Ulshi, a committed Francophile, was unable to solve the bread crisis or deal with an economy already reeling from 6 million SP in deficit.8 To fill their empty coffers, the French ordered a tax increase, hoping to raise 15 million SP to help bankroll the French war effort in the Middle East. The bread crisis was excellent campaigning material for al-Quwatli and his friends, who promised to resolve it immediately once elected. On 7 February 1943, they brought Damascus to a complete standstill.9 Waving a large Syrian flag, with its three red stars and green, white and black tri-colour, the National Party politicians staged a massive demonstration at the Hamidieh Bazaar, shutting down shops, markets, schools and banks. Bakeries were stormed and French flags were pulled down in public squares. They organised another sit-in in early March, using the combination of quarter bosses (qabadayat) and high school students from the Tajheez High School, mobilised into action by Adib Kheir and Fakhri al-Barudi. General Catroux responded with a violent crackdown on young members of the National Party, arresting Suheil al-Khoury and placing Ahmad Sharabati under house arrest at his home in al-Rawda.10 Catroux eventually found himself obliged to capitulate

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to the street pressure of the nationalists, just as his predecessors had done during the Great Strike of 1935. Bread prices were slashed, Sharabati was released, and Jamil al-Ulshi was relieved of his duties in late May, replaced with the Bloc-backed statesman Ata al-Ayyubi as interim prime minister to supervise the upcoming elections. ROOSEVELT AND THE SYRIANS In January 1941, US President Franklin Roosevelt delivered his famous ‘Four Freedoms’ speech at the State of the Union address to Congress, almost one year before he declared war on the Axis powers. He spoke passionately of the fundamental freedoms that ‘humans everywhere in the world’ ought to enjoy. These inalienable rights included freedom of speech and expression, freedom of religion, freedom from want and freedom from fear. On paper, his vision sounded remarkably similar to that of the National Party. Roosevelt’s speech was well received on the Syrian street – with a grain of salt, however – because of America’s tendency to emerge and then suddenly disappear in the affairs of the Middle East. After all, America’s indifference to the French occupation of 1920, despite the King-Crane Report, was still fresh in the minds of Syrians. US-educated politicians around al-Quwatli, like Fares al-Khoury and Ahmad Sharabati, advised him to reach out to Roosevelt and build bridges with the USA, arguing that France and Great Britain were ‘empires of the past.’ Roosevelt took the first step with Syria by appointing a new consul-general to Damascus, George Wadsworth from New York. He then sent his trusted aid, General Patrick Hurley, to Damascus in April 1943.11 Hurley was the most senior US official to visit Syria since the King-Crane Commission in 1919. A decorated US soldier, Hurley had served as secretary of war under President Herbert Hoover in 1929 –33. In 1941, he was promoted to brigadier general and dispatched by General George Marshall to the Far East before becoming FDR’s personal envoy on a series of assignments, including Syria, aimed at drumming up support for the US war effort. Hurley arrived in Damascus in the midst of a political storm. With his cowboy hat and eccentric attire, he was different from any diplomat

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the Syrians had met before. The Syrians rolled out the red carpet for Hurley and veteran members of the National Party, who only two years earlier had been seen as pro-Nazi by the USA, held banquets in his honour.12 Sharabati, al-Khoury and Adnan al-Atasi were asked to handle the first round of talks with Hurley given their flawless command of English and their knowledge of Europe and the USA.13 In an informal meeting at the Orient Palace Hotel, they handed Hurley a bundle of petitions gathered by the National Party, signed by Syrian citizens, requesting unconditional independence from the mandate French.14 ‘This is the voice of the people of Syria’ Sharabati said to the US general. The new world that the Allies were creating, he explained, should be focused on freedom and dignity of all nations and ‘Syria ought not to be an exception.’15 The people of Syria were struggling for freedom, just as the French had fought against the Nazi occupation, he explained. ‘There is no such thing as a good occupation and a bad one; all colonialism is bad, medieval and feeds off misery (of the occupied).’16 He added that, by siding with the Allies against Hitler, ‘. . . we are on the right side of history.’ Sharabati talked to him about George Washington University, where Hurley had studied after World War I, and asked about his latest meeting with David Ben Gurion in Palestine. The three nationalists seem to have lectured the US general, which Hurley did not appreciate. He later described Sharabati and his friends as ‘of young age’ and ‘junior’ in the nationalist ranks. Sharabati was only thirty-five, while Hurley was in his early sixties. General Hurley noted, however, that Sharabati was ‘the son of a distinguished Damascus nationalist who had been educated by American missionaries (in reference to AUB), yet briefly toyed with Nazi apologists (i.e., the League of National Action) not too long ago.’17 This, he claimed, accounted for Sharabati’s ‘radical views’ and ‘deep hatred’ for the British and the French. Four years later, as a Damascus MP, Sharabati worked hard at blocking US oil interests in the Middle East, adding to the American conviction that he was a stubborn nationalist with whom they could never do business. General Hurley then met with Sheikh Abdul-Aziz al-Khani, the Supreme Islamic Judge of Damascus, who delivered a confidential

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letter from al-Quwatli to President Roosevelt. It contained lavish praise for the US president, showering him with compliments for championing freedom and justice in the international community. ‘With no doubt Your Excellency; the presence of the United States of America under your leadership at the forefront of the democratic world is the greatest guarantee of success for the principles of justice and freedom.’18 Al-Khani added, ‘All Syrians, who have proven their support for the just cause of the Allies, were pleased with the resumption of parliamentary life in their country. This restores their sovereignty under a constitutional umbrella, and they hope to get their full independence.’19 Al-Quwatli probably believed that, just as in 1919, the Allies would convene a peace conference to map out the future of liberated territories and this would force Syria onto the international agenda. Al-Khani went so far as to praise ‘struggling France’ for its war against Germany, hoping that this would score points with the USA. He also thanked FDR for ‘the hospitality of the American government’ shown to Syrian e´migre´s living in America, ‘their second home.’ Hurley forwarded al-Khani’s message and Sharabati’s petitions to the White House, describing them as a ‘clear attempt at writing off al-Quwatli’s pro-Nazi past.’ He nevertheless wrote to FDR that the senders were ‘distinguished sons of Damascus.’20 Suheil al-Ashi, the military aide to al-Quwatli, recalled, ‘President Quwatli had full faith in Franklin Roosevelt, convinced that the man was honest in his calls for democracy and wanted to see Syria and other occupied states in the Arab world, independent from European control. The two men had genuine respect for each other, and developed an excellent working relationship during the years 1943 – 1945.’21 Jamil Mardam Bey remarked in his memoirs, ‘The nationalists, for their part, were pleased that the president of the United States considered them to be a leading force in the country.’22 By meeting members of the National Party, Hurley was granting them de facto recognition from the US government as the legitimate representatives of the people of Syria. Mardam Bey added, ‘Although they (members of the National Party) had misgivings about America’s Zionist policy, they were preparing the ground for any help they might need from America in event of a clash between Syria and France.’23

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THE ELECTION CAMPAIGN In May 1943, al-Quwatli and his team began campaigning in major Syrian cities. They visited every home in Damascus, attended every rally and met with the leaders of Syrian society, ranging from imams and clergy to industrialists, shopkeepers, craftsmen and farmers. The Damascus Chamber of Commerce held numerous banquets and feasts in their honour and they spoke daily at bazaars, schools and trade unions. Al-Quwatli even traveled to Homs in central Syria to secure the blessing of ex-President Hashem al-Atasi.24 It was he who had brought al-Quwatli into the National Bloc back in 1932 and who had first appointed him to a government post four years later. Without his blessing, no presidential bid would pass. ‘The Palace is yours Hashem Bey, and I will never set foot in it without your blessing.’ Al-Quwatli and his comrades then headed to Aleppo via Hama, where they were received by Najib Agha al-Barazi, a wealthy landowner and former founder of the National Bloc, and most of the city’s 50,000 inhabitants came out to welcome them. The socialist leader Akram al-Hawrani, a rising star in Hama politics and future nemesis of both Shukri al-Quwatli and Ahmad Sharabati, observed the effusive welcome with scorn, noting in his memoirs many years later: His delegation arrived in Hama and was greeted by people from all classes of society. On both sides of the road were a large number of armed men who came out to welcome and protect the (Quwatli) delegation. A car was waiting at the city gates, decorated with flags and flowers. He mounted with Saadallah al-Jabiri and they were barely able to penetrate the assembled crowds. Cheers were ripping through the sky. It took them three hours to drive from the town gates to its main square. There, Shukri al-Quwatli walked into a hotel and appeared on its balcony, where he gave a speech to the masses. In short, the welcome was filled with excitement and splendour. He then headed to the residence of Tawfiq al-Shishakli (a Bloc chief who had died in 1940) where city notables lined up to endorse his candidacy. Among those present were Raif al-Mulki, Uthman al-Hawrani, and Ignatius Houwaik who pointed at Quwatli and said: “I support this man! I support him over and over, after the assembled men here have all confirmed his leadership.” Syria, in its first stages of independence, has searched right and left for one of its sons to lead her towards independence. Today, it

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has found that leader. So far he has been endorsed by all of Syria and today, receives the backing of Hama, the heart of Arab nationalism.25

Al-Quwatli and his team, filled with confidence, then drove to Aleppo in northern Syria. This time, there were no crowds on both sides of the street and no welcoming demonstrations. The Aleppo street did not like al-Quwatli. The city’s politicians complained that they were left out of important decisions and rarely consulted with when it came to Bloc strategy. They felt ignored by the Damascus political elite. The city’s leader Saadallah al-Jabiri was, however, firmly supportive of al-Quwatli. They had been friends since high school and allies since World War I. The second generation of Aleppine leaders felt differently. It was they who had led a breakaway faction of the National Bloc after its failure to prevent the annexation of the Sanjak in 1939. They had joined the Shahbandarists in an angry campaign against the Bloc and were not eager to see another National Bloc president in Damascus. The Syrian capital had produced two presidents since 1932 – Mohammad Ali al-Abed and Sheikh Taj – and Homs had produced Hashem al-Atasi. They wanted a president from Aleppo who would answer to the city’s social, economic and political ambitions. The same applied to all prime ministers since 1918; not a single one hailed from the ‘capital of the north.’ Spearheading the opposition to al-Quwatli were two notables, Nazem al-Qudsi and Rushdi al-Kikhiya. Al-Qudsi was an AUB-trained attorney while al-Kikhiya was a respected landowner and charismatic statesman. Al-Quwatli met with the two men for five long hours and yet found himself unable to soothe their fears. They wanted a union with Hashemite Iraq and greater commercial ties with Baghdad. They wanted a lion’s share of cabinet seats, and the premiership – which al-Quwatli promised to give to Saadallah al-Jabiri if elected. They were uneasy about a rumour making the rounds in Aleppo, that al-Quwatli had met with the pro-French police chief and former premier, Bahij al-Khatib, promising to sign a deal with the mandate regime granting it long-term economic and military concessions, similar to those granted in 1936.26 ‘Heaven forbid’ al-Quwatli assured them, raising his left hand saying: ‘See this hand? This hand will never, ever, sign a deal with the

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French. I give you my word of honour!’27 Al-Jabiri had to intervene, using his influence to secure a written pledge from the city elders in favour of al-Quwatli’s presidential bid. Ahmad Khalil al-Moudarres, Hasan Fouad Ibrahim Pasha and Abdul Rahman Kayyali all put their name to the document, leaving al-Qudsi and al-Kikhiya as political outcasts, at least for the time being. Al-Jabiri worked hard at turning the city in favour of al-Quwatli. This effort was so successful that, on 18 May, al-Kikhiya was obliged to downplay his previous criticism and send a statement to the Damascus press explaining what he had discussed with al-Quwatli.28 Nevertheless, Aleppo produced four lists for Parliament. Two were headed by the National Party leaders Saadallah al-Jabiri and Abdul Rahman Kayyali. Moudarres headed a third list of independents and the fourth was headed by al-Qudsi and al-Kikhiya. Saadallah al-Jabiri won a landslide victory for his pro-Quwatli list. THE FOURTH PRESIDENT OF SYRIA The parliamentary elections went smoothly during the primaries on 10 July. Voter turnout was low, however, in Damascus, Aleppo and Homs. Barely one-third of eligible voters showed up at the polls.29 Despite the colossal efforts of the National Party, people were indifferent and discouraged by ongoing hunger and poverty. AlQuwatli’s team pressed ahead with their campaign, going door-todoor to remind people that voting was a national duty. The National Party did better during the second round on 26 July. Al-Quwatli’s list swept Damascus, as did that of Adnan al-Atasi in Homs.30 The National Party list also emerged victorious in Aleppo, Latakia and Hama. When it was time to elect a president, Shukri al-Quwatli stood unopposed, winning an impressive 118 votes out of the total of 120 in the Chamber of Deputies.31 From his campaign headquarters at the Danqiz Mosque, al-Quwatli declared victory on 2 August 1943. He was now the fourth president of the Syrian Republic. A massive parade escorted him from the mosque in Sanjakdar to the old Bzurieh Market near the fabulous Azm Palace. Shukri al-Quwatli was enormously pleased. He had finally made it to the top after a political career that spanned three decades. And it wasn’t the British

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or the French who made him president. His success was a democratic milestone for Syria. Carpets were raised on balconies in celebration, and photos of him seemed to be everywhere. Women showered the victorious nationalists with rice and young boys came up to express their support. Wearing a light summer suit, Sharabati dashed through the winding alleys of old Damascus, waving to onlookers and sometimes even addressing them by their first names. He knew many of its inhabitants and knew its streets by heart. The city had been good to him that day, electing him MP along with the entire Damascus list of the National Party. Shukri al-Quwatli was sworn-in as president of Syria on 17 August 1943. The Sharabati family friend, Fares al-Khoury, was elected speaker of Parliament. Al-Khoury had been speaker once before, during the al-Atasi era. He and Shukri al-Quwatli went a long way back, having first met during World War I as active members of al-Fatat, the Syrian underground movement opposed to Ottoman rule. Both were arrested by the Ottomans and incarcerated in a stone dungeon at the Bzurieh Market. Both had worked with Hajj Uthman during the difficult years of the Great Revolt. In addition to being a political leader of the highest order, Fares al-Khoury was also a brilliant legal mind, an eloquent poet, a gifted essayist, a fiery orator, a respected academic and a skilled mathematician. He founded the Syrian Syndicate of Lawyers and helped co-found the Faculty of Law, where he served as dean. Although trained in mathematics at AUB, he nevertheless had practised law as a young man, excelling as an attorney in the Ottoman courts. He went on to teach law, author acclaimed books on the subject and sign law degrees, even though he had never studied the subject. When Ahmad Sharabati and his father were exiled to Egypt back in the 1920s, al-Khoury had been in Damascus laying the bylaws and structure of Abdul Rahman Shahbandar’s short-lived People’s Party. He did not support the armed uprising of 1925, arguing that France would never leave Syria by force and that the mandate regime had to be dismantled, one piece at a time, through a political process. This explains why, during the revolt, he agreed to hold office under the pro-French prime minister, Ahmad Nami. In 1927, he was one of the authors of the National Bloc’s policy of ‘honourable cooperation.’ He was one of the

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most highly educated members of the Bloc leadership, spoke flawless English and French, and had a worldly grasp of international politics and history. Al-Quwatli knew the limits of his popularity. The local strongmen, or qabadayat, supported him, as did the working professionals from the Syrian middle class and the upper-crust beys and pashas of Damascus society. Fares al-Khoury brought in a wide network of friends in high places from around the globe, while Sharabati and al-Atasi introduced him into the young intelligentsia of Damascus and Homs. During the next seven years, he was to rely heavily on these men to give the new government an intellectual, secular and modern look. Fares al-Khoury’s dominant influence was immediately evident in Parliament. First, the ten-seat bench usually reserved for mandate officials was removed completely at the speaker’s orders. No Frenchman was allowed to attend the inauguration of the Chamber. Six showed up, but were politely turned away by al-Khoury: ‘We apologise; this is exclusively a Syrian event. No mandate officials allowed!’32 General Spears was invited, nevertheless, and so was the American diplomat in Damascus, George Wadsworth. When the military band began playing the French national anthem, they were interrupted by al-Khoury, who asked them to replace it with the newly composed Syrian anthem, Humat al-Diyar. Sharabati watched, unable to contain a huge smile. The British consul, clearly impressed with al-Khoury’s actions, remarked: ‘Fares Bey would make a good chairman of any assembly!’33 Living up to his earlier pledge in Aleppo, al-Quwatli called on the celebrated Saadallah al-Jabiri to form a government. He was the same age as al-Quwatli, born in 1893. Al-Jabiri hailed from one of the most prominent landowning families in Syria, reflecting Aleppine aristocracy at its best. Al-Jabiri had played an instrumental role in negotiating the ill-fated Franco – Syrian Treaty and was a powerful and efficient foreign affairs minister in the Mardam Bey cabinet. Unlike Mardam Bey, however, Saadallah al-Jabiri was never blamed for the failure to ratify the treaty or for the loss of the Sanjak. Even the character assassination he had been subjected to during the Shahbandar Affair appeared to have faded away. He seemed perfect for the premiership in 1943. In contrast to Mardam Bey, Saadallah

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al-Jabiri was straightforward and blunt. He eschewed the wheeling and dealing that most Damascus politicians were known for. When he said something, he meant it. When he gave his word, it was automatically taken. Al-Jabiri was soft-spoken and calm, yet commanding and tough at the same time. The Damascus press often remarked that he was the best-dressed politician in Syria, wearing customised suits from Aleppo’s finest tailors. A lifelong bachelor, alJabiri worked day and night as a full-time politician, focused wholly on the independence of Syria. Politics was his obsession. President al-Quwatli and Prime Minister al-Jabiri carefully handpicked all ministers in the new government. It was a seven-person cabinet, with four members hailing from the National Party. Five of the seven were former prime ministers. REACHING OUT TO THE WORLD The upcoming three years were critical ones in the history of Syria. The National Party put all of its resources behind the president in his talks with the French and promoting the cause of Syrian independence throughout the world. In October 1943, al-Jabiri went to Kuwait and Egypt, bringing his cause before Arab monarchs. In January 1944, Mardam Bey visited Iraq and Saudi Arabia, where he was received by Ibn Saud. President al-Quwatli wrote out long letters to Franklin Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin and Chiang Kai-shek of China, explaining the rationale for Syrian independence. He reminded the Allies of ‘the high principles of freedom and liberty that are being put to the test. We trust that the world will not again be deceived by secret and private agreements made before the war (in reference to Sykes–Picot).’ The Chinese government was the first to respond positively, sending an ambassador to Damascus in May 1944. Similar letters were sent to King Ahmad Zahir Shah of Afghanistan, King Gustav V of Sweden and Shah Reza Pahlavi of Iran. By mid-1944, all of them had recognised Syria’s independence, and so had all Arab countries, with the exception of Jordan, which was due to King Abdullah’s own ambitions in Syria. In the summer of 1944, al-Quwatli despatched Aleppo MP Naim Antaki to Cairo for talks with Soviet Ambassador Nikolai Novikov. Antaki had relatives in Egypt, so his visit would not appear suspicious

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to French intelligence. On 11 July, Novikov came to Damascus for talks with Syrian officials. Ten days later, Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov telephoned Prime Minister al-Jabiri, expressing the Soviets’ desire to open a full-fledged embassy in Damascus. Syria was rapidly slipping out of French control. The Soviets sent a senior delegation to Damascus charged with setting up the embassy. They stayed in the Syrian capital for fifteen days, and restricted their meetings to members of the National Party, refusing to call upon any French officials in Syria. One of General de Gaulle’s diplomats remarked, ‘They passed two weeks in the Levant without contacting the Delegate General of France. This is clearly not agreeable for us. The misfortune of times, however, does not allow us to complain.’34 The Kremlin was making a point: the only authority it recognised in Damascus was that of the National Party and President al-Quwatli. The Soviet delegation’s visit coincided with the annual French celebrations of Bastille Day on 14 July. The mandate regime had previously celebrated this holiday with grand festivities, giving the Syrians a day off. Fares al-Khoury contacted French authorities and requested that the festivities be cancelled, arguing that in accordance with the promises of independence, Syrians should observe only local holidays. De Gaulle’s Damascus envoy, Olivia-Roget, promised to call off the celebrations, but then did the exact opposite, staging a military parade in al-Salhieh Street near the Syrian Parliament and hoisting French flags on government buildings. All of al-Quwatli’s team boycotted the parade, as did their Soviet guests. Charles de Gaulle finally removed General Catroux in February 1944 and replaced him with a ruthless officer named Etienne Beynet. Appointing an officer yet again, and especially one with Beynet’s reputation, was a pointed message aimed at the Syrian nationalists. Beynet came to the region with one goal in mind: toppling the nationalists and curbing the influence of Edward Spears in Syria and Lebanon. When meeting Fouad Hamza, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Turkey, Beynet told him: ‘It is impossible to reach a deal with your friends!’ Beynet added, ‘They (Quwatli and his team) are inefficient and have a bad reputation. Their stubbornness towards France gives us high reason to ensure their removal and replace them with men who would cooperate.’35 Beynet warned; ‘Tell them that we are prepared to

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fight, if they want another Maysaloun.’ He despised Syrian nationalists and never missed an opportunity to show it. In August he called upon the Syrian president and bluntly asked: ‘Why are you scheming with the British from behind our backs?’ Beynet demanded answers as to why Spears was becoming a frequent visitor to the Presidential Palace, and why al-Quwatli was often meeting with the British representative to Damascus, Gilbert Mackereth. Adding to French fears, the British government’s Palestine Post had run an article in July saying that ‘A British–Syrian deal is in the making.’36 Beynet’s position was strengthened in December 1944 when General Spears was recalled to London. His replacement, Terrance Shone, had all of Spears’ shortcomings and none of his good traits. Upon arriving in Damascus, Shone reported to London; ‘If the Levant states feel that we are letting them down, they may well seek backing from some other power. The Soviet Union would be a likely chance.’37 Without a moment to lose, Prime Minister al-Jabiri contacted the US State Department, asking them to upgrade the status of George Wadsworth to ambassadorial level. Such a gesture, he added, would indicate a serious American desire to treat Syria as an independent state. Secretary of State Cordell Hull agreed, making Wadsworth ambassador on 16 November 1943.38 Al-Quwatli reciprocated immediately, making Nazem al-Qudsi Syria’s first ambassador to Washington. Al-Qudsi presented his credentials to President Roosevelt in March 1945. He spoke flawless English and, like Shahbandar and Sharabati, had received a liberal American education at AUB. He was firmly convinced that Syria needed the support of the Western world to achieve progress in terms of domestic economy, industry, military affairs, and education. One of his first tasks in Washington DC was to recommend that Syria purchase the property where the Syrian Embassy was located rather than renting, arguing that Syria needed a prestigious location ‘in the new Rome’ in order to influence American opinion vis-a`-vis the Middle East. SYRIA GOES TO WAR AGAINST HITLER In February 1945, al-Quwatli traveled to Cairo where he had a long talk with Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The meeting was

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supposed to include King Farouk I of Egypt and President Roosevelt, who had just returned with Churchill from the Yalta Conference. The ‘Big Three’ – Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin – had met in Yalta earlier in February to discuss the re-organisation of Europe. It was similar, yet smaller in scope, than the Paris Conference of 1919. The Third Reich was beginning to collapse and all three leaders were certain that victory was imminent for the Allies. The meeting between al-Quwatli and Roosevelt was supposed to be a major event. Since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, no Syrian leader had ever met with a US president. The French were insisting that they would not leave Syria without a treaty granting them military, political and economic privileges in Syria. The Syrian – US summit never took place, however, because of Roosevelt’s deteriorating health. Instead, al-Quwatli met with Prime Minister Churchill on 17 February, in a much-publicised summit in the Suez Canal, attended by Ibn Saud, Farouk and Haile Selassie, the emperor of Ethiopia. The British leader promised to support Syria’s bid for independence if the Syrians pledged to restore calm to the Middle East. Infused with new confidence, al-Quwatli returned to Damascus and addressed the Syrian Parliament to brief them on his encounter with Churchill. Dressed in a dark suit with his hallmark fez, the Syrian leader spoke with a loud and powerful voice. There were two schools of thought in London, he noted: one in favour of Syrian independence, headed by Churchill, and another inclined to follow in the footsteps of France, taken by the Foreign Office. Syria was siding with the British prime minister, he said, because the Syrian people would accept nothing short of full and unconditional independence. Taking everyone by surprise, including the USA and Britain, al-Quwatli used the occasion to declare war on Germany and Italy.39 He was now telling the world loud and clear that Syria was fully and publicly on the side of the Allies. Roosevelt’s efforts to prevent Syria from becoming a Nazi puppet had finally worked. The declaration aroused a stir in London, Washington and Damascus. How could a country with no army of its own declare war on Hitler and Mussolini? The move was purely symbolic, al-Quwatli told his supporters, aimed at strengthening Syria’s application to join the

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United Nations. Churchill and Roosevelt, he argued, would certainly appreciate Syria’s political gesture. He was right. Shortly after alQuwatli’s war speech, George Wadsworth appeared at the Presidential Palace in Damascus telling the president to expect an official invitation to the United Nations Conference in San Francisco. The Syrian nationalists had gained the confidence of both the USA and Great Britain. On 12 April 1945, Fares al-Khoury headed to San Francisco with a frontline delegation of recent AUB graduates attached as advisers, notetakers and secretaries. On the day of their departure, however, news of Roosevelt’s death hit Damascus. After returning from Yalta, Roosevelt had addressed Congress on 1 March to brief them on his meeting with Churchill and Stalin. Many were shocked to see how thin and frail he appeared. He spoke while seated, an unprecedented concession to his physical incapacity. ‘The Crimean Conference,’ he said firmly, ‘ought to spell the end of a system of unilateral action, the exclusive alliances, the spheres of influence, the balances of power, and all the other expedients that have been tried for centuries – and have always failed. We propose to substitute for all these, a universal organization in which all peace-loving nations will finally have a chance to join.’40 On 29 March Roosevelt went to Warm Springs to rest before heading to the UN Conference in San Francisco. Two weeks later, he collapsed and died of a massive cerebral haemorrhage. Syria’s mass circulation daily al-Ayyam carried the headline of the New York Times in big bold letters: ‘Men will thank God on their knees a hundred years from now that Franklin D. Roosevelt was in the White House.’41 The Syrian papers eulogised the man as a true friend of the Arabs, as a fine patriot and as a sincere advocate of democracy and human rights.42 No other world leader had ever received such praise in the Syrian press. Fares al-Khoury, the head of Syria’s mission to the UN, wrote: ‘We had pinned high hopes on Roosevelt’s benevolence in dealing with our affairs. It is he who has the white hand in our independence and in inviting us to the (UN) conference.’ Al-Khoury added, ‘Our confidence is unwavering, however, in the American people, their sense of fairness, and love of justice.’43

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REPOSITIONING SYRIA Roosevelt helped lay the foundations of bilateral relations between Syria and the USA. He was the first American president to believe in Syrian nationalists and build a relationship with Syrians based on trust, good faith and honour. At first, this was seen as necessary to prevent Syria from falling to the Nazis. By 1945, however, this was no longer a worry and yet Roosevelt continued to advance relations with Damascus and help Syria achieve its independence. Syrian history textbooks were kind to Roosevelt in the years to come, referring to him as one of the world’s great leaders who helped put an end to World War II. He helped reposition Syria on the world map, attracted world attention to the plight of ordinary Syrians – and, perhaps more importantly, helped secure Syria’s seat at the United Nations Conference, which opened on 24 May 1945. The Syrian nationalists had come a long way since 1920. Once written off as bothersome critics of the French, they were now accepted and respected on the world stage. This change in world opinion did not sit well with the French. In mid-1945, General de Gaulle and his team came up with a plan to eliminate the Syrian nationalists, once and for all. If Syrian nationalists were allowed to succeed, they would not only ruin France’s colonial legacy in the Levant, but also trigger a series of independence movements in North Africa that would strip the French Republic of its entire overseas empire. Many historians attribute America’s interest in Syria to two main factors: oil and Zionism. Yet when Syria’s founding fathers were courting Roosevelt in 1943 – 5, oil had not yet been discovered and Zionism was already well-established in Palestine. The Americans first became interested in Damascus when they felt that Syria was on its way to becoming a Nazi satellite. Syrian nationalists used the ‘Nazi scare’ to push the USA into an alliance with Syria and lobby for Syrian independence with the international community. They had no other choice since French promises of emancipation could not be trusted and the Nazis had collapsed. If Syria’s founding fathers wanted to get rid of the colonial regime, they needed to do it through American and British support. Later, many Syrians tried to forge a

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different kind of relationship with Washington, like Husni al-Za’im, who offered himself as an agent to the CIA, or the Baathists who created secret back-channels with the USA while trumpeting an antiUS agenda. Under the National Era, however, the relationship was based on mutual need and respect – Syrian nationalists were treated as partners in the new world order, rather than agents or proxies. Back in 1919, under President Woodrow Wilson, the Americans had viewed Syria with sympathy but never as a real partner that could advance US interests in the region or in the international community. In the aftermath of World War I, Syria was weak, underdeveloped and poor, with a helpless monarch who was being tossed like a political football between the Great Powers. Woodrow Wilson saw no need to go out of his way to protect the Syrians or help them achieve independence because there was nothing in it for America. By the 1940s, however, things had changed. The world powers – headed by Nazi Germany – began competing for influence in Syria as part of the World War II power struggle. The founding fathers take full credit for the repositioning of their country on the world stage during this critical period.

CHAPTER 8

Blessed are the Educators

In April 1945, Fares al-Khoury was asked to form a new Syrian government, replacing that of Saadallah al-Jabiri. He chose Ahmad Sharabati as minister of education and also tasked him with the job of acting minister of economy. The nomination was quickly approved by President al-Quwatli. It would be a Herculean task given that there were no ministries of culture, higher education or tourism in Syria, putting the young Sharabati in charge of schools, universities, museums, antiquities, books, theatres, cinemas, tourism and the administration of historical sites like the ancient city of Palmyra. A Ministry of Culture was not formed until 1958, while tourism and higher education only got separate ministries after 1970. Sharabati excelled during his brief tenure at the Ministry of Education, elevating his reputation in government circles and landing him his next job at the Ministry of Defence less than two years later. Fares al-Khoury had handled the Ministry of Education for less than a year, but he was unable to continue due to the burdens of the premiership, his travels to the UN and his job at Damascus University. No longer capable of efficiently juggling all these tasks, he tapped Sharabati to handle the oversight and development of education in Syria. The thirty-seven-year-old engineer, now turned full-time politician, half-heartedly accepted the offer, but addressed some of his concerns to Parliament and Prime Minister al-Khoury. ‘This cabinet is larger than any other in the history of this country. Where will we find resources to fund nine portfolios?’1 He added: ‘Revenue comes

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from taxes, tourism, public sector enterprise, and agriculture. We are incapable of imposing new taxes on the people. No tourist would dare visit a country at war. The public sector is bankrupt and agriculture alone cannot substitute for all of the above.’ The large number of posts would drain Syria’s already-depleted treasury and further strain the country’s World War II economy. He worried that the scarcity of funds would hamper his job and that of his colleagues. ‘Due to its size, this cabinet is un-constitutional and it will not last.’2 His fellow cabinet ministers were all members of the National Party and none of them shared Sharabati’s concern about the government’s ability to function. Jamil Mardam Bey had assumed the portfolios of foreign affairs and defence while Said al-Ghazzi became minister of justice and supply. Hikmat al-Hiraki, a wealthy landowner from Mu’arret al-Nouman in northwest Syria, became minister of public works and Naim Antaki, a prominent AUBeducated lawyer from Aleppo, took over the portfolio of finance. Sharabati was the youngest of them all – yet again – and the first cabinet minister to be educated in the USA. AUB and MIT had given him a broad liberal education and interdisciplinary knowledge that empowered him with a strong sense of ethics and dedication to civic engagement. It taught him to think freely, rather than let others – or community norms and social habits – dictate any of his actions. Unlike his fellow ministers, with the exception of Mardam Bey and Antaki, he was global and pluralistic in his approach to life, valuing hard work and personal integrity over the pomp and prestige that came with government office. It was clear from his lengthy parliamentary speech that he didn’t want the job – at least not now, with the country at war – but felt he had no choice but to accept, not wanting to offend either Fares al-Khoury or Shukri alQuwatli. He didn’t need the money and he had his own business to run, especially now that his father was nearing retirement. Additionally, given his background in engineering and commerce, public education was not his field of expertise. Now that he had accepted, however, there was no turning back and Sharabati forged ahead with a colossal reform programme that made him one of the most influential education ministers in Syria since the republic’s founding in 1932. Unfortunately, after the Baathists came to power,

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his many accomplishments while in government service were wiped from the history books. THE EDUCATIONAL SCENE IN 1945 Culture, education and language had been the centrepiece of France’s colonial programme in the Levant. During the 1936 talks in Paris, French Prime Minister Leon Blum insisted on giving the French language ‘permanent status’ at all levels of Syrian education.3 In French-mandate Syria, there were private foreign schools, mostly French, belonging to one of the religious orders such as the Lazarists or Jesuits, and the secular Mission laique francaise. In total they accounted for twelve per cent of all Syrian schools.4 The most famous were the Laique School on Baghdad Street in central Damascus and the Franciscan School in the modern and residential Shaalan neighbourhood, not far from French Military Headquarters and the Syrian Parliament. The French established both of these schools in 1925. When Sharabati came to office in 1945, there were 110 schools throughout Syria, employing 754 teachers with a total of 18,535 pupils.5 These students hailed from the religious minorities or from upper-class Muslim families who preferred to educate their sons in an elite, non-religious environment rather than with commoners in a populist milieu. Each community had its own school: Muslim Shiites, Armenians, Roman Catholics, Protestants, Greek Orthodox, Latin Orthodox and Jews, who were clustered in the world famous Alliance Israelite Universelle schools of Damascus and Aleppo. When Sharabati was growing up as a child, there were eight Catholic schools in Syria, twelve British, seven Dutch and twenty American institutions, headed by the American University of Beirut, which was known as the Syrian Protestant College until 1920. Additionally, there were forty Russian schools and two Jewish ones, numbering a total of 89 foreign schools.6 A handful had closed down because of the two world wars, and some had emerged during the inter-war period, but many of the old schools remained, protected and backed by the Mandate regime. Apart from foreign schools were the governmentadministered ones, with a twelve-year programme that started with kindergarten. Government schools involved a primary certificate

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exam, followed by the challenging and roundly despised French brevet and baccalaureate, or what Syrians called le bac. The brevet, taken in ninth grade, drilled students in seven core subjects where they needed to score 190 out of 380 points to pass and enter high school. Many Syrian students stopped there, but those who continued had to sit for the baccalaureate exam at the end of their lycee years in order to qualify for university studies. The average graduation rate at government schools during the academic year 1944 –5 was just over half.7 Of the 976 male students who sat for the baccalaureate, only 557 passed. As for girls, 125 took the exam that summer and 93 of them passed.8 These schools, open to the general public, were subsidised by the state and generally inexpensive. Tuition at all government schools was free for primary school, while secondary schools charged a yearly fee which was used to provide scholarships for needy children. In 1945, for example, 1,000 orphans – namely the children of civilians or policemen killed by war – were enrolled at Syrian government schools.9 Both private and government schools taught mostly in French, giving it an equal standing with the Arabic language. France invested heavily in education during its mandate years in the Middle East. The number of primary and secondary schools in Syria nearly doubled between the years 1924 and 1934. Enrolment was always higher at government schools than private ones because of lower tuition. In 1924, nearly half of all primary and secondary school students (a total of 23,783 students) were registered at government schools. Over a ten-year period, the number of students rose to 37,786.10 French spending on education increased steadily after 1929. Between 1920 and 1929, education only accounted for eight per cent of the French mandate budget. It rose to twelve per cent in 1930 – 4, and reached an impressive fifteen per cent during the presidency of Hashem al-Atasi.11 Scholarships became more available, allowing shopkeepers, craftsmen and other blue-collar workers to send their children to school.12 Previously, education had been limited to the sons of the Syrian aristocracy and the uppermiddle class. During Ottoman times, there was only one government school in Damascus: Maktab Anbar. This was reserved for the Syrian elite and

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located a few minutes walk from the Midhat Pasha Market. It was the oldest secular school in Syria and an architectural masterpiece in its own right. Maktab Anbar was originally built in 1867 and later sold to a Jewish notable named Yusuf Anbar. It was built around three courtyards: a formal reception courtyard, an attractive female courtyard, and the servants’ courtyard. The Ottomans added two wings and converted the house into a boys’ school shortly before outbreak of World War I. The school’s reputation spread far and wide, attracting the elite of Syrian society. Among its alumni were Said alGhazzi, Fakhri al-Barudi and Shukri al-Quwatli.13 It remained functional well into the mandate years and, by 1945, had an enrolment of 700 boys from cities as far away as Jerusalem, Sidon and Mosul.14 Maktab Anbar charged an annual tuition of 19 SP for ‘day students’ and 181 SP for non-Damascenes studying at the school and lodging at its dormitories.15 In addition to the Ottoman and Arabic classics, Anbar taught non-conventional classes on topics such as manners, logic, government penmanship, public speaking and Persian history. Using Maktab Anbar as a prototype, Sharabati started a nationwide campaign to reform all primary and high schools in Syria.16 The task was not easy. According to government records, despite France’s educational efforts, literacy was still quite low in Syria, standing at twenty-eight per cent throughout the country and as low as six per cent in underdeveloped rural areas like the Druze Mountain. Only four per cent of the entire population had obtained a secondary school education.17 In Daraa near the Syria –Jordan border, alHassakeh in the far northeastern corner of Syria and Idlib in northwestern Syria, there was not a single girl enrolled in school.18 The numbers were higher, but still low, in other cities: 454 girls were at the schools of Aleppo, 188 in Hama, 93 in Homs, 127 in Latakia, 22 in Deir ez-Zour and 570 in Damascus. Additionally, only one woman was enrolled in the Faculty of Medicine and none were to be found in the Departments of Pharmacy or Dentistry. Free of sexism, provincialism and dogma, Sharabati promised gender equality at schools and universities and pledged to increase the number of girls in schools throughout Syria. The promise raised eyebrows among conservative Muslim society, prompting hardliners to petition the

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ministry with complaints, which Sharabati ignored.19 He made Mother’s Day an official school holiday and decorated veteran women educators like Adlila Bayhum al-Jazairi, the founder of Dawhet al-Adab School (Tree of Culture), with the Medal of Educational Honour.20 She had established a reputed all-girls school in 1931 and was active with social welfare among rural women since the mid-1920s. This was part of the ministry’s mission, Sharabati told Adila Bayhum at his office in the Grand Serail, reminding her that his ministry was the first to appoint a woman to the Syrian civil service back in 1919.21 Labiba Hashem had been made inspector of girls’ schools at the Ministry of Education and, by the time Sharabati came to office, the ministry had 200 women employees working as schoolteachers and curriculum inspectors. THE SHARABATI-HUSARI REFORMS Sharabati’s office was located down the corridor from that of Fares al-Khoury, on the second floor of the Grand Serail overlooking the Barada River. He was Syria’s twenty-fifth minister of education since the ministry had first been established during the era of King Faisal. To begin with, Sharabati summoned what remained of his predecessors and appointed all of them (a total of fifteen politicians, scholars and educators) to a ‘Board of Advisers to the Minister of Education.’ He surrounded himself with prominent names like Mohammad Kurd Ali, Mazhar Pasha Raslan, Husni al-Barazi, Abdul Rahman Kayyali, Lutfi al-Haffar, Hasan al-Hakim, Muhsen al-Barazi, Faydi al-Atasi and Nasuhi al-Boukhari. Kurd Ali, a historian, was president of the prestigious Arab Language Assembly, the highest international authority of Arab scholars. Al-Hakim, al-Haffar, alBoukhari and Husni al-Barazi were all ex-premiers. Mazhar Raslan, who was minister in the mid-1930s, had been prime minister of the Emirate of Transjordan. The advisers were to aid, rather than replace, the Education Council (Majlis al-Ta’lim) that was founded in 1928 by Sharabati’s predecessor, Mohammad Kurd Ali. Headed by Sharabati, The Education Council included the directors of all Tajheez high schools in Syria, along with Damascus University President Husni Sabah and Kurd Ali, in his capacity as president of the Arabic

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Language Assembly. Sharabati also contracted two veteran Arab educators to help him revamp Syrian education at all levels. Sati alHusari was brought in from Baghdad to study schools and Abdulrazzaq Sanhouri was hired from Cairo to reform Damascus University. Sati al-Husari was the legendary founder of the Syrian Ministry of Education back in 1918. Born in Yemen to a family of Syrian origin, he was raised in Libya, Adana and Deir ez-Zour, because his father was a senior judge in the Ottoman courts and always on the move. Al-Husari did not receive proper schooling until a relatively advanced age, but studied with private tutors, mastering Ottoman Turkish and French before learning Arabic as a third language. Later called the ‘king of Arabism’, Sati al-Husari actually spent an entire childhood speaking nothing but Ottoman Turkish and spoke Arabic with a slight Turkish accent for the rest of his life. A multidimensional scholar approaching the age of 70 in 1945, he was a renowned poet, essayist and mathematician, nicknamed ‘Archimedes’ by his friends. He had experience in education that dated back to 1908 when the Ottoman government had appointed him director of the teacher’s institute in Istanbul, Daru¨lmuallimin. Al-Husari had tried to simplify Arabic and Greek classics and authored books on physics and botany, which were mandatory reading material at Turkish schools in the Ottoman Empire. From 1910 to 1912, he visited European countries to examine modern educational methods. The Ottoman government made him director of education in Damascus during World War I, after which he became minister under Faisal in 1918 – 20. Al-Husari reopened thirty-six schools in Damascus and Aleppo that had closed down during World War I, including ten all-girl schools.22 During his tenure in government, he helped translate all schoolbooks from Ottoman Turkish into Arabic and authored a series of history books, shifting the emphasis from Ottoman to Arab history. He also made English, rather than Ottoman Turkish, a mandatory language in all Syrian schools – a decree that was immediately cancelled by the invading French Army, which replaced English with French and banished al-Husari from Damascus with orders never to return. After roaming through Europe, he settled in Iraq, where he drafted the country’s elementary curriculum from

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scratch and co-founded Baghdad University, serving as dean of its Law Faculty.23 Al-Husari loathed the French and was offered the opportunity to get his revenge by Ahmad Sharabati, who gave him the authority to strike back at the French system in all Syrian schools. The two men were disturbed by the overwhelming emphasis on the French language at Syrian schools, arguing that it was counterproductive for young students to learn a foreign language before mastering their native tongue. This was especially true in the Alawite Mountain, which had been under direct French rule for twenty-five years.24 The first step in their reform programme was to stop teaching French in government elementary schools throughout Syria, and make it mandatory only from sixth grade onward. He then abrogated all state scholarships to France, preferring to send Syrian students for graduate and postgraduate studies in more neutral countries with no history of colonialism in the Arab world.25 Jamal al-Din Nasser of the Faculty of Medicine, for example, was sent to the USA to study mouth disorders, while Damascus University President Husni Sabah was despatched to Cairo to study the curriculum of King Fouad I University.26 University professor Bashir al-Azma was sent on state funds to train at a medical hospital in Switzerland, also at the request of the Ministry of Education.27 In total, Sharabati sent forty-five students to Belgium, twenty-nine to Switzerland and thirty-six to Egypt.28 In July 1946, he sent thirteen Syrian academics to the USA to tour university campuses and study their methods of instruction.29 That same month, he made a point of personally boycotting the annual French celebration of Bastille Day on 14 July. Sharabati also cancelled the role of French advisers at Syrian schools and transferred their salaries to elementary and high school teachers employed by the ministry. Finally, he announced that all schools, private and public, would fall under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education. The ministry would assume a regulatory role over all subjects taught in their classrooms and would name a government delegate to sit on their boards. In a dramatic move that took the French completely off-guard, Sharabati unilaterally cancelled the French baccalaureate exam for the summer of 1946. Based on the American high school model, students

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were now eligible to enrol at university based on their marks in grades 6– 12.30 It was an abrupt break with tradition and a severe blow to France’s legacy in the Levant, doing away with an education system that had survived since the days of Napoleon. The French, still busy fighting World War II, were unable to do more than file an official complaint with the Syrian government. Sharabati cited several Balkan states that removed Russian from their curriculum, in addition to Turkey and Iraq, which made English mandatory from fifth grade onward. So powerful and shocking was Sharabati’s ‘coup’ that even Syrian students had a hard time accepting the new academic system. Parents complained, of course, and so many Syrians of high standing resisted the change that Sharabati grudgingly abrogated the law for the academic year 1946 – 7. By the time it was revoked, he had moved to the Ministry of Defence. Sharabati and al-Husari also agreed on the need to emphasise Arabic nationalism in Syrian schools. As strongly committed Arab nationalists themselves, they believed that the basic constituent elements of a nation were shared language and shared history. They rejected the idea that other factors – such as state action, religion, or economic factors – could play a part in bringing about nationalist sentiment. They also publically stated that Islam was incompatible, in its old form, with the rapid modernisation of Syrian society. The second step of their reform programme was outlawing all of the unaccredited Quranic schools, or kuttab, that were common in Damascus, and for which Sharabati’s native al-Salhieh was particularly famous. For as long as anybody could remember, these turbaned men taught religion and philosophy to children of school age, often for free. All they needed was a copy of the Quran and small classroom. Children sat on damp floors and paid their tuition with old clothes and food. Smart ones were patted on the back while lazy children were whipped with a bamboo stick. No government official interfered in what these sheikhs said and did or how they influenced these little children and nobody cared to ask about their academic qualifications. What mattered to people was that they were pious and could both read and write, and that they pass these skills on to their children. Sharabati and al-Husari started to shut them down, one after another, claiming that there was only one curriculum allowed

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from hereon in Syria, and it had to be administered through professional teachers accredited with the Ministry of Education. Clerics who wished to carry on with their informal classes were welcome to do so, but only after approving their lessons by a joint committee, headed by the ministry and the Department of Religious Endowments (Awqaf). SCOUTS AND SUMMER CAMPS With the French and turbaned preachers out of his way, Sharabati set about building character in the new generation. He argued that sports, arts and cultural clubs were vital for the learning experience and more pedagogically powerful than traditional classrooms. Schools ought to be a ‘big and free stage’ for students to experiment with their different talents, he argued.31 The more multi-dimensional a student was, the higher his/her chances were at succeeding in university and in the real world. In 1945 – 6, he exempted all amateur actors from paying taxes to the Department of Culture, a sub-branch of the Ministry of Education. As a result, Syrian theatrical groups began to appear in Damascus, notably the Abdul Latif Fathi Group, which included the pioneering comedian Fathi and his acting mate, Rafiq Sibaii.32 Both became household names in Syria after the dawn of Syrian television in 1960. When university students began to play tennis on campus, the minister granted them a personal stipend of 100 SP to enhance their athletic and cultural talents.33 One of Sharabati’s other concerns was the Syrian Boy Scouts, which became a fundamental pillar of his reform programme. Scouting had first come to the Levant as early as 1912, through two Muslim Indians studying at AUB. They founded a scouting troop in Beirut and, by 1914, Scouts had emerged in Damascus carrying the name ‘Al-Kashaf al-Muslim.’ The Damascus Scouts closed down during World War I and again during the 1925 revolt. In July 1927, the movement was reestablished by Ali Abdul Karim al-Dandashi, a notable from Talkalakh in the Syrian midland, aided by Ahmad Shihabi of southern Lebanon and Fayez al-Dalati, a law student from Damascus. Fakhri al-Barudi had tried affiliating them with the National Bloc but when they refused, he founded his own scouting

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movement, called the Umayyad Troops, in mid-1929. In his own words, it was a prototype of how the future Syrian Army should look. The Umayyad and Ghouta troops fought bitterly against each other until both camps were absorbed by the Syrian Federation of Scouts and joined the International Scouting Council in the 1930s. Syrian Scouts numbered 3,000 in 1933 and were financed by dues and contributions. In 1935, they expanded to include non-Muslims, which raised their number to 15,000. When Sharabati became minister in 1945, Cub Scouts were introduced for students aged seven to twelve and Rover Scouts for those eighteen and above. They now began receiving annual stipends from the Ministry of Education, which enabled them to go on field trips to Iraq and Lebanon, and their number increased to 38,000 in the mid-1940s.34 In Sati al-Husari’s report, he mentions that during the long years of the mandate, government schools had become ‘automatic, with no soul’. Sharabati launched a series of summer camps for all government schoolteachers to ‘add soul’ to their teaching and to encourage healthy and friendly relations with their colleagues. The Ministry of Education would handle all expenses and the camps would be run by professors from Damascus University. Sharabati then signed a contract with AUB, seeking advice on how to develop the skills of Syrian schoolteachers. Some were sent for training at AUB. Sharabati also published an official magazine for the Ministry of Education, Bulletin d’Enseignement, in which teachers were encouraged to write articles, voice their views on education and engage in scholastic debate with their students. Sharabati also raised the salary of schoolteachers in the Syrian countryside and made it mandatory for all schoolteachers to work in rural areas for two years before being posted to urban centres like Damascus and Aleppo. According to the new laws, schoolteachers with a postgraduate degree who wished to teach at Syrian schools were eligible for a monthly salary up to 215 SP.35 Despite his efforts, women schoolteachers were still receiving fifteen pounds less than their male colleagues, thanks to a gender-based hierarchical system that Sharabati tried to eradicate.36 Sharabati also fixed classroom time at no less than forty-five minutes.37 Before 1945, some teachers taught for no more than twenty to thirty minutes, depriving students of much-needed classroom hours.

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DAMASCUS UNIVERSITY To reform higher education, Sharabati called on the respected Abdulrazzaq Sanhouri from Cairo for a six-month contract with the Syrian Ministry of Education. Sanhouri was a highly acclaimed legal scholar whose name later graced the Egyptian Civil Code of 1948. When he joined Sharabati in the early 1940s, he was serving as dean of the Faculty of Law at King Fouad University in Cairo. Damascus University was established in 1923 and was known as the Syrian University until the name was changed in 1958. During the academic year 1945 – 6, 396 students were enrolled in the Faculty of Law, 286 in the Faculty of Medicine, 55 in the Department of Pharmacy and 29 in the Department of Dentistry.38 Unlike elementary and high schools, which were draining the state budget, the University had been generating profit and financing itself since its establishment. Expenses for the academic year stood at 134,000 SP while revenue stood at an impressive 223,480 SP.39 Tuition fees alone accounted for 130,000 SP.40 The lion’s share of revenue went to the University Hospital in al-Baramkeh, however, where both Syrian and other Arab patients were treated free of charge, and to the University Clinic in Shahbandar Square in central Damascus, which distributed medicine to the needy. Revenue at the University Hospital stood at 3,000 SP while spending was a staggering 46,000 SP.41 Sanhouri wrote to Ahmad Sharabati recommending the creation of three levels for patients at the University Hospital, in order to generate better revenue.42 Class A patients, often the well-off and moneyed elite, would be charged 10 SP per day for treatment and a private hospital room, with meals. The rate could reach up to 25 SP per day, depending on hospital services. Employees would continue to be treated for free, along with their families, as part of their ‘incentive package’.43 For example, the hospital performed annually about 100 gynaecology operations, another 100 ophthalmology ones, 30 ENTs and nearly 400 emergency calls. Sanhouri argued that at least half of all operations ought to be paid, reminding Sharabati that the hospital conducted nearly 3,000 operations free of charge, annually.44 He also recommended raising tuition fees to 225 SP per academic year at the Faculty of Medicine, to be paid in three

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instalments.45 The job of a doctor, he argued, ought to be restricted to men with alternate incomes and family wealth. Medicine would be their mission in life, rather than their money-generating job, enabling doctors to treat any patient regardless of his/her ability to pay. No person in need of treatment ought to ever be turned down for financial reasons by a government-accredited doctor. This unspoken rule was wise in theory but socially unjust and racist in practice, yet it remained in place until changed by the Baathists in 1963, who opened the doors of the Faculty of Medicine to the sons of peasants, village dwellers and the middle class, enabling those from any strata of society to become practising doctors. A major challenge facing the Ministry of Education was accreditation of degrees from Damascus University. Although France recognised Syrian degrees, British-controlled Palestine, Egypt, Iraq and Turkey did not. A doctor from Syria had to take a new set of exams before practicing in Cairo or Baghdad. There are two possible reasons for this. These governments may have resented the Syrian University’s stellar reputation, which was only matched in the Arab world by the Jesuit’s university and AUB. Another probable reason is that Syrian University students were highly political and constantly on the streets demonstrating against the British and Italian occupations of Palestine and Libya. They supported the Palestinian resistance with money, arms and human resources. When Lord James Balfour came to Damascus in April 1925, university students flooded the streets, bringing the capital to a halt and forcing him to flee the city under French protection. As a result, he stayed in town for only nineteen hours. Students taking part in the political underground or in antigovernment demonstrations were often expelled from the university. Sometimes even professors were fired, as happened to Fares al-Khoury in 1935 when he encouraged students to participate in anti-French riots in Damascus. Because of these incidents, the British did not recognise university degrees from Syria until May 1939. While exiled to Cairo, Abdul Rahman Shahbandar, one of the founders of the Syrian University, spoke with the nationalist prime minister of Egypt, Mustapha al-Nahhas Pasha, and it was only then that the Egyptian government relented and agreed to receive medical students from

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Syria. Turkey and Iraq continued to shun degrees from the Syrian University until Sharabati personally took up the matter with the respective governments in Ankara and Baghdad, finally succeeding in having them recognise Syrian degrees in mid-1946.46 GREAT ACCOMPLISHMENTS When it came to other departments within the Ministry of Education, Sharabati worked alone, without the help of Sati al-Husari and Abdulrazzaq Sanhouri. He drafted a proposal for the creation of a fine arts museum in Damascus, arguing that paintings and sculpture should be on display for the edification of the general public. He also questioned why museums were restricted to historical artefacts of bygone eras. Sharabati chose to locate Syria’s first fine arts museum at the Tekkiye Suleimanieh, a mosque complex east of the National Museum. Built by Suleiman the Magnificent in the 1500s, it housed a madrassa for Quranic studies and had a large courtyard with a low Andalusian fountain, flanked by a single line of arcaded shops selling Damascene crafts.47 Sharabati believed that these spaces should be used to display the works of Syrian artists. He also wanted to establish other art museums in the grand mansions of Old Damascus, so he banned the sale and rent of these dazzling palaces for commercial use.48 Any family that was financially incapable of preserving its old mansion should sell it to the government, he argued. This applied to the grand mansions of al-Amara, behind the Grand Umayyad, the nearby Hay al-Yahud and the Souq Saruja neighbourhood outside the walled city. Sharabati then drafted a new law for the National Museum in Damascus, which had been established shortly after the Ottomans left Syria in 1919. Until then, all excavations in Syria were under the control of the French High Commissioner, who had the historical treasures that were unearthed registered in Paris without even reporting them to Syrian authorities. Sharabati tried to end this practice, but had to settle for regulating it. For example, he insisted that all Byzantine and Greco-Roman artifacts be stored at the National Museum after official registration at the Department of Antiquities, which was attached to the Office of the Prime Minister.49

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Other ambitious projects on Sharabati’s agenda included drafting a copyright law to protect the intellectual property rights of authors and poets, as well as establishing a Department of Literature at Damascus University and a Department of Engineering in Aleppo.50 He brought all these suggestions before Parliament but left office before any of them were implemented. The Department of Literature was eventually established in 1946 and the Department of Engineering in Aleppo only came into being after the city got its first university during the Syrian – Egyptian union of 1958. As for the copyright law, this did not pass until 2001, fifty-six years after Sharabati’s initial proposal. WISE WORDS AND BRAVE DEEDS During Sharabati’s tenure as minister of education, the French carried out a savage bombing of Damascus in May 1945. The country erupted in open revolt, as young men dropped out of school and grabbed their guns to confront the French. The onslaught lasted for two days and the conflict was over by early June. It happened one week before final exams at schools and universities, however, prompting Sharabati to close down government schools until peace was restored. In addition, he told French ones not to reopen until receiving formal instructions from the Syrian government. Sharabati rescheduled exams for mid-June 1945 but faced the dilemma of what to do with the 20,000 students enrolled at French and foreign schools, who found themselves out of class and unable to sit for the brevet and baccalaureate exams. He reached out to NGOs, mosques, churches and the Damascus Chamber of Commerce, asking them to rent space to the ministry for ad hoc schools. This also put a drain on government schools, whose enrolment suddenly jumped from 85,540 to 99,707 in a matter of weeks.51 The ministry managed to open 72 elementary schools that summer and six secondary ones, thanks to Sharabati’s efforts. He then summoned a delegation of high school and university students to discuss the challenges facing the educational sector and Syria as a whole. Heading the student body was a young medical student from al-Raqqa named Abdulsalam al-Ujayli, who later

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became one of Syria’s foremost novelists and a prominent combatant in the Palestine War.52 After briefly discussing the latest political updates, Sharabati thanked them for their efforts in combating the French and then spoke about Socrates and his theory of individualism. ‘The future is in your hand,’ he remarked, ‘and it is your duty as free men to form your own opinions about life and politics through reason and logic rather than indoctrination.’ Sharabati asked them to prepare for the French evacuation, saying that the future challenges of nation-building would be harder than the years of resistance to colonial rule. ‘By the time you graduate from university, you will probably work in jobs that currently don’t exist’ he noted, encouraging them to foster critical thinking and develop their analytical skills in order to adapt to the rapidly changing world.53 He was speaking as an educator, a senior government official and a parent. His tenure at the Ministry of Education had made a stronger and wiser man out of him, better equipped for the challenges of postFrench government. He wouldn’t have succeeded without the help of his team – namely al-Husari and Sanhouri – and the students who embraced his reforms and helped transform his dreams into reality. Recalling the meeting many years later, Abdulsalam al-Ujayli noted: ‘Sharabati said that few people have the luxury of planning and then seeing their projects materialise before their own eyes during one lifetime. One generation sets the stage and plants the seeds; its players usually leave the scene before their dreams see the light. That doesn’t really matter; what matters is the process. It is the duty of future generations to sow the fertile land and harvest the crop.’54 BAATHISM AND EDUCATION Eighteen years later, all the Syrian education sector advancements were undone after the Baath Party came to power in March 1963, essentially nullifying everything Sharabati had accomplished during his brief tenure at the ministry. To rule with an iron fist the Baathists needed to control school campuses and influence the minds of students throughout Syria. Nationalism was now measured by how loyal one was to the Baath regime and teachers were appointed not for their academic credentials but for their allegiance to the party.

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World classics like Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey were removed from the curriculum and replaced by the works of Suleiman al-Issa, a Baath Party poet. Every morning students saluted the flags of Syria and the Baath while praising ‘the Great Leader and the Giant Party.’ It was a form of totalitarian propaganda, similar to that used by the Soviets, Chinese, Egyptians and Koreans. Private schools were fully nationalised under the Baath and came under strict government control, run by a new generation of educators from rural Syria. A total of 264 teachers were collectively discharged from Syrian schools during the years 1963 – 6, accused of being anti-Baath. The lucky ones were allowed to leave the country, finding employment in the Arab Gulf or Lebanon, and were replaced by colleagues trained in the Soviet Union and other countries of the Eastern Bloc. From then on, membership in the ruling party became mandatory for employment and enrolment in all state-run schools and universities. Syria’s founding fathers would never have imagined that this could happen to their country’s schools and universities. It was worse than military dictatorship and more painful than foreign occupation. Education was a noble mission and they had tried hard to shelter it from the political upheavals of the 1950s and early 1960s. Ahmad Sharabati lived to see the first twelve years of Baathism – and he detested it. By the time of his passing in 1975, everything he had achieved during his two government tenures had been completely destroyed. His brief tenure at the Ministry of Education was a turning point in his career and yet a little-known chapter in the history of modern Syria. Sharabiti’s achievements during 1943 – 5 were the reason President al-Quwatli appointed him minister of defence in 1948. Simply put, Sharabati knew how to get the job done and do it well.

CHAPTER 9

Evacuation

Ahmad Sharabati’s brief tenure at the Ministry of Education was at a time of deteriorating relations between the French government and the people of Syria. The mistrust was deep and mutual, and the relationship hit rock bottom in mid-1945. Whether intentionally or not, Sharabati was partly to blame for that collapse. He had come to office at a time when the French felt abandoned by everyone, including their own allies. Great Britain and the USA were building bridges with the Syrian nationalists, much to the displeasure of General de Gaulle, and both wanted to replace France as the new ‘Great Power’ in the Middle East. France’s longtime allies inside Syria – the prominent supporters of the mandate regime – were all gone. Some were unpopular because of their collaboration with the French, others were fading away with old age, like Haqqui al-Azm, or dead, like Taj al-Din al-Hasani. For over twenty years, the French had relied on these men to manage the local population on their behalf. By 1944 – 5, the French were running out of friends and supporters in Syria and the last thing General de Gaulle needed was to have Ahmad Sharabati take a strike at the French language and the French baccalaureate system. The French general was actively trying to salvage what he could of his country’s legacy in the Levant. Sharabati, meanwhile, was taking aim at French culture and education; two of the main pillars that de Gaulle had hoped to rely on in order to maintain France’s political and cultural influence among the Arabs. By calling off the French

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baccalaureate exams, Sharabati simply gave de Gaulle the excuse he needed to strike with force at the Syrian nationalists. It was now a battle of survival for the Free French, but they were no longer dealing with inexperienced politicians, bickering amongst themselves, as it had been in the 1920s. Nor was it a lopsided battle with armed peasants from the Damascus countryside going up against the mighty French army. The Syrian nationalists had come a long way in their dealings with the French since 1943. They were more experienced in politics and had learned from their own mistakes. They now knew how best to take on the French Republic and understood that education was one of France’s weak spots. RAIN BEFORE THE STORM On 19 May 1945 President al-Quwatli travelled to Chtaura, a sleepy Lebanese town near the Syrian border, to meet with his Lebanese counterpart, Beshara al-Khoury. The two presidents agreed to suspend talks with General Beynet, the French officer acting as high commissioner, until de Gaulle gave a clear commitment as to when and how he would leave Syria and Lebanon. The meeting lasted for four hours. Beshara al-Khoury, a Maronite Christian and a lawyer by profession, leaned over and said; ‘My friend; don’t trust the English!’1 The French had arrested al-Khoury and his cabinet ministers in November 1943 and Ambassador Spears had failed to protect him. Clearly, he was still bitter about the incident, although it had elevated him to heroic standing in Lebanese society. ‘They did it to me. They did it to Riad (al-Sulh)’. Al-Quwatli responded with a sneer: ‘If the French do that in Syria, de Gaulle will now have to answer to both the British and the Americans. The French would be committing suicide. It would be their final act in the Arab world!’2 Little did he know that this was the fate he was to suffer at the hands of the French only four months later. While driving home, alQuwatli was taken seriously ill. His doctor Husni Sabah diagnosed him with acute internal bleeding, warning that the president might die in a matter of days if not treated. Saadallah al-Jabiri rushed to his bedside and was deputised in state affairs should al-Quwatli’s condition deteriorate. With Fares al-Khoury at the UN in

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San Francisco and al-Quwatli bedridden, al-Jabiri became the de facto ruler of Syria in mid-1945. That same month, de Gaulle ordered reinforcements from North Africa to Syria, giving no explanation to the Damascus government. They were urgently shipped by cruiser to Beirut. Britain’s foreign secretary, Anthony Eden, instructed his ambassador in Paris to ask de Gaulle for an explanation. The troops were there, replied the French leader, to ‘relieve and enforce’ his army in the Levant. This was an internal French issue, he added, ‘and I don’t understand why Great Britain should be concerned’.3 Meanwhile, anti-French demonstrations in Damascus had become routine. Young people would fill the streets at noon, demanding evacuation of the French and the creation of a national army. Most were high school and university students, encouraged by Minister Sharabati. By law, the students ought to have been suspended from school for demonstrating, but Sharabati looked the other way. The French confronted the young demonstrators by beating them with clubs and rifle butts. On 20 May, Foreign Minister Jamil Mardam Bey held a long meeting with the US diplomat in Damascus, George Wadsworth.4 ‘We are trying very hard, George, to keep the situation under control’, he said. ‘My government is putting the most ardent effort into maintaining peace and quiet, but that is becoming very difficult, because of French provocations’.5 The landing of fresh French troops, he added, was ‘incompatible’ with Syrian independence, and he asked Wadsworth to convey Syria’s anger to the US State Department and to President Truman. Wadsworth wrote: ‘I am practically certain that there will be a showdown this weekend, unless some way or another, we are able to hold back the French’.6 Mardam Bey told Wadsworth that the Syrian government would break off negotiations with France unless the French withdrew the same number of troops as those scheduled to arrive from North Africa. ‘If that happens, we will no longer bear responsibility for any anti-French activity on the Syrian street nor will we be able to protect any Frenchman based in Syria’.7 Wadsworth replied: ‘In case our calls are ignored by General de Gaulle, we are considering taking some corrective action. All options are on the table’.8 Mardam Bey angrily asked: ‘Is Syria going to become another Poland?’9 referring to the

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way in which the world powers had turned a blind eye as Hitler invaded Poland at the start of World War II. One week later, violence broke out in Homs and Hama between Syrian youth and the French Army. Wadsworth and Mardam Bey held another long meeting and President al-Quwatli sent letters to President Truman and Prime Minister Churchill. They were now begging for assistance from the Americans and British. Harry Truman was too busy with the UN Conference to pay much attention to the rising confrontation in Damascus. Winston Churchill, however, replied rather quickly, saying that he would give ‘careful attention’ to the crisis. ‘I cannot see that anything has happened which could possibly justify hostilities or bloodshed as ones you refer to. Indeed, it is the duty of Syria, as well as the United Nations, to refrain from precipitating any situation which would almost certainly impede the war with Japan’.10 Churchill, although swift with his reply, failed to grasp the gravity of the situation in Damascus. Instead of intervening to protect the Syrians, he threw the ball in Syria’s court. In his memoirs, Charles de Gaulle wrote: ‘We shall not leave, unless we are forced to, even if we have to go as far as fighting both the rebellion and the English. I have no intention of surrendering in either case’.11 He was determined to fight to stay in Syria. In the Syrian capital, tanks and automatic machine guns were stationed at every corner and on rooftops while French warplanes were flying low over the city.12 At approximately 7:00 pm on 29 May 1945, French soldiers stationed at the Officers Club across from the Syrian Parliament hoisted the French flag and asked the Syrian guards to salute. The angry young Syrians refused to comply and the French responded by gunning them down in cold blood. Their blood gushed down the staircase of the Parliament building and was splattered on the walls of its main entrance. Hearing the sound of machine-gun fire, civil servants inside the building tried sealing the main entrance with a large couch. Senegalese troops, commanded by the French, stormed in to arrest Saadallah al-Jabiri and the National Party MPs. Sharabati, Mardam Bey, and al-Jabiri had just walked out a few minutes earlier after a session failed to convene due to lack of quorum. Sharabati and Mardam Bey headed to their offices at the

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Grand Serail while al-Jabiri walked to the Orient Palace Hotel, where he usually stayed when visiting from Aleppo. Al-Jabiri had noticed the unusual number of French troops stationed at the gates of Parliament and asked Mardam Bey whether the French would attack. ‘They wouldn’t dare; not with Fares al-Khoury at the United Nations’.13 When the French troops failed to find the three men inside, they set fire to al-Jabiri’s office, confiscated documents, stole the speaker’s seal and then bombarded the building with cannon fire. ‘Where is Saadallah al-Jabiri?’ the Senegalese soldiers screamed as they smashed mosaic walls and ripped open the furniture with their bayonets. The French military commander, Colonel Olivia-Roget, had given strict orders to arrest Shukri al-Quwatli, Saadallah al-Jabiri, Jamil Mardam Bey and Ahmad Sharabati.14 Unable to reach al-Jabiri at the Orient Palace Hotel due to the presence of American and British guests there, the Senegalese troops headed for the Grand Serail where government ministers were preparing to listen to a press conference by Jamil Mardam Bey. A correspondent for Voice of America (VOA) was recording the conference, and so were two journalists from the BBC.15 French troops surrounded the building, cut off its electricity and began dropping bombs from aeroplanes, hoping to force the Syrian government into submission. When Sharabati heard news of the assault, his first concern was for the safety of his family in al-Rawda. At his orders they were moved to the safety of Hajj Uthman’s house in Jisr al-Abyad. The city was in complete blackout. Mardam Bey tried to call President al-Quwatli and the British and US ambassadors, but the French had cut telephone lines throughout the capital and sealed Syria’s borders with Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon. The entire cabinet was trapped inside the Grand Serail as night descended upon the burning city. Together with their comrades, Mardam Bey and Sharabati escaped through the back doors of the Grand Serail, which was shielded from French cannon fire.16 Desperately, they began knocking on the doors of anyone brave enough to offer them sanctuary for the night. They found their way to the home of former Prime Minister Khaled al-Azm in Souq Saruja, a historic neighbourhood outside the high walls of the Old City. The house itself was a dazzling palace with four courtyards built by al-Azm’s father in the

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nineteenth century and was one of the largest in Damascus. Al-Azm took in a total of 100 fugitives, including cabinet ministers, parliamentarians, journalists, policemen and ordinary Syrians fleeing the French onslaught. Mardam Bey and Sharabati had been at this mansion before, debating politics and dining with Syrian notables, discussing how to bring down pro-French governments and replace them with nationalist ones. Now they were hiding under the very same roof, fearing for their lives. Hundreds of young Syrians came to see them from all over Souq Saruja, offering to take up arms against the French. The Sharabati family friend, Fakhri al-Barudi, had already created a resistance unit and was engaged throughout the capital in man-toman combat with French soldiers. He had put on a Syrian police uniform and broken into the Damascus Citadel, setting all the Syrian prisoners there free. Joining al-Barudi in the voluntary troops was Sharabati’s half-brother Mustapha. 17 He had helped transfer wounded citizens to the Christian al-Qasaa and Bab Touma neighbourhoods of Old Damascus, where they were treated by Syrian doctors at the French hospital. The blackout forced al-Barudi to collect candles from churches so that medics could work in the dim operating rooms. Al-Barudi was eventually wounded in the neck with a piece of shrapnel. Soaked in his own blood, he sluggishly made it to al-Azm’s residence, gasping for breath. ‘Wild rumours were spinning throughout Damascus’, he exlaimed.18 One was that the president had been shot and that the entire government had fled to Amman. Another was that the French were planning to blow up the president’s house.19 A third was that the Kurdish flag had been hoisted in Kurdish quarters of alMuhajreen, where locals were pledging loyalty to Kurdistan rather than Syria. Mardam Bey could not wait for a ceasefire. If any of the rumours were true, then Syria as they knew it was finished. Mardam Bey left al-Azm’s house at midnight, hiding his face with a chequered kufiyyah to avoid being spotted by French spies. He left his identity papers at al-Azm’s home, along with his trademark tarboosh, and took the papers of one of the policemen, hoping that in the pitch dark he would not be recognised at French checkpoints. He headed on foot to the president’s residence in Bustan al-Ra’is, near Hajj Uthman’s

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home. Mardam Bey walked in to find a British diplomat by al-Quwatli’s bedside along with the president’s mother, wife and five children. Al-Quwatli was livid, literally screaming at the British official. From the window, he could see flames consuming large parts of his city. It was a devastating moment for Shukri al-Quwatli. The British official expressed surprise that Mardam Bey was still alive, saying that his reports were that the entire government had been butchered in Parliament. Al-Quwatli snapped that Great Britain should arrest the French generals, Colonel Olivia-Roget and General Beynet, who were responsible for the bloodbath. ‘If you don’t act we in Syria will try them as war criminals!’20 Any Syrian on the French payroll, he ordered Mardam Bey, should resign immediately or ‘stand trial on the charges of high treason before Syrian courts’.21 The British general tried talking al-Quwatli into leaving Damascus for safety in Amman, but al-Quwatli curtly refused, saying: ‘The only place I would like to be in right now is at the Syrian Parliament, with the boys who are fighting the French!’ He then added: ‘When King Faisal left this country, he had nothing to look back upon except a throne – a chair with four legs that we made for him in Damascus, with our own hands. I have roots in this country that date back hundreds of years. I will not leave Damascus, and nor will my family. I am not Faisal!’ The British delegate telephoned General Beynet (military lines were still operating), who was in a surprisingly cheerful mood, saying that several French posts had been attacked and that the French were only acting in ‘self-defence’. Beynet noted, ‘The situation in Damascus is not tragic. The abscess of Damascus has to be lanced! Now that the barrel had been breached, wine must be drunk!’22 Al-Quwatli and Mardam Bey spent the night writing letters of protest to US and British officials. They wrote to every American listed in the directory of the Syrian presidential palace, officials at the White House, the US State Department, and congressmen from both parties. At dawn they sent out foot messengers to Riyadh, Cairo and Amman to deliver news of the massacre since postal services had been closed and telephones had been cut by the French. Saadallah al-Jabiri managed to get out of his hotel in the car of the Russian Greek Orthodox Patriarch, who happened to be visiting Damascus and was

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also staying at the Orient Palace.23 The Russian Embassy requested a temporary ceasefire to get the Patriarch out of Syria. As they walked out of the Orient Palace, the two men saw scores of dead bodies on the streets of Damascus. At the Lebanese border, al-Jabiri disembarked, not wanting to show up in another Arab country under foreign protection.24 The Egyptian consul Fathi Radwan also managed to reach Beirut, where he contacted King Farouk, who in turn contacted Churchill to lodge a protest. The Jordanian consul Abdul Monem Rifaii was shot and injured while en route to Amman via Daraa on the Syria-Jordan border.25 In Beirut, Saadallah al-Jabiri was received by Riad al-Sulh, who offered him his office at the Grand Serail with all its facilities. Lebanese journalists were summoned to hear the account of the Syrian speaker of Parliament, who then embarked on a plane to Cairo, where he addressed the Arab League. By 1 June, seventy per cent of all officers and forty per cent of all Syrian soldiers in the French-created Levant Army had deserted their posts and taken up arms with the Syrian resistance.26 Sultan alAtrash, leader of the 1925 revolt, called on his followers to start mobilising for war in Damascus.27 In Hama, two French warplanes were downed and the commander of a French unit was ambushed and killed.28 In the Hawran province, French troops were rounded up and disarmed and their weapons distributed to young men volunteering to march towards Damascus. On 30 May 1945, Winston Churchill sent a message to Harry Truman: The continuance of the present situation (in Syria) will cause more grave trouble throughout the Middle East and upon our joint line of communications via Egypt and the Canal with the Far East. We should therefore be prepared to order the commander-in-chief, Middle East, to intervene to stop the fighting. Before doing so I feel I ought to know that we should have your support and approval.29

He added, ‘In view of the continued deterioration, His Majesty’s government has no alternative but to act’.30 The British were instructed to prevent the landing of additional French troops in Syria, although this did not stop French shelling on the night of 31 May. British forces finally arrived in Damascus, fully backed by the USA, on 1 June 1945.31 They immediately enforced a ceasefire. Upon arriving in the Syrian capital, the British cabled London: ‘The city has been

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subjected to fire and much looting by the Senegalese during the morning. HM Minister has in no way exaggerated the damage done to the city. The scene is one of wanton destruction.’32 They advised that the two French generals, Beynet and Olivia-Roget, be evacuated immediately from Syria, since the British could not guarantee their safety.33 The French troops began their long journey back home under British pressure, after an occupation that lasted for twenty-five long years. The French mandate was finished. French authorities were furious at the British and Americans, and unleashed much of their anger against Ambassador Wadsworth. Loy Henderson, the US ambassador to Iraq, defended his colleague against French charges by saying that he had defended the views of the American government ‘with great clarity.’ William Philips, special assistant to the US secretary of state, said that Wadsworth had ‘maintained exactly the right approach’ in dealing with the crisis in Syria.34 Immediately after the ceasefire came into effect, al-Quwatli called on Fares al-Khoury at the UN, asking him to present the matter to the UN Security Council. ‘Abu Suhail, what kind of a United Nations organisation are they creating? Tell Truman that the French have ploughed the land in Syria, over our heads!’35 Fares al-Khoury’s stay in the USA had proved to be much longer than most Syrians expected. He served as head of the Syrian mission to the UN from 1945 to 1948. Twice, he presided over the Security Council. Using the flawless English that he had learned at AUB, and building on a long and eventful political career, the seasoned statesman passionately defended Syria’s case before the General Assembly in back-to-back speeches with the Lebanese and Saudi Arabian ambassadors, Henri Pharoan and Prince Faisal Ibn AbdulAziz. He also befriended congressmen, both Republican and Democrat, and spoke to US newspapers and radio. Referring to Article 14 of the UN Charter, al-Khoury called on the Security Council take action to end twenty-five years of French occupation in Syria. ‘There is no longer any justification for the continued presence of the French,’ al-Khoury boomed at the UN, ‘now that hostilities in Europe have come to an end.’36 Their continued presence, he added, ‘contradicted the very spirit in which the United Nations had been formed.’37 Looking firmly at his audience, al-Khoury added;

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‘I demand to see my country free and independent – now, unconditionally.’38 Edwin Pauley, the US representative to the UN, supported al-Khoury’s demand and introduced a resolution that stated: The Security Council takes note of the declarations made by the four parties as well as by the other members of the Council, expresses its firm hope that the foreign troops stationed in Syria and Lebanon will be withdrawn as soon as possible to do so and that negotiations to this end will be undertaken without delay by the parties concerned, asks these parties to keep it informed of the result of these negotiations.39

At 8:00 pm on 2 June 1945 al-Quwatli and Mardam Bey received the US and British ambassadors to Syria at the Presidential Palace. The roadblocks had been lifted, reconstruction workers were removing the rubble at the Parliament building and Damascenes were busy burying their dead. Assembled at the palace were Lebanese Foreign Minister Henri Pharoan, Prime Minister Riad alSulh, Justice Minister Said al-Ghazzi, Finance Minister Naim Antaki and Education Minister Sharabati.40 The British officer officially informed them that his army had taken control of Syria and would restore law and order, asking for the Syrian government’s cooperation. He requested that President al-Quwatli impose a 7:00 pm curfew and that he coordinate any future actions with both President Truman and Prime Minister Churchill.41 Al-Quwatli sent messages of gratitude to both men, while Mardam Bey cabled his US counterpart, Dean Acheson, and the British foreign secretary, Anthony Eden. The first to reply was Eden, who wrote: ‘I was glad to receive Your Excellency’s message in the name of the Syrian government and should like to thank you for it. We must now work together to secure a fair solution to all the outstanding questions that will, I hope, give every satisfaction to all parties concerned.’42 Said al-Ghazzi was asked to pass execution warrants for all French collaborators and to arrest all Syrians still working with the French. Sharabati was asked to reopen schools and Damascus University and to prepare for the rebuilding of the Damascus Citadel – which had been damaged by French bombs – with the belief that it would soon be transferred to the Syrian government and would fall under the Department of Tourism at the Ministry of Education.43

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This, however, was never implemented. After independence, the citadel continued to serve as a state prison and only became a tourist attraction in the early 1970s. The transfer of administrative powers from the French to the Syrians began on 1 August 1945. On 4 August, the French transferred the entire cavalry brigade to Syrian authorities.44 On 12 August, the Military Club became Syrian property and, a few days later, the Military Hospital in Mezzeh on the outskirts of Damascus was handed over to the Syrian government.45 By the end of August, the Syrians had taken control of all military headquarters, government buildings, military bases, Arwad Island off the coast of Tartous and the ancient citadels of Damascus and Aleppo. 46 President al-Quwatli declared 1 August the official day of the creation of the Syrian army, registering it as an official holiday. On 20 August, it was announced that the French-created Troupes Speciales, who had just been transferred to Syrian control, would be renamed the Syrian National Army and placed under the direct authority of the president of the Republic, who would also serve as commander-inchief of the army.47 Sharabati’s job was to take over control of all the French schools managed by nuns and foreigners since 1920.48 The offices, books and funds were transferred in an orderly manner to the Ministry of Education. He also made sure that the Syrian flag was hoisted over Laique on Baghdad Street, the Franciscan School in Shaalan, and Colle`ge des freres Maristes. Although Laique kept its name, Sharabati renamed the Franciscan school as Dar al-Salam and Colle`ge des fre`res as Madraset al-Ukhuwa, stressing their new Arab identity.49 Students from these three schools and al-Tajheez High School, brimming with Syrian nationalism, staged a bonfire near the Umayyad Hotel on 5 June 1945, burning all of their French books. Sharabati had the event disrupted, arguing that getting rid of French control was one thing, but burning books – regardless of their authors – was another. He personally walked up to the angry crowd and said: ‘Instead of burning them, you ought to read them! Only then will we have truly overpowered the French!’50 Speaking to the Damascus daily al-Fayhaa, he described the scene as ‘backward and uncivilised’ saying that the Ministry of Education would never tolerate such actions.51

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THE 2008 DOCUMENTS In recent years, information surfaced in the Israeli press that has redrawn the record of events in Damascus of May 1945. The story appeared in a February 2008 article in the Israeli daily Haaretz, based on ‘cables transmitted between Beirut and Paris.’ It said that the French had recruited a Syrian agent who had access to ‘top-secret’ correspondence between al-Quwatli and the British. The identity of the Syrian agent was left unknown, although one witness who asked to remain anonymous suggested it was the palace secretary-general, Muhsen al-Barazi. The man had friends in high places in Paris and was the first to turn against al-Quwatli and Sharabati in 1949, supporting the coup that landed one of them in jail and the other in exile. The cables say that the Syrian agent was recruited through ‘two large payments’ and that the information he obtained was sent from Damascus to French intelligence ‘in a package of forty to fifty documents’. So important was the information that sometimes a special plane was allocated for the purpose of transporting it, and only a few officials were permitted to read the documents. Also, the files were sent directly to Charles de Gaulle without informing the Quai d’Orsay. The documents apparently reveal a behind-the-scenes deal between Shukri al-Quwatli and Winston Churchill which, if true, would mean that this deal had been kept secret for sixty-five years. Reportedly, Edward Spears sent Riad al-Sulh to Damascus on a ‘secret mission’ on 5 August 1944. ‘So strict was British security that Sulh learned the exact purpose of his mission only when he met with the British consul in the Syrian capital. The consul dictated to Sulh a proposal from His Majesty’s government to the Syrian government; Sulh was to convey the proposal to Saadallah al-Jabiri, the Syrian prime minister, who was also Sulh’s father-in-law.’ This part is incorrect, of course, since although Riad al-Sulh was married to a Jabiri, Saadallah was not his father-in-law. The British proposal included, among other things, uniting both Jordan and Palestine with Syria and having Damascus as its capital. This would have meant nullifying the Hashemite kingdom in Amman and doing away with the Balfour Declaration. In exchange, al-Quwatli was asked to accord Britain preferential status in military, economic and cultural matters.

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In return, he was told, Great Britain was willing to put a complete halt to ‘Jewish ambitions.’ The offer was signed off by Churchill and Eden. Neither the Americans nor the Soviets were informed of the British plan. The obstacles to such a scheme were monumental. First, Great Britain would have to get the French out of Syria. Second, it would have to violate its commitments to the Zionist movement at a moment when the scale of the Holocaust was just becoming apparent. This would have proved extremely difficult. Third, it would have to depose King Abdullah of Jordan. The documents show that President al-Quwatli flatly rejected this offer; it was too good to be true and the British were known to make promises they were unable, or unwilling, to keep. When de Gaulle heard of al-Quwatli’s refusal, he remarked that al-Quwatli was ‘the sole sincere politician’ in the Arab world. Mardam Bey, however, was not only willing to accept Britain’s proposal, but even began ‘plotting to overthrow the president.’ According to the 2008 documents, ‘Mardam Bey agreed to subject his country to British hegemony, in return for Britain’s defence of Syria against the French.’ The report hints that the British cornered the French into bombarding the Syrian capital in order to add pressure on the Syrian government: either you accept our offer, or we burn Damascus. Once the agreement went into effect, Churchill delivered his famous ultimatum to de Gaulle. Mardam Bey honoured his part of the deal, employing British officers in the newly founded Syrian Army. As we will discuss later, a British officer was indeed hired as a consultant to the Syrian Army, but it was a single appointment on a limited tenure. It never led to bringing ‘consultants’ from London to Damascus. In May 1947, de Gaulle went to the USA for a meeting with President Truman. It was his first encounter with the US president. Syria’s ambassador to the USA, Nazem al-Qudsi, was summoned to the State Department and asked whether his government had actually signed off on such a deal with the British. Al-Qudsi knew nothing of it and immediately cabled Damascus asking for instructions. President al-Quwatli, apparently, did not reply. A similar inquiry was made of Fares al-Khoury at the UN, who also denied knowledge of such an agreement. Syria’s ambassador in

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London, Najib al-Armanazi, however, knew of the deal and informed Mardam Bey that as of mid-1947 it was ‘still on the table.’ Al-Armanazi was exceptionally close to Jamil Mardam Bey, related to him by marriage, and was apparently aware of dealings that neither al-Khoury nor al-Qudsi were party to. US diplomats were unhappy with the deal and told al-Qudsi that they had not supported Syrian independence for it to merely come under the control of Great Britain. ‘Britain’s intervention was intended to subjugate you and your economy, which is to say, it only seeks to colonise you.’ The US diplomat angrily added, ‘Britain at this stage is the true master of your country!’ The deal was abandoned when the British attempted to force alQuwatli to keep American firms out of Syria. ‘Terence Shone, now the British ambassador to Damascus, went so far as to warn Mardam Bey against allowing American banks to operate in Syria, as that would constitute capitalist colonial exploitation of the Syrian economy.’ This pressure prompted al-Quwatli to refuse to grant a permit to the Trans-Arabian Pipeline Company (Tapline) to bring Saudi oil to the Mediterranean coast via Syrian territory. He received the full backing of Prime Minister al-Jabiri and of Ahmad Sharabati, and this was one of many reasons that Sharabati was pushed out of the political arena when the American-backed general, Husni al-Za’im, came to power in Damascus. The Tapline controversy had Great Britain’s fingerprints all over it. ‘The French were more than happy to supply President Truman with new proof of British scheming (in Syria).’ The 2008 revelations are interesting, but have been glossed over by Syrian historians. Abdullah al-Khani, secretary-general of the Presidential Palace in the 1950s, denied any knowledge of such an agreement. He was al-Quwatli’s bureau chief and confidant, and has written extensively on the Syrian president’s career. FREE AT LAST Fares al-Khoury returned home to take part in the national celebrations and, due to his excellent performance at the UN, was called upon to form a new cabinet. It was his third since the National Party had come to power in 1943. President al-Quwatli had full faith

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in him and al-Khoury gave his government the intellectual appeal it badly needed to attract the disgruntled urban intelligentsia. During the previous months, work at the UN had consumed him fully, which left state affairs in the hands of Saadallah al-Jabiri and Jamil Mardam Bey. In August 1945, however, Mardam Bey was sent to Cairo as an unofficial, semi-permanent resident at the Arab League, leaving the cabinet with no second-in-command since al-Khoury kept the portfolio of foreign affairs for himself in order to give himself more power in the General Assembly. The seven-man cabinet was created on 24 August and presided over the final stage of the French evacuation. Ex-premiers Lutfi al-Haffar and Khaled al-Azm became ministers of interior and finance, respectively, the Damascus chief Sabri al-Asali joined as minister of justice and Sharabati’s tenure was renewed as minister of education, with al-Quwatli decorating him with the Order of Merit, Excellence Class. It was a green and white medal, manufactured in the colours of the Syrian flag. Due to his performance during the French bombardment of Damascus, Fakhri al-Barudi was given the honorary title of ‘general’ in the newly formed Syrian Army.52 The last French troops left Damascus on 7 April 1946. Over the next three days, the British handed over their barracks in the mountain village of al-Zabadani in rural Damascus, al-Nabk near Homs, and Dimas (west of Damascus). Syria was free of both the British and the French by 15 April 1946. Two days later, on 17 April, Syria celebrated its first Independence Day.

CHAPTER 10

Dark Clouds

Nineteen months passed between independence from the French in April 1946 and the outbreak of hostilities in Palestine in November 1947. During those nineteen months, political upheaval threatened the peace in Syrian cities and towns, shaking the very foundations of the young republic. Everything that mattered in the Syrian political vernacular was on the very edge of collapse: constitutionalism, parliamentarianism, republicanism, unity, sovereignty and the Syrian Army. This was only natural, of course, for a country emerging from nearly three decades of French military occupation, immediately preceded by four centuries of Ottoman rule. People were tired and weak; they needed time to heal, recover and forget. They needed time to learn, mature and experiment with different ideas and political structures before making up their own mind about who they were as a nation and the kind of political future they wanted for themselves. For the first time in Syria’s long history, civilians were in control of the government. Ahmad Sharabati and his colleagues were very different from all their colonial predecessors, but they needed time and resources to heal the war-torn country. The looming war in Palestine, however, deprived them of both, as did the domestic bickering that broke out on the very next day after French withdrawal. A multitude of ambitious political parties emerged in the spring of 1946, all with their eyes set on the seat of power in Damascus. One was the Arab Socialist Party of Akram al-Hawrani,

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a lawyer-turned-politician from the ancient city of Hama, who worked closely with the Baath Party of Michel Aflaq before merging with the Baathists in the early 1950s. Both the Arab Socialists and the Baathists had an axe to grind with Syria’s powerful landed gentry. They were inspired by revolutionary Marxism and dreamed of creating a socialist and classless society. To do that, however, they had to get rid of al-Quwatli and his allies. Other parties also wanted to bring down the government, albeit for very different reasons: the Syrian Communist Party of Khaled Bakdash and the Muslim Brotherhood of Sheikh Mustapha al-Sibaii, a turbaned cleric who wanted to create an Islamic state in Syria. In Aleppo, city notables teamed up to form the People’s Party, led by an Aleppine aristocrat named Rushdi al-Kikhiya and an AUB and Geneva-trained lawyer named Nazem al-Qudsi, who had served as Syria’s first ambassador to the USA in 1944. They aspired to gain power through the ballot box, however, as opposed to armed revolution. None of them stood a real chance at assuming power in Damascus with the National Party firmly in control of Parliament. So they set out to destroy the Syrian nationalists, one at a time, starting with the president of the Republic. The achievements of Shukri al-Quwatli and his team, impressive as they were, were not enough to shield them from the wrath of the Syrian opposition. Almost overnight, sharp criticism was directed at the nationalists: their policies, backgrounds, and even their personal lifestyles and social class. Among other things, they were accused of being elitist, feudal and authoritarian, and of practising stark favouritism towards Damascus at the expense of rural Syria and other major cities like Aleppo. They were also accused of treating the Druze and the Alawites as a political underclass. Politics became a dirty game, marked by manipulation, fraud and systematic character assassination. Sharabati and his colleagues, abiding by old-school manners of gentlemanly conduct, were unprepared for this vicious political battle. In fact, they were amateurs when compared to the Baathists and the Arab Socialists. This is why Hajj Uthman had always refused to join the Shahbandarists and the National Bloc during the years of French rule. Prophetically, he saw that the good intentions of Syrian nationalists would never save them from falling into the

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complex web of Middle East politics, which could ultimately destroy them and bring down the entire nation. For Ahmad Sharabati, however, it was already too late to turn back, especially with the numerous challenges facing Syria and its uncertain future. To begin with, the Syrian opposition was unified against President al-Quwatli’s re-election bid, which was announced by the National Party only months after Independence Day. Al-Quwatli had a clear vision of where he wanted to see Syria in five to ten years. Four years had passed since he and his team were first elected in 1943 and the battle with France had consumed most of their time and energy. In order to implement their roadmap for the future, al-Quwatli had to be reelected for another term. This strategy, however, was a clear violation of Article 68 of the 1928 Syrian Constitution, which stated that a president could only serve for one term in office. The matter was raised at the headquarters of the National Party and all parliamentarians supported al-Quwatli’s re-election, including Sharabati.1 Nobody else was fit for the job, they reasoned, after considering the list of potential candidates. Jamil Mardam Bey’s record had been badly damaged by years of political maneuvering with the French and many still held him accountable for Abdul Rahman Shahbandar’s death. Saadallah al-Jabiri was in poor health and Fares al-Khoury, being Christian, was constitutionally barred from the presidency. Fakhri al-Barudi was completely uninterested and Hashem al-Atasi was long retired. Only Khaled al-Azm, the former premier, was eager to become president, but many in the National Party did not trust him and preferred to see al-Quwatli reelected than to experiment with someone new, or let the job fall into the hands of one of their socialist or Aleppine opponents. ‘If Shukri Bey is not re-elected’ argued Mardam Bey, ‘then Rushdi al-Kikhiya will become your new president!’2 When they voiced their public intention of amending the constitution for al-Quwatli’s re-election, through a series of articles in the Damascus press, the Syrian opposition became furious. Only kings spend eight years in office, they said, pointing to Abdullah of Jordan and Abdul-Aziz Ibn Saud, who had both been in power since the 1920s, or King Farouk who had held the throne of Egypt since 1936.3 Democracy advocates saw the move as heretical and verging on dictatorship.

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President al-Quwatli, troubled by the negative reaction, said that he personally did not want another term, and nor did his family, but had agreed to run for office under pressure from his allies and from Syrian popular opinion. Ahmad Sharabati defended the re-election on grounds of necessity, arguing that constitutions were authored by the people and could be amended according to national need, so long as the constitutional change abided by the general guidelines of Syrian democracy. He cited constitutional amendments in Turkey, France and the USA, arguing that a constitution cannot remain rigid and stiff and should adapt to changing political circumstances. ‘If approved by the chamber of deputies, I see no harm in amending the constitution once, twice, or many times in the future. The president of the Republic, whoever he may be, cannot amend the constitution unilaterally for personal affairs, however. That would be a crime that no sane man would, or should support.’4 The chamber still had constitutional authority to impeach a president, he added, if he violated the guidelines of republicanism and democracy. The Damascus MP Fakhri al-Barudi added, ‘The republic is young. We can afford to experiment.’5 This argument for changing the constitution was supported by Jamil Mardam Bey, Lutfi al-Haffar, and Fares al-Khoury. Two years later, when Husni al-Za’im staged his first coup and authored a new constitution for Syria after abolishing the chamber of deputies, the young Lebanese journalist Ghassan Tweini, publisher of Annahar newspaper, showed up in Damascus and asked Fares al-Khoury if such a change was constitutional. The elder statesman smiled, reverting with a counterquestion: ‘Has the coup succeeded?’ Tweini nodded affirmatively, and al-Khoury replied, ‘. . . then by virtue of its success, it has become constitutional!’6 Ironically, the loudest opposition to the constitutional amendment came from al-Quwatli’s long-time friend and ally, Saadallah al-Jabiri, who issued a powerful statement saying that no politician was entitled to two terms as president, not even the ‘Father of Independence.’7 Such an amendment, he added in a carefully authored declaration, would create a precedent that future presidents would surely repeat, thereby distorting the core values of Syrian republicanism. Al-Jabiri was a staunch democrat who viewed the

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constitution as sacred. This stance, taken by the head of the National Party’s office in Aleppo, was deeply embarrassing to the party. The country was undergoing a major transformation, argued his colleagues at the National Party, and was un-prepared for a sudden change of leadership. They pleaded with al-Jabiri to reconsider his position. Al-Jabiri would not be swayed and said that if a parliamentary bill was introduced, he would vote against it, as would the Aleppo branch of the National Party. Meddling with the constitution, he warned, would be ‘a political earthquake for Syria.’8 It was useless to try and convince him as he rarely caved to pressure. He was the voice of Aleppo, the industrial capital of Syria and the main base of its moneyed elite. If he said no, then all of Aleppo would follow and the bill would never pass in Parliament. Al-Jabiri’s health failed him, however, and his doctors restricted him to only three hours of work per day, curbing his ability to disrupt the constitutional change. After being hospitalised in Cairo, he resigned from office on 27 November 1946. His last task was to preside over an Arab League Conference in the summer resort of Bloudan, near Damascus. President al-Quwatli was sad to see him go. The two men had been friends since high school and had enjoyed an excellent working relationship since Ottoman times. Al-Jabiri had been al-Quwatli’s choice for the premiership since 1943 and had proved to be one of the finest premiers in modern Syrian history. Nevertheless, President al-Quwatli seized at this opportunity to truncate the opposition in Aleppo, seeing them leaderless without Saadallah al-Jabiri. Rushdi al-Kikhiya and Nazem al-Qudsi believed that the president had forced al-Jabiri out of office because of his stance on the constitutional amendment. ‘They (the National Bloc) killed Abdul Rahman Shahbandar seven years ago and have now morally killed Saadallah al-Jabiri’9 they told an Aleppo crowd, who roared in approval. Maarouf al-Dawalibi, another Aleppine chief with an affiliation to the Syrian Brotherhood shouted: ‘Give me 50 men and I will march on Damascus to get rid of the corrupted Quwatli regime.’10 Kikhiya firmly replied: ‘We only get rid of governments through the ballots. If you really want to get rid of him, come out and vote on 7 July 1947. Say no to the National Party! Say no to Shukri al-Quwatli!’11

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Hama MP Akram al-Hawrani, another exceptionally loud critic of the president, explained: Re-electing Quwatli would be catastrophic both for him and for Syria. If he showed no interest in re-election, I am sure the people will call on him again to become president. Do not forget that his resignation from the Ministry of Finance (back in 1937) was what brought him to countrywide leadership. Shukri al-Quwatli outside the Presidential Palace would be much stronger than if he were at the presidency, with an embarrassing constitutional amendment to his record.12

At only fifty-four, Saadallah al-Jabiri died at the Altonian Hospital of Aleppo on 20 June 1947. This was just seventeen days before Parliament was due to vote on the constitutional amendment. It was a painful loss for Syria. He was given a hero’s funeral in his native Aleppo and laid to rest next to Ibrahim Hananu, commander of the 1919 revolt against the French.13 The president walked behind his coffin, hand-in-hand with Ahmad Sharabati, as it was driven through the streets of the city on a two-wheeled canon wagon.12 Photos of the funeral show a very disturbed al-Quwatli and Sharabati standing at alJabiri’s grave. It was the first time in Syrian history that a president took part in the funeral of a prime minister, to be repeated only after Fares al-Khoury’s death in 1962. Twenty-one gunshots were fired in the air as his body was laid to rest. Al-Quwatli ordered that all flags be flown at half-mast for three days of mourning. He also had a splendid bust made of al-Jabiri and named a main square in downtown Aleppo after him. An American diplomat in Damascus sent a dispatch to the Department of State describing Saadallah al-Jabiri: ‘He had a lifelong record of service to the cause of Arab nationalism and independence. He had never placed personal interest above the interest of his cause. He worked slowly, without the flashy brilliance of Jamil Mardam Bey or the legal ability of Fares al-Khoury, but with a degree of straight thinking and common sense that gave him a stature at least equal to the other two men. His words, whether given to someone he liked or disliked, could be counted upon.’13 No sooner had the government returned to Damascus than the hunt began to find a replacement for Saadallah al-Jabiri. The National Party needed someone who would abide by the late prime minister’s democratic values, but not oppose al-Quwatli’s bid for re-election.

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In short, they needed a Damascene of his social standing and political background – another Aleppine premier would not do. Not surprisingly, al-Quwatli’s choice was none other than his old National Bloc colleague, Jamil Mardam Bey. The former premier agreed to sign off on the constitutional change as long as al-Quwatli promised to make him prime minister.14 He had been lying low for several months, having kept out of the two governments created since the evacuation of the French. He was biding his time and waiting for a suitable moment to return to politics. Mardam Bey still had the unwavering support of the Damascus business community and was immensely respected by the political class. He was a friend of King Farouk and of Ibn Saud, giving him regional clout that other National Party politicians did not have. By mobilising his considerable influence, he managed to secure the constitutional amendment in Parliament, despite a handful of objections and abstentions. A total of forty-eight deputies didn’t show on that day in Parliament, but eighty-eight deputies voted in favour of amending the Constitution.15 The entire Damascus bloc, of course, voted in favour, including Ahmad Sharabati. It was a fatal mistake. MARDAM BEY RETURNS True to his word, al-Quwatli called on Jamil Mardam Bey, a former two-time prime minister, to create a government, which received fiftyeight out of ninety-one votes in Parliament.16 It was a wry twist of fate. Fewer than ten years previous, the two men had waged a vicious battle against each other during the era of President Mohammad Ali alAbed. Then they had been competing for power in Damascus, united only in their party affiliation and their distrust of Abdul Rahman Shahbandar. Now they stood together at the helm of power. The alQuwatli-Mardam Bey alliance raised the hopes of Damascus politicians who expected to take the majority of political and administrative posts. The Mardam Bey cabinet was a mix of old and new faces. Mardam Bey took on three powerful posts: the premiership and the ministries of health and interior. The independent attorney Said al-Ghazzi became minister of finance, and Naim Antaki of Aleppo became minister of foreign affairs. Hashem al-Atasi’s son Adnan

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al-Atasi became minister of public works. President al-Quwatli’s old associate Emir Adel Arslan was appointed minister of education. All of these men had voted in favour of the constitutional amendment and were solid politicians with honourable records in combating both the Ottomans and the French. Khaled al-Azm remained strongly opposed to the re-election, seeing himself as more worthy of the presidency. As a result, he was symbolically ‘exiled’ as ambassador to France, which he considered banishment although the National Party said it was an honorific posting. For the Ministry of Defence, Jamil Mardam Bey chose Ahmad Sharabati at the advice of President al-Quwatli. His impressive record at the Ministry of Education spoke volumes about his abilities and, unlike his colleagues in the National Party, he had practical experience in operations and logistics, he knew how to run factories, fly aeroplanes and negotiate complex business deals. He also had a top-tier education, spoke fluent English and German, was welltraveled, and well-connected internationally. The Ministry of Defence had been shut down by the French in 1920 and recreated during the first National Bloc era in 1936 – 9. Since that time, all defence ministers had been civilians. Sharabati’s predecessors included the Damascus notable Nabih al-Azma and al-Quwatli himself, who had held the job briefly in 1936 – 7. None of them had much experience in warfare but this was not a problem because the portfolio was a political one; actual military affairs were handled by the army command and not the minister of defence. When approached by Jamil Mardam Bey, Sharabati accepted the new portfolio, which was the most senior in his political career. Taking his new cabinet members with him, al-Quwatli embarked on a two-week tour of the country in May 1947. An early campaign for his second presidential term, they went to Homs and Hama in central Syria, Latakia and Tartous on the Syrian coast, Jisr alShughour, Idlib, Deir ez-Zour, Aleppo, Daraa and the Hawran province in southern Syria. They visited schools, toured orphanages and inspected hospitals. Al-Quwatli, Mardam Bey and Sharabati lunched in the tents of Syrian Bedouins, had breakfast with labourers in Homs, ate from the fresh crops of Idlib’s orchards and dined with the Aleppo notability. They took part in funerals and weddings,

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visited the houses of ordinary peasants and listened carefully to what the people had to say. In the Druze Mountain, they paid a courtesy visit to Shahbandar’s old ally, Sultan al-Atrash.17 Al-Quwatli and his team visited mosques and churches, and were particularly attentive to the concerns of Syrian Christians. When al-Quwatli spotted a pistol in the pocket of one of his guards, he ordered him out of the mosque, shouting: ‘Out! Guns in the house of God are not allowed!’18 Everywhere they went banners were hung at city entrances with quotes from the president printed in bright red letters. His photo appeared in shop windows and on the front pages of Syrian dailies. The more common these became, the louder the opposition was, accusing al-Quwatli of creating a cult persona for himself. Massive crowds came out to greet him, obstructing traffic as they struggled to touch him and have their picture taken with him. Ministers were forced to shield him from the enthusiastic crowd. Young men danced and sang late into the night. Women greeted him with the popular zaghlouta, a thrilling cry made to celebrate returning heroes, and schoolgirls presented him with flowers. In a small village in the vicinity of Tartous, a young Alawite boy tried to recite a poem for him but was pushed back by community elders. Al-Quwatli signalled for him to come forward. The young boy, Ali Ahmad Said, had walked barefoot for miles to see the president. Muddied, he delivered a passionate poem and so impressed al-Quwatli that he agreed to grant him a favour. ‘I want to go to school’ said the poor boy. Al-Quwatli pledged to personally finance his high school education. Years later, Ali Ahmad Said became a celebrated poet, known by his pen name, ‘Adonis’.19 The tour further cemented Shukri al-Quwatli as a pan-Syrian leader and left the opposition speechless. Parliamentary elections were held as planned on 7 July 1947. Fares al-Khoury was busy at the UN, so the session was chaired by his deputy from Deir ez-Zour, Mohammad al-Ayesh. These were the first elections in post-mandate Syria, and al-Quwatli wanted them to make a powerful statement about Syrian democracy – so powerful, in fact, that they would overshadow the presidential election and all the criticism that came with it. ‘Let the world see that we need no mandate and seek no tutor. We are tough, wise, and aware. We can run our own affairs, and our example will

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become a benchmark for the entire Arab and Muslim world.’20 Although the presidential elections were carried out rather smoothly, the parliamentary ones were a disaster – the exact opposite of everything al-Quwatli had hoped for. FRAUD AND RIGGED ELECTIONS In the lead-up to parliamentary elections, intimidation, bribery and street fighting became routine in towns and cities across Syria, much to al-Quwatli’s horror.21 In one pro-Quwatli neighbourhood, voters were explicitly asked to vote for the National Party.22 Supporters of alQuwatli bluntly asked voters: ‘Who do you want to vote for? Beware: don’t you vote for agents of the English!’23 When asked for their identity, they replied ‘We are men of the National Party.’27 In Aleppo the opposition claimed being denied access to voting stations, ‘especially those in Rushdi Bey’s constituency.’24 Rushdi al-Kikhiya claimed that voter fraud and intimidation had taken place throughout the Aleppo countryside, where farmers were paid to vote against him and his allies. In one instance, two citizens tried to resist and were escorted out of the voting station at gunpoint.25 Merchant Abu Saleh Saadiddine and Mohammad Kheir al-Halabi of the Islamic Scholars Association officially filed complaints in Damascus.26 They claimed to have been beaten with clubs and kicked out of voting booths because they had insulted the president. National Party loyalists were accused of breaking into the polling stations in the Jewish quarter of town and stealing the ballot boxes. When confronted by residents, they fired gunshots in the air and set the boxes ablaze. In the rampage, one officer was killed. In Bab Srija in the Old City, sporadic fighting occurred and one citizen was shot dead.27 Assailants disguised as police officers responded by shooting Abdul Rahman Mekki, a supporter of Said al-Ghazzi.28 In downtown Aleppo, a bomb was discovered at a cafe´ that had been planted to kill Rushdi al-Kikhiya, according to the police report.29 The Damascus daily al-Qabas reported that the first round of elections took place ‘in an atmosphere of terror.’30 The second round was supervised directly by President al-Quwatli. Fakhri al-Barudi had stormed into his office, screaming: ‘Go out and see, the elections are a disgrace.

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Fraud is everywhere.’31 Al-Quwatli toured the voting stations and ordered the arrest of all those found to be implicated in electoral fraud. Even members of the National Party were dragged to jail in broad daylight. Al-Quwatli personally fired the supervision committee and created a new one with respected men like Nasuh Babil, publisher of al-Ayyam, Aleppo chief Ali Bouzo, and Abdul Hamid alTabba of the al-Gharra Society.32 Unfortunately, it was too little, too late. The damage had been done, and the results were not in favour of the National Party, which took only 24 out of 127 seats. Sharabati won his seat with ease and no violations were registered in his native al-Salhieh, but this was not the case for many National Party members. Abdul Hamid Tabba reported that: ‘Terrorists had tried to intimidate voters into voting for the National Party, and this led to the opposite effect. Refusing to yield, they voted against the Quwatli lists.’33 An impressive fifty seats went to independents, while fiftythree went to a variety of opposition figures. When al-Quwatli marched up to the speaker’s podium to deliver his inauguration address, forty MPs walked out in protest, headed by Rushdi alKikhiya.34 Many of al-Quwatli’s allies failed to be reelected. People had chosen to vote for new faces, untarnished by a history in government. This included the Islamic judge, essayist and writer Sheikh Ali al-Tantawi who scored a landslide victory in Damascus running on an anti-National Party ticket. Pro-Quwatli figures like the merchant Anwar al-Shallah and publisher of the popular Tabibak magazine Sabri Qabbani were both defeated. Anti-Quwatli Shahbandarists like Hasan al-Hakim, Munir al-Ajlani and Zaki al-Khatib were all elected as Damascus MPs. Aleppo was taken by Nazem al-Qudsi, Maarouf al-Dawalibi, Ahmad Qanbar and Rashad Barmada, allies of Rushdi al-Kikhiya. These men had assembled in the Lebanese summer resort of Falugha and founded the People’s Party in order to challenge al-Quwatli through the ballots and break the power long held by the Damascus aristocracy. They were inspired by Shahbandar’s former party that bore the same name. Journalist Sami Kabbara, owner of the anti-Quwatli daily al-Nidal, was also elected MP for Damascus, as was the socialist leader Akram al-Hawrani, who won 10,856 out

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18,000 votes in Hama, defeating well-established political families affiliated with al-Quwatli, like the Barazis, Azms and Kaylanis.35 These powerful clans collectively owned 91 of the 113 villages in Hama (their lands, livestock and resources) but, despite their wealth, were unable to influence Hama’s vote in favour of the President al-Quwatli.36 Al-Hawrani described his victory by saying that, ‘It [was] the beginning of the end of the urban notability.’37 Education Minister Emir Adel Arslan, a prote´ge´ of al-Quwatli, tried to explain what went wrong during the elections, writing in his daily journal: ‘The President is confused by the failure of his party. The logic of the situation is that his policy is bankrupt. The country wants something new. The people are fed up with the old way of doing things.’38 Meanwhile, historian and scholar Mohammad Kurd Ali said: ‘He (al-Quwatli) forces the prime minister to choose the ministers of his choice. It is not surprising that among his strongest supporters were those who turned out to be the worst traitors and thieves. He granted concessions to scoundrels, along with exemptions, offices and presents. He employed many relatives and petty merchants, some illiterate. He also interfered with many minor appointments.’ Harsh and inaccurate as it was, Kurd Ali’s testimony was an early warning that all was not well in the young republic, and more trouble was yet to come. THE RISE OF AKRAM AL-HAWRANI AND THE BAATH Akram al-Hawrani was the first real nuisance for the al-Quwatli government. In fact, the radical demagogue proved a headache for every Syrian leader from 1943 to 1963. He had nothing but disdain for Syria’s founding fathers and the feeling was mutual. Born and raised in a family that had squandered all of its wealth, al-Hawrani became a radical socialist during his teens while studying law at Damascus University. His father Rashid al-Hawrani was a minor notable who once nominated himself for the Ottoman Parliament in 1908 but was defeated by the aristocrat Khalid al-Barazi. Akram was an early member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party but left after deciding that the party was incapable of serving as a proper catalyst

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for his political ambition. He joined the National Bloc shortly before it was renamed the National Party and he was endorsed by members of the powerful al-Barazi and al-Azm families of Hama. Al-Hawrani ran on a pro-Quwatli ticket and campaigned on the hopes and aspirations of desperate urban workers who had lost their jobs during the Great Depression. Men who had never cast a ballot in any election came out to vote for Akram al-Hawrani. At the age of thirtyone, he entered Parliament as the youngest Syrian MP. Akram al-Hawrani was a political animal driven by a grand appetite for power. His base consisted mainly of Hama peasants, to whom he promised ‘emancipation from the chains of imperialism and feudalism.’ He encouraged the country’s poor to rise up against the powerful, claiming that only the peasant class and urban workers would free Syria from Western imperialism and that they were the moral and economic backbone of the country. Peasant uprisings were relatively new to this part of the world, although Iran had a wave of them in 1928, followed by Palestine in 1936. In Iraq, communists recruited young men from the slums of Baghdad to rise against the city’s landed gentry. In Turkey, peasants left out of Ataturk’s economic reforms had helped the Democrat Party of Adnan Menderes come to power in 1950. Akram al-Hawrani single-handedly tapped into the trend in Syria, years before Gamal Abdul Nasser and the Baathists took over with their socialist ideas in 1958. According to his memoirs, al-Hawrani was born on a snowy day in November 1911. His native Hama was an ancient city, seventy-five miles south of Aleppo. Famed for its medieval waterwheels, which still carried water from the Orontes into the aqueducts that served the city’s residents, it was a highly conservative Sunni Muslim city surrounded by Alawite villages. After securing himself a post in the Chamber of Deputies, al-Hawrani turned his back on the very same politicians who had supported him. He lashed out at the moneyed elite of the National Party, accusing them of hoarding the country’s wealth and enslaving the farmers who ploughed the land. The villages, he reminded his colleagues, had no electricity, no water and no clinics or schools. During Sharabati’s tenure at the Ministry of Education, al-Hawrani had badgered him, constantly questioning why higher funds were allocated for Damascus and Aleppo than for

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the Syrian countryside. Sharabati always responded calmly, pointing to demographics and to the ministry’s relentless efforts in rural Syria. He cited budget constraints, and once even snapped: ‘It would be wiser for our brothers in Hama to work with us, rather than against us, to try and increase awareness in the Syrian countryside. Encourage your children to go to school and to have faith in the government, rather than spread venom and spite among residents (of rural Syria). We are in one boat. If it floats, we survive together. If it sinks, we will all sink together! There is no such thing as rural Syria and urban Syria. There is one Syria only, and it is our duty to treat it as such.’39 He then prophetically advised Hawrani: ‘Don’t go down this path – it will burn you one day, and in turn, and it will burn Syria. Do not play with fire!’40 Sharabati went to great lengths to provide schooling for poor residents of Syrian villages, especially Alawite ones, whose sons would provide the backbone of the future Syrian Army. He was trying to beat Akram al-Hawrani at his own game by bringing education and opportunity to the underdeveloped towns and villages of Syria. In 1946, al-Hawrani officially founded the Arab Socialist Party, based on Marxist ideas and centred on his cult of personality. Young men were given membership cards and wore badges carrying his photo, with a catchy slogan underneath: ‘There is no more to fear.’41 Al-Hawrani would visit them in their homes, promising: ‘If you work with me, this land will be yours!’42 Syrian peasants made up two million of Syria’s 3.5 million inhabitants. He also encouraged an agrarian revolt and introduced new terms into Syrian politics such as ‘classless society’, ‘rule of the working class’ and ‘socialism’. His ‘Land Belongs to the Peasant’ campaign took Syria by storm. He turned agitation into violence and encouraged his supporters to burn crops, attack landlords and make the villages too dangerous for their owners to enter. The pro-Quwatli daily al-Fayha, run by the energetic journalist Said Tillawi, wrote of al-Hawrani: ‘Ever since your youth, you have been feeding on spite, malice, and dissension.’43 Coinciding with al-Hawrani’s success was the rise of two schoolteachers, who only a few years back had published the ‘Damascus Declaration of Intellectuals’ in support of al-Quwatli. They were the Sorbonne-educated Michel Aflaq and Salah al-Bitar, both of Sharabati’s generation. Aflaq was born in the conservative al-Midan

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neighbourhood of Damascus in 1901 and, at age forty-five, was a rising star in Syrian intellectual circles. A history teacher by profession, Aflaq was a chain-smoker and a slow speaker who painfully pondered every word he said aloud. When he did speak, everyone around him would go silent waiting to hear what ‘al-Ustaz’ had to say. He grew up in Damascus and knew the city’s habits and customs well. He never lashed out against Islam, but embraced it as the ultimate uniting force that could bring the Arab world together. He disliked wealthy people and held particular animosity towards the Damascus landowning community. Instead of empowering the poor, Michel Aflaq was focused on bankrupting the rich. Aflaq and al-Bitar cofounded the Baath Party in April 1947, preaching Arab unity, liberation from colonial rule and social justice. The party’s early members were poets, schoolteachers and middle-management civil servants. These men agreed that Syria’s problems were the result of two things: French occupation and social inequality. They argued that peasants should rise up against landowners and regain their rights as free citizens. By the late 1940s, their influence had spread in Damascus and begun to infiltrate Aleppo, Homs, Hama and both the Druze and Alawite Mountains. Aflaq became the party’s mentor and ideologue while al-Bitar took charge of conducting day-to-day politics. Aflaq said that al-Quwatli, Sharabati, and their class were ‘bankrupt’ and ought to be removed, either through a popular street revolt or through the ballots.44 The reasons for Aflaq and al-Hawrani’s anger were numerous, though one was particularly personal. Aflaq had never forgiven al-Quwatli for turning him down in 1943 and for picking urbanites like Ahmad Sharabati and Adnan al-Atasi to join him in Parliament. That same year, he and Salah al-Bitar had applied for a licence to establish the Baath Party, but were turned down by French authorities and al-Quwatli had not lifted a finger to help them.45 THE SYRIAN ARMY BEFORE 1948 Sharabati’s concerns, however, were focused neither on the Syrian opposition nor al-Quwatli’s legacy after re-election. What mattered to

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him and kept him awake at night was the miserable state of the Syrian Army, which Syria had inherited from the French in 1946. It was an army that had never fought a war. Under the French, Syrian officers were not allowed to fly aeroplanes or be promoted past the rank of colonel. During the French attack on Damascus in May 1945, most nationalist soldiers and officers had defected, taking up arms with Fakhri al-Barudi and, according to the private papers of Munir al-Ajlani, a senior politician at the time, ‘only a handful returned to the army after 1946.’46 The only ones who stayed in the army were those who had no alternate income. Sharabati knew that war was inevitable on the Palestinian front and, unless properly trained and equipped, the Syrian Army would be annihilated in a real war with the European-backed Zionist militias. When Sharabati took over the Ministry of Defence, the Syrian Army was just two years old. When the French left Syria, they left behind 3,000 local troops and 300 officers who were automatically commissioned into the newly formed Syrian Army. Military service was voluntary and the army numbered only 5,000 by late 1947. Approximately half hailed from Syrian minorities: Alawites, Druze, Christians and Kurds.47 The French had intentionally designed Syria’s military establishment this way during the 1920s. The minorities were given good salaries, flashy military uniforms and weapons to defend their towns and villages. This introduced a military tradition into Alawite and Druze families that was to become vital to the communities’ future fortunes after independence was achieved in 1946. The French reasoned that, empowered in this way, the minorities would increasingly distance themselves from Syrian nationalists who were seeking independence. Entire infantry battalions and cavalry squadrons were drawn exclusively from the Armenian, Kurdish, Druze and Alawite communities. Of the eight infantry battalions under the French, for example, three consisted entirely of Alawites. In time, these groups would be used to crush antiFrench demonstrations in the Syrian midland and a military revolt in the mid-1920s. By 1947–8, most soldiers in the Syrian Army hailed from poor and humble peasant backgrounds and led very different lifestyles from those of the beys and pashas of Syrian high society. While they respected al-Quwatli as a founding father, they were not

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overly fond of him, seeing him as too aloof and urban. They also considered him too old. While the average age of a young officer was twenty-four to thirty, Shukri al-Quwatli was approaching the age of sixty. This is one of the reasons why he needed somebody of Sharabati’s age and calibre at the Defence Ministry. The officers, however, knew how to run the military establishment, unlike the notables who had no experience in the military. During the Ottoman era, Syrian army officers hailed from the large and powerful families of Damascus, Homs and Aleppo. A career in uniform had been seen as both prestigious and prosperous. Expremiers Rida Pasha al-Rikabi and Nasuhi al-Boukhari, for example, both belonged to that generation. By the second half of the 1940s, however, the Syrian officer class had changed dramatically. A career in the military was no longer seen as prestigious or financially rewarding. Only those whose family wealth had disappeared or who had neglected their studies enrolled at the Homs Military Academy.48 According to a report by the Syrian Ministry of Education, only fifteen per cent of graduates nationwide chose a career in the armed forces, and only three per cent of university graduates opted for a military career. It was not a popular profession since, under the French mandate, Syrian soldiers were asked to suppress demonstrations, arrest nationalist leaders and break market strikes. In 1945, the bravest of them rebelled against the mandate regime during the second bombardment of Damascus. These were to form the core group of the Syrian Army in April 1946. The urban elite viewed this group with suspicion. Men who had taken up arms in a colonial army against their own people might one day do the same against their president and elected government officials. Likewise, those who had rebelled against the French in 1946 could one day rebel against Shukri al-Quwatli. Khaled al-Azm, who assumed the portfolio of defence minister numerous times in the 1950s, exemplifies this elitist attitude towards the officer class: ‘They would walk the earth with conceit, look upon society with enmity and envy, and upon civilians with contempt. In their eyes, civilians were all traitors, mercenary agents, and feudalists. What influenced the formation of the officer class was that they had been imbued with a spirit of hatred, jealousy, and rebellion against prevailing social life,

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especially since their origins lay with groups whose circumstances were not compatible with easy life.’49 The journalist Munir al-Rayyes, publisher of the popular daily newspaper Barada, observed the military parade on Independence Day in 1946, saying that the soldiers marched through Damascus with ‘nose up in the air’ and appeared ‘like angry tigers.’ He commented that they ought to have paraded ‘with their heads hanging down’ for having served the French.50 This view, of course, was shared neither by Defence Minister Sharabati nor President al-Quwatli, who handpicked a tough officer named Abdullah Atfeh as the first Army Chief of Staff. At age fortynine, Atfeh was widely respected in Syria. Educated at the Ottoman Military Academy in Istanbul, Atfeh received advanced training in France and returned to join the Ottoman Army shortly before the outbreak of World War I. He defected in 1916, taking up arms with Emir Faisal before returning to Damascus two years later to join the newly created Syrian Army. He fought with Yusuf al-Azma at the Maysaloun Battle in July 1920. Atfeh fled to Jordan after al-Azma was killed, returning to Syria in 1921 to join the French-created Army of the Levant. Under the mandate regime, he studied European war strategies and became an expert on Otto Von Bismarck and Napoleon. During World War II, the French appointed him commander of their troops on the Syrian coast. In May 1945, Atfeh mutinied against the French after the bombing raid on Damascus. He joined the popular resistance and pledged unwavering loyalty to President al-Quwatli. He knew the officer class well and Sharabati badly needed him at the helm of the Syrian Army. Sharabati was unaware that this same man would turn against his own army in just a matter of months. Early on, however, the president and his defence minister trusted General Atfeh completely. Al-Quwatli charged him with transferring the allegiance of the Army of the Levant from France to the Syrian Republic between April and June 1946. This was not an easy task. Atfeh was a tough officer with broad shoulders and a stone-cold gaze that commanded respect and fear among his troops. When he issued a command, his orders were carried out immediately with no questions asked. He had a remarkable eye for detail and knew young

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talent when he saw it. From his office at Army Headquarters he was given a direct hotline to the Presidential Palace and to Sharabati’s new office at the Grand Serail, which was adjacent to that of Prime Minister Mardam Bey. The Ministry of Defence had no independent headquarters and shared office space with other ministries at the Grand Serail. Abdullah Atfeh was more than just a senior officer in the Syrian Army. He was Sharabati’s advisor on military affairs and considered the ‘father’ of the Syrian officer class. In 1947 he sat down with the president and defence minister to determine the future of the young army. General Atfeh was in favour of allocating a lion’s share of the state budget to building a strong and professional army, ‘one that would never be infiltrated by spies or double agents.’51 Jamil Mardam Bey, however, advised al-Quwatli to disband the current army, find jobs for its troops and create a new one from scratch. Sharabati refused this suggestion, saying that if the government meddled with the army, he would resign immediately. Mardam Bey argued that the backbone of the army should be the urban elite, rather than the Alawites and Druze. ‘It will never pass’ warned Sharabati. ‘The people have been demanding a Syrian Army for years. Now that we have it, we cannot disband it that easily. The press will tear us apart. It will never pass in Parliament. Also, the officers and soldiers themselves would never allow it. Do you imagine how difficult it would be to tell those men that they now have to give up their uniform, and settle for civilian jobs?’52 He then made reference to Napoleon, who famously said: ‘I have tasted command and will never give it up.’53 Contemporary historians have claimed that al-Quwatli and his top officials distrusted the Syrian Army and wanted to keep it a political orphan. A closer look, however, shows otherwise – they distrusted the minorities but not the army itself, and tried to differentiate between the military institution and the officer class that headed it. Had al-Quwatli viewed the army as a whole with suspicion, he wouldn’t have spent so much money buying out buildings, equipment and arms from the outgoing French Army in 1946.54 He also would not have approved an annual budget for the army of forty million Syrian pounds in early 1948. The total state budget had risen from forty-five million in 1946 to 100 million by 1948, thanks to

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spending on the Syrian Army.49 He also would not have asked Khaled al-Azm, his ambassador to Paris, to sign off on an arms deal with the French government in May. The weapons arrived to Damascus in early 1948 and were unpacked by Sharabati himself. What is true, however, is that al-Quwatli did not trust many of the Alawite and Druze officers within the Syrian Army.50 One of them, Fadallah Abu Mansour, wrote a detailed memoir titled Aasir Dimashq (Damascus Storms), which has generally been overlooked by Syrian historians and has been out of print for over fifty years. The account is filled with contempt and disrespect for both the president and the army commander. Abu Mansour writes that al-Quwatli did not believe he needed a big army ‘because Syria was not threatened by any foreign danger.’55 Shukri al-Quwatli, however, was no fool. He knew that the Zionist threat was at Syria’s doorstep and by 1946 it was clear to him that war in Palestine was inevitable. Abu Mansour adds: ‘Based on this notion the Damascus government began to disband the army it had received from the French and dismiss its officers and soldiers. The army had 30,000 effective fighters under the French (when it incuded non-Syrians from faraway territories of colonial France). It was slashed to roughly six thousand. It became a dwarf.’ The contempt of the officer class was justified by two harsh realities. One was the president’s refusal to purchase arms from the Soviet Union, Great Britain or the USA. Having moved mountains to liberate Syria from a treaty with the French, he was unwilling to once again make his country dependent on any foreign power, given that strings came attached to any major arms deal. True, Syria had indeed obtained arms from the French, somewhat regarded as a natural right after years of occupation, but it did not mean that top officials were too happy about relying on the West for build-up of the Syrian Army. The officer class didn’t understand this and felt that he was denying them sophisticated Soviet weapons for no good reason. The officers also felt that al-Quwatli was more interested in strengthening the Syrian Gendarmerie than the Syrian Army.56 The Gendarmerie was primarily a Sunni force and its troops were drawn from the large families of Damascus. This meant that they were more likely to back the urban notables than either the Alawites or the Druze. Al-Quwatli invested heavily in them, filling their warehouses with arms and

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appointing Hrant Bey Manolian, a strong-minded Armenian officer, to lead them. Mardam Bey would chuckle: ‘Hrant Bey would never launch a revolution. Nobody would follow an Armenian in a coup d’e´tat.’57 Abu Mansour wrote: ‘The government spent its money on internal security in order to terrorise its enemies and increase the influence of its leading personalities.’58 The real problem facing the Syrian Army in 1947 –8 was not bad government but the venom and spite of the Baathists and Akram alHawrani. The officers were the Baathist’s only hope at reaching power, realising (although never admitting) that they would never achieve it through democratic means. If al-Quwatli and Sharabati could win over the hearts and minds of the officers, then a military coup would become virtually impossible for the Baathists. If they wanted to use and manipulate the officer class then they had to drive a wedge between the military officers and the civilians in power. To accomplish this, they created wild rumours against Sharabati and the president. One such rumour was that Sharabati bullied the officers and treated them as an underclass. This was systematic character assassination and was the exact opposite of Sharabati’s true nature, challenged by all those who knew him personally. He was compassionate, kind to subordinates and paternal when it came to their personal life and concerns. He would dine with them in the barracks, giving out money to those in need, and would relay their worries to the Grand Serail. He made sure that they were well paid, well fed and well trained. The lack of understanding lay not between Sharabati and the officers, but between him and the Baathists. Born and bred in the grace of Damascus, Sharabati spoke a language that the socialists could not understand and represented all that they resented. If Sharabati survived at the Ministry of Defence, he would destroy their political ambition. Getting rid of him was a must – initially through rumours and finally by action. One famous incident that happened after Sharabati left office as minister of defence added to the distrust between the civilians and the army officers. During the Palestine War in mid-1948, Prime Minister Mardam Bey visited a liberated village in Mishmar Hayarden, freshly retaken by the Syrian Army from Zionist militias. He found new water pumps, state-of-the-art fertiliser and healthy

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cows from Holland.59 Wanting them for his family estate in Hosh alMatban in al-Ghouta, he ordered: ‘Bring big trucks tomorrow morning and take them all to Hosh al-Matban.’60 The officer in charge, Tawfiq Bashour, was stunned. ‘Your Excellency,’ he replied firmly, ‘this property belongs not to you, but to the Syrian Army. They need to be officially entered into our records first. Then, you can do whatever you want with them.’ Stunned, Mardam Bey replied: ‘You seem to forget that I am the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defence. I call the shots here!’ Bashour didn’t blink: ‘On the battlefield, Your Excellency, I am the president. I am the man who liberated this village and I won’t allow you to take a single item without my approval.’ Unable to control himself, Mardam Bey tried to slap Bashour across the face.61 In his memoirs, Bashour claims that he missed him by an inch.62 Mardam Bey flew into a fit of rage and Bashour actually tried to kill him by ambush that very same evening.66 He was held back by his comrades and, eventually, by the president himself who explicitly asked him to ‘forget the incident.’63 This troublesome incident happened after Ahmad Sharabati had left office in late May 1948. During his tenure, he would never have allowed it, but it was used anyway by the Syrian opposition who conspired to destroy al-Quwatli and all his allies, politically, socially and financially. The war of 1948 was the perfect moment for al-Quwatli’s opponents to unite and strike at their self-perceived enemies, the founding fathers of the Syrian Republic. Many people, including army officers on the payroll of the king of Jordan, who commanded frontline troops in the Palestine War, wanted to shift blame for the loss of Palestine away from themselves and onto Syria’s civilian leaders. So did the Baathists and the Arab Socialists. In fact, by the early 1950s, it seems that everyone who mattered in the Arab world wanted to peddle this story. Akram alHawrani adopted it in his party literature and Gamal Abdul Nasser repeated it over and over in his famous speeches on Egyptian Radio. Lies were spun and gossip was spread on the Syrian street, accusing the founding fathers of incompetence and corruption. The people of Syria were defeated and bitter, searching for answers and scapegoats. They were willing to listen – although not necessarily believe – what

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was being said to them. For lack of an alternate story, many believed these rumours. Apart from first-hand interviews, parliamentary minutes and unpublished memoirs, there are no documents in Syria about the state of the armed forces during the early independence era. There are no lists of army officers and soldiers, no inventory of weapons, no salary lists and no log books. Amazingly, there is no Archive Department at the Ministry of Defence. All maps and armistice agreements with Israel are stored at a small office in the Abu Rummaneh neighbourhood, behind Ahmad Sharabati’s former house, which was tasked with providing documents during the Syrian –Israeli peace process that started in Madrid in the early 1990s. Everything else was shredded on two occasions, in 1967 and 1973, when the Israelis came close to overrunning Damascus. Government officials reasoned that it was better to destroy these records than to let them fall into the hands of the Israelis. This makes the last three chapters of this book all the more important. The Syrian nationalists were never given a chance to defend themselves, since only ten months later they were toppled and denied access to Syrian and Arab airwaves. Ahmad Sharabati was reluctant to expose the treason and corruption he had found at the highest levels of the army and perhaps even the government. In their absence, Husni al-Za’im’s media machine in Damascus, followed by the powerful Free Officers in Egypt, produced one story after another exempting the soldiers from any responsibility and putting full blame on the civilians, because this fit nicely with Nasser’s version of what happened in Palestine. By virtue of having the same lie repeated day after day – on the street, in schools and via popular culture – it soon transformed from rumour to ‘reality’ in the collective psyche of Syrians and Egyptians. Although historically incorrect, the word ‘Silah Fased’ or ‘Corrupted Arms’ became the accepted accusation against Syrian and Egyptian politicians. The Arab armies eventually lost the war in Palestine because of bad planning, conflicting aims and corruption and not bad or expired arms, as had been the case with the Maysaloun Battle. Shukri al-Quwatli, Jamil Mardam Bey and Ahmad Sharabati all died without coming out ‘on the record’ to tell their side of the story. None of them ever released memoirs with

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documents and correspondences, telling the world what they did for the Syrian Army prior to the outbreak of war in Palestine. There are many reasons for that. One is total conviction of their innocence and the fact that they had acted in good faith; they felt it was insulting to have to prove their nationalism after a life spent in the Syrian resistance. Their history should have been ample proof that men who had spent a lifetime fighting the Ottomans and the French would never have cooperated with the Zionists. Secondly, the officer class never really left power in Syria after 1949. Although the Za’im era was short, its main characters survived well into the 1950s and early 1960s, and the same applied to other Arab countries. Officially these men were still at war with Israel. Arab nationalism, topped with the fabled aspiration that Palestine could still be liberated, prevented these Syrian nationalists from letting themselves get dragged into such political squabbles. Shukri al-Quwatli and Ahmad Sharabati would never reveal classified documents about the Syrian Army, out of respect for the military institution that they had created, fearing that such information would play into the hands of the Israelis. To the nationalists of their generation, this would have been seen as high treason regardless of the truths it would expose. As a result, they let the defamation campaign happen, putting the army’s reputation above their own.

CHAPTER 11

On the Brink of War The Sharabati Papers I

In 1974, celebrated Syrian playwright Mohammad al-Maghout staged a famous satire about an imaginary Arab village, a thinly veiled miniature of the young Syrian Republic. One young dreamer watches as her village slips into political chaos, crippled by wars and coups, and she decides to write all of her observations in the air with a giant pencil. She writes by night from her window while the entire village is sound asleep. Some villagers notice her peculiar activity and ask what she is doing. The young girl replies: ‘I am writing the memoirs of this village on air so that nobody ever reads them or meddles with their content.’ A light breeze suddenly whisks some of her ‘written’ words away, prompting one to remark: ‘Do you want my advice? Go write the village memoirs on paper. I fear that one day a stronger wind will blow them away and with them, erase the memory of the entire village!’ Maghout’s play was well-received, performed in Damascus and Beirut one year after the October War of 1973. This scene could be telling the story of Ahmad Sharabati and his forgotten memoirs, kept as a daily log during the year 1948. They were not written on air but in a small 107-page notebook, never meant to be read by anybody but himself. The Sharabati diary disappeared among his papers during his long exile, and was only unearthed by his family years after

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his passing in 1975. Most of the entries were written in the evening, after a long day’s work at the Grand Serail or a heated session at the Syrian Parliament. He too seemed to be waiting for Damascus to fall asleep before he wrote. The daily log’s first entry was on 29 March 1948, exactly one year before the Husni al-Za’im coup and forty-five days before the outbreak of war in Palestine. The early entries are brief, simple observations of what needed to be done at the Ministry of Defence. As the war approaches and breaks out in mid-May, the memoirs come to life, revealing his anger and frustration. This is probably why Sharabati chose to write – to spill his heart out on paper in painful silence without exposing the extent of his anxiety, either to family or friends. Clearly the brilliant industrialist and seasoned statesman was deeply troubled but he did not want anyone to know about his inner anguish. He knew that the fledging republic could not afford to be destabilised at this critical juncture but he badly needed to put something in writing – perhaps fearing that a violent wind would soon blow away the entire republic and the collective memory of the Syrian people. Few Syrian politicians wrote down their memoirs before 1948. The political class that had emerged in late Ottoman times was still around; none of them had yet retired, and they certainly did not want to reveal all of their secrets if a political future still awaited them. Politics were unpredictable in Syria, after all. A forgotten politician could jump back into public life at any time and wellestablished names could disappear overnight. Nobody wanted to risk his future by penning an honest memoir. It was the Palestine War and the consequent coup of Husni al-Za’im that destroyed the old political establishment and sent its celebrated figures either into jail, exile or early retirement. Ahmad Sharabati, of course, was one of its many victims. Only then did some start writing their memoirs, like Prime Minister Khaled al-Azm, for example, who penned his celebrated three volumes after the Baathists banished him to Lebanon in 1963. Al-Azm’s memoirs were published post-mortem by his wife, who filled in many of the incomplete parts. The same applies to Akram al-Hawrani, who authored his four-volume tome from exile in Amman during the 1990s, thirty years after leaving Damascus. Jamil Mardam Bey chose to conclude his memoirs with the French

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evacuation in April 1946, offending nobody but the French. He retired from politics in mid-1948, refusing to divulge any of his well-kept secrets. Fakhri al-Barudi’s two-volume memoirs were humorous and brief, ending in 1911 Ottoman Damascus. Saadallah al-Jabiri never wrote a memoir, and Abdul Rahman Shahbandar’s diary ended with the collapse of the Great Syrian Revolt. Sabri al-Asali, Nazem al-Qudsi and Rushdi al-Kikhiya did not keep a daily log, but Fares al-Khoury did and so did Lutfi al-Haffar. Their memoirs were published by their families in the 1980s, many years after they died. Apart from Shukri al-Quwatli, none of Syria’s presidents left behind a written record of their time in office and al-Quwatli’s was never published. Ahmad Sharabati, however, felt that he needed to say the truth about what had happened in Palestine. He knew things that many people did not and perhaps thought that if not documented on paper the truth would be systematically erased from history books and by those who survived the fiasco in Palestine. The longforgotten memoirs reveal a man deeply troubled by events, furious at what was being done to him, the army and the Syrian nation. In one entry he describes himself ‘mad as a raging bull’.1 Sharabati’s frustration, however, was not with how his army performed in Palestine. Far from it, he showers his troops with lavish praise throughout, repeating time and again that they did an excellent job in battle. Without a shadow of a doubt, he says, the Syrian Army was not defeated. Sharabati nevertheless laments what he describes as the ‘negligence and ignorance’ that surrounded him at the level of senior officers and cabinet ministers. These politicians, he notes, were ‘gambling with the lives of people and the honour of the Syrian Army’. Sharabati adds, ‘I don’t fear for my troops to die heroically on the battlefield. That is their job. What I fear is that they are dying because of the ignorance and envy among their senior commanders.’2 Weeks before the war started, Sharabati had singled out a group of senior officers as being either corrupt, disloyal, politically ambitious – or all of the above. Based on solid intelligence reports, all of them were involved in high treason and yet they remained perched at their offices in Army Command.

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None of Sharabati’s superiors investigated what the minister of defence was saying about these men who were leftovers from the French Army. He had not hired them and refused to take blame for their actions. As far as he was concerned, these men were not ‘nationalist soldiers’, but saboteurs and conspirators, secretly connected to regional and international powers. The negligence on behalf of senior government officials in ignoring this cancer within the armed forces led Sharabati to conclude that corruption was reigning in Damascus and that the ‘national government’ was not far from it. Just because they expelled the French from Syria did not mean that these officials had the best interest of the nation in mind. For one thing, many of them did not like Ahmad Sharabati, feeling inferior to him both academically and politically. They also disliked how close he was to the president and worked hard at driving a wedge between him and al-Quwatli. For another, Sharabati’s wealth meant they could not bribe him to pass illegal deals. There was very little they could threaten him with on a political, financial or personal level. Not only did he refuse to join their network but he was constantly complaining about them and reporting to President al-Quwatli. They decided that he had to be expelled from the political scene, or killed. Sharabati decided to walk away in silence, but only after putting all of his recommendations before Shukri al-Quwatli. If al-Quwatli refused to take action, Ahmad Sharabati had no choice but to resign. Even in his private writings, Sharabati remained a gentleman; very rarely naming culprits and blaming colleagues. In one instance, he expressed deep frustration with the president. ‘My heart is filled with anger toward him. Does he not know who I am? Does he not know what efforts I have exercised? Is he not worried that somebody other than I will be leading the Syrian Army? Personally, I am worried and will pray day and night for God to preserve the Syrian Army.’ The memoirs give a very accurate and human description of the man; one that is extremely different from everything ever said or written about him since his political demise in 1948. The narrative of the next two chapters is based on Sharabati’s memoirs, provided by his family to the author in the autumn of 2014.

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THE THREE-WAY PARTITION OF PALESTINE On Syrian Independence Day in 1946, Akram Zuater, Palestine’s ambassador to the Arab League, warned the leaders of Syria: ‘You don’t have the right to consider yourself free from foreign control or independent and sovereign when southern Syria remains under a lurking occupation.’3 President al-Quwatli promised never to rest until southern Syria was liberated. By southern Syria the two men were referring to Palestine and this was not political jargon. Palestine, as far as al-Quwatli and his generation were concerned, was still a part of Syria, as were Jordan and Lebanon. Unlike future Arab leaders, who used and abused the Palestinian cause, al-Quwatli had a deep-rooted ideological commitment to the Palestinians. He truly shared their anguish, as did his young defence minister. Sharabati was a young man when he first heard of Zionist ambitions in Palestine among the political milieu in Damascus. It was a subject dear to the heart of his father Hajj Uthman and his political allies, Abdul Rahman Shahbandar and Fares al-Khoury. Whenever they met to talk politics, Syrian independence was linked with that of Palestine. As a young man, Sharabati watched demonstrations in support of Palestine during his high school years in Damascus and his student days at AUB. These pro-Palestine rallies were often massive, staged annually in Damascus and Beirut on 2 November – the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration that promised a national home for the Jews in Palestine. When James Balfour came to Damascus in April 1925, Sharabati took to the streets with his friends and many others, forcing Lord Balfour to flee the city. As a full-time politician in the mid1930s, Palestine was at the crux of Sharabati’s Arab nationalism and was the driving force behind his short-lived League of National Action. As he would tell his comrades, they could never allow the Zionists to occupy Palestine and would die defending ‘southern Syria’. Among his colleagues in the League of National Action were the Palestinian nationalists Wasfi Kamal, Akram Zueiter and Izzat Darwaza. Darwaza, a scholar and historian by training, was a pivotal player in Palestinian politics, serving on the Damascus-based Central Committee for National Jihad, which led an uprising against the British in Palestine back in the 1930s. Along with Zueiter and Abdul

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Qader al-Husseini, Darwaza had provided funds and guidance to the leaders of the Palestinian Revolt, just as Sharabati had smuggled arms and money to his Palestinian friends during their fight against the British. When touring world capitals, Sharabati also served as an unofficial ambassador and spokesman for the Palestinian cause. In May 1946, less than a month after Syrian independence, President al-Quwatli headed to Inshas, a city sixty kilometres east of Cairo, for the first official summit of the Arab League. The event was dedicated entirely to the Palestinian cause. King Abdullah of Jordan, King Farouk of Egypt and President Beshara al-Khoury of Lebanon were all there, as was the Iraqi Regent Abdul-Illah and Ibn Saud’s son and crown prince, Saud Ibn Abdul-Aziz. The Arab leaders agreed that ‘Palestine must remain Arab’. Zionism, they added, was a threat not only to Palestine but to other Arab states as well, and ‘to all the people of Islam’. One month later, the Arab League held a meeting in the summer resort of Bloudan, near Damascus. The Bloudan Conference was co-chaired by Saadallah al-Jabiri and Abdul Rahman Azzam Pasha, the secretary-general of the Arab League. Azzam and al-Jabiri pledged to support the Palestinian resistance with arms, money and political support. They flatly rejected conceding anything to the Zionists, who already numbered 600,000 in Palestine. The Arabs were already furious at this massive influx from Europe and were completely unaware of how far they had come in setting up their own army, institutions and community. In late 1946, al-Quwatli instructed the Syrian press to launch a massive and coordinated campaign against the Zionists in Palestine. Hours of radio broadcasts were dedicated to shedding light on the confiscation of land and property from Palestinians, and the waves of Jewish immigrants from Europe. Al-Quwatli also ordered military drills on the Syria– Palestine border and had them filmed for propaganda purposes. A few months earlier, Fares al-Khoury had cabled President al-Quwatli from the USA, saying that the British envoy was proposing a peaceful settlement for the future of Palestine, based on Article 10 of the UN Charter.4 The British were exhausted from World War II and unable to control Palestine any longer because of the nonstop anticolonial activity of the Palestinian underground. After a revolt had been staged against the British in the mid-1930s, led by the Mufti of

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Jerusalem Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the British had been subjected to a constant campaign of resistance due to Palestinian activism and the support of the Syrian Nationalists. Since the British government had just partitioned India, protecting trade routes to the Far East was no longer a priority for them, as it had been for two centuries. Now the British were essentially handing the Palestine problem over to the United Nations. A United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) was created in mid-May 1947, charged with investigating the cause of conflict in Palestine and proposing a viable solution. It was composed of eleven nations: Holland, Sweden, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Canada, India, Iran, Peru, Guatemala, Australia and Uruguay. To ensure neutrality, none of the Great Powers were represented in UNSCOP. The same went for the Arabs and the Zionists; both were excluded from UNSCOP. Ralph Bunch, the young US attache´ at UNSCOP’s secretariat, commented: ‘This was just about the worst group I have ever had to work with. If they do a good job it would be a real miracle.’5 Fares al-Khoury sent a handwritten note asking al-Quwatli to pay close attention to a UN speech by Deputy Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, delivered on 14 May. The Soviet official spoke of the ‘exceptional and indescribable sorrow and suffering of the Jews’ during the Nazi Holocaust.6 Gromyko dedicated a good three paragraphs to Jewish pain, adding that after enduring so much at the hands of Hitler, the Jews were fully entitled to self-determination. Al-Khoury translated parts of the speech into Arabic and wrote: ‘The mood is changing, fast, in favour of Jewish statehood. Urgent action required.’7 The international community wanted repentance for the Holocaust, he added, and were going to do it at the expense of the Palestinians. He recommended building bridges with the one UNSCOP member whom he described as pro-Arab: Nosrallah Entizam, the ex-foreign minister of Iran. ‘Beware of Emil Sandstrom’, he added, the Swedish judge heading UNSCOP, describing him as ‘dull and pro-Zionist’.8 Meanwhile, Sharabati briefed al-Quwatli on the presidential race in the USA. Incumbent President Harry Truman, who had succeeded Franklin Roosevelt in 1945, was promising to bring more European Jews to Palestine if elected for a new term at the White House. The Americans and Soviets clearly agreed on the issue

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of Palestine, he warned, and the Arabs needed to act fast to avoid a looming disaster. The Syrian president understood but there was very little he could do. Syria was still barely recovering from the long years of French occupation. Its army was weak and ill-equipped and the treasury was empty, preventing him from purchasing modern weapons. He waited for a miracle at the United Nations. The miracle never came. As for the other members of UNSCOP, al-Khoury was not optimistic. ‘None of them have any experience in Arab affairs. In fact they are alien to the Middle East and the Zionists have already started a massive lobbying campaign aimed at winning them over, one-by-one. We ought to do the same. We don’t have the money but we do have the brains.’9 He recommended investing in the large and powerful Syrian e´migre´ community in Latin America, believing that they could influence their governments to vote against partition. ‘The Jewish Agency has already appointed three full-time attache´s to UNSCOP, being Abba Eban (future Israeli foreign minister during the Six-Day War of 1967), David Horowitz (future governor of the Bank of Israel), and Moshe Tov, the Spanish-speaking head of the department’s Latin American Division. These are capable figures, Mr. President. They can win the minds and hearts of UNSCOP’, fretted al-Khoury. President al-Quwatli promptly coordinated with the Lebanese government, appointing the brilliant Camille Chamoun (future president of Lebanon) as the Arab world’s liaison to UNSCOP.10 Chamoun was a seasoned statesman who spoke impeccable French and English and had considerable charm and wit. So impressed was the Syrian president with Chamoun’s work at UNSCOP that he eventually awarded him the Syrian Order of Merit, Excellence Class.11 In later years, Chamoun became vehemently anti-Syrian; first during his presidency in the 1950s, when he sided with the West against Syria’s alliance with Gamal Abdul Nasser and the Soviet Union, then again in 1975, at the start of the Lebanese civil war. The UNSCOP team spent five weeks in Palestine that summer. Rather than heeding the advice of Fares al-Khoury, Palestinian Arabs completely boycotted the UN delegates. They treated them with scorn and disrespect, which resonated very badly within the corridors of the United Nations. On the day of their arrival, for example, they were

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welcomed with a day-long anti-Zionist demonstration in Jerusalem, whereas the Jewish Agency made sure to introduce them to welldressed Jewish settlers who spoke fluent Spanish, Persian and Swedish.12 When they visited an Arab school in Bier al-Sabe in southern Palestine, schoolteachers refused to interrupt classes, not even acknowledging the UNSCOP members, let alone informing them of their concerns.13 At another school in Galilee, schoolchildren hissed and cursed at the UN team. ‘Go away; you are unwelcome here in Palestine’ they said. Fares al-Khoury angrily wrote: ‘This is wrong. All we are getting is bad publicity. The daily broadcasts of major Arab stations are doing nothing to help the situation.’14 Wherever UNSCOP went they saw tidy, modernised settlements, in contrast with dirty, chaotic Arab villages. Encountering child labour at factories and cafe´s further appalled UNSCOP members. The UN delegates met with Zionist leaders such as David Ben Gurion and members of the Haganah, the Jewish paramilitary organisation. The only Palestinian of repute who bravely decided to talk to them was Hussein al-Khalidi, the mayor of Jerusalem. In a lengthy meeting on 16 July, al-Khalidi said: ‘Jews have no historic claim to Palestine, and Arabs should not pay the price for Hitler’s Holocaust. Hitler committed it, after all, and not the Palestinians.’15 He spoke out aggressively against partition, calling instead for a binational democratic state with an Arab majority. Musa Nasser, headmaster of Birzeit School north of Ramallah, further suggested that once the British had left and such a state was inaugurated, autonomous Jewish ‘pockets’ might be discussed.16 On 21 July, UNSCOP members headed to Beirut where they met with Prime Minister Riad al-Sulh and Foreign Minister Hamid Frangieh. They too warned that partition would never work, saying that the Zionists had ambitions in Syria and Lebanon and would not restrict themselves to Palestine. When the UNSCOP delegation asked for visas to visit Damascus, their request was turned down by the Syrian government, throwing Fares al-Khoury into a fit of rage. Trying to control the damage, President al-Quwatli offered to send officials to meet the delegation in Lebanon. On 23 July Syrian Foreign Minister Naim Antaki traveled to Sofar, a village in Mount Lebanon, to meet UNSCOP delegates.17 He was

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accompanied by his Iraqi counterpart Mohammad Fadel al-Jamali. Antaki was blunt: ‘The Jews are illegal in Palestine. They shall be expelled. It might take time, but they have no future in the Middle East.’18 Al-Jamali went a step further, comparing Zionism to Nazism. Finally, UNSCOP headed to Amman where they were received by King Abdullah and Prime Minister Samir al-Rifaii Pasha. The king was very careful in choosing his words and suggested a different kind of two-state solution – not between Jews and Palestinian Arabs but rather between Jews and Jordan. Abdullah proposed annexing the Arab territories of Palestine to Jordan, claiming that the Jewish population would have full minority rights under his crown. Back in New York, piles of letters and petitions were being received at the UN from Jews across the world, claiming their right to Palestine. The written petitions amounted to two tons of material, which were placed in the hands of UNSCOP. In comparison, very little came from the Arab world and very little incentive money was funnelled from the Arabs.19 Although filled with wealthy families, the Arab elite did not want to part with its wealth for the sake of the Palestinians. Zionist leaders, however, wined and dined with UNSCOP members, lobbying heavily to influence the outcome. None of the Arabs were present in the final debate, although Eban and Horowitz were. UNSCOP officially released its report on 31 August calling for ‘partition with economic union’ and it was debated at the UN on 3 September. A majority of nations (Canada, Czechoslovakia, Guatemala, Netherlands, Peru, Sweden and Uruguay) recommended the creation of independent Arab and Jewish states, with Jerusalem to be placed under international administration. A minority (India, Iran and Yugoslavia) supported the creation of a single federal state containing both Jewish and Arab constituent states. Australia abstained. The Jews would receive twenty-six per cent of Palestine, including the coastal plain north of Haifa, the Negev Desert and Jaffa. It would be composed of one million Jews and approximately 416,000 Arabs, in addition to 90,000 Bedouins who were not considered permanent residents. The Arabs would receive approximately thirty-five per cent, including Hebron, Nablus, Jenin and central and Western Galilee (Acre and Nazareth). The Arab state would be composed of 700,000

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Arabs and 8,000 Jews. During the first year of its existence Jews and Arabs would be allowed repatriation in whatever state they chose to live in. Jerusalem and Bethlehem, placed under a UN Trusteeship Council, would have 200,000 inhabitants, half Arab and half Jewish. David Ben Gurion described it as: ‘the beginning, indeed more than the beginning, of our salvation.’20 The president of Syria, however, noted: ‘No Arab would ever accept it!21’ Three months later, the UN issued its partition plan for Palestine, known as United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181. The city of Damascus gasped on the night of 29 November when the resolution was aired on radio, with a non-binding recommendation for a two-way partition of Palestine into an Arab and Jewish state, with special status given to the religiously significant cities of Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Fares al-Khoury again cabled President al-Quwatli, urgently requesting instructions. He couldn’t contain his anger; if it passed, the resolution would be the greatest setback of his career as an Arab nationalist. Al-Quwatli wrote back that Syria should denounce Resolution 181 in the strongest terms possible. The land allocated to the Arab state consisted of all the highlands, except for Jerusalem, plus one-third of the coastline. The highlands contained no large bodies of standing water and were relatively secure from malaria, allowing a substantial permanent population to exist. It also encompassed the Western Galilee, with the town of Acre, and the southern coast stretching from north of Isdud, thirty-two kilometres from Tel Aviv, and what is now the Gaza Strip, with a section of desert along the Egyptian border. The UNSCOP report placed the mostlyArab town of Jaffa, just south of Tel Aviv, within the proposed Jewish state, but it was moved to form an enclave of the Arab state before the proposal went before the UN. The Jewish state was to receive fifty-five per cent of Mandatory Palestine. In the north, this area included Marj Bani Amer (renamed the Jezreel Valley after 1948), a large fertile plain and inland valley south of Lower Galilee. It also received the coastal plain, Haifa, Eastern Galilee, the Negev and the southern outpost of Umm Rashrash (later renamed Eilat). The bulk of the proposed Jewish state’s territory, however, consisted of the Negev Desert. At the time, the desert was not suitable for agriculture or for urban development.

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The Jewish state was also given sole access to the Red Sea and the Sea of Galilee (the largest source of fresh water in Palestine). At the time of partition, Arabs owned slightly less than half the land in all of Palestine, while around the same amount was ‘crown land’ owned by the Arabs but belonging to the British mandate regime. Only around seven per cent was owned by Jews. Much of the Jewish population, especially in rural areas, lived on land leased from Arab owners. Future Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir addressed a rally in Jerusalem: ‘For two thousand years we have waited for our deliverance. Now that it is here it is so great and wonderful that it surpasses human words. Jews: Mazel Tov (Good Luck).’ Before the resolution passed, however, plenty of lobbying had been done. The bar of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York became a daily gathering spot for Arab and Zionist lobbyists.22 Fares al-Khoury would walk down to the hotel daily and meet with US congressmen and community leaders. He was, however, alone in this endeavour. Few of his Arab counterparts at the UN put in half the effort he did to influence the world’s diplomats. Even back home, locals were not helping him. Veteran revolt leader Fawzi al-Qawuqji, who was to lead an armed resistance into Palestine weeks later, said: ‘We will murder, wreck, and ruin everything that stands in our way, be it English, American, or Jewish.’23 He was speaking to a TIME magazine correspondent in Damascus and his words greatly worried US officials. Other Arabs were threatening the world with military action and oil boycotts. Many even declared that if the USA gave Palestine to the Jews, they would turn to the Soviet Union for help. No threat could have been worse for the international community, coming at the early stages of the Cold War. Future Israeli Prime Minister Moshe Sharett advised his superiors at the Jewish Agency to ignore the dramatic statements coming from Arab diplomatic corps: ‘There is a great deal of bluff. These countries have much more serious worries in their own homes than to start a hazardous military operation in Palestine. Ridiculous is the assumption that an armed conflict between Arabs and Jews would lead to World War III.’24 On the other side of the debate, the Zionists were unleashing a massive propaganda campaign, trying hard to turn the voting in their favour. India, for example, was publicly opposed to the resolution

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and was bound to create trouble for the Zionist project. Albert Einstein, the world-famous Jewish scientist, wrote directly to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, reminding him that Jews have been the ‘victims of history for centuries.’25 India should think twice, Einstein said, before it stood in the way of Jewish dreams of salvation. Nehru wrote back expressing ‘deepest sympathy for the great suffering of the Jewish people’ but added that ‘national policies are unfortunately essentially selfish.’26 He refused to budge on partition. He spoke with anger and contempt for the way the UN vote had been lined up, saying that Zionists had tried to bribe his country with millions and sent daily warnings to his sister, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, saying that her life was in danger ‘unless she voted right.’27 A member of the Indian delegation at the UN, Kavalam Panikkar, addressed the Zionists saying: ‘It is idle for you to try and convince us that the Jews have a case. We know it, but the point is simply this: for us to vote for the Jews means to vote against the Muslims. This is a conflict in which Islam is involved. We have thirteen million Muslims in our midst. Therefore, we cannot do it.’28 China, however, was swayed from initial rejection of the resolution to what the Zionists described as ‘benevolent neutrality.’ Chinese ambassador to the UN Wellington Koo said that ‘China has her own difficulties. The Chinese Republic has twenty million Muslims, whose leaders hold important positions throughout China.’29 His country would abstain, as would Paraguay. Cuba and the Vatican were against the partition. France’s position was unclear. It had sixteen million Muslims throughout its colonies in North Africa. Its vote would certainly influence Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg and Denmark. Former Prime Minister Leon Blum, a powerful socialist French Jew, was called out of retirement and asked to lobby his government in favour of the Zionists.30 US President Harry Truman wrote that never in his life had he been subjected to such pressure and propaganda.31 On 25 November, his special aide David Niles instructed the US ambassador to the UN to ‘get all the votes’ he could or else ‘there would be hell to pay if voting went wrong.’32 Twenty-eight senators began cabling world leaders to vote in favour of the UN resolution. Camille Chamoun wrote to al-Quwatli that the USA was practicing ‘dark and obscure tyranny at the UN, to get a two-thirds majority vote.’33

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On 29 November 1947 the General Assembly voted thirty-three to thirteen in favour of the Partition Plan, with ten abstentions. The voting took place in Paris, as opposed to the usual New York headquarters. The division was to take effect immediately after the British mandate expired in mid-May 1948. The mandate would be terminated no later than 1 August. Countries were asked to vote individually, in alphabetical order. By the time al-Khoury stepped up to cast Syria’s say, the direction of the vote was already clear. The ‘nays’ came from Greece, Cuba, India and, of course, the entire Arab world. The USA, all of Western Europe, the entire Soviet bloc and most Latin American countries voted in favour of partition. The UK, Chile and China abstained. The event was broadcast live on the radio, and Ahmad Sharabati stayed up until the early hours of the morning to hear the entire session on the BBC. As the votes were counted, he became increasingly outraged. It was a fatal blow to the entire Arab world, and he was aghast. Sharabati wrote to Fares al-Khoury, suggesting they take the matter to the International Court of Justice, claiming that the General Assembly was unauthorised to partition a country against the wishes of its inhabitants.34 Al-Khoury was a renowned attorney and a member of the American Bar Association. He had all the tools needed to prepare a proper defence of Sharabati’s proposal, but it was defeated at the UN, vetoed by both the Americans and the Soviet Union, and never made it to the International Court of Justice. The Jewish Agency warmly welcomed the Partition Plan. Ben Gurion said: ‘I know of no greater achievement by the Jewish people.35’ Zionist extremist including Menachem Begin’s Irgun and Yitzhak Shamir’s Lehi (known as the Stern Gang), flatly rejected it. Begin warned that the partition wouldn’t bring peace because the Arabs would inevitably attack the small state. With the exception of Jordan, the entire Arab world rejected the Partition Plan, taking their cue from Syria’s al-Quwatli and King Farouk of Egypt. The prestigious al-Azhar in Cairo called for jihad in Palestine.36 Arab leaders argued that a large number of Arabs would be trapped in the Jewish state as a minority. President al-Quwatli opposed both Jewish self-determination in Palestine and the amount of land allocated to them under the Partition Plan. ‘I will cut my right arm before accepting such a

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crime in the Middle East’ he told Abdul Ghani al-Otari, publisher of the weekly magazine al-Dunya.37 THE ARMY OF DELIVERANCE Fighting erupted in Palestine almost as soon as the plan was approved. In Cairo, massive demonstrations broke out throughout the city. The British Institute in the Zaghazig district was set ablaze.38 Police were called in to quell the crowds. In Aden, Yemen, seventyfive Jews were killed and nearly eighty wounded by an angry mob.39 Prime Minister Jamil Mardam Bey, wanting to ride the wave, openly called for jihad in Palestine, prompting young men to storm several Jewish homes in Aleppo.40 The town’s synagogue was torched and hundreds of Jewish families fled to the safety of Damascus and Beirut.41 In Damascus, the American and Russian embassies were set on fire and the offices of oil companies were pelted with stones.42 The British expressed concern over the fate of Jews in Damascus, Baghdad and Beirut. Arab leaders came up with the idea of creating a voluntary force of Arab recruits to fight the Zionist militias in Palestine. Syria would provide the troops with logistic and military support. A veteran Syrian officer and ranking anti-imperialist named Fawzi al-Qawuqji was chosen to lead the Arab guerrillas. His appointment was endorsed by the Arab League during the second week of December. Aged fifty-seven, al-Qawuqji was born in Tripoli and trained in the Ottoman Army during World War I. In 1920, he created a small unit to guard the palace of King Faisal in Damascus during the Maysaloun battle. He joined the French Army of the Levant under the mandate, only to desert during the Great Revolt of 1925. He led an uprising in Hama in October, and remained an outlaw for what remained of the mandate era. Al-Qawuqji fought against the British in Palestine in 1936 and in Iraq in 1941. During World War II he made his way to Nazi Germany, married a German woman, and became an outspoken supporter of Hitler. With red hair and blue eyes, he looked more German than Arab. He was captured by the Soviet Red Army in 1945 and jailed until February 1947. Heading an Arab army into Palestine seemed a perfect comeback for the resistance fighter. When he first

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met his troops, al-Qawuqji declared: ‘I have returned!’43 When the time came to name the volunteer army, Ibn Saud decided on ‘Jayesh Nusret al-Islam’.44 King Farouk objected, saying that there were bound to be Christians, Alawites and Druze in the ranks, instead suggesting ‘Jayesh Tahrir Filastine.’ Al-Quwatli made his own recommendation, ‘Jayesh inqath Filastine’ (Army of Deliverance of Palestine). The name caught on and was approved by the Arab League. Al-Qawuqji found great numbers of young men eager to join his army. Approximately 10,000 were recruited between October and November 1947. They included Syrians, Palestinians, Iraqis, Jordanians, Circassians, Kurds and some Yugoslavs, Germans and Turks.45 By September, one training camp already boasted 2,242 volunteers, with approximately 600 Kurds, 750 Alawites, 210 Bedouins and 320 Sunni Muslims. 46 A total of thirty-two deputies registered themselves to join the jihad in Palestine but on recruitment day only three showed up. One was the al-Raqqa deputy Abdulsalam al-Ujayli, a medical doctor and celebrated novelist; another was Sharabati’s long-time foe, the Hama MP Akram al-Hawrani; and third was the Idlib MP Ghaleb al-Ayyashi. All of them were members of the Yarmouk II Brigade, which headed to the Upper Galilee in Palestine, while Yarmouk I was commanded by al-Qawuqji himself. Both brigades were named after a famous battle between the Muslims and the Byzantine Empire back in the year 636. Other members of Yarmouk II who rose to fame in future years were Abdul Hamid al-Sarraj, the future chief of Syrian intelligence; Khalil Kallas, a future co-founder of the Baath Party; and future president Adib al-Shishakli, the head of Yarmouk II. Al-Quwatli summoned al-Hawrani and al-Ujayli to the Presidential Palace, presenting each with 1,000 dinars as ‘pocket money’.47 Other al-Qawuqji recruits were being paid three Syrian pounds per month as an official salary.48 After meeting with alQuwatli they were summoned to the Ministry of Defence, where Sharabati hailed them as the ‘brigade of intellectuals’, since their team included three doctors and a handful of lawyers, students and university professors. He presented them with light and modern French rifles as a gift, instead of the long and heavy arms that other troops were using in the Army of Deliverance.49

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The headquarters of the Army of Deliverance was set up in the Syrian capital, near Marjeh Square, and its recruitment office was in the adjacent Census Bureau of the Ministry of Interior. Aiding al-Qawuqji were General Taha al-Hashemi of Iraq, Colonel Abdul Qader al-Jundi of Jordan and Colonel Mohammad al-Hindi of Syria, who had helped set up Faisal’s Iraqi Army back in the 1920s. All of them were given offices at the Ministry of Defence in Damascus overlooking the Barada River and adjacent to Ahmad Sharabati’s office. Troops were trained at the Qatana Camp near Damascus. Al-Qawuqji’s field commanders were Palestinian nationalists Hasan Salameh and Abdul Qader al-Husseini, a relative of the renegade mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini. Salameh was the father of Ali Hasan Salameh (aka Abu Hasan), a future ranking member of the Black September Organization and chief perpetrator of the 1972 attack on the Israeli team at the Munich Olympics. Hasan Salameh commanded units in Lodd while al-Husseini was put in charge of the strategic Jerusalem area.50 Galilee was handled by al-Qawuqji himself, while southern cities and towns were left to the Egyptian contingent of the volunteer army. The Army of Deliverance would coordinate directly with the Arab League Military Committee, headed by General Ismail Safwat.51 Syria had several compelling reasons for establishing the Army of Deliverance. One was al-Quwatli’s conviction that the Syrian Army was young and incapable of engaging in war and winning against the Zionists. General Atfeh had sworn to Ahmad Sharabati that the Syrian Army was ‘the best of all Arab armies; the best army in the Middle East.’ Sharabati thought so as well, of course, but the same could not be said of his field commanders, some of who wrote to the president from behind his back, saying that the army ‘is not worth a red cent’. Strangely, al-Quwatli believed them over his defence minister. He decided that it was much safer to influence Palestinian affairs from a distance, rather than to intervene officially, where there would be no turning back. He explained to Taha al-Hashemi, a long-time friend from Iraq, saying; ‘The real problem is with reforming the Syrian Army and solving the problem of its leadership.’52 Caught in the clutches of war, President al-Quwatli was seemingly torn between believing what some of his officers were saying, and the constant

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barrage of reports from his Minister Sharabati warning him against these very same officers. Because of these concerns, he said, ‘It is imperative that we restrict our efforts to the popular movement in Palestine. We must strengthen it and organise its affairs as quickly as possible.’ Egypt was to pay for forty-two per cent of the costs, Syria and Lebanon twenty-three per cent, Saudi Arabia twenty per cent and Iraq the remaining fifteen per cent.53 Lebanon presented al-Qawuqji with two mountain cannons and four tanks, while Syria gave him four cannons and four tanks.54 Sharabati took the decision to support him unilaterally, investing in his powers as head of the Ministry of Defence without raising the matter before Parliament, which set its own state budget for the Army of Deliverance at two million Syrian pounds. According to the new bylaws of the Ministry of Defence, drafted a few months earlier, the minister had full authority to fire and hire at will and spend funds without reporting to the chamber, recalls Omar Arnaout, an aide-de-camp to Fawzi al-Qawuqji.55 Sharabati often bankrolled the Ministry from his own pockets for two reasons, Arnaout said. One was to avoid going through the rigid Syrian bureaucracy, claiming that the war effort could not be slowed down to await the allocation of funds and state budgeting. The second reason was that he wanted to save the Ministry’s funds for the official purchase of arms for Syrian troops. Arnaout recalls that during the early weeks of the Army of Deliverance operations in Palestine, sealed envelopes would be sent to Syrian and Palestinian commanders in al-Qawuqji’s team as weekly stipends from Ahmad Sharabati.56 Sharabati’s reasons for supporting the Army of Deliverance were different from those of President al-Quwatli. The defence minister wanted al-Qawuqji to win, whereas the president wanted them to serve as a buffer force in order to delay the official involvement of Syrian troops. By sending the volunteer army into battle, President alQuwatli hoped to spare Syria from marching its own troops to defeat, which could leave the country exposed to attacks from King Abdullah and possibly Jewish forces as well. If the volunteer army was defeated, the loss and embarrassment would be borne by the Arab League in general and the Palestinians in particular, not by Syria alone. None of

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the Arab kings and presidents were willing to declare war on the British, who still were officially in control of Palestine until mid-May 1948. If any clashes took place between the Arab irregulars and the British, they could easily be dismissed as sporadic and unofficial. Al-Quwatli could easily distance himself from them, blaming them on Fawzi al-Qawuqji. Thus, Syria would not officially be opening hostilities against the British troops, who still bore responsibility for security in Palestine. If the Army of Deliverance won, Syria would be able to tell the Syrian public that it had done more than the other Arab countries to help the Palestinians. The Army of Deliverance marched into Palestine in December 1947. They were armed with light weapons, light machine mortars and a small stock of shells. Officially, al-Qawuqji commanded eight battalions, along with 9,800 rifles and four million rounds of ammunition.57 Battles started when Yarmouk II troops marched from Ramieh in Lebanon towards Galilee, and Yarmouk I from Jordan toward Nablus. The Hittin Brigade, headed by an Iraqi officer named Madlul Abbas, was dispatched to aid Yarmouk I. In the first month of fighting, 208 Arabs were killed along with 204 Jews.58 The Army of Deliverance operations in Palestine can be divided into two parts, the first starting in November 1947 and ending in March 1948. This is when the Arabs had the initiative and Zionist militias were on the defensive. Battles were brief, mainly small-scale attacks with light weapons. There were no front lines, no armies going back-and-forth and no conquests. None of the major cities or towns fell to either side, as all of the territory was still controlled by the British. Most of the fighting took place in Jewish-controlled parts of the country, especially in zones earmarked for the future state of Israel by UN Resolution 181. Very little combat occurred in Arab towns and villages in Central and Upper Galilee. Reinforcements started reaching the Zionist troops during the first quarter of 1948, turning the tide in their favour ahead of the official Arab declaration of war in May. After May 1948 the Army of Deliverance began to fade out gradually. The second stage of the conflict was from May to October 1948. Ultimately, Fawzi al-Qawuqji’s troops collapsed due to multiple reasons. One was the obvious shortage of arms; the troops had only

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light weapons at hand, with medium-sized mortars, a number of 75 mm and 105 mm guns, a small stock of shells and a total ammunition supply of four million bullets. Some men carried obsolete pistols, either stolen from French barracks in Syria or British ones in Palestine. Many were World War I material – obsolete and unreliable. Delivery of arms to troops in Palestine was time-consuming, costly and prohibited by the British. Often arms shipments were seized at checkpoints and confiscated. Another major reason was friction and mistrust between Hajj Amin al-Husseini and Fawzi al-Qawuqji. There was no coordination between the Palestinian cleric and the Syrian Army commander, resulting in gross blunders on the battlefield. Other reasons included a general lack of proper funding, along with the fact that, although alQawuqji was surrounded by Palestinian commanders, his foot soldiers were mostly non-Palestinians who didn’t know the terrain as well as the men led by Amin al-Husseini. Another factor contributing to al-Qawuqji’s defeat was the publicity surrounding massacres in Arab villages, particularly Deir Yassin in April 1948. Arab newspapers and radio denounced each atrocity to drum up antiZionism on the streets of Arab capitals, but this also resulted in speading panic among the Palestinians. Instead of encouraging Palestinians to stand firm and fight back, many started abandoning their towns and villages to avoid the fate of their countrymen in Deir Yassin. Most of the wealthy families of Jaffa, Haifa and Jerusalem had already fled when the Zionists came to their doorsteps because of the successful psychological war of massacres and atrocities against Arabs in Palestine. The last reason, of course, was the major airlift that was sent to aid the Zionist militias between March and May 1948. The first, consisting of 200 rifles, forty MG-34 machine guns and 160,000 bullets, arrived on an American Skymaster cargo plane in late March.59 A second shipment, covered with onions and potatoes, was made up of 4,500 rifles, 200 machine guns and five million bullets. The third shipment included 10,000 rifles and sixteen million rounds of ammunition. Defeat became certain for the Arab guerrillas at this stage. When the Army of Deliverance project fell apart, rumours flew through Syria that its furious and erratic commander was planning to

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march on Damascus and stage a coup, toppling both al-Quwatli and the entire Syrian government.60 The rumour was baseless but it aroused more than a stir in government circles. The city was gripped with anxiety and fear and even the wildest rumour could create major unrest among the people. With al-Qawuqji nearly defeated, Syria had no choice but to send its official army into war in mid-May 1948. Privately, Sharabati did not hide his fears. In his diary entry for 14 May 1948, he wrote: ‘I am worried. I am deeply concerned about the Syrian Army. Every one of these troops are very dear to my heart. They are as dear to me as my son Issam and daughter Aida. Only God knows that I am kept awake at night, thinking of them, their future, and that of Damascus. Shukri Bey is telling me to sleep tight and not to worry, insisting that everything will be fine. I pray day and night that God preserves the Syrian Army in this upcoming war!’61

CHAPTER 12

The Nakba The Sharabati Papers II

On the eve of war, the Golan MP Emir Adel Arslan wrote: ‘Poor Palestine. No matter what I say about defending it, my heart remains a seething volcano because I cannot convince anyone of importance in my country or in the rest of the Arab world that it needs more than just words. Because we have a small and ill-equipped army, we cannot stand up to the Zionist forces if they should suddenly decide to launch a strike at Damascus.’ Despite his profound fears, Ahmad Sharabati needed little convincing to send his army to Palestine. His entire legacy and political future were at stake if Syria did not try to save Palestine. In fact, so were the borders and sustainability of the Syrian Republic. He had watched the UN Partition Plan unfold before his eyes and, after the Army of Deliverance fiasco in Palestine, he realised that official war was now inevitable. A loss, however, would prove disastrous for the young nation. Sharabati’s friend, General Ismail Safwat, head of the Arab League Military Committee, noted in November 1947: ‘Victory over the Jews – who are well trained and well equipped – by gangs and irregular forces alone is not feasible. So regular forces must be thrown into battle; trained and equipped with the best weaponry. As the Arabs don’t have the sufficient means for a protracted war, everything

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must be done so that the war in Palestine will be terminated in the shortest time possible.’1 Sharabati’s generals promised that Palestine would be liberated by Christmas 1948.2 They were wrong, of course, as the world was soon to discover. Arab League Secretary General Abdul Rahman Azzam Pasha famously remarked: ‘It doesn’t matter how many Jews there are; we will sweep them into the sea!’3 Neither Sharabati nor President al-Quwatli nor Prime Minister Mardam Bey had any military experience; all of them were unversed in the technicalities of waging war. A quick decision had to be made, however, and it had to be firm and binding. Once taken, there would be no turning back for Syria. Between November 1947 and April 1948, Damascus came to a crippling halt. Noisy and often violent demonstrations became commonplace, disrupting the capital’s usually vibrant commercial and social life. Syrians of all walks of life were pressing al-Quwatli and Sharabati to let them fight for Palestine. In one of his speeches before a large crowd in Damascus, the president said: ‘Overcoming the Crusaders took a long time, but the result was victory. There is no doubt that history is repeating itself!’4 By late April, al-Quwatli ordered Sharabati to prepare the Syrian Army for an official invasion of Palestine. Food was to be stockpiled, electricity rationed and government buildings protected from potential Zionist reprisals. Martial law was imposed throughout the country and all high school and university exams were postponed. The historic decision was taken after a ten-hour debate in Cairo, attended by Arab kings, presidents and army commanders. The Arab leaders were hoping to avoid war, as it promised few benefits and many dangers for their young republics and kingdoms. Most of them understood, deep down, that they could never score a full victory due to the military superiority of the Zionists and their backing by London and Washington, DC. Nevertheless, the Arab leaders were won over by the Syrian president. Al-Quwatli harangued them about historic duties and moral obligations. He argued that if the Zionists took Palestine, they would soon march on Syria, Lebanon and Egypt as well.5 The Syrian leader was motivated by religion, history and Arab nationalism. He saw the defence of Palestine as a holy mission and himself as a modern Saladin. The American delegation in

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Damascus commented: ‘[the] Government (of al-Quwatli) appears to have led public opinion to the brink of war and now is unable to retreat. Demand for war is led by students, press, and Muslim religious leaders.’6 Education Minister Muhsen al-Barazi commented: ‘The public’s desire for war is irresistible.’7 The prestigious al-Azhar Mosque of Cairo announced that ‘the liberation of Palestine is a religious duty for all Muslims without exception.’8 Stories of the massacre, displacement and anguish of the Palestinians could no longer be ignored. In early April, Sharabati wrote of twenty to fifty deaths in Zionist ranks, but up to 200 among the Arabs.9 On 9 April, Syrians awoke to hear of the gruesome massacre in Deir Yassin, a small village west of Jerusalem. Zionist militias had entered the town and killed 245 Palestinian men, women and children, in what became one of the most infamous crimes of the twentieth century.10 In total the village’s population stood at no more than 600. Over the next few days, graphic images of the Deir Yassin massacre began appearing in the Syrian press. Some Palestinians had been driven through the Old City of Jerusalem in a victory march and then taken back to Deir Yassin, where they were lined up against a wall and shot.11 The massacre struck terror in the hearts of the Palestinians and greatly contributed to the collapse of morale throughout the Arab world. Mainstream Arab media trumpeted the massacres with the aim of drumming up anti-Zionist emotions, but the campaign backfired and created panic among the Palestinians, prompting many to leave their homes before the Zionists arrived, fearing another Deir Yassin. On 13 April, the Zionists seized the strategic city of Safad in the Galilee – a summer retreat popular among Syrians for its scenic views and mild climate. Safad’s women were raped and parents were shot in front of their children.12 The port cities of Haifa and Jaffa came next. Palestinian resistance leader Abdul Qader al-Husseini visited al-Quwatli and Sharabati in Damascus in early April, begging for more arms and assistance. If the Jews seized all of Jerusalem, he warned, ‘Palestinian resistance would collapse’.13 There was very little that Syria could offer apart from formal military commitment, alQuwatli responded, saying that the ball was now in the court of the Arab League. Al-Husseini stormed out in fury. Three days later, he was

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killed defending a small hilltop town near Jerusalem.14 In response, a massive demonstration broke out in Damascus on 24 April 1948. It was led by university students and the vociferous pro-war Syrian opposition. The anti-government camp whipped the Syrian street into hysteria. The influx of 31,000 Palestinian refugees in the first five months of 1948 only added to the public outcry. Frenzied crowds carried photos of Abdul Qader al-Husseini and other Palestinian commandos, chanting insults against King Farouk, Jamil Mardam Bey and Ahmad Sharabati.15 The angry students smashed and destroyed the American and Soviet embassies in Damascus, the headquarters of the Communist Party and the showroom for General Motors, which was owned by Sharabati, their official agent in the Syrian capital. Three cars were torched at the US Embassy prompting the Syrian president to address the people saying: ‘Zionism is our enemy and it has no interests or property in our country for us to attack and take revenge.’ Shukri al-Quwatli’s one condition for war was that the Syrian Army never march into Palestine without backup from the Egyptians.14 This view was strongly seconded by the minister of defence. The Egyptian Army was well trained and had been well equipped by the British. Though it had not yet engaged in an official war, it was nevertheless the largest standing army in the Arab world, and Sharabati knew that he could trust the Egyptians in battle. Unfortunately, the same could not be said of either the Iraqi or Jordanian armies, due to the ambitions of the Hashemite family in ruling both Syria and Palestine. The king of Egypt was a true nationalist, and both al-Quwatli and Sharabati respected him immensely. This Syrian – Egyptian alliance established a long tradition of coordinated war efforts between Damascus and Cairo, which were repeated in 1956, 1967 and famously during the October War of 1973. However, Egyptian Prime Minister Mahmud Fihmi alNockrashi Pasha, although initially enthusiastic about war and describing it as a ‘picnic’, was now reluctant to commit his troops in battle, arguing that the British Army based in the Suez Canal could disrupt the supply lines of the Egyptian Army should it enter the war in Palestine.16 The Egyptians were already in conflict with Great Britain for refusing to give them sovereignty over Sudan. As late as

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26 April, the Egyptian government was allowing citizens to volunteer for service in the Army of Deliverance, but refusing to officially pledge to send its army to Palestine. King Farouk, however, was won over three days before the invasion of Palestine started. The young monarch had sincere affection for the Syrian president and looked up to him as a father figure, respecting his long career combating both the Ottomans and the French. Despite the generation gap, the two men were fast friends and sound allies. President al-Quwatli telephoned King Farouk arguing: ‘You and I are in one boat, Your Majesty. We cannot let this pass. If we do, Abdullah will take Palestine! He will divide it in two between himself and the Zionists. Over five thousand years of history are looking over our shoulders. We cannot stand by and watch.’17 Arab League Secretary General Azzam Pasha also contacted the king, advising: ‘Arab leaders will probably be assassinated if they do nothing.’18 The Egyptian military report filed to King Farouk predicted that war would be ‘a parade without risk. The Egyptian Army is capable on its own of occupying Tel Aviv, in fifteen days, without assistance.’19 It was as deceitful as the report written up for Sharabati by his own officers. Nockrashi Pasha added: ‘There is no need for undue alarm. There will be very little fighting, for the United Nations will intervene.’20 Responsible Egyptian officers, however, were not as enthusiastic. Defence Minister Mohammad Haidar, for example, told a journalist: ‘We shall never even contemplate entering an official war. We are not mad!’21 Much like al-Quwatli, however, King Farouk was driven by a combination of hatred for Zionism and fear of King Abdullah. He wanted to believe that the war would be a swift victory. The problems faced by al-Quwatli and Sharabati and their allies were colossal. Newly freed from colonial rule, none of the Arab armies had ever fought a proper war and none of their officers had commanded a battlefield, with the exception of King Abdullah’s men, who were veterans of the Arab Revolt of 1916. King Farouk had received advanced military training in London, but al-Quwatli had never carried a gun in his life. Beshara al-Khoury and Riad al-Sulh of Lebanon were equally unversed in military affairs. Syrian troops had been trained as soldiers under the mandate, but had no experience engaging in a war with irregular forces like the Jewish

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Haganah. In his memoirs Gamal Abdul Nasser, then a thirty-year-old officer in the Egyptian Army, recalled: ‘There was no concentration of (Arab) forces, no accumulation of ammunition, and no equipment. There was no reconnaissance, no intelligence, no plans. It was a political war. There was to be advance without victory and retreat without defeat.’22 Talk of war sent a deep rift through the Arab world. King Abdullah’s son and crown prince Talal, for example, openly expected defeat.23 Ibn Saud was also skeptical, and even tried to convince the British to extend their mandate in Palestine for at least a year in order to avoid war.24 The Maronites of Lebanon wanted nothing to do with the Palestine War, claiming that Arabs did not concern them. They applied heavy pressure on Beshara al-Khoury to back out of his agreement with al-Quwatli and Farouk. One Syrian MP, ex-premier Husni al-Barazi of Hama, went so far as to call for accepting the Partition Plan in order to avoid sending the Syrian Army into ‘Palestinian Hell’.25 As he spoke, fellow parliamentarians cursed him and shouted: ‘Traitor!’ Al-Quwatli, however, had made up his mind. In a radio address, the Syrian leader explained his decision saying: ‘Our army will enter Palestine with the rest of the Arab armies to protect our brothers and their rights, and to restore order. We shall restore the country to its rightful owners. We shall win, and we shall eradicate Zionism!’26 HIGHLY CLASSIFIED AND CONFIDENTIAL At Sharabati’s orders, the Syrian Military Command prepared a detailed 47-page report on the enemy. Typed copies were sent to the Presidential Palace, the Grand Serail and the Ministry of Defence, signed off as ‘CONFIDENTIAL AND HIGHLY CLASSIFIED’.27 In his second address before parliament on 29 August 1948 Sharabati made reference to them as files 1996/S (dated 3 September 1947) and 1955/S (dated 12 September 1947). They are registered as classified and confidential because they point to treason among the officer class, with battlefield details that he didn’t want exposed to the enemy. ‘The Jews have a highly motivated irregular army. They are fighting for what they claim is their entire future.’28 If they lose, they will be

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finished, said the report’s introduction. ‘They are well dug into trenches, superior with organization, and are more familiar with the terrain than Arab troops. They have short effective lines of communication and in some cases, more sophisticated weapons. The Palestinian Arabs, however, enjoy a clear population advantage of twoto-one. They are physically more widely dispersed in Palestine and enjoy a heartland of support in Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon. The people of these countries provide them with arms, money, and shelter. The Zionist heartland, however, was in faraway European cities, thousands of miles away. The Zionists have shipped able-bodied young men from Europe, all prepared for battle. They are certainly more ready to fight than the Arabs.’29 Clearly the Zionists were far more motivated than the Arabs. The Arabs’ primary advantage was that they intended to strike first in Palestine. ‘We have aircraft, the Jews don’t. We control the high ground: Galilee, Jabal Nablus (later Samaria), and al-Yahudia (later Judea). The Jews currently hold the lowlands: the coastal plain, Marj Bani Amer, and the Jordan Valley.’ Although the Haganah had an impressive 35,000 troops, only 2,000 were full-time soldiers.30 On the whole, Syrian generals were not very enthusiastic about war. As much as it seemed the right thing to do, they knew that the Syrian Army had only a slim chance of success. General Glubb Pasha, commander of the Jordanian Army and later of the General Arab Command, remarked: ‘The politicians, the demagogues, the press and the mob were in charge, not the soldiers. Warnings were unheard. Doubters were denounced as traitors.’31 Sharabati went over the reports of his officers with high skepticism. In mid-April he had noted that the army had broken down into ‘political parties’ and that, despite his efforts, was still badly in need of strong leadership.32 The officer class, he noted, was conspiring against the Syrian Army with the help of Jordan’s monarch, King Abdullah.33 Sharabati had increased the number of first lieutenants and majors to ninety-six, and the number of captains to 254.34 ‘We increased the number of troops from 8,741 in July 1946 to 9,222 in May 1948. This is an impressive increase of 5.5 per cent’ wrote Sharabati in his memoirs. Some of those officers, however, were planning to stage a coup in Damascus with the help of the king of

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Jordan. Ever since setting up base in Amman back in the early 1920s, Abdullah had his sights on Damascus. This was the historic capital of the Umayyad Dynasty that he wanted to rule – the very same capital from which his brother Faisal had been ejected back in 1920. He saw potential in whatever chaos the Palestine War would inflict on Syria to occupy Damascus and topple its nationalist government. Fitting nicely with Abdullah’s ambitions were those of some Syrian officers. Abdullah’s troops were well trained by the British and, if he came to Damascus, they would be placed on equal footing with the Jordanian officer class. They were also well paid, well fed and pampered by the Jordanian government. Abdullah promised Syrian collaborators a bright future in Hashemite Syria and they pledged to work with him against the current Syrian government. Among those who secretly traveled to Amman without Sharabati’s knowledge to meet the king of Jordan were Colonel Sami al-Hinnawi, an Anglophile from Aleppo, and Alam al-Din al-Qawwas, an ambitious Druze officer who a few months later made history when he personally shot Syria’s future dictator Husni al-Za’im.35 Sharabati had long viewed both men with suspicion, recommending their dismissal. Syria’s chief of intelligence Said Hubbi presented the president and defence minister with a detailed report on the officers reportedly on Abdullah’s payroll. In addition to al-Hinnawi and alQawwas, it included Commander of Military Police Husni al-Za’im, Director of Aleppo Police Ibrahim Qassab Hasan and Amin Abu Assaf, a Druze officer with an appetite for rebellion.36 Once again, Sharabati wrote to the president, asking for their collective dismissal and trial. Before taking action against any of them, however, al-Quwatli wanted to be sure they were indeed guilty of treason. He despatched two of his trusted officers, Taleb al-Daghestani and Tawfiq Shatila, to Jordan. They pretended to have quarrelled with the president of the Republic and asked for Abdullah’s help to stage a coup in Damascus. 37 The king immediately granted them an audience at Raghadan Palace in Amman. Al-Daghestani was a prominent figure, having been al-Quwatli’s military escort since 1943. Bringing him into the Hashemite orbit would be a political and psychological victory for Abdullah and would deal a blow to the Syrian nationalists. The two

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men returned to Damascus and presented al-Quwatli and Sharabati with a detailed report of the meeting, along with a photo they had taken with the king of Jordan in the throne room, whose architecture resembled the Islamic style of the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Abdullah even gave them a gold dagger with his name inscribed into its leather.38 Abdullah told them that he had been visited by other Syrian officers who held similar aspirations for a coup. This was no surprise to Ahmad Sharabati. Abdullah named Abdul Wahab al-Hakim and Abdullah Atfeh, the chief of staff. According to Syrian intelligence reports, al-Hakim had received 250,000 pounds sterling from Abdullah to stage a coup in Damascus.39 Sami Jumaa, a civilian at the Deuxieme Bureau, adds that Sharabati suspected both men of ‘links to foreign powers’ prior to 1948 and insisted on having both of them fired.40 President al-Quwatli, he notes, was ‘neutral’ about his defence minister’s advice. In addition to using both Atfeh and al-Hakim, King Abdullah wished to stir panic in al-Quwatli’s palace. He wanted the president to feel that he was surrounded by men who were loyal not to him, but to the king of Jordan. When Sharabati once asked to have them dismissed, al-Quwatli commanded: ‘Leave them. They are better than the rest.’41 Not only that but al-Quwatli actually appointed al-Hakim and Sami al-Hinnawi as commanders of the Syrian Army in the Palestine War, overriding Sharabati’s recommendations. All of them made public pledges of loyalty to the Syrian president, winning him over and drowning out Sharabati’s advice. Al-Quwatli continued to fear and distrust King Abdullah. When Fawzi al-Qawuqji traveled to Amman in early 1948, Sharabati said to him: ‘Do you know that the palace in Damascus didn’t sleep while you were sleeping in Amman?’42 Sharabati worriedly wrote in his diary: ‘Changes in the army’s top command are a must. If this is not done now, I see grave dangers surrounding the future of the government.’43 MILITARY PREPARATIONS As military reports were being filed to the defence minister, other officers were working tirelessly at Army Headquarters, trying to

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minimise the damage of what seemed to be an inevitable and upcoming debacle in Palestine. General Safwat best described the chaotic atmosphere: ‘A swarm of Syrian and Iraqi officers buzzed around the building, seemingly more familiar with the science of political intrigue than with that of warfare. The distribution of funds, of command, of rank, of operational zones, of aims, and of materials, all were objects of bargaining as intense as any displayed in the city’s souqs.’44 At the end of the day, however, a draft military plan was written up by Wasfi al-Tal, an intelligent young captain in the Jordanian Army. He was destined to become prime minister of his country a few years down the road, only to be assassinated by Palestinian commandos after the events of Black September in 1970. Wasfi al-Tal envisioned an eleven-day military campaign. Its realistic aim was not to occupy the entire country but only to retake cities and towns riddled with approximately 250 Jewish settlements. The Lebanese Army would push down the coast from Ras al-Naqura in southern Lebanon towards Acre on the northern coastal plain of Palestine. Their job would be to cut off access to the Mediterranean, where the Zionists were bound to receive new arms from Europe. The Syrian troops would separate into two columns and march south from Bint Jbeil in southern Lebanon, and westwards from the Yarmouk Valley, through Samakh at the south end of Lake Tiberius. They would sever the eastern Galilee from the rest of the country by converging from north and south on the junction town of Afula, roughly halfway between Jenin and Nazareth. From there they would head towards Haifa. The Iraqi Army would cross the Jordan River at the ancient city of Beisan and head northwest towards Afula, where it would meet the Syrian Army. King Abdullah’s army would cross the Jordan River from Afula towards Jenin, heading towards Haifa, al-Lodd, and Ramla at the intersection of the road connecting the port city of Jaffa with Jerusalem. Finally, the large Egyptian Army would go up the coast road from Rafah towards Jaffa, Tel Aviv. The plan was approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the night of 29 – 30 April, and endorsed by the Arab League Political Committee on 11 – 12 May. This was just three days before the Arab armies were due to march on Palestine. Sharabati seconded the plan, envisioning a coordinated attack on

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the Zionists from Lebanon, Jordan and Syria, with internal support from the Palestinians themselves. The total number of Arab troops was estimated at approximately 20,000. The Egyptian Army represented the largest single share, with 5,500 men. They were aided by approximately 1,000 volunteers from the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, including a young Palestinian rebel from Gaza City named Yasser Arafat. The strongest of all was the Jordanian Army, with 4,500 highly trained professional soldiers. It was commanded by British officers, namely John Bagot Glubb, his deputy Norman Lash and brigade commanders Teal Ashton and Desmond Goldie.45 Then came the Syrian and Iraqi armies, with 2,700 – 3,000 troops each. The weakest link was the Lebanese Army with only 2,000 troops, composed primarily of Muslim Sunnis, Greek Orthodox Christians and Druze. They were supported by irregular Palestinian commandos and what remained of the Arab Liberation Army. Volunteer troops also joined from Yemen, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Morocco. Ibn Saud had raised five million riyals for the Arab war effort.46 The Arab armies collectively had seventy-five combat aircrafts, forty tanks, 300 armored vehicles, 140 field guns and 220 anti-aircraft and anti-tank guns.47 The numbers could have been higher if not for the US arms embargo that started in December 1947, and the British embargo imposed in February 1948. Meanwhile, the Zionist forces were estimated at 65,000 in July 1948.48 Over 20,000 of them were members of the dreaded Haganah.49 In October they reached 88,000 and the number increased to 108,000 by early 1949. Additionally, Jewish activists had raised US$129 million dollars in cash and pledges for the newly founded state of Israel. No less than US$78 million was used to purchase arms for the Zionists between October 1947 and March 1949.50 SYRIAN WEAPONS In his diary, Sharabati goes into great length about the procurement of arms for the Syrian Army. ‘We didn’t spare a method to obtain weapons’ he wrote, ‘ranging from manufacturing light arms, to smuggling them from faraway lands, and finally, to officially buying them from the East Europeans.’51 Sharabati added, ‘We didn’t

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exclude a single country when seeking weapons; we sent emissaries to all four corners of the globe.’52 Two of them were actually senior politicians: Zaki al-Khatib, a former Shahbandarist, and Emir Adel Arslan, a confidant of the Syrian president.53 Despite his total distrust of the Americans, Sharabati even contacted the USA, asking for military aircraft when it became clear that nobody in Europe would provide for the Syrian Air Force.54 A few weeks earlier, Sharabati had opposed a proposal in Parliament to buy paper from a US factory for the Syrian public sector, claiming that many of its shareholders were American Jews.55 He had similar fears when it came to American weapon-makers but was willing to take the risk for the sake of properly arming his troops – at any cost. The first shipment of arms had been obtained for the Ministry by former Prime Minister Saadallah al-Jabiri.56 ‘Back then the only way to obtain arms was through the international black market’ he wrote. After the war, the term ‘silah fased’ (corrupted arms) was coined by prominent Egyptian journalist Ihsan Abdul Qadoos to describe what happened with the Egyptian Army. Gamal Abdul Nasser used the Egyptian defeat to destroy King Farouk’s reputation, claiming that he had purchased outdated arms for the Egyptian Army. When coming to power in 1952, the Egyptian Free Officers generalised the term to all Arab armies in the Palestine War, making it stick in the collective psyche of the Syrian people as well. On 30 April 1948, Sharabati signed off on an agreement with Turkish arms dealers. It was facilitated through Emile Nader, the brother of Ford Motors’ agent in Aleppo, and Nicola Najjar, a Lebanese-Turk working between Mersin and Istanbul who Sharabati described as ‘a smart devil.’ Their interlocutors were a Turkish MP and a doctor-turned-businessman named Salahuddin Yorto. Sharabati paid approximately two million Turkish pounds (sixteen million SP) for twelve anti-airplane tanks with 13,000 missiles, thirteen tanks with 70,000 missiles, 1,600 Belgian guns with 200,000 bullets and 16,000 French rifles with 500,000 bullets. These were second-hand weapons, mostly leftovers from World War II.57 When telling his fellow parliamentarians of the deal, Sharabati requested that the session be closed and classified as TOP SECRET. The socialist MP Akram al-Hawrani objected, asking for an open

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session before newspaper reporters, claiming that this would reflect government transparency.58 Nothing could have better served the Zionists than finding out exactly what the Syrian Army was buying for itself – and to get this information from the Syrians themselves. Sharabati was also able to obtain arms from other dealers in the Arab world. He bought 200 light machine guns, 100 heavy ones, 250,000 machine gun bullets and 400 guns with 40,000 bullets, all for $54,000.59 After this deal and the Turkish one were approved, Sharabati was approached by his friend, Jean Sehnaoui, carrying an arms offer from the Spanish government of General Francisco Franco. This was just nine days before the war started. The Spanish offered 100,000 Soviet Mosin rifles, 25,000 bayonets and 1.5 million bullets, in addition to 2,000 mitrailleuse machine guns with multiple barrels of rifle calibre that can fire either multiple rounds at once, or several in rapid succession.60 They were the reason why Syrians stood firm in the first hours of battle. With time these weapons were used by ambitious officers to fight their own government in Damascus rather than to fight the Israelis. The other option that Sharabati started working on was establishing a missile-making factory on the outskirts of Damascus, using his vast experience as an industrialist. The cost of establishing such a missile and bomb factory was $320,000 and it would take eight months to complete – which was too long, given that war was just around the corner. Buying a second-hand factory in neighbouring Iraq, however, would be cheaper and quicker: US$200,000 for a small factory and US$280,000 for a large one.61 Sharabati went for the second option, inviting Iraqi and Egyptian officers to help in the set-up phase. He even brought Azzam Pasha to visit the premises along with a senior delegation from the Arab League.62 The budget for both projects was nine times what the government treasury allowed but Sharabati didn’t care, investing part of his personal wealth in the project. The remainder of the deficit was covered by a refund from an American firm that was supposed to send a shipment of mortars to Damascus but backed out because of international sanctions on the Arab states. Sharabati wrote to the Americans and secured a refund of US$405,000.63 The Syrian factory Sharabati set

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up had a production capacity of 25,000 items every eight hours. Its products were to be distributed to both the Syrian and Lebanese armies ahead of May 1948. This was Syria’s first experience with industrial warfare. ABDULLAH’S SEPARATE TRACK On 14 May, Lebanese President Beshara al-Khoury got cold feet, asking to back out of his earlier commitment to the Arab League. The Lebanese Army was too weak to stand up to the Jewish forces, he argued. ‘I don’t want to be humiliated’ he said to Sharabati, who accompanied him by aeroplane from Damascus to Daraa for a summit of Arab leaders hosted by President al-Quwatli.64 Lebanon was dealing with an explosive situation: a spy network had been discovered in the mountain village of Dhour Shweir and a Zionist agent was apprehended planting a bomb behind the Normandy Hotel in Beirut. Additionally, nineteen Jewish students at the American University of Beirut had been asked to leave for their own safety, fearing civil disobedience in the Lebanese capital.65 As if President al-Khoury’s fears were not enough to rattle the Arab command, King Abdullah’s last-minute changes almost destroyed the Arabs before the war even started. Twenty-four hours before the battles started, the Jordanian monarch announced a major adjustment in his military plans. His army would no longer head northwards towards Afula or west toward the sea. Instead, it would focus on Ramallah, Nablus and Hebron, in order to take over what later became known as the West Bank and, if possible, East Jerusalem.66 Abdullah was making it clear that he had no intention of working with the Syrian and Egyptian armies. Abdullah’s decision, however, was not a last-minute impulse, as was the case with the Lebanese president, but was deeply rooted in his desire to rule a territory far larger and more important than the Emirate of Transjordan. Abdullah had never been satisfied with the small town of Amman, which the British gave him in March 1921 as the capital of his new kingdom. It was no match for Damascus or Jerusalem, with only two thousand inhabitants and neither culturally sophisticated nor

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economically powerful. Abdullah’s attempts to expand his kingdom and claim the Syrian throne had been thwarted either by Syrian nationalists or by the Great Powers. He believed that his loyalty to Europe during World War II should have been rewarded. With the partition of Palestine, he saw an opportunity for himself to rule an Arab Palestine. His first option, which was far-fetched, was to occupy all of Palestine and give the Jews an autonomous pocket, which he intended to call a ‘republic.’ In August 1946 Abdullah had undertaken secret talks with the Damascus-born Jewish leader Eliahu Sasson for this very purpose.67 Less than two weeks before the UN Partition Plan was drawn up in 1947, Abdullah invited Golda Meir, at that time the acting head of the Jewish Agency’s Political Department, to his palace in Amman.68 Abdullah tried to talk her into delaying the creation of Israel for him to achieve his territorial ambitions in the region; ‘Don’t be in a hurry.’ She looked back at the king and smiled: ‘We have been waiting for two thousand years! Is that hurrying?’69 Abdullah then proposed his two-state solution, but was cut short by the future prime minister of Israel, who said that the Jews would accept Jordanian control of the West Bank as a fait accompli if he pledged not to fight Jewish forces in Palestine. It was in essence a pact of mutual non-aggression. Abdullah agreed; he would take the West Bank and the Jews would take the rest of Palestine. Jerusalem’s future was neither discussed nor resolved at the meeting.70 Al-Quwatli, of course, only learned of the meeting many years later and Sharabati makes no mention of it in his memoirs. In October 1947, the powerful British ambassador to Amman, Sir Alec Kirkbride, told a visiting journalist that the king wanted to rule Nablus and Hebron, and was keen on taking over a large part of the Negev Desert to secure his kingdom’s travel route to Mecca.71 On 7 February 1948, Jordanian Prime Minister Tawfiq Abu al-Huda Pasha met with British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin in London.72 The Jordanian Foreign Minister Fawzi al-Mulki, an Arab nationalist who was friends with the Syrians, was neither present nor briefed. Abu alHuda told his British counterpart that the Jordanian Army would only enter Arab areas of Palestine, having pledged not to venture into territory allocated to the Jews in the UN Partition Plan.73 The British did not comment on his plan to occupy the West Bank, which Abu

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al-Huda took as a sign of consent. Following the meeting, he cabled the king: ‘I am very pleased at the results.’74 Pressure was mounting on King Abdullah, however, whose capital was already swamped with Palestinian refugees. He needed to do something to save his own throne, but invading Palestine while the British were still there was not an option. Like al-Quwatli, he had to wait, but for very different reasons. On 10 – 11 May 1948, Golda Meir arrived in Amman once again, this time disguised as an Arab woman.75 Abdullah begged her to reconsider his earlier proposal, but again, she turned him down. The two sides reaffirmed their pledge not to attack one another. Abdullah said that he preferred a neighbouring state ruled by the Jews than an Arab state ruled by his archenemy, the Mufti of Jerusalem Amin al-Husseini. Golda Meir found him a ‘tired and depressed man’,76 and said: ‘He was going about this business not out of joy or confidence but as a person who is in a trap and can’t get out.’77 Abdullah had told Glubb Pasha: ‘The Jews are strong. It is wrong to make war.’78 Azzam Pasha, smelling a rat, confronted Abdullah, saying: ‘Either you attack the Jews like Saladin attacked the Crusaders, or the curse of the world will fall upon you.’79 President al-Quwatli also suspected that Abdullah was not to be trusted, although he knew nothing of his secret talks with Golda Meir. At the last minute, al-Quwatli instructed his top lieutenants to alter Syria’s war strategy. They would no longer attack from Bint Jbeil, but from the southern tip of the Sea of Galilee. On 14 May, the Syrian Army spent the night frantically driving from southern Lebanon to the southwestern edge of Syria, across from alHamma.80 Al-Quwatli and Farouk were determined to stop Abdullah from making off with the West Bank and to keep the Jews from claiming the rest of Palestine. THE FIGHTING BEGINS The Arab command decided that they would march into Palestine the minute the British mandate expired. A few hours before midnight on 14– 15 May, Shukri al-Quwatli toured the Syrian warfront with Prime Minister Jamil Mardam Bey, Defence Minister Sharabati and Army Commander Atfeh. They chatted with troops, drank tea with officers

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and performed dusk prayers at the front, attempting to boost morale. In all of their conversations, the Syrian leaders made reference to the glorious battles waged by the Prophet Mohammad against the infidel residents of Mecca. They drew parallels to Omar Ibn al-Khattab, the second caliph of Islam, whose name was dear to the hearts of Sunni Muslims. Minister Sharabati was obviously exhausted, however, having barely slept in over seventy-two hours. He walked slowly through the front lines and whispered orders to his military escorts, who scribbled them on pieces of paper. The past two days had been very long, as Sharabati altered his army’s invasion plan from Bint Jbeil to the southern tip of Galilee. It was a costly and time-consuming process made necessary because of King Abdullah’s last-minute change of military strategy. They had spent the night of 14 May transporting men, weapons and heavy arms from the Lebanon – Palestine border to the southwestern edge of Syria. Meanwhile the Lebanese Army moved from Ras al-Naqura to the central and eastern shores of South Lebanon, while the Egyptians shifted to a twopronged attack, one upwards towards Ashdod and one eastward via Bir al-Sabe. Their aim was to occupy the West Bank – perhaps up to Jerusalem – before King Abdullah’s forces showed up. Everybody’s plan had changed overnight from destroying the Jewish state, as their rhetoric promised, to making quick military grabs from both the Palestinians and the Jews and thwarting each other’s territorial ambitions. At midnight, with Sharabati by his side, President al-Quwatli addressed his troops with a commanding voice, saying: ‘Palestine is in your hands, my children. Go now and destroy the Zionists! God bless you.’81 At the very same moment, King Abdullah was inspecting his troops at the eastern end of the Allenby Bridge that connected the West Bank with Jordan. Dressed in full military uniform adorned in the red and white-checkered kufiyya, he acted out a more dramatic scene. At midnight he took out his revolver and symbolically fired one shot into the air. Abdullah was by now sixty-six, and had not been to battle in nearly thirty years. ‘Forward’ he shouted, ‘I remind you of jihad and the martyrdom of your fathers and grandfathers.’82 The First Brigade of the Jordanian Army, which included the First and Second regiments, headed northwest for Nablus. The Third Brigade embarked from

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Jericho and by nightfall had camped outside Ramallah. They had strict orders not to cross the UN partition lines but to take the entire West Bank. On the Egyptian front, troops were bid farewell not by their king, but by Mohammad Maamoun al-Shinawi, rector of al-Azhar University. ‘The hour of jihad has come. A hundred of you will defeat a thousand of the infidels. This is the hour in which Allah promised paradise.’83 King Abdullah tried to visit the Egyptian front, but was prevented by King Farouk.84 At 4:00 pm on 15 May, David Ben Gurion announced the creation of the State of Israel. It was immediately recognised by both the USA and the Soviet Union. Minutes later, the Egyptian Army marched into Palestine through the Negev Desert. Five days later, they were in Hebron. The Iraqis crossed the River Jordan at its conjecture with the Yarmouk, reaching Nablus on 21 May. Two days later they had reached Tulkarem in the West Bank. Jerusalem was being defended by Palestinian irregulars, aided by young men from the Muslim Brotherhood. They were led by its Syrian chief, Sheikh Mustapha alSibaii, who bravely repelled attacks on the Old City throughout the month of May. On the very same day that the battle started, Sharabati attended an urgent parliamentary session, setting a budget for the Palestine War and passing the ‘Martyr’s Law’ for pensions of those killed in combat. THE BATTLE OF SAMAKH On paper, the Syrian Army stood strong at 10,000 men. Fewer than 3,000 were sent into Palestine and 1,500 were instructed to defend Syria’s border with Jordan, expecting a surprise attack from King Abdullah. Abdul Wahab al-Hakim, the decorated Damascene officer who was guilty of secret talks with King Abdullah, was made commander of the First Brigade. Although Sharabati suspected him of treason, President al-Quwatli went ahead with his appointment, ignoring the advice of his defence minister. Abdul Wahab al-Hakim became commander of the best trained brigade in the Syrian Army, with 2,000 troops, two infantry battalions, light Renault 35 and Renault 39 tanks and mounted 37-mm cannons.85 The Second Brigade was not as well equipped, having old rifles and only two

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infantry battalions and armored cars.86 The Syrian Air Force, although woefully unprepared for battle, performed with great courage in Palestine. Major General Wadih al-Moukabari, who later became commander of the Syrian Air Force in 1956, recalls: ‘We are graduated from the Homs Military Academy in haste shortly before the war, at the orders of the Minister of Defence and President Quwatli, in February 1948.’87 The troops had not yet completed their full course of study in military warfare. The Syrian Air Force, he added, was made up of twenty Harvard US trainer jets, intended for performance acrobatics rather than warfare. ‘Although they had a large engine, they were not made for war. We extracted explosives from the runway of the Mezzeh Airport. They had been planted there by the French. We then attached them to the Harvard planes on both wings. Each plane carried four 125 kg bombs. Additional bombs were bought from Libya, all left over from World War II. The Syrians would fly at low elevations over targets during the war, and drop their explosives on the Zionist troops. The backseat of the airplane was transformed into an air-gunner post, and another gun was inserted into the front.’88 He adds: ‘Under the French mandate no Syrians were given any training in aviation; they were only allowed to work as technicians for the French. After 1946, the government had to train pilots from scratch.’ Carrying its official green, white and black tricolour flag, the Syrian Army marched towards Afula, linking with the Iraqi army that was headed for Haifa. This move would effectively cut the newly created Jewish state into two, completely isolating the north. They intended to take Lake Tiberius and the whole of the Sea of Galilee. On 15 May the Syrian Army attacked Kibbutz Ein-Gev on the eastern shore of Galilee. This was a relatively new settlement, established by the Zionists in 1937. Its original settlers were from Czechoslovakia, Germany, Austria and the Baltic countries. By midMay all of them were armed to the teeth with modern European weapons. In 1948, Kibbutz Ein-Gev had a population of just below 500 people.89 Bombs were dropped on the settlement, and it was showered with machine-gun fire. Syrian aircraft bombed nearby villages controlled by Zionist militias. The kibbutz’s concrete buildings collapsed and the deputy commander of the Zionist

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forces was killed by the Syrians. The settlers panicked, and began moving their families out of Tiberius.90 Proudly, Sharabati wrote in his memoirs: ‘Today the Syrian Army broke through carefully crafted British and Zionist defences. This was not somebody’s wild imagination – it was what actually happened. It was the truth. Our troops did a heroic job.’91 Meanwhile, the First Brigade struck the southern end of the lake in the lower Jordan Valley. They came faceto-face with Israeli soldiers in brown berets, members of the newly created Golani Brigade. Also on the first day of war, the Syrians crossed at al-Hamma, twelve kilometres southeast of Tiberius, shelling Israeli settlements throughout the day.92 Sharabati drove to the front line that evening, spending the night with his troops, accompanied by one soldier for security.93 Located on a narrow strip of land in the Yarmouk valley, al-Hamma was one of the stations on the Marj Bani Amer (later Jezreel Valley), linking the Hejaz Railway to Haifa. A Syrian battalion occupied the Israeli kibbutz of Tal al-Qasir (Tel Katzir) near the Palestinian village of Samakh at the southern end of Lake Tiberius.94 Tal al-Qasir was internationally recognised as part of the Jewish state in the UN Partition Plan and Samakh itself had been overrun by the Israelis in March 1948. Both were highly strategic and symbolic for the Syrians, located on flat land in the Jordan Valley, by a highway that led to the city of Tiberius. Samakh was the largest village in the Tiberius district and had been a major transportation route for Palestinian commerce before 1948. The village and its railway were the site of a famous battle between British troops and Ottoman forces in World War I, which ended in an Allied victory. Syrian troops were bent on retaking it – and they did, pushing westward towards the eastern edge of Samakh, overtaking the village and declaring it ‘fully-liberated’ from the Zionists in the early morning hours of 18 May. It was the first Arab victory in Palestine, achieved in the first seventy-two hours of battle. One hundred and seventytwo Zionists were killed and the wounded were treated by Syrian medics, according to an official communique´ from the Syrian Army.95 On the very same day, David Ben Gurion had petitioned the United Nations, seeking Israel’s official admission as an independent state. The United States and Soviet Union, taken aback by

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Syria’s surprise victory, insisted on an immediate ceasefire within thirty-six hours to allow the Israelis to regroup and retake Samakh from the Syrians. The Syrian and Palestinian flags were raised over the municipality of Samakh, as jubilant soldiers fired triumphantly into the air. Commanding officers set up their headquarters at the Samakh Police Station and its nearby orchards. Fire from their 76-mm cannons and 81-mm mortars had been accurate and devastating for the Zionists.96 Three Israeli fighters were captured and fifty-four of them were killed.97 Sharabati honourably allowed Jewish civilians to locate and bury their dead; their photos were taken while doing so and published the next morning in Syrian newspapers.98 The fall of Samakh rattled the confidence of the Jewish forces, resonating strongly in nearby villages. Ben Gurion wrote in his diary: ‘There is panic (over the Syrian victory).’99 Addressing the Israeli cabinet, Ben Gurion added: ‘The situation is very grave. There aren’t enough rifles. There are no heavy weapons!’100 The first hours of war were seen as a stunning success for the Syrians and a major defeat for the Israelis. Sharabati returned to Damascus to coordinate future strategy with President al-Quwatli. Victory, he thought, was perhaps not so unattainable. During the battle of Samakh, Ahmad Sharabati was instrumental in keeping 15,000 Zionist forces pinned down in northern Palestine, thus facilitating the advance of the Egyptian Army in the south, and the Jordanian Army in central Palestine. Shocked by the speedy Syrian victory, Ben Gurion sent reinforcements from the Jordan Valley settlements to relieve what remained of his troops around Samakh. Two Israeli sappers were sent to mine the area but their vehicle was blown up by the Syrians. Ben Gurion was certain that the Syrian Army would next march on nearby Tiberius on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. To delay the attack, Israeli gunboats harassed the Syrian Army on the southeastern shore of the Sea of Galilee, giving the residents of Tiberius time to dig trenches, build barracks and erect fortifications. A Syrian force attempting to surround the Israelis by crossing the Jordan River to the north of the Sea of Galilee encountered a minefield that wounded two Syrian field commanders.

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Meanwhile, Zionist soldiers fleeing Samakh retreated to Kibbutz Degania Alef south of Lake Tiberius, leaving behind their dead and wounded.101 Degania Aleph was the first Jewish settlement in Palestine, established back in 1909. Seizing it would be of great symbolic value for the Syrian Army. On 20 May the Syrian attack on the kibbutz began, striking from Samakh with 75-mm cannons and 81-mm mortars, aided by infantry, armour and artillery. Rushing to its defence was future Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Dayan, a young but highly capable officer. Dayan had lost an eye while fighting alongside the British Army in the Syrian Desert during World War II, forcing him to wear his hallmark eyepatch for the remainder of his life.102 Dayan himself was born in Degania Alef and so he was greatly worried by the Syrian advance. Syrian troops were now threatening to take Kibbutz Sh’ar Hagolan at the foot of the Golan Heights, and Masada, south of Samakh. In the battles, thirty Zionists were killed. The panicking Israeli settlers evacuated Masada even before the Syrian Army arrived. On 18 – 19 May, the Israelis launched a counterattack, which again was blocked by Syrian troops. An Israeli seaborne platoon landed at Al-Samra to the south and raided the Syrian Army at Tal al-Qasir. Al-Samra was already empty of all Zionist settlers who fled before the Syrian Army. The Israelis acknowledged: ‘In several settlements, the spirit of the resistance has collapsed because of the strength and armour of the (Syrian) enemy.’103 Sharabati instructed Syrian troops to march in full force towards the settlements of Degania Alef and Degania Bet. It should have been an easy task; the Israeli trenches, originally dug for artillery warfare, were too exposed and shallow, leaving troops without cover from Syrian bombs and warplanes. The mud houses in which Zionist troops barricaded themselves were also vulnerable. The first settlement, Degania Alef, was completely destroyed by the Syrian Army, but at a high cost. Four out of five tanks were damaged during the attack on Degania Alef and left behind once orders came in from Army Command in Damascus to begin the offensive on Degania Bet. This was in contradiction to one of the basic tenets of war: never allow damaged but repairable weaponry to fall into enemy hands. It would have been easy for the Syrians to withdraw the tanks from Degania Alef since they were not under enemy fire and there was not

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a Zionist soldier in sight. Instead they left the tanks behind, allowing the Zionists to seize and repair them, then turn around and use them – to Sharabati’s horror – against the Syrian Army during the battle for Degania Bet. Also, the march on Degania Bet started before the Syrian troops had properly fortified their position at Degania Alef and before reinforcements arrived. Although Sharabati had given orders to the First Brigade to reinforce his troops at the two Deganias, the First Brigade was late due to delayed orders from the commander of the Quneitra front, Colonel Husni al-Za’im. When reinforcements did arrive, they rumbled into Degania Bet with eight tanks supported by mortar fire, but it was too late. The Zionists were now well fortified and Degania Bet did not fall. The settlement was heavily reinforced but its defences were disorganised, there were not enough trenches for the troops and there was no communication link to the Israeli Higher Command. Despite these obstacles, the Zionist militias managed to fight off the Syrians and drive them all the way back to Samakh, dropping no less than 500 shells on Syrian Army positions. The Third Battalion from the Yiftach Brigade had arrived by boat during the previous night and carried out an operation against the Syrians at dawn, bombing Syrian water carriers and threatening the First Brigade’s lines of communication. This was in addition to a convoy of five trucks carrying Zionist troops and armed with four 65-mm mountain guns. The Carmeli Brigade – also known as the Second Brigade – arrived to protect Degania Bet. They came with British anti-tank weapons (PIATS), each with fifteen projectiles, and launched a counterattack, destroying three Syrian tanks with grenades and Molotov cocktails.104 The tank crews were captured and killed by the Israelis. The Zionist militias relied heavily on homemade Davidka mortars – a very inaccurate weapon that was extremely loud, which terrified young Syrian soldiers during the battle. A Syrian Army depot in Samakh went up in flames, torching the dry fields nearby and spreading havoc among the Syrian troops. Under heavy Zionist fire, the Syrians pulled back, ending the assault at 7:45 am. This time, they left behind two tanks and one armoured vehicle, which were taken by the Israelis. At noon, they advanced again, stopping at the perimeter fence. Israeli troops, fresh to battle and armed with

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sophisticated weaponry, forced them back as far as Tel al-Qasir, eventually driving them out of Samakh, Masada and Hagolan completely. A French-made 65-mm mountain gun, nicknamed Napoleonchik, was used by the Israelis in the offensive. This cannon lacked precision and fired viciously at the Syrians, inflicting heavy casualties. It was the first time that the Israelis were using field artillery in Palestine. On the following day, the Israelis recaptured Samakh. The Syrian victory had been short. Three hundred Syrians were killed in the three days of battle, at an average of one hundred per day.105 Solemn military funerals took place throughout Syria in almost every town and city. Al-Quwatli ordered that martyrs’ caskets be wrapped with the Syrian flag and carried on the shoulders of their comrades. Writing bitterly about the battle of Samakh three months later, Sharabati said: ‘We would have returned to Samakh if it were not for the orders of the General Command in Amman (which never came). The Syrian Army was not defeated – it only tactically retreated. There was no shortage of men, only arms, and certainly, there was no defeat. The Syrian Army was the only Arab army worthy of respect.’106 What actually went wrong in Samakh? First, reinforcements from the First Brigade were twenty-four hours late in arriving at the battle of the two Deganias, thanks to both Abdullah Atfeh and Husni al-Za’im, whereas the Zionists showed up to relieve their comrades in just twenty minutes. Second, grave errors were committed by field officers, ranging from abandoning their tanks to taking on an entire settlement with insufficient ammunition. Halfway through the battle, Syrian troops ran out of ammunition at Degania Bet. Sharabati ordered more ammunition to be sent from the First Brigade, but they were shipped to the Second Brigade further north by mistake. Additionally, despite Sharabati’s insistence that the Syrian Army launch a counter-attack in Samakh, Chief of Staff Atfeh failed to authorise one. Finally, when Sharabati ordered his men to take on the two Deganias he was expecting support from the First Brigade and the Iraqi Army. One arrived late and the other never showed up, thanks to Glub Pasha, the commander of the Jordanian Army, who handled coordination between the Arab armies.

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It seemed clear that with such commanders and chaotic lines of communication, facing a determined enemy that was fighting for its very existence, and with a Syrian officer class riddled by corruption and rivavly, the Palestine War would be lost. Ahmad Sharabati was furious; if it were not for grievous mistakes on the battlefield, his men could have retaken most of northern Palestine. Defeating the Zionists had been within reach and yet the Syrians failed. Because of what happened in Samakh, Sharabati felt that he could no longer stay in office. Those who had delayed the arrival of Syrian reinforcements were guilty of treason and those who had ordered the tanks to be left behind and entered battle without sufficient ammunition were saboteurs that deserved court martial. Since he had been unable to destroy them, Sharabati was now certain that they would destroy him. He was equally suspicious of some members of government. On the first day of battle, for example, he telephoned Public Works Minister Ahmad al-Rifaii, asking him to send all extra telephones and communication equipment to Army Command because they were needed at the warfront. The public works minister simply refused to comply, saying that he had no extras, prompting Sharabati to threaten: ‘I will hang you in Marjeh Square if you don’t comply within three hours!’107 As Syrians were burying their dead, a military scandal rocked the nation and made it to the front page of Syrian dailies. A shipment of arms was due to arrive at the port of Beirut, purchased from Italy by Colonel Fouad Mardam Bey, a senior general in the Syrian Army. While waiting in the harbour of an Italian port, the ship was sabotaged and sunk by members of the Jewish Agency. Sharabati had Mardam Bey lead a salvage mission to retrieve the lost weapons from the sea and instructed him to ship the 8,000 guns aboard the Egyptian liner Khedive Ismail, saying that its crew were reliable and trustworthy. Within a week, Mardam Bey sent a cable to Damascus: ‘Mission Accomplished.’ Fouad Mardam Bey, who at the time was apparently involved in an affair with a Jewish mistress, chose instead a small and unreliable ship called SS Argiro and unloaded the salvaged arms at the port city of Haifa. The story sent shockwaves throughout Syria and the Arab world and Sharabati had him arrested for treason upon setting foot in Damascus. Fouad Mardam

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Bey was brought to trial and sentenced to death but was never shot thanks to intervention from his cousin, Jamil Mardam Bey. Was this ignorant negligence or deliberate sabotage? Sharabati thought the latter. Unwilling to put up with the political intrigue any longer, Ahmad Sharabati presented his resignation to Prime Minister Mardam Bey on 19 May 1948. President al-Quwatli, visibly upset, refused to accept the resignation. Sharabati’s two friends and colleagues, General Ismail Safwat and Taha al-Hashemi Pasha, visited him at his office at the Grand Serail, begging him to reconsider. His resignation would destroy the troops’ morale, they warned, and be seen as an admission of defeat. Sharabati had made up his mind, however, and turned down the mediation. Deputy Parliament Speaker Mohammad al-Ayesh also tried to talk him into reconsidering, but to no avail. Strangely, the Syrian president did not call himself to ask Sharabati to stay and finally accepted Sharabati’s resignation nine days later, on 28 May 1948. Jamil Mardam Bey took over his duties as acting minister of defence. Chief of Staff Abdullah Atfeh also resigned and traveled to Jordan, raising suspicion in Damascus. He was replaced by Colonel Husni al-Za’im. The two men were covering each other’s back; al-Za’im carried on with Atfeh’s conspiracy at Army Command while Atfeh stayed close to the king of Jordan, fearing for his safety if he stayed in Damascus. He returned to Syria days after the al-Za’im coup. Sharabati described his own resignation as the ‘bombshell of the week.’108 He continued at his office, however, awaiting the president’s approval to officially step down. While all of this was happening in Damascus, Syrian troops were heading for Galilee, just south of Lake Hula at Mishmar Hayarden. The First and Second Brigades took part in fierce battles at the Bridge of the Daughters of Jacob, which linked Palestine to the Golan Heights.109 They wanted to take as much territory as possible before the first UN truce went into effect in early June. Anwar Bannud, the forty-year-old former commander of the Homs Military Academy, now led the First Brigade. The Second was headed by Tawfiq Bashour, a Christian officer who was feuding with Jamil Mardam Bey.110 Bannud and Bashour took Mishmar Hayarden on the night of 5– 6 June.111 Twenty-four settlers were taken prisoner and 120 Israeli

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soldiers were killed.112 The Syrian Army then set up camp, awaiting the first ceasefire, which went into effect on 11 June. The UN had voted to call in a mediator to put an end to the Palestine War. The mediator’s job was to protect holy sites and broker a ceasefire between the warring parties. Conte Folke Bernadotte, grandson of the king of Sweden, was tasked with this difficult job, although prior to landing in Palestine he had no experience whatsoever in Middle Eastern affairs. Though he suffered from dyslexia, he was nevertheless a brilliant negotiator who had served as deputy head of the Swedish Red Cross during World War II and had saved many Jewish lives from the Nazi Holocaust. The first truce had been suggested as early as 22 May, but it was turned down by the Arab leaders, especially President al-Quwatli. ‘Why go for a truce when the Syrian Army is winning?’ he grumbled.113 The defeat at Samakh, however, forced the Syrians to accept the second ceasefire, which lasted for four weeks. Bernadotte’s monitors were too few to properly supervise a real truce, however, or to prevent the arrival of new arms to the Zionists, which were shipped from France and Czechoslovakia. After the second truce of 18 July, the situation quickly began to shift in favour of the Israelis. Operation Dekel, which had the goal of destroying what remained of Fawzi al-Qawuqji’s forces, was launched in mid-summer 1948. On 16 June, the Zionists took Nazareth. Operation Dani, led by future Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, was aimed at taking and depopulating al-Lodd and Ramla of Palestinians.114 Arab residents were expelled from their homes with nothing but the clothing on their backs. Some children died on the streets because of hunger, thirst and heat. Bernadotte returned in early September, requesting that the Israelis allow 250,000 – 300,000 Palestinians to return home, mainly to Haifa and Jaffa.115 He proposed that they abandon the Negev in exchange for the Galilee. Israeli leaders refused – they wanted both. On 17 September, Bernadotte was shot dead by Israeli militias, commanded by another future premier, Yitzhak Shamir. From this point on the Israelis began to aggressively claim what was left of Palestine. On 12 October they occupied Bir al-Sabe, capital of the Negev Desert, forcing approximately 200,000 Palestinians to flee to Gaza. Ben Gurion, realising that Israel had won the war, began

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a systematic campaign to destroy Palestinian villages. Special focus was placed on eliminating Palestinians who had killed Jewish settlers back in 1936.116 Mines were placed in the debris of destroyed homes to prevent their residents from returning.117 By late October, the Israelis had seized all of Galilee, which had been given to the Arabs by the 1947 Partition Plan. They then crossed into Lebanon and occupied a total of fourteen villages.118 Although his officers asked to continue on to Beirut, Ben Gurion ordered them to stop at the Litani River. On 13 December, the Israelis turned against the Egyptian Army in Gaza, Rafah and al-Auja, and crossed into Sinai at el-Arish and Faluga.119 The war ended with Syria holding a narrow strip of land running the length of the Palestinian border, as well as three enclaves in the northern, central and southern regions. Following the 1949 armistice, they all became demilitarised zones. In total, 6,000 Jews were killed in 1948, along with nearly 5,000 Arabs.120 Of that number, Egypt and Syria lost 1,000 troops each.121 Over 400 Palestinian villages were razed to the ground, and three-quarters-of-a-million people were stripped of their belongings and ordered out of their homes at gunpoint. Palestine was erased from the map of the world. The Arabs were not prepared for war and not willing to accept defeat after promises of a glorious victory. UNJUST ACCUSATIONS The Palestine War scarred Ahmad Sharabati both emotionally and politically. A systematic campaign was launched against him on the street and in the press, blaming him for the Syrian defeat. Searching for a ready scapegoat to cover their misdeeds and in fear of publicly disclosing what he knew, Sharabati’s enemies initiated a character assassination campaign against him, abiding by a popular Arabic proverb that says: ‘Let us lunch on him before he dines on us.’ Although many prominent public figures were seemingly aware of the truth, they were reluctant to confront that viscous campaign. His resignation, intended to protest remedial actions by the government, was quickly manipulated to absolve others from blame. Had he not willingly stepped down, Sharabati probably could have weathered the

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storm from within the government, History as usual will inevitably reveal the truth. In late May 1948 two friends came knocking on Ahmad Sharabati’s door at his residence in al-Rawda. One was Hasan al-Yusuf, a son of the Emir of Hajj during Ottoman times, accompanied by Nazhat alMamluk, a former officer in the Ottoman Army who had co-founded the National Bloc in the late 1920s. Sharabati was visibly disturbed by all the lies circulating about him on the streets of Damascus.122 Addressing his friends, Sharabati calmly remarked: ‘They tell me I should not worry and that people’s gossip is temporary and will fade away soon. I never imagined that good deeds would be met with doubt, that hard work will lead to so much harm, and that heroes would be transformed into traitors! Oh Lord, this is too much.’123 In his journal, Sharabati wrote: ‘I have put up with all kinds of rumours, insults, and lies, only for the sake of the nation’s best interests and for the reputation of the Syrian Army. I loved this army and its troops.’124 In his official resignation, he cited health reasons and refused to blame anybody for setbacks on the battlefield. In private, however, Sharabati wrote further: ‘I resigned because of the ignorant commanders around me. They committed grave errors but were kept at their posts by the prime minister, who wanted to settle old scores with me dating back to the parliamentary and presidential elections (of 1947).’125 During his tenure in Parliament, Sharabati had been an unabashed critic of government policies and had always accused Mardam Bey of lacking transparency in his political and economic dealings. In the second week of June 1948 Sharabati left his home for the first time in two weeks, heading for Parliament. A session was scheduled and first on its agenda was the resignation of the minister of defence and the army’s performance in Palestine. By then he was contemplating setting up his own political party and holding onto his post as deputy for Damascus. At the age of forty, he still had plenty of fight in him, but had no desire for cabinet office, and certainly not for the Ministry of Defence under the present government. As he walked into the chamber, his colleagues reminded him of just how low the country’s politicians had sunk. Abdul Rahman Kayyali, president of the National Party in Aleppo, asked to

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address the Chamber. Kayyali was an AUB alumnus like himself who had served as Sharabati’s adviser at the Ministry of Education back in 1944. He was a medical doctor active in Syrian politics since the 1920s. They had run on joint lists for Parliament in 1943 and Sharabati imagined that he would stand up in his defence. Instead, Kayyali broke into an animated monologue about the ‘scandals of the Ministry of Defence.’ Sharabati was shocked in disbelief as Kayyali added, shaking his fist for emphasis, ‘It was only God’s miracle that the army did not collapse fully because of the conspiracies of the Minister.’126 If this was what his friends were saying, then one could only imagine what his enemies – men like Akram al-Hawrani – would do when it was their turn to speak. Kayyali carried on: ‘Ahmad Sharabati was never a member of the National Party. We never recognised him. He worked with us one day, and then joined the opposition. Tomorrow he might even show up as an independent. He has no colour. He is a selfish man who pursues nothing but his personal self interest.’ Interior Minister Sabri al-Asali interjected on Sharabati’s behalf, and so did the Damascus MP Fakhri al-Barudi, saying that the war effort came first, and accountability came later. The Homs MP Hani al-Sibaii asked to speak, saying that Sharabati was not solely responsible for the failure of the Palestinian front, but all of the government officials – every single one of them. Asaad Kourani, a brilliant legal mind from Aleppo, spoke next, saying that Sharabati had displayed ‘exceptional loyalty’ in handling the Syrian Army.127 Akram al-Hawrani interrupted him aggressively, accusing Sharabati of high treason and demanding a public trial. Al-Hawrani then asked Sharabati to take the stand and answer a direct question: ‘Did you step down because of the setbacks of the Army, to shoulder yourself from blame or responsibility?’ Sharabati calmly rose to the front podium, cleared his throat and delivered a long speech. It was his only chance to prove them wrong. Not true, gentlemen. The Syrian Army did not suffer a setback, as Mr Hawrani has said, on 19 May. It actually was not defeated in any of the battles that occurred after that date, which is the date of my resignation. I would like to remind you that the evening of 19 May was a glorious day in the history of the Syrian Armed Forces. This is the day that we took Samakh. The number of deaths was one (Syrian) soldier

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killed only. We also had two wounded men-in-uniform, as opposed to 172 Jews dead. Having said that, I forgive Abdul Rahman Kayyali for what he just said. He seems to have fallen prey to a vicious Zionist media campaign. You ask for reasons for my resignation and I will expose only what can be said at this stage. During the first four days of battle, it became crystal clear to me that major changes had to be done at the top army command. I did manage to make some of those changes, using the authority vested in me by this noble Chamber. I carried out the urgent transfers for the army’s own safety. And clearly given the fact that my successor (Jamil Mardam Bey) did not revoke my military decrees, my decision was correct.128

Audio tapes of all parliamentary sessions from the year 1948 were stored in the basement of the Syrian Parliament. They were never unearthed, and have all been completely destroyed by weather conditions, lack of proper preservation and sheer neglect. A written record of Sharabati’s speech can be found within the minutes of Parliament. Sharabati added: There are several memos that have been sent to His Excellency the President of the Republic, recommending urgent and immediate action in the armed forces. This applies to line of command, military strategy, and certain officers, whose names I do not wish to mention. His Excellency the President knows me very well and knows of these letters. Other reports were sent, almost on a daily basis, to the Office of the Prime Minister. The first was on 28 November 1947 and the last was on 19 May, four days after our army joined the war in Palestine. In fact, in the first two weeks of May, I filed 13 letters of recommendations to the government, and I did not get a single response to any of my suggestions or queries. I stopped writing because what I had to say was frightening many, and they wanted me to stop.129

Akram al-Hawrani interrupted Sharabati, asking for a copy of the letters mentioned. Sharabati calmly replied: ‘They are officially registered at the Office of the President of the Republic and the Office of the Prime Minister. As a member of this Chamber, you are entitled to read them after obtaining permission. The permission is no longer mine to give.’ Commenting in his diary on 25 June 1948, Sharabati noted: ‘The propaganda war launched against me has reached new heights in this city.’ He blamed it on Mardam Bey who managed to talk former friends into abandoning him, like Abdul Rahman Kayyali, Najib al-Rayyes, editor-in-chief of al-Qabas, and the attorney Zafer al-

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Qasmi, a law firm partner of Interior Minister Sabri al-Asali. The Damascus MP Nasib al-Bakri, a one-time heavyweight in the National Bloc, addressed Sharabati in Parliament asking: ‘You said you wanted to buy a much-needed factory for the Syrian Army. You didn’t do that, and instead, built a new factory from scratch. Why is that?’130 Acting Parliament Speaker Mohammad al-Ayesh instructed Sharabati to give no answer, saying that this could be discussed at a later stage. Sharabati explained, however, that all the arms bought by the Syrian Army were obtained through well-respected merchants who could be summoned for questioning. They included Rafiq Rida Said, Fayez al-Malki, Ibrahim Mardam Bey, Adel al-Hanbali and Khaled al-Ayyubi. When the weapons arrived in Syria, they were unloaded and examined by a military committee, which gave them full clearance and did not identify a single item as unfit for combat. The same applied to the purchase of food for the Syrian Army. The procurement was done through the following Damascus merchants: Rifaat Aytouni, Hamid al-Safadi and Adnan al-Bahra. They delivered all goods to a military committee, headed by Rashad Nazmi and Hasan Ghannam. Why hadn’t any of these people been summoned to Parliament, he asked. Later that summer, Sharabati flew to Egypt with his family after seven unbearable months in Damascus. No parliamentary investigation committee was formed in Damascus and had he been guilty, Sharabati would have been denied clearance to travel. Authorities reasoned that despite all of what was being said on the street, he was innocent of all the vicious things that were being said about him. Upon arriving in Cairo, Ahmad Sharabati stopped writing his daily log and focused mostly on events in retrospect: the war effort and its aftermath. The last journal entry was 25 November 1948.

CHAPTER 13

The Dictator of Damascus

Shortly after midnight on 29– 30 March 1949, armed units marched into Damascus under the command of General Husni al-Za’im. They had orders to arrest President Shukri al-Quwatli and his top officials. Most of the coup officers were the very same men Ahmad Sharabati had been suspicious of since his first day at the Ministry of Defence. They were the same men he had reported to the president, accusing them of treason, and received no answer from Shukri al-Quwatli. As soldiers marched through the empty streets of the Old City, morning dew covered the trees and jasmine flowers that filled the balconies of Damascus. It was chilly before the dawn. A few people were already awake, heading to work either on foot or by bicycle. Tanks and machine guns were placed at strategic points throughout the Syrian capital. It was the very first time – but certainly not the last – that the word ‘coup’ or Inkilab was uttered in Syria and the Arab world. All of the borders were closed and communication with the outside world was suspended. Telephone lines to and from Damascus were cut off. One military unit headed through the sleeping city to the president’s residence in Bustan al-Rais, a stone’s throw from the Sharabati family home in al-Salhieh. Another was ordered to arrest Khaled al-Azm, who had replaced Jamil Mardam Bey as prime minister in December. A third unit was dispatched to the headquarters of Damascus Radio on Nasr Street and a fourth to pick up specific officials from the Syrian government – namely those who

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were on bad terms with Colonel al-Za’im. Police Chief Ahmad alLahham was arrested, along with Wajih al-Haffar, publisher of the mass-circulation daily al-Inshaa. His articles during the Palestine War had been particularly critical of Husni al-Za’im, accusing the military establishment of bad conduct and demanding that Husni alZa’im stand trial before the Syrian Chamber to answer ‘long overdue questions’.1 Other casualties were Issam al-Inklizi, the secretary general of the Syrian presidency, and Suheil al-Ashi, the aide-de-camp to President al-Quwatli. Not a single shot was fired and no blood was spilled. Colonel al-Za’im personally oversaw the military takeover, together with his friend and adviser, Akram al-Hawrani. The socialist MP was authoring all the communique´s read on Damascus Radio, accusing the al-Quwatli government of ‘faults, embarrassments, chaos, treason, theft, constitutional violations, and assault on democratic freedoms.’ Al-Hawrani advised al-Za’im that Shukri alQuwatli should be shot, ‘with one bullet through the head.’2 Al-Za’im refused, however, so as not to offend al-Quwatli’s friends in Saudi Arabia. He needed them to support his coup and killing alQuwatli, he reasoned, would put them on the offensive. The soldiers easily disarmed the one guard on duty at al-Quwatli’s residence and broke in only to be confronted by the president himself. One of them, Ibrahim al-Husseini, read out an arrest warrant. ‘You are under arrest, Your Excellency.’3 Calmly, al-Quwatli asked, ‘By order of whom?’ Al-Husseini smirked, ‘By the Commander-in-Chief of the Syrian Army.’ Without blinking, al-Quwatli firmly replied, ‘I am the Commander-in-Chief!’ Al-Husseini replied: ‘You were the Commander-in-Chief, Your Excellency!’ The man known as the ‘Father of Independence’ was escorted out of his home at gunpoint and driven to Mezzeh Prison on a hilltop west of Damascus. He did not resist and the guards did not physically abuse him, showing rare respect. No handcuffs were used. He spent the night in a cold damp cell in Mezzeh and when his medical condition worsened due to a chronic ulcer problem that often led to stomach bleeding, Colonel al-Za’im ordered him taken to the nearby Yusuf al-Azma Military Hospital, where he was placed under twenty-four-hour surveillance – more a prisoner than a patient. In an adjacent room was Khaled al-Azm, the two-time premier and reputed aristocrat, who had been treated with

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far less respect by al-Za’im’s cronies. They had shoved him down the staircase of his home and bundled him into a military jeep and taken him to jail; barefoot, bloodied and bruised, wearing his pyjamas.4 They even refused to let him bring his dentures and reading glasses. ‘Who are you and how dare you invade my home?’ Snarling, they replied: ‘We are the new government! Do not resist or we will kill you!’ News of the swift Damascus coup spread through Syria and the Arab world like wildfire. In Homs, Hashem al-Atasi, now aged seventy-five, was stunned to hear that the democratically elected head of state, his one-time friend and prote´ge´, was now behind bars. In Cairo, King Farouk was awakened by his press advisor Kareem Thabet, who hesitantly informed him that his Syrian ally had been arrested and that Abidin Palace couldn’t get through to Damascus. Farouk firmly instructed the Egyptian press to remain silent about what was happening in Syria, knowing that if it could happen in Damascus, there was a high chance of the same occurring in Cairo. It eventually did, just three years later, when flamboyant officers inspired by Husni al-Za’im overthrew the young king in 1952. Similar caution engulfed Ibn Saud’s court in Riyadh and the Qantari Palace in Beirut. President Beshara al-Khoury called for an open session of Parliament to monitor the developments in Syria. He was explicit: not a word of support for Husni al-Za’im in Lebanese newspapers. Saudi Arabia said that it wouldn’t recognise the coup’s legitimacy unless al-Za’im pledged not to kill Shukri al-Quwatli. Lebanon went a step further, refusing to recognise the coup under any circumstance. Beshara al-Khoury and Riad al-Sulh were in a similar predicament. They had parallel careers, hailed from the same social and political backgrounds and had been friends since Ottoman times. They feared that aftershocks of the coup could soon hit Beirut as well. As far as Lebanese officialdom was concerned, Shukri al-Quwatli was still the only legitimate president of Syria. Husni al-Za’im marched into his temporary office at police headquarters in Marjeh Square on 31 March 1949.5 An army of photographers, journalists – and opportunists – were already at his heels. Wearing a glass monocle and white gloves, he was later described by Harry Truman as ‘the Syrian Mussolini.’ His first orders

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were to shut down the Presidential Palace and release a handful of junior officers from prison – all of whom had been jailed on corruption charges at Ahmad Sharabati’s urging just a few months earlier. Martial law was subsequently imposed. Newspapers and the constitution were suspended. Schools were reopened and government employees were ordered to show up for work at 8:00 am on 31 March. An evening curfew was set for 7:00 pm and police officers were granted permission to arrest those suspected of political and criminal offenses without a warrant – a dangerous first in the history of the young republic. On 1 April, al-Za’im ordered the closure of Parliament. MPs hurried to the home of Fares al-Khoury to hold an extraordinary session to decide what to do with the coup leader. When one of them, Lutfi al-Haffar, tried to break into the Parliament building, al-Za’im’s men turned him back at gunpoint. Al-Haffar, an old friend of the jailed president, shouted: ‘You cannot prevent me from entering. I am the elected deputy for Damascus.’ The young soldier who stopped him was in his early twenties. He had only been ten when al-Haffar became premier back in 1939. He clearly had no respect for his age, reputation or career, and ruthlessly pointed his gun at the old politician: ‘We arrested Shukri al-Quwatli. What makes you think we won’t arrest you as well?’ Army officers and simple soldiers felt invincible, thanks to Husni al-Za’im. This bloodless but brutal night marked the beginning of Syria’s first military dictatorship and the ultimate end of Syrian democracy, despite brief intervals in the mid-1950s and early 1960s. It was the beginning of the end for a democratic Syria On 6 April 1949, Shukri al-Quwatli finally succumbed and presented his resignation; signed on a piece of paper from his hospital room in Mezzeh. He was the third president to step down since the republic had been created in 1932, but unlike Mohammad Ali al-Abed and Hashem al-Atasi, he didn’t do it willingly. Al-Quwatli’s resignation read: ‘I present the noble people of Syria with my resignation from the Presidency of the Republic, wishing them eternal splendour and glory.’ He made a point by addressing it to the Syrian people and not to Husni al-Za’im or to the disbanded Chamber of Deputies. Al-Za’im had it zincographed and printed in a

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propaganda booklet distributed by the Media Department of the Syrian Army. The booklet was authored in haste by a journalist from the Muslim Brotherhood named Bashir al-Ouff and it carried testimonials showering Husni al-Za’im with praise. Everybody pitched in with a word or two about Colonel al-Za’im’s wisdom, charm and chivalry – including al-Quwatli’s friends Hashem al-Atasi and Fares al-Khoury. The only missing testimony was from Ahmad Sharabati, who refused to say a word in support of the new dictator of Syria. TIME magazine commented on 11 April 1949: ‘Most Syrians, sipping coffee in the bazaars and smoking their hubble-bubble pipes, took hardly any notice of the change in government. In their 4,000year history they had tasted the rule of Persians, Greek, Romans, Mongols, Turks, and French. They were prepared to get used to Husni al-Za’im too.’6 It is not known how many times the Americans met with al-Za’im, or when the secret talks began between him and Stephen Meade, a US diplomat stationed in Damascus. The US Embassy in Syria was essentially divided on whether to encourage a coup, claiming that it was professionally wrong and unethical to involve themselves with Syrian domestic politics. The CIA had only just been established in 1947 and had never before carried out an overseas operation; certainly nothing of this magnitude. The Department of State began to accept the idea with ‘mild enthusiasm’ while Deane Hilton, a young diplomat in Damascus, remained vehemently opposed to it, claiming that the USA should never support a military regime, not even a temporary one, in the Middle East. Ambassador James Keeley hoped that after a brief military interlude, during which all of America’s concerns would be properly addressed, Syria would restore its parliamentary regime and rid itself of military rule. Al-Za’im cynically promised to put corrupt politicians in jail, to reorganise government, bring social and economic reforms and ‘to do something constructive about the Arab-Israel problem.’7 He also promised to crush Syrian communists and sign a peace treaty with the Israelis. Al-Za’im outlined a four-phase plan to topple the al-Quwatli regime. In phase one, he would seize power and install a political figure as head of state, while exercising real power from behind the

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curtains of the Ministry of Defence. Coinciding with the first phase, he noted, ‘would be a general communist round-up,’ promising to send anti-US politicians ‘to desert concentration camps.’8 Al-Za’im gladly gave Meade a long list of communist officers in the Syrian Army and Meade, impressed with al-Za’im’s collaboration, gave instructions to ensure the latter’s personal safety ‘at all times.’9 Once rid of al-Quwatli, al-Za’im hoped for US military aid as part of his second phase. That aid, he stressed, must arrive after he came to power and not before, to empower himself before the Syrian public and legitimise his regime in the Arab world. American technical and training missions would follow in phase three, particularly in the fields of aviation and armour, while phase four would be dedicated to the mobilisation of the entire country, under his military supervision, including expansion of the army and enforcement of social reforms. He cited Kemal Ataturk as his model, promising to strike at traditional feudal landlords who had been in power since the late Ottoman era, breaking their hold over land and introducing agrarian reforms. He also pledged to modernise the medical system in Syria and institute sweeping changes in Syrian schools, universities and courts. Al-Za’im claimed that ‘there is only one way to start the Syrian people along the road to progress and democracy and that is with the whip,’ adding emphasis to this statement by striking his desk with his riding crop. Al-Za’im felt that ‘three to five years will be required to obtain satisfactory results from his programme, and following this he plans a gradual lessening of the regimentation of the population over a tenyear period.’ He speculated that ‘he would be able to develop, with the aforementioned aid and missions, an effective fighting force of 40,000 within one to one and a half years’ time.’10 Meade wrote in his reports to the Department of State, ‘Although unscrupulous, bombastic and a complete egoist, it must be admitted that he (Za’im) has a strong personality, unlimited ambition and the backing of the Syrian Army. If the ever present element of fate happens to be in his favor, Za’im may realise his desire to be dictator of Syria.’11 Meade noted that al-Za’im would become a ‘banana republic dictator’ while Deane Hilton said that he ‘did not have the competence of a French corporal.’12 He radiated power and leadership, they added, ‘but apparently was not very clever.’13 Other descriptions of the man

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included lack of persistence and ‘oozing with self-confidence yet apparently very insecure.’ AL-ZA’IM AND ISRAEL During the Palestine War, young Syrians rioted in the streets, burning American flags and pictures of President Harry Truman. The offices of General Motors were set ablaze by angry rioters and twenty-four-hour security forces were deployed at the residence of US Minister James Keeley, who had been appointed to the job in October 1947. Apart from a few symbolic gestures the Syrian government did little to punish the anti-American demonstrators, creating tension between Damascus and Washington, DC. On 24 February 1949, the Egyptians signed an armistice agreement with Israel, followed by the Lebanese on 23 March and the Jordanians on 3 April. Syria curtly refused to sign off on any kind of cessation of hostilities with Israel, and categorically refused to attend the peace talks in Rhodes, only adding to American disappointment with the Syrian president. Less than four months after coming to power, al-Za’im signed an armistice agreement with the Israelis in late July, withdrawing troops from most of the territories west of the international border, which became a demilitarised zone. The Syrian delegation to the armistice talks was hand picked by al-Za’im. The talks took place in a no-man’s land along the border, next to the village of Mishmar Hayarden. Israel was demanding that Syria, which had ended the war in control of territory west of the international border, withdraw its forces to the same international border. President al-Quwatli, who had curtly refused such a demand, reasoned that from this strategic position, Syria could get access to the region’s important water resources along the River Jordan and Lake Tiberias.14 Al-Za’im, however, did not want to get caught up with short-term gains, not knowing how long the US umbrella was going to last. He preferred to discuss a complete peace treaty with the Israelis, which he hoped would forever ally his regime to the USA. He wanted full peace with the Israelis, to make himself indispensible to the Americans.15 According to Israeli historian Avi Shlaim, Za’im seems to have been on the payroll of the Israelis from when he was an

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officer in the Syrian Army, long before he came to power. On 15 June 2018, another Israeli scholar, Meir Zamir, published an article in Haaretz based on recently de-classified British archival material, showing that Husni al-Za’im had actually approached the Israelis as early as August 1948, seeking assistance to stage a coup in Damascus. His request was handled by Ezra Danin, the Arab affairs adviser at the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was referred to as ‘Tuvia’s employee’ in reference to Haganah intelligence officer, Tuvia Arazi.16 On 16 April, less than two weeks after the talks had started, Ben Gurion noted in his diary that the Syrians had proposed a separate peace with Israel, cooperation and a common army. ‘But they want a border change . . . half of Lake Tiberias . . . I told them to inform the Syrians in clear language that first of all there would be the signing of an armistice, on the basis of the previous international border, and then (there would be) a discussion of peace and alliance. We will be ready for maximal cooperation.’17 To prove his good intentions, al-Za’im gave clear orders in early April that he wanted an armistice signed by the summer of 1949.18 He dared not express his real intentions to the Syrian public, however, promising a new round of battle and telling them that the armistice was just temporary, imposed by the USA, which Syria would soon be working around.19 ‘If they (the Americans) continue to pressure me’ he warned, ‘then I will turn to the Soviets, and let World War III start from right over here – from Damascus!’20 This was al-Za’im’s way of clearing his own name before the people of Syria – although it never worked. As requested, however, the armistice was in fact signed on 20 July, less than three months after he came to power. Immediately afterwards, al-Za’im told US diplomats in Damascus that he wanted to meet with Ben Gurion and was willing to settle 300,000 Palestinians in northern Syria, in exchange for US military aid.21 According to Ambassador James Keeley, ‘Za’im had intimated willingness as part of a general settlement including realistic frontier adjustments, accept quarter million refugees if given substantial development aid in addition to compensation for refugee losses.’ He added that al-Za’im was willing to solve the Palestine problem through ‘a policy of give and take,’ and advised his government to take the Syrian leader’s offer very seriously.22

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OIL AND THE MIDDLE EAST President Truman was constantly being reminded by his embassy in Damascus that anger on the Syrian street was fuelling the popularity of the Syrian Communist Party. The White House was also concerned with al-Quwatli’s refusal to license the Trans-Arabian Pipeline (Tapline), an oil pipeline running from Qaisumah in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia to Sidon in Lebanon that was designed to pass through Syria. The construction of the Tapline began in 1947, and was billed as the world’s pipeline. Managed primarily by Bechtel, an American company, it was originally scheduled to terminate in British-mandate Haifa, yet due to hostilities on the Palestinian front an alternate route was sought through Syria, via the Golan Heights. The Tapline affair created a storm of controversy in the Syrian press and Parliament. Politicians were sharply divided about whether Syria should accept or obstruct the oil company’s transit request. The company, after all, presented a direct threat to the powerful Iraqi Petroleum Company (IPC), which had operated in the region for decades and was jointly owned by some of the world’s biggest oil companies. The largest single shareholder was the British government-controlled Anglo-Persian Oil Company, which by 1914 held fifty per cent of the shares, followed by Royal Dutch/Shell. After World War I, American oil companies were allowed to buy into the oil giant and in 1925 IPC acquired its first concession in Iraq, next to the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. Sharabati feared that if the Tapline was allowed through Syrian territory, the Syrian public would object, seeing it as a new form of indirect foreign economic control. During long debates in Parliament, he spearheaded the anti-Tapline campaign, much to the displeasure of the US Embassy. Sharabati was furious with Tapline for issuing an ultimatum saying that Syria must sign the deal by 20 August 1948.23 When Ibn Saud lobbied on behalf of Tapline with al-Quwatli, he got a cold shoulder from his old friend and ally, via a very formal cable. Ibn Saud was furious, crushing the letter with his fist and referring to it as ‘that wretched cable.’24 Rising communist influence, the Tapline project and the rejection of armistice talks with Israel were the three factors that made US decision makers begin to search for alternatives to President al-Quwatli.

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A shortlist of potential coup architects was drawn up. The first, ironically, was none other than Ahmad Sharabati. The Americans reasoned that being a member of al-Quwatli’s inner team and a senior cabinet minister, he was beyond suspicion in the upper echelons of power in Damascus. He was young and well-connected, both regionally and internationally, and had been educated in the USA. Also, he knew the army inside-out, and had friends at the barracks capable of overtaking the capital – if he so wished. A serious study of his character and political views, however, led to his immediate dismissal from the coup project; Sharabati would never take part in such a venture and there was nothing the Americans could pay him to change his mind. The second choice was Fawzi al-Qawuqji, who also had troops at his disposal, armed and bitter from the Palestine defeat. His problematic Nazi history, however, made the Americans nervous. The third and final choice was Husni al-Za’im.25 According to Ambassador Keeley’s son, ‘In 1948, the commander of the Syrian Army, General Husni al-Za’im, approached the US embassy in Damascus, telling them in secret that he was planning a coup d’e´tat against President Shukri al-Quwatli. The Americans were very supportive of this idea given the fact that Husni al-Za’im had promised a peace treaty with the Israelis. Contrary to all allegations, we were not behind al-Za’im’s coup. We did not plan for it, and did not offer it any material support. But when he approached us about it, we encouraged him, and told him we will support his military takeover.’26 Miles Copeland, the CIA officer at the US Embassy in Damascus, recounted a very different story in his classic book, The Game of Nations, published in 1969. According to Copeland, when diplomatic relations between Washington and Damascus collapsed in 1948, a ‘political action task force’ was created to bring down al-Quwatli. It was headed by Major Stephen Meade, an assistant military attache´ at the US Embassy in Syria. Copeland claims that he wrote to the CIA and State Department, saying, ‘If you cannot change the board, then change the players.’27 He confessed to having ‘searched for a man, preferably an officer, who would have more power in his hands than any other Arab leader ever had before.’ This was needed, he added, in order for this officer to make what he described as ‘an unpopular decision’ such as peace with Israel, adding, ‘The only kind of leader

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who can acquire such power is one who deeply desires power for the mere sake of it. Husni al-Za’im was power crazy.’28 Moreover, ‘He has an instinct for being the boss. So long as we jump to our feet in his presence and call him Excellence, he will be willing to work with us.’ In their meetings with al-Za’im, the Americans were told: ‘I want to see a military pact between my small country and the United States. I am a friend of America.’ He presented the US diplomat with a list of Syrian communists in the army, working with their Egyptian counterparts for the assassination of Egyptian Prime Minister Ibrahim Abdul Hadi, a friend of the US and British governments. He also said that the Soviets were sending assassination squads to shoot proAmerican politicians in Syria. ‘Give me the green light and I will open fire on all of them.’75 Meade, egging him on, noted: ‘We’re willing to do everything to prevent Syria from becoming a Soviet satellite.’ He leaned over to al-Za’im and emphasised, ‘Everything!’ Getting the message, al-Za’im said: ‘If I come to power, I will crush the Bolsheviks. I am not seeking the presidency; the defence ministry will do.’ Between January and March 1949, Colonel al-Za’im had at least six meetings with Meade, briefing him in ‘great detail’ on his plans to seize power in Syria.29 Somewhat bizarrely, he also conveyed the same message to the French and the British missions in Damascus.30 Secretary General of the Syrian Presidency Abdullah al-Khani recalled having dinner with members of the French Embassy staff on the eve of the coup, and having been advised by one lady ‘to go to bed early’ because ‘something major’ was going to happen in Damascus.31 Another palace official, Issam al-Inklizi, picked up similar snippets from the British Embassy. The Syrian Ambassador to London Edmond Homsi cabled Damascus asking the president to keep a close eye on Husni al-Za’im.32 Al-Quwatli ignored the telegram. Adel Arslan commented in his memoirs: ‘I see on Syria’s horizon a black cloud which will be followed by a terrible storm.’33 Mustapha Ram Hamadani, an officer serving under Fawzi al-Qawuqji’s command, says that when he heard news of the coup, he rushed to his commander’s tent. Al-Qawuqji was not surprised. He too knew about the coup, telling Ram Hamadani, ‘He finally did it.’34 According to one account, Meade and his superior officer Colonel Lawrence Mitchell knew in advance of al-Za’im’s plans to bring down

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the al-Quwatli regime. In his seminal work The Road Not Taken, Ambassador Itamar Rabinovich claims that al-Za’im continued to meet with Meade even after the coup was launched, where they would have ‘discussions in an atmosphere of intimacy and familiarity not typical of talks between a country’s ruler and head of state and an assistant military attache´, albeit of a superpower.’35 Keeley had less frequent meetings with al-Za’im, preferring to channel messages to him through Stephen Meade. According to official US documents, al-Za’im met with Meade between 3 and 7 March 1949 and showed he was willing to go to great lengths to obtain direct or indirect US assistance for the coup he was planning to launch in Syria. He claimed he wanted ‘to see his country militarily allied with the United States’, adding that a strong and stable government – in his own words – ‘a dictatorship,’ would give the USA ‘a reliable and permanent authority with whom to deal in Syria.’36 A NEW LIFE The coup came as no surprise to Ahmad Sharabati, and neither did al-Za’im’s connection with the USA. He had prophetically anticipated treason years before. Weeks before al-Za’im struck in Damascus, Sharabati left Syria for a vacation with his wife Skaidra and their two children, Issam and Aida. Unaware that he was already out of the country, al-Za’im searched the city in vain. Al-Za’im wanted him in chains. Furious that Sharabati had escaped, he dispatched an assassin to Cairo to kill him. Sharabati was staying at the Shepheard’s Hotel on Ibrahim Pasha Street in central Cairo. Built by a British entrepreneur in 1840, the hotel was a glamorous gathering place for international aristocracy and much intrigue. Al-Za’im’s assassin found Sharabati in the hotel lobby. He took out a pistol and managed to fire one shot before Egyptian authorities brought him down. Fortunately, he missed. Sharabati remained calm throughout, turning sideways with remarkable speed and dodging the bullet. The assassin confessed to Egyptian police that he was acting on the orders of Husni al-Za’im. King Farouk feared al-Za’im’s long hand and his impudence. In December, Prime Minister Mahmud Fihmi al-Nocrachi Pasha had been assassinated and Egyptian authorities could not afford a reoccurrence of such crimes on

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the streets of Cairo. Glubb Pasha had commented, ‘Today, Syria is ruled by a gangster who resembles to a great extent the mobsters we find on the streets of Chicago.’37 King Farouk summoned Sharabati for an audience, saying that because of al-Za’im’s madness, no place in the Arab world was safe anymore for the Sharabati family. He suggested a long and open-ended vacation in Europe, a polite way to suggest ‘open exile’, and Sharabati complied. It turned out to be a rather brief exile, however, as the regime of Husni al-Za’im only lasted in Syria for 137 days, from late March to mid-August 1949. Days after al-Za’im was arrested and shot by coup mastermind Sami al-Hinnawi, Sharabati packed his belongings and returned home. Despite much talk that Ahmad Sharabati was making a political comeback, this time he was only a private citizen. Making a point that he sought no political office, he immersed himself fully in commercial affairs, running his family business and starting new ventures in construction, industry and agriculture. Whenever approached to join a political campaign or run for an election he would point to the pile of projects on his office desk, saying that time did not permit him working in politics any longer. The family’s cigarette factory was long gone, as were the showrooms of General Motors. Sharabati’s political career between 1943 and 1949 had distracted him almost completely from business affairs. From his office in Damascus near the Tajheez High School Sharabati won contracts to build canals, bridges and roads in Kuwait, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Syria itself. The Sharabati firm dug parts of a forty-kilometre pipeline of the Iraqi Petroleum Company (IPC) in Homs and laid foundations for the modern Ministry of Defence and the Department of Posts and Telegraphs in Damascus. He also helped with the studies for the urbanisation of the Mezzeh orchards surrounding Damascus, which were transformed into posh residential districts in the 1980s. In Syria he was contracted to deliver several irrigation canals in the Golan Heights and Daraa, a small town near the Syria–Jordan border. Sharabati also imported giant wheat harvesters and tractors, selling them to the owners of vast plantations surrounding Aleppo, upgrading mechanised agriculture in the Syrian north. He imported a portable floating barge that dug and built the Ghaab Plain draining projects in central Syria. Although expanding horizontally across the Arab world, he never stopped his operations

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in Syria despite its logistical problems and the political upheavals that rocked the nation in the 1950s and 1960s. Sharabati also set up work in Kuwait, creating the Pan-Arabian Construction Company that built Kuwait University at the urban industrial port of Shuwaikh. When completed, he moved his construction base to the Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq, at the urging of Prime Minister Yassin Pasha al-Hashemi, the brother of his good friend and comrade from the Palestine War, Taha al-Hashemi. Among other things, he was contracted to dig a canal between the Tigris River and the Euphrates and build roads in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk and in the Governorate of Irbil. In Mosul, Sharabati built and installed a large German-made sewage treatment system and a major desalination plant, both contracted by the Iraqi government. He also constructed a large housing project in Baghdad, but most of his work in Iraq was done in the Kurdish areas, carried out with his Kurdish half-brother Mustapha al-Ayyubi. All of his assets in Iraq were later confiscated by the officers who seized power in Baghdad in the summer of 1958, toppling and killing King Faisal II and his entire family, in addition to mutilating the corpse of Prime Minister Nuri al-Said. He managed to save some construction material and bring it back to Syria, where it was put to good use in local projects. Shortly after his assets were nationalised by the Baathists in 1963, Sharabati landed an important contract to build a 124 kilometre road near Medina in Saudi Arabia, in the black mountains towards Kassim. The project was severely delayed because of the Six-Day War of 1967 and was only completed in 1968, at a considerable loss for Sharabati and his business partners. Back home his property was seized and his offices were closed down. The Baathists wanted him out of Syria, at any cost. BACK IN SYRIA While Sharabati was working in the Arab Gulf, he watched events in Syria deteriorate sharply, thanks to a series of coups and countercoups that started with Husni al-Za’im in 1949 and climaxed with the Baath takeover in March 1963. Al-Za’im rigged the elections for the Syrian presidency, winning the election with 116 per cent of the

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votes.38 There were 730,030 eligible voters in Syria, but 816,321 votes were cast in al-Za’im’s favour, showing just how ridiculous the election truly was.39 Weeks after the sham election, Husni al-Za’im was toppled and killed by a military coup that summer. The coup mastermind was al-Zaim’s good friend General Sami al-Hinnawi, a decorated war officer whom Sharabati had also suspected of secret ties with the Jordanian king from as early as 1947. Al-Hinnawi received financial support to stage his coup from the Jordanian and Iraqi monarchies, whose royals had nothing but scorn for Husni al-Za’im. The Syrian dictator was abducted from his home in al-Rawda off Abu Rummaneh Street, suffering basically the same fate he had inflicted on Shukri al-Quwatli and Khaled al-Azm. When soldiers showed up at his doorstep at 2:00 am, al-Za’im confronted them from his balcony window, having just returned from a charity ball at Bloudan Hotel hosted by the Syrian Red Crescent. They opened fire, missed, then broke in and dragged him out in his undershirt, screaming like a madman. Fadlallah Abu Mansour, one of the officers leading the coup, slapped the Syrian president across the face. ‘Don’t hit me’ snarled al-Za’im. He quickly added: ‘Listen, I have 80,000 Syrian pounds on me. Take 50,000 and give 20,000 to your troops. Just let me get out of Syria alive.’ Abu Mansour struck him again, ‘From where did you get such wealth? How did your poverty transform into wealth?’ The soldiers had already confiscated 36,000 pounds from al-Za’im’s home.40 By now in tears, al-Za’im muttered: ‘I tell you I am innocent. All of what you hear about me is lies hatched by the British and the Hashemites. They want to destroy me to occupy the country. I am a soldier, just like you.’ He then asked ‘Who is behind the coup?’ Abu Mansour loaded his pistol and pressed it hard against his head, ‘If you don’t shut up, I will blow your brains out!’ Upon reaching an abandoned plot of land in Mezzeh, near the French cemetery, al-Za’im suffered just this fate. He was executed by firing squad, along with his prime minister and adviser, Muhsen al-Barazi, in the early hours of 14 August 1949, with a total of 117 bullets fired into his body.

CHAPTER 14

The United Arab Republic and its Aftermath

From then on, Syria lurched from one disaster to another. A shortlived civilian government was established by the coup mastermind Sami al-Hinnawi in August 1949, only to fall that December at the hands of Syria’s new strongman, General Adib Shishakli. Hinnawi was an Anglophile and a veteran of the French colonial army who had been exceptionally close to Husni al-Za’im during the Palestine War, serving as his right-hand man. From day one, he announced his decision to remain an officer and not assume any political post, becoming army chief-of-staff in August – December 1949. After ordering Za’im shot, he announced his intention at bringing about a federal union between Syria and Iraq, headed by the Hashemite Crown. He received the full backing of the People’s Party, whose founders Nazem al-Qudsi and Rushdi al-Kikhiya became prime minister and speaker of parliament respectively under Hinnawi. Hashem al-Atasi was called out of retirement and appointed president again in late 1949 and, along with Hinnawi, he personally led the union talks with King Faisal II, grandson of the late Faisal Ibn al-Hussein. The project was aborted by Shishskali’s coup, who ordered Hinnawi’s arrest at the Mezzeh Prison. He was soon released and exiled to Beirut, where he was subsequently shot by a young man from the Barazi clan in October 1950.

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It was the third coup in nine months. Shishakli ruled Syria from the shadows, using his ally General Fawzi Selu as a proxy. Atasi, now in his late seventies, was kept at his post as president but stripped of all backing in the armed forces. Without military support he could never advance the union project with Iraq. Selu was appointed minister of defence in all civilian governments under Atasi until November 1951, with veto power to drown any pro-Iraq legislation. That month Shishakli staged another coup – the fourth in Syria since independence – placing Selu as head of state, prime minister, army commander and defence minister. Angrily, Atasi stepped down and returned to Homs, leading a silent and civil resistance to Shishakli’s rule. In the summer of 1953 Shishakli had Selu step down and assumed the presidency himself, winning yet another carefully doctored election with ninety-nine per cent of the votes. He outlawed political parties, shut down newspapers and created a dictatorship not much different from that of Husni al-Za’im. Shishakli created a cult of personality, appearing on the front page of daily newspapers and addressing the Syrian people on the radio every morning and night. A paranoid man obsessed with espionage and coups, he was haunted by nightmares of intrigue, arresting senior politicians from all parties during the years 1951 – 4. Ahmad Sharabati was one of them, charged with planning a coup, tried and eventually released after being cleared of all charges. Shishakli was toppled in February 1954 and sent into exile himself; he was killed at his farm in Brazil ten years later, in 1964. He was the third of Syria’s military rulers, after Za’im and Hinnawi, to face such a violent end. The years 1950–4 were very turbulent for Syria. The Syrian presidency was involved in a twisted and convoluted game of political musical chairs, resulting in a continual crisis of leadership. State institutions and the national courts remained functional, but as politicians of differing calibres rotated in and out of the seat of power in Damascus, Syrians began to ask themselves serious questions about what the future had in store. The economy suffered as a result of the instability, which in turn discouraged serious foreign investment. People wanted a leader who could bring stability and a better standard of living. A good patriot was no longer enough for Syria. The people wanted someone who could take bold decisions,

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keep the officers at bay and formulate a political, economic and social roadmap for the country’s future. On paper, the aged Hashem al-Atasi appeared to fulfill these requirements, but he was past retirement age by now, well into his eighties. He returned to office after Shishakli’s ouster in early 1954 but had to step down later that same year. Shukri al-Quwatli returned to office in September 1955 – sweet revenge for having been ejected with little respect six years earlier. It was the last democratic election Syria ever knew. All candidates were given open access to the public and were provided with equal campaigning space without government interference. This was brilliantly used by Akram al-Hawrani, who a year earlier had merged his Arab Socialist Party with the Baath Party of Michel Aflaq. Al-Hawrani used the new party platform to drum up socialist sentiment throughout the Syrian countryside. The peasants voted en masse for Baath candidates, helping to defeat the traditional landowning notability of Hama, Homs, Aleppo and Damascus. The National Party fared rather poorly, winning only nineteen of 142 seats. It was a slight improvement from 1949, when thanks to their mismanagement during the Palestine War they received only thirteen seats in the first post-Za’im Chamber. Voters were fed up with the National Party, wanting new faces and fresh ideas. The People’s Party, playing the victim throughout the Shishakli years, won an impressive thirty seats in Parliament. The major surprise was the Baathists, who along with their allies won a total of twenty-two seats. Even Aflaq and al-Bitar never expected such an astounding victory. Their victory brought Akram al-Hawrani to the speakership of the Syrian Parliament, giving him huge influence over the political system, and made Salah al-Bitar minister of foreign affairs. The Shukri al-Quwatli of 1955 was very different from the one Sharabati knew in 1949. Al-Quwatli, by now aged sixty-three, began his new term with a policy of creating more friends and fewer enemies for Syria. He was no longer interested in micromanaging Syrian domestic politics, a lesson he learned during his first and second terms in office. Rather, he delegated power to the two prime ministers who served during his third and last term, settling for a more symbolic position, a sort of grandfatherly figure for the nation.

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This shift signalled perhaps the coming of old age, or was a vestige of the hard lessons learned from the al-Za’im interlude. The post-Za’im constitution of 1950 had greatly diluted the president’s powers, transforming the position into a ceremonial head of state. Inspired by the charter of the Fourth French Republic, it was tailor-made for Syria to prevent the rise of a powerful president. According to the new constitution, for example, a prime minister was entitled to sign any legislation with or without the president’s approval if they did not hear back from the presidency within ten days. Al-Quwatli also steered clear of the petty clashes that occurred between and among the officers, the Baathists, the Syrian Communists and the Hashemites. This practice earned him a bad reputation; it spoke of weakness rather than wisdom. The post-Za’im era was good for Syria economically and culturally, although not politically. The Damascus International Fair, an annual event since the mid-1950s, was admired and envied by all Arab countries. Syrian businessmen would display their finest products – like soap, glass and heavy wool ( joukh) – and world artists would perform on the Damascus stage. The Lebanese diva Fairuz was a regular at the fair, and Syrians loved to hear her sing. The Syrian capital became a hub for rising artists like the Lebanese folksinger Wadih al-Safi and the young Syrian tenor Sabah Fakhri. The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, with its one hundred musicians, even came to the Damascus International Fair. When fair authorities said that they couldn’t cover travel and accommodation expenses, the Presidential Palace settled the bill, in full. They staged five shows, playing Mozart, Strauss and Beethoven to an enthusiastic crowd of classical music lovers in Damascus. So popular was the orchestra that it performed an extra show at the Azm Palace. Even famous Egyptian singers such as Abdul Halim Hafez were coming to Syria to record their music at Damascus Radio. Egyptian diva Um Kalthoum came to Damascus in the summer of 1956, where she performed at the Laique School and was awarded the Order of Merit by President al-Quwatli. For five nights, wearing her dark sunglasses and a dazzling evening gown, she mesmerised Damascus audiences with her Arabic classics. Um Kalthoum, a living legend in the Arab world, donated all proceeds to the treasury of the Syrian Army.

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Syria was prospering economically as well. Cotton and silk, its prized exports, rose from 6,000 tons in 1947 to 30,000 tons by 1956. Syria produced seventy-two million metres of manufactured textiles in 1947. That number rose to 107 million metres by 1956. Even nonconventional products were in high demand, like alcohol. Damascus produced 11,000 tons of beer, wine and whiskey in 1947. By 1956, the number rose to 13,000 tons. Cement production stood at 53,000 tons in 1947. By 1956, it was 243,000 tons. When al-Quwatli left office nearly ten years beforehand, there were seven shareholding companies. By 1956, their number had risen to an impressive forty-one. The exchange rate stood at 2.20 Syrian pounds to the US dollar – testimony to the wisdom and vision of Central Bank Governor Izzat Tarabulsi. THE UNITED ARAB REPUBLIC The most well-known achievement of Shukri al-Quwatli’s final tenure was creating the ill-fated union republic with President Gamal Abdul Nasser in February 1958. He didn’t really create it – it was forced upon him by a group of fourteen ambitious officers who boarded a military plane and headed to Cairo that January, begging for union with Nasser’s Egypt. Dressed in full military uniform, they left the country in secret, without informing the president or his prime minister of their plans. None of them were carrying passports. They were gambling with their careers – and their country – for the sake of an immediate union with Egypt. They were all young veterans of the Palestine War and had little admiration for the civilians currently running state affairs, seeing them as the cause of Syria’s ills. All of them were experts in coups and counter-coups. They were young, hard-headed and stubborn, full of confidence, and mesmerised by Nasser’s martial bombast. They cared little for constitutionalism and democratic practices, and were willing to stage yet another coup should Shukri al-Quwatli stand in the way of their ambition to unite with Egypt. When one officer commented that it would have been better to inform al-Quwatli before leaving Damascus, another replied: ‘No time. Hurry! No time.’ They wanted union immediately, arguing that if they failed, Syria would yet again

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fall into the Hashemite orbit. Chief of Staff Afif al-Bizreh looked at them and sternly said: ‘We cannot turn back now. There are two roads ahead of you. One leads to Cairo. The other leads to Mezzeh.’ Al-Bizreh, of course, was referring to the infamous prison perched on a hill overlooking Damascus, used to jail dissidents and failed coup architects. They knew Mezzeh only too well, having themselves helped jail their opponents at the notorious prison in recent years. The thought of ending their days there filled them with dread. All were aware that they would either carry out the job as planned by successfully pleading for a union with Gamal Abdul Nasser, or face a lifetime in jail. Ahmad Sharabati and many Syrian notables, especially among the founding fathers, were furious with the officers’ action, not having much regard for Nasser. They saw him as a wild and erratic officer, much like Husni al-Za’im and Adib Shishakli and had also come to power through bullets rather than ballots. He too had established a police state, outlawing political parties, suspending constitutional life and ‘winning’ the presidency with ninety-nine per cent of the Egyptian vote. His socialist measures were incompatible with Syria’s liberal laissez-faire economy, and his authoritarianism would spell the end of Syria’s fledging multiparty democratic system. Sharabati was an industrialist, and feared that one day Nasser would nationalise banks, factories and private enterprise in Syria just as he had done in Egypt. He warned that if Syrian authorities agreed to merge with Egypt under Nasser’s terms and conditions, it would be the end of Syria as they knew it. The officers waited in Cairo for three days until Nasser finished his talks with the president of Indonesia. When they were finally given an audience on the night of 14 January, Afif al-Bizreh addressed the Egyptian leader: ‘We are going to stay in Cairo until you agree to unite with Syria.’ Al-Bizreh proposed one president and united legislative, executive and judiciary branches. He also called for one flag and one capital city, in addition to one army and a joint Higher Defence Council. Nasser at first gave them the cold shoulder. He was unimpressed that the officers were acting independently, without government approval. His first question was: ‘Do you have approval of your president?’ The officers looked sideways at one

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other, taken aback by the unexpected question, and then turned to al-Bizreh for a clue as to what they ought to say. The army commander finally spoke up: ‘We represent public opinion. We represent the army. This is what matters. The president has no choice but to accept.’1 Nasser looked the other way, dismissing them with a swift movement of his hand: ‘I am sorry. I cannot accept this. You have an elected government that decides for Syria. None of you are members of that government. As far as I am concerned, you represent nobody but yourselves.’ Instead of summoning them back home and having them shot, al-Quwatli legitimised their mission by sending Foreign Minister Salah al-Bitar, the Baath cofounder, to Cairo to negotiate on his behalf with Nasser. Al-Quwatli did not want to be seen as too weak to control the young officers. He too was an Arab nationalist at heart who had worked for Arab unity throughout his life. He too wanted union and would not let history say that he had stood in the way of its creation. He didn’t like the way it had been imposed upon him by the officers, but now was not the time to complain and he perhaps feared that, if he did, they would stage another coup against him as they had done in 1949. Al-Quwatli had great faith in the young Egyptian president since his nationalisation of the Suez Canal in 1956. The Syrian street also adored Nasser and wanted a union with Egypt. Al-Bitar had prepared nothing for the meeting with Nasser and, without a written agenda or verbal instructions from President al-Quwatli, he was forced to improvise. When Nasser asked for Syria’s conditions for union, he replied: ‘Nothing. We just want to embark on a solid Arab unity project.’ It was the most thoughtless answer the Syrian official could have given. With a single phrase, Nasser was given a blank cheque to do whatever he pleased with Syria politically, economically and socially. Unlike al-Bitar, however, Nasser had plenty of conditions. He wanted to do away with political parties and impose a strictly censored press. He wanted to discharge officers with political backgrounds in the Syrian Army. He wanted to suspend the Syrian Constitution and transfer the capital from Damascus to Cairo. He also wanted the union to be signed in Egypt, only after the entire Syrian Chamber of Deputies was flown into Cairo to offer legitimacy. Salah al-Bitar nodded, agreeing to every one of the Egyptian

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president’s conditions. Nasser asked: ‘You represent the Baath Party, one of the biggest in Syria. Will the Baath Party agree to dissolve itself? Will your colleagues agree to leave the Syrian Army? If you say yes, will other Baathists agree?’2 Salah al-Bitar did not answer. On 30 January, President al-Quwatli and the entire Syrian government boarded a plane to Cairo. In terms of security, the decision to fly all together was ill-advised. In addition to the president of the Republic, Prime Minister Sabri al-Asali was onboard and so was Akram al-Hawrani who had been voted speaker of the Syrian Parliament one year earlier. Defence Minister Khaled al-Azm and Intelligence Director Abdul Hamid Sarraj were also onboard. Fearing a strike on the presidential plane, Sarraj instructed the pilot to take a very long route to avoid being spotted by Israeli radars. He explained his precautions to the passengers, saying: ‘We fear that the Israelis will try to knock us down to prevent the government from reaching Cairo.’ Khaled al-Azm retorted unapologetically: ‘I wish! I wish that they knock us down to prevent us from committing such a crime against our country.’ He then looked at the president, ‘We are going to present Syria to Nasser on a golden platter!’ In Cairo, massive crowds awaited the Syrian delegation. Syrian flags flew as far as the eye could see. The two presidents were driven around the city in a convertible and then taken to prayer at the al-Azhar Mosque. Before an army of journalists, the two presidents signed the union charter at the magnificent Qasr el-Qubba on 22 February 1958. The black and white newsreel clip was seen around the world. As al-Quwatli’s signature was being placed on the union document, Syrian politicians were signing off the official order to dissolve their political parties, at Nasser’s request. The next step was to bring Nasser to Damascus. The Egyptian leader had never visited Syria before, and nothing could have prepared him for what was in store. Hundreds of thousands poured into the streets to await their hero and cheer as his bulletproof automobile carried him through the streets of Damascus. His photo was hung on every major street corner and in every shop throughout the city. Songs were composed and sung in his praise. Even soldiers danced in the streets. All important Syrian figures came out to greet him at Qasr al-Diyafa, a two-floor

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villa-turned-presidential palace at the end of Abu Rummaneh Street in Damascus. It had been constructed by Adib Shishakli back in 1953. Dignitaries came in from Beirut, Baghdad, Amman and all major Syrian cities. Although never fond of Nasser, even the aging Hashem al-Atasi traveled from Homs to congratulate him and al-Quwatli. At age eighty-five, it was his last public appearance, as he died less than two years later. Crowds camped outside Qasr al-Diyafa for three days, waiting for Nasser to address the nation. Entire families filled Abu Rummaneh, including toddlers and the elderly. Loudspeakers were placed on the balcony to bring Nasser’s voice throughout the Syrian capital. When Nasser and al-Quwatli appeared, the crowd broke into a frenzy. Nasser smiled and waved to the masses and al-Quwatli took a step back. This was no longer his show and the crowds were there, not for him, but for the president of the United Arab Republic. Al-Quwatli was effectively stepping aside one year before his constitutional term was due to expire in 1959. When the time came to elect a new president, al-Quwatli cast his ballot at his native Shaghour voting booth in favour of Gamal Abdul Nasser, who of course ran unopposed. He won the presidency with ninety-nine per cent of the vote and bestowed upon al-Quwatli the honorary title of ‘First Arab Citizen.’ When it was time to name the new government, Nasser created a thirty-man cabinet, giving eleven seats to Syria, which was renamed the ‘Northern Province’, ten to Egypt, and nine to the central government in Cairo. Ahmad Sharabati, furious with the collapse of his country’s hard-won sovereignty, scoffed at the UAR government. He did not attend a single UAR function in Damascus and was absent from the Presidential Palace when Syrian notables came to greet Nasser. Instead, he went to the Orient Club, a restaurant and private club for Syria’s notability, playing cards with friends. One of them asked what Sharabati thought of the thirty-man cabinet. Without looking up he mumbled, ‘Ali Baba and the thirty thieves, not forty!’ The next morning he was arrested by Nasser’s intelligence, and sent off to Mezzeh. It was his second time in jail since 1946. This time, he spent two weeks behind bars, with no trial. Apparently one of his friends on the cards table had tipped off Egyptian intelligence. This was how low Syria had sunk in the early hours of the

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United Arab Republic. Nobody was safe any more and the slightest criticism of union or its president was enough to warrant an open-ended visit to Mezzeh. Many things in the new Syria angered proud patriots like Ahmad Sharabati. One was moving the capital to Cairo and reducing Damascus to second-degree status in the UAR. Second was the confiscation of land at the advice of Nasser’s socialist allies. It was clear that the United Arab Republic was a disaster for Syria. Political dissent was ruthlessly supressed by Abdul Hamid Sarraj, the merciless intelligence chief who was promoted to minister of interior under Nasser. Telephone conversations were taped and spies were placed on street corners and in cafe´s, trying to pick up the slightest criticism of the Egyptian president. Those suspected of opposition views were arrested with no warrant and thrown into prison. Bashir al-Azma, a professor of medicine at Damascus University, was made minister of health in the UAR. He recalled that his entire life was regulated by Egyptian intelligence and that he never had any real work: ‘All we would do is solve crossword puzzles at our office, and receive guests. We had no real authority.’3 Nasser gave junior officers in the mukhabarat a free hand to arrest and torture at will. Dungeons were filled with Communists, Baathists and members of the SSNP. Farjallah al-Helou, founder of the Lebanese Communist Party, was famously tortured to death by Sarraj’s henchmen in 1958. Traces of the crime were eliminated by dissolving al-Helou’s body in acid. Sarraj made the Syria of Husni al-Za’im and Adib Shishakli look like Disneyland. Nasser’s proxy in Syria was oddly similar to the old French High Commissioner. Abdul Hakim Amer, a lifetime friend of the Egyptian leader, was made governor of the Northern Province. He meddled in all state affairs, appointing ministers, firing others and rigging elections to make sure that only those who were both loyal and harmless were elected to the joint Syrian – Egyptian Parliament. Prominent critics of the union regime were banished, with orders never to return. Khaled al-Azm was placed under house arrest and harassed by Egyptian security officers, who kept tabs on his visitors, insulted him on the streets and prevented him from travelling.4 He was eventually exiled to Beirut while communist leader Khaled

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Bakdash ended up in Eastern Europe. One-time allies like Michel Aflaq and Akram al-Hawrani were now left out of decision making completely. Unfortunately for the Baathists, Nasser had no intention of sharing power with them. Al-Bitar was given the non-political job of culture minister, while al-Hawrani – although vice president – was only tasked with attending funerals and weddings on the president’s behalf. Nasser then deliberately took him to Cairo, cutting him off from his power base among Syrian peasants. Al-Hawrani resigned the vice presidency in December 1959. Sharabati was particularly upset and personally insulted by Nasser’s decision to cancel all celebrations of Syria’s Independence Day. The date of 17 April had been a national holiday since 1946 and all Syrians took great pride in it. It was a disgrace to deny Syrians their Independence Day. Nasser insisted that there were two holidays only in the United Arab Republic. One was 23 July, the date of the Egyptian Revolution, and the second was 22 February, when the Syrian – Egyptian union was signed. He also banned playing the Syrian National Anthem, Humat al-Diyar, replacing it with the Egyptian Biladi.5 Another provocative decree was prohibiting the awarding of degrees in medicine from Damascus University. The only recognised medical degree as of 1958 was that of Cairo University.6 The biggest blow to Syria, however, was Nasser’s massive socialist reforms. Nasser was persuaded into instituting such drastic policies by his Baathist allies, namely Akram al-Hawrani. He made use of the Egyptian president’s total ignorance of Syrian domestic affairs, convincing him that feudalism thrived in Syria, just like in Egypt. In June 1960, Nasser tried to establish economic reforms that would bring the Syrian economy more in line with the extremely strong Egyptian public sector. Unfortunately, these changes did little to help either economy. Rather than shift growth toward the private sector, Nasser embarked on an unprecedented wave of nationalisations in both Syria and Egypt. The entire cotton trade, for example, was taken over by the government, as well as all import-export firms. On 23 July 1961, Nasser announced the nationalisation of banks, insurance companies and all heavy industry. Prominent businessmen like Abdul Hadi al-Rabbat,

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Abdul Hamid Diab and Sami Saem al-Daher were stripped of everything they owned. Landowners, who formed the backbone of Syrian politics and the Syrian economy, were forbidden from owning more than one hundred feddans. Approximately 600,000 hectares of land were confiscated and, theoretically, given to the peasant class. Big families – like the Azms, Kaylanis and Barazis in Hama, and the Mardam Beys, Debs and Yusufs in Damascus – were suddenly wiped out completely, while interest rates for farmers were dramatically reduced. Since Ahmad Sharabati did not own vast tracts of land, the Nasserists took none of his property during the union years, but many huge plantations were confiscated in Aleppo, Homs, Hama, Latakia, Deir ez-Zour, al-Hassakeh and the Syrian Desert. The socialist state gave only one-third of these lands to the peasants and farmers, and sold 23.5 per cent to allies and cronies of the state. Another 18.1 per cent was kept for the state itself to build airports, military barracks, government agencies and schools. The rest was resold to the new ‘elite’ that was created by the unionists and emerged during the years 1958 – 63. According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, the number of landowners throughout Syria stood at 292,273 in 1958. Within ten years it had more than doubled to 468,538. All of these new landowners were profiteers, first of the UAR and then of the Baath government after 1963, who made their fortunes from the vast land confiscation of the old elite. In addition, a ninety-per cent tax was instituted on all income above 10,000 pounds. Workers and employees were allowed representation on management boards and were given the right to a twenty-five per cent share in the profit of their firms. The average workday was also cut from eight hours to seven without a reduction in pay. Imports were banned and tariffs on trade were increased threefold. Wealthy Syrians rushed to get their money out of the country, transferring their fortunes to Swiss and Lebanese banks. Because of the nationalisation, the price of land dropped to historically low levels. Nobody wanted to buy or sell land that could be confiscated any minute. Nasserism, once considered a dream come true, was rapidly turning into a curse for the people of Syria.

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SECESSION FROM THE UAR On 28 September 1961, a group of officers staged another coup in Damascus, this time officially dissolving the United Arab Republic. The break-up would be accomplished in phases and announced to the people in stages. The coup was headed by a thirty-five-year-old officer named Abdul Karim al-Nehlawi, deputy director of officer affairs in the UAR First Army. He was a relatively junior officer and a political unknown, despite hailing from a prominent Damascene family. Other junior officers, mostly from Damascus, stood behind him. Like previous coup leaders, all of them were young and impulsive. Unlike their predecessors, there were no Alawites or Druze in the secession coup, only Sunni Muslims. They were backed by the business communities of Damascus and Aleppo, which had been hit hard by Nasser’s socialism, and supported regionally by Nasser’s opponents in Saudi Arabia and Jordan.7 Those opposed to the Nehlawi coup included Nasser’s allies in Lebanon, headed by the former general, President Fouad Shihab, and the new regime in Iraq. The Hashemite family in Baghdad had been collectively massacred by a military revolution in July 1958 and their successors, flamboyant Iraqi officers from rural backgrounds, were vehemently pro-Nasser. Ahmad Sharabati welcomed the coup with open arms. It was a blessing to all those who had opposed Nasser from the start, especially within the business community. In a remarkable political comeback, Sharabati called for a national meeting at his home in Damascus to formulate a united strategy in response to the coup, on 2 October 1961.8 Politicians scrambled to Sharabati’s doorstep; everybody was there, except for the two big leaders Hashem al-Atasi and Shukri al-Quwatli. One was dead and the other was undergoing treatment at the Cantonal Hospital in Lucerne, Switzerland. Men who had retreated from public life since 1958 showed up to shower the coup leaders with praise. The list of attendees was long and included former prime ministers Sabri al-Asali, Khaled al-Azm and Nazem al-Qudsi, former foreign minister Salah al-Bitar, former Parliament speaker Akram al-Hawrani and even Hasan al-Hakim, the Shahbandarist prime minister of 1941. Only someone

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untarnished by the turmoil of the 1950s and who had opposed union from the very start had the moral authority to bring such an assortment of leaders under one roof. The anti-Nasser mood was so high that Salah al-Bitar personally wrote the ‘secession declaration’, dictated to him by none other than Akram al-Hawrani. It was a heavy blow for the union regime, to have two of its main creators now endorsing its break-up. Both men had believed in Nasser and worked hard to make him president of Syria back in 1958. Both had expected high reward for their loyalty and when it came in the form of ceremonial posts, they did not like it. Salah al-Bitar, an ideological founder of the Baath Party, probably expected to become something of an ideological mentor for the United Arab Republic. Instead he was made minister of culture. Although officially vice president of the UAR, Akram al-Hawrani became nothing but a ceremonial figurehead with no real authority – nowhere near as influential or powerful as he had been in Syria during the 1950s. Angered by Nasser’s treatment of them and of the Baath Party, they decided to join Nasser’s opposition, realising that it would be political suicide to stand up for the Egyptian leader in such difficult times. These two men had helped bring the UAR into existence and were now sending the union regime into history. They all denounced Nasser as a dictator who had worked to ‘strangle the democratic life of Syria’. Their statement was endorsed by al-Quwatli himself, who gave a televised speech from Switzerland saying: ‘My disappointment is great and my amazement greater’. He addressed Egyptian authorities who administered the union as ‘executioners of the people’, claiming that ‘it is this system of rule that struck the foundations of unity. It is the system of rule that has 1,001 spies’. He warned, ‘Had they (Nasser and his men) lasted longer, then the entire republic would have been finished.’ Al-Quwatli’s statement shocked Nasser more so than that of the Baath founders. He had tried in vain to reach al-Quwatli at his hospital in Switzerland, hoping that the union co-creator would say something positive about the system he had helped found in 1958. Furious with al-Quwatli, Nasser broke off all contact until 1967.

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THE END After their meeting at Sharabati’s home, the civilian politicians called for parliamentary elections and elected Nazem al-Qudsi as Syria’s eleventh president. An Aleppine notable and former member of the National Bloc, al-Qudsi had joined the Shahbandar movement in 1937, and then helped create the People’s Party in 1947 to fight the National Party in Parliament. He had headed three governments in the 1950s and frowned upon the union experience from the beginning. Yet the al-Qudsi government was also short-lived; it was toppled fourteen months later on 8 March 1963 by a group of junior Baathist and Nasserist officers in the Syrian Army. Al-Qudsi was arrested and his prime minister, Khaled al-Azm, was forced to seek asylum at the Turkish Embassy in Damascus, which was in the same building where al-Azm lived. Hoodlums pelted stones at his window and called for his execution. One woman, a Nasserist schoolteacher named Thuraya alHafez, carried a thick rope, saying that she wanted to drag al-Azm to death through the streets of Damascus, just like Iraqi rebels had done to Nuri al-Said back in 1958. His crime was legitimising the ‘secession regime’, which the rebels now considered a criminal offense, punishable by death. Al-Azm was eventually banished to Beirut, with orders never to return, while Nazem al-Qudsi was exiled to Amman and then Europe. He spent the remainder of his years roaming from one country to the other, neglected by his own nation, until he died in Jordan in 1998 at the age of ninety-eight. Akram al-Hawrani, another pillar of the secession regime, was arrested by the very same Baathist officer he had helped bring to power. They threw him into the Mezzeh Prison in October 1965 and he was only released after being diagnosed with stomach cancer that December. He fled to Rome, then Iraq, Lebanon and finally Amman, where he remained until his death in February 1996. Shortly before his death, he sought permission to be buried in Hama. Permission never came. The coup mastermind was Ziad al-Hariri, a young man from Daraa serving as commander of Syrian troops on the Golan front. He was a committed Nasserist and friend of Egyptian intelligence. Supporting him was a group of Alawite officers who in 1960 had founded a secret ‘military committee’ of the Baath Party in Cairo. Its only purpose was

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to preserve the UAR and it was headed by a forty-one-year-old officer from an Alawite village near Homs named Mohammad Umran. A Baathist since his teens, Umran hated the urban notability that alQudsi and al-Azm represented. After receiving advanced military training in France, he became a prote´ge´ of Akram al-Hawrani and played a small role in bringing down the Shishakli regime in 1954. Second-in-command of the coup was Salah Jadid, an officer from Duwayr Baabdah, near the coastal city of Jableh. Jadid, thirty-seven, hailed from the respected Haddadin clan of the Alawite community. He studied at the French-run Laique School in Tartous and joined the Syrian Army after 1946, becoming a member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party of Antune Saadeh before switching to Aflaq’s Baath in the early 1950s. Jadid was discharged from the army because of his Nasserist views but maintained discreet contact with colleagues on the Military Committee, who were also penniless and jobless, having been discharged from the Syrian Army. On 8 March 1963, Jadid put on a military uniform and ordered his supporters to occupy the Bureau of Officer Affairs that controlled army promotions and discharges. At 8:40 am, he issued a decree reinstating his Baathist colleagues into the Syrian Army. The third coup leader was thirtythree-year-old Hafez al-Assad of the Syrian Air Force. Born in the Alawite village of al-Qurdaha, he studied first in Latakia and then at the Homs Military Academy, joining Umran and Jadid in 1960. After 1963 he became commander of the Syrian Air Force. The Baathists came to power with vengeance in their hearts. They considered everything that preceded their coup, with the exception of the UAR, as backward, regressive and ultimately wrong. A systematic campaign was launched, aimed at revolutionising Syrian society from top to bottom. They created a Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) similar to the one Nasser had chaired back in 1952. A military decree came next, suspending all magazines and newspapers – except for the party organ, al-Baath. In total, fortyseven periodicals were eliminated on the morning of 8 March 1963. The list included newspapers that had played an important role in the anti-French struggle, like al-Ayyam, al-Nidal, al-Fayha and al-Inshaa. Then came yet another military decree outlawing all Syrian political parties. Their offices were shut by the intelligence services and their

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documents confiscated. A law of Civil Discharge followed, signed off by the RCC. It stripped seventy-four prominent citizens of their basic rights because they had participated in the ‘crime’ of secession. Those listed in the ban were denied the right to hold public office or receive a government pension. Their medals and titles were withdrawn, their property confiscated and the press was banned from mentioning their names. It was a harsh punishment for these public figures, many of whom had spent a lifetime working for the nationalist cause. The list included ex-premiers Lutfi al-Haffar, Sabri al-Asali, Maamoun alKuzbari and Khaled al-Azm. President Nazem al-Qudsi topped the list and so did the entire office command of the secession coup, headed by Abdul Karim al-Nehlawi. Finally, a few months after coming to power, they changed Syria’s national flag, replacing the tricolour with its three red stars to a black, red, and white flag, with two green stars, which had been Syria’s banner during the UAR. The original flag, better known as the ‘Flag of Independence’, had first been adopted back in 1932. It had been created by a committee headed by Ibrahim Hananu, commander of the Aleppo Revolt. The green stood for the first four ‘Righteous Caliphs’ of Islam – Abu Bakr, Omar, Uthman and Ali – the main successors of the Prophet Mohammad. The red stood for the blood of Syria’s martyrs, while the white and black stood for the Abbasid and Umayyad dynasties. The three red stars stood for the Druze, Alawite and Aleppine revolts against French mandate rule. The new flag had all the same colours, only in reverse, and two stars, one for Egypt and one for Syria. It was now final. Syria’s democracy had ended. The nation was now frozen, and was to collapse completely a few years later with the defeat of 1967. In 1966, Nasser signed a military pact with the Baathists of Syria. All contacts with the old generation of Syrian politicians, now in jail or exile, had been severed since March 1963. Nasser never trusted the Baath, going so far as to describe them as fascists in the summer of 1963. He was particularly bitter about Salah al-Bitar and Akram al-Hawrani who had been among the first to backstab him in 1961. By early 1966, however, internal Baath divisions had led to the banishment of both men from Syria. Salah Jadid staged a coup in

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February, toppling President Amin al-Hafez and sending Aflaq and alBitar into permanent exile. He propped up a civilian physician named Nour al-Din al-Atasi as head of state, and ruled through the lesspublic post of assistant secretary general of the Baath Party. His regime was a hardline Marxist one, which led to stronger ties with the Soviet Union and a massive socialist campaign, nationalising schools, banks, oil companies and textile factories. Veterans of the 1950s like Rushdi al-Kikhiya were arrested and sent to the Palmyra Prison, while men like al-Quwatli and Sharabati, now living in Lebanon, were discouraged from re-entering Syria. Nasser was pleased. During the 1967 war, Syria lost the Golan Heights to Israel, and Sinai, East Jerusalem and the entire West Bank were all occupied. Overall, Israel’s territory grew by a factor of three. Around one million Arabs were now under Israel’s direct control in the newly captured territories. Israel’s strategic reach grew to at least 300 kilometres in the south, sixty kilometres in the east and twenty kilometres of extremely rugged terrain in the north, a security asset that would prove useful in the October War of 1973. Approximately 700 – 900 Israelis were killed, in addition to 4,500 wounded. Anywhere between 9,800 to 15,000 Egyptians were listed as dead or missing, while 4,338 were captured by Israel. Jordanian losses were estimated at 6,000. The Syrian Army suffered 1,000 dead and 367 captured. It was the second saddest day in Ahmad Sharabati’s life, and was to prove close to his final hour as well. Just like in 1948, the Arab defeat of 1967 dragged Syria into more chaos and political stagnation. Dissidents were shot and ad hoc tribunals were set up to try people on the streets. Furious with America’s support for Israel, the Baathists broke off relations with Washington, DC and shut the American Embassy in Damascus. It remained closed until after the October War of 1973, reopening due to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s ‘Shuttle Diplomacy’. Between the years 1967 – 73, Syria came closer than ever before to the Soviet Union. Salah Jadid invited approximately 800 Soviet military advisers, along with pilots and officers, to set up base in Syria, with the aim of rebuilding losses from the 1967 war. The Baath rulers of Syria started quarrelling among themselves after the 1967 defeat, with Hafez al-Assad blaming it on Salah Jadid and the latter blaming

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it on al-Assad, who was the country’s defence minister during that war. In November 1970 Hafez al-Assad struck at Jadid and the civilian president, Nour al-Din al-Atasi, sending both to jail for life. He ruled for the next thirty years, promising to restore the Golan Heights to Syria. Nasser also made a similar pledge, launching a war of attrition against Israel. The logic behind this new war was seriously flawed, justifying the additional loss of life for the sake of making a point – not for liberating land. In 1948, Sharabati was very careful to note that his troops had recaptured villages from Israel without shedding Syrian blood. In his speech before Parliament he made it clear that only one Syrian soldier had been killed in the capture of Samakh. The war of attrition was based on a completely different concept, as explained by prominent Egyptian journalist Mohammad Hasanein Heikal, Nasser’s senior adviser and chief editor of the Egyptian daily al-Ahram. Heikal said: ‘If the enemy succeeds in inflicting 50,000 casualties in this campaign, we can go on fighting nevertheless, because we have manpower reserves. If we succeed in inflicting 10,000 casualties, he will unavoidably find himself compelled to stop fighting, because he has no manpower reserves.’9 This was more of a show than a scientific calculation of risk and opportunity on the battlefield. It was aimed at raising Nasser’s image rather than restoring occupied land; a far cry from how Sharabati and Syria’s founding fathers had gone to war in Palestine. They had bought arms, drawn up maps, formulated battle strategy and tried to develop a comprehensive understanding of what lay behind enemy lines, trying very hard to preserve human lives. The feeling of deep humiliation topped with a craving for revenge dictated policy in both Egypt and Syria after 1967. Nasser said it clearly: ‘What was taken by force must be restored by force.’ The War of Attrition began in June 1968 with sparse Egyptian artillery bombardment of the Israeli frontline on the east bank of the Suez Canal. Israel responded in late October by destroying Egypt’s main electricity plant, plunging Cairo into a complete blackout. The swift Israeli response spoke volumes about what the officer class had done to both Egypt and Syria. Nasser, after all, was a product of the Palestine War of 1948. He came to power promising revenge, justice, accountability and the

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liberation of Palestine. Nearly twenty years had passed from 1948 to 1967, which should have been sufficient time for Nasser to build his army. The 1967 war showed just how badly Arab officers had failed over the last two decades. The defeat of 1967 made 1948 look mild and rather understandable. During the first war, the Arab armies were small, untested and completely unprepared for war. They also did not know the enemy well and had very little intelligence information on the Zionist militias. By 1967, however, Syria and Egypt had four large intelligence branches that cooperated fully and spent two entire decades gathering information about the military abilities of the Israeli Army. In 1948 the Syrian and Egyptian armies were fighting on Palestinian land that they did not know, whereas in 1967 they were on home territory, fighting in Sinai and the Golan Heights. Economically, Syria had started tapping into its oil fields by the late 1960s, using the money for massive armament and weapons purchases from the USSR. In 1948 Syria had no money, as oil had not yet been discovered, and almost no one was willing to sell arms to Damascus. The country had been in economic shambles from the aftermath of World War II and two decades of French rule. The Syrian Army that went to war in 1948 was twenty-five months old; whereas by 1967, the Syrian Army was twenty-one years old. Sharabati and his colleagues had not fought a war in their lives and none of them had any military training, unlike the generals of 1967, who were all decorated officers with long careers in the Syrian and Egyptian armies. In 1967 they had a powerful air force in Egypt and Syria, unlike in 1948, when they had transformed acrobat aeroplanes into fighting machines. Finally, unlike 1948, Arab leaders were fully prepared for war in 1967. The history of the Middle East and Syria in the twentieth century is marked by venal, opportunistic men, brutal repression and egotistic dictators who used nationalistic sentiment only to fulfill their own ambitions. Abdullah Atfeh and Husni al-Za’im willfully conspired against their own country for personal and monetary gain. King Abdullah of Jordan’s regional ambitions undermined the Arab countries’ ability to defend Palestine from the very start. Shukri al-Quwatli’s misjudgement seriously compromised sealing the course of the 1948 war, and so did his refusal to believe the scale

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of corruption of some troops in the army’s top command. Some of the challenges faced by the Syrian army were institutional, such as the French Mandate’s structuring of the Syrian army’s officer class so as to encourage sectarianism and ensure loyalty to them alone. The Syrian army was a reflection of the tensions in society between minorities and the majority Sunni, the urban and the impoverished rural populations, Damascus and the rest of the Syrian cities. However, these officers, who eventually led the coup of 1949, may never have imagined that their greed and short-sightedness would one day result in their country being broken apart, perhaps irreparably, the site of one of the greatest humanitarian disasters in the last hundred years. Consciously or not, their actions undermined the Syrian experiment in democracy and inevitably led to its failure. Ahmad Sharabati was among the very few who had an entirely different vision for Syria: one based on democratic principles, economic prosperity and equity, even at the cost of his own self-interest. Ahmad Sharabati did not live long after 1967. He died in Beirut at the age of sixty-eight on 27 November 1975 and was buried in Damascus next to his father, later to be joined by his beloved Skaidra. Most of his comrades in the Syrian nationalist movement also died in exile, far from home, and only a few were allowed burial in Syria. There is no other country in the world where the founders of its republic were treated in such a manner. Jamil Mardam Bey, for example, passed away in Cairo during the union with Egypt, while Khaled al-Azm died in Beirut in 1965. This is where al-Azm was laid to rest, as the Baathist regime refused to allow his burial in Damascus. One year later, Shukri al-Quwatli also died in Beirut suffering a stroke after hearing of the loss of the Syrian Golan. The Baathists only allowed his burial in Damascus at the request of King Faisal of Saudi Arabia. Rushdi al-Kikhiya, an ex-parliament speaker and cofounder of the People’s Party, died in Cyprus in 1988. He was buried in Nicosia. His colleague at the People’s Party, Nazem al-Qudsi, died in Amman in 1998 and was buried in Jordan. Former Prime Minister Maarouf alDawalibi, another cofounder of the People’s Party, died in Saudi Arabia in 2004. Lutfi al-Haffar, Hasan al-Hakim and Sabri al-Asali refused to leave Syria and they all died in Damascus. They were given

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simple funerals and treated as ordinary citizens rather than former prime ministers and founding fathers of the Republic. The Syrian nationalists struggled, succeeded and then failed as new countries, players and interests rose to dominate the Middle East in the second half of the twentieth century. Their deaths closed an entire chapter in the history of the nation; the struggle of a nascent state, striving for self-determination, independence and democracy. Their story mirrored the story of Syria.

Dramatis Personae

Abdul Rahman Shahbandar (1880 – 1940): Nationalist leader who led the resistance to colonial rule and was killed by agents of French intelligence in 1940. Founder of the People’s Party and co-leader of the Great Syrian Revolt. Abdullah Atfeh (1897 – 1976): The Chief-of-Staff of the Syrian Army during the Palestine War of 1948. Abdulrazzaq al-Dandashi (1899 –1935): Founder of the League of National Action. Ahmad Sharabati (1907–75): Nationalist leader and parliamentarian; minister of education then defence under President Quwatli. Fakhri al-Barudi (1889–1966): Co-founder of the Syrian resistance; a patron of the arts and a master of street politics, he served as deputy in the Syrian Parliament during the 1930s and early 1940s. Fares al-Khoury (1877–1962): Co-founder of the National Bloc; Parliament Speaker in 1936–9, Prime Minister in 1945. He was Syria’s representative to the founding conference of the United Nations. Fawzi al-Qawuqji (1890 – 1977): Commander of the Army of Deliverance in the Palestine War of 1947 – 8. Hashem al-Atasi (1874 –1960): President of the National Bloc, prime minister in 1920 and three-time president of Syria in 1936 – 9, 1949 – 51 and finally in 1954 – 5.

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Husni al-Za’im (1888– 1949): Army Commander during the war of 1948 and later commander of Syria’s first coup d’e´tat. He presided over Syria’s first military dictatorship in 1949, which lasted for 137 days. Ibrahim Hananu (1869 –1935): Commander of the Aleppo Revolt of 1949 and co-founder of the National Bloc. Jamil Mardam Bey (1894 – 1960): Co-founder of the National Bloc who led independence talks with the French in 1936 and 1945. He became Syria’s prime minister in 1936 – 9 and again during the Palestine War in 1948. Khaled al-Azm (1903– 65): Prime minister of Syria in 1941 and 1948 – 9. King Faisal I (1883 – 1933): Hashemite prince who commanded the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Army and ruled Syria between 1918 – 20. Lutfi al-Haffar (1891 – 1968): A co-founder of the National Bloc who briefly assumed the premiership in 1939. Mohammad Ali al-Abed (1867 – 1939): A Ottoman-trained bureaucrat and millionaire, who was elected the first president of Syria in 1932 –6. Saadallah Jabiri (1893 – 1947): A notable from Aleppo who co-founded the National Bloc and led independence talks with the French in 1936 and 1945, serving as prime minister and speaker of parliament under President Quwatli. Sabri al-Asali (1903 – 76): Co-founder of the League of National Action who joined the National Bloc, becoming a two-time premiere in the 1950s. Sati al-Husari (1880– 1967): A historian and scholar, he founded Syria’s first post-Ottoman Ministry of Education and led talks with the invading French Army in 1920. Sharif Hussein (1854– 1931): The emir of Mecca who led a rebellion against the Ottoman Turks in the summer of 1916.

Dramatis Personae

267

Shukri al-Quwatli (1892– 1967): Co-founder of the Syrian resistance who was elected three-time president of Syria in 1943, 1947 and 1955. During his first term Syria won its independence and early into his second, the Syrian Army went to war in Palestine. He co-created the union republic in 1958. Sultan al-Atrash (1891 – 1982): Commander of the Great Syrian Revolt of 1925. Taj al-Din al-Hasani (1885 – 1943): A Damascus notable who was appointed prime minister twice in 1928 and 1932, and then made president in 1941 – 3. Uthman Sharabati (1876 – 1950): Philanthropist and industrialist who financed the nationalist movement from 1920 to 1946 and joined the Great Syrian Revolt. Yusuf al-Azma (1884 – 1920): Syria’s Minister of War who confronted the French during the occupation of Damascus and was killed at the Maysaloun Battle in July 1920.

Notes

CHAPTER 1 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

Alef Bae (22 January 1950). Khoury, Philip. Syria and the French Mandate, 289. Ibid. Bakdounes, 1 October 2014. Ibid. Ibid. Hakim, Hasan. Muzakarat, vol I. 39. Sibaii, Bader al-Din. Adwa Ala al-Rasmal al-Ajnabi fi Souriya 1850–1958, 35 –6. Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate, 31. Seale, Patrick. Asad: Struggle for the Middle East, 17. Longrigg, Syria and Lebanon under the French Mandate, 268. FO 371/625, vol. 19022, MacKereth to Simon (7 January 1935). Ibid.

CHAPTER 2 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

HANDS THAT GIVE, NEVER TAKE

DAMASCUS OCCUPIED

Hasan al-Hakim Papers, ‘Shahbandar (Cairo) to Hakim,’ 14 April 1921. Issam Sharabati (Beirut, 11 November 2014). Fromkin, David. A peace to end all peace, 35. Thompson, Elizabeth. Colonial Citizens, 22. Antonius, George. The Arab Awakening, 136–7. Thompson, Elizabeth. Colonial Citizens, 22. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., 26. Nora Sharabati (Beirut, 5 January 2015).

Notes to Pages 13 – 21

269

11. Interview with Suheil al-Ashi, military escort to President Shukri al-Quwatli (Damascus, 2 November 2002). 12. Lawrence, T.E. Seven Pillars of Wisdom, 612. 13. Ibid., 668. 14. Ibid., 665. 15. Ibid. 16. Husari, Sati. Yawm Maysaloun, 62. 17. Ibid. 18. Ibid. 19. Seale, Patrick. The Struggle for Arab Nationalism, 152. 20. Ibid., 68. 21. Ibid. 22. Atrash, Sultan. Ahdath al-Thawra al-Souriya al-Kubra, 56. 23. Husari, Sati. Yawm Maysaloun, 63. 24. Ibid., 62. 25. Ibid. 26. Ibid. 27. Azma, Abdul-Aziz. Mir’at al-Sham, 266. 28. Ibid. 29. Ibid. 30. The Hasan al-Hakim Papers ‘Maysaloun’ (26 July 1921). 31. Safarjalani, Muhiddine. Fajiat Maysaloun, 287. 32. Ibid. 33. Husari, Yawm Maysaloun, 79. 34. Ibid. 35. Ibid., 81. 36. The Hasan al-Hakim Papers, ‘The King-Crane Commission Documents’ (30 June 1919). 37. Ibid. 38. Ibid. 39. Qasmiyah, al-Hukuma al-Arabiya, 115. For full findings of the commission, see Fares al-Khoury’s memoirs, volume 1, 69 –71. 40. Hakim, Hasan. Muzakarat, vol. I, 37. 41. Ibid. 42. Ibid. 43. Ibid., 39. 44. The Hasan al-Hakim Papers, ‘Our meeting with Mr. Crane’ (4–5 April 1922). 45. Ibid. 46. FO 371/9053 – Damascus branch of Banco di Roma to Beirut (21 March 1921). 47. Ibid. 48. Seale, The Struggle for Arab Nationalism, 170. 49. The Hasan al-Hakim Papers, ‘Our meeting with Mr. Crane’ (4–5 April 1922).

Notes to Pages 21 – 32

270 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58.

Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Hakim, Muzakarat, vol I, 75. Hakim, Muzakarat, vol I, 71. Alef Bae (25 January 1950). The Hasan al-Hakim Papers, ‘Shahbandar (Damascus) to Hakim (Jerusalem)’, 13 May 1925. 59. Ibid. 60. Ibid.

CHAPTER 3 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

SYRIA IN REVOLT

Atrash, 10 October 2004. Ibid. Ibid. FO 371/10850 WA Smart to Foreign Office (12 July 1925). Atrash, 10 October 2004. Ibid. Haffar, Salma. Lutfi al-Haffar, 136. Ibid. The Hasan al-Hakim Papers, ‘Shahbandar to Hasan al-Hakim’ (13 June 1925). Ibid. The Hasan al-Hakim Papers, ‘Preparing Damascus’ (22 August 1925). Ibid. Atrash, 10 October 2004. The Hasan al-Hakim Papers, ‘Preparing Damascus’ (22 August 1925). Al-Qasmi, Zafer. Al-Watha’ek al-Jadida an al-Thawra al-Souriya al-Kubra, 61 –2. Said, Amin. Al-Thawra al-Arabiya al-Kubra, 309. Haffar, Salma. Lutfi al-Haffar, 116. al-Muqtabas (28 August 1925). al-Muqtabas (29 August 1925). The Damascus Museum of Historical Documents, ‘Call to arms by Sultan Pasha al-Atrash’, File: Great Syrian Revolt. Ibid. The Hasan al-Hakim Papers, ‘Preparing Damascus’ (22 August 1925). The Hasan al-Hakim Papers, ‘Shahbandar to His Excellency President Coolidge’ (29 August 1925). Said, Amin. Al-Thawra al-Arabiya al-Kubra, 367. Ibid., 411.

Notes to Pages 33 – 47 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38.

39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48.

Shahbandar, Abdul Rahman. Thawra Souriya Kubra, 54 –5. Ibid. Haffar, Salma. Lutfi al-Haffar, 140. Shahbandar, Abdul Rahman. Thawra Souriya Kubra, 56. Ibid. Haffar, Salma. Lutfi al-Haffar, 140. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., 384. Haffar, Salma. Lutfi al-Haffar, 141. The Hasan al-Hakim Papers, ‘The Great Syrian Revolt’ (1 July 1926). Coury, Ralph. The Making of an Arab Nationalist, 272. Le Petit Parisien (10 November 1925). Sarrail was referring to bloody events in 1860 between Druze peasants and their Maronite landlords, which led to reprisal attacks against Damascus Christians. Le Petit Parisien (12 November 1925). Atrash, 10 October 2004. The Hasan al-Hakim Papers, ‘France’s new High Commissioner’ (1927). Said, Amin. Al-Thawra al-Arabiya al-Kubra, 388. al-Ahrar (28 November 1927). Samman, Mustapha Wasfi. Awraq wa Yawmiyat al-Thawra al-Souriya, 86. Khoury, Syria and the French mandate, 397. Zuheir Bakdounes (Damascus, 1 October 2014). Issam Sharabati (Beirut, 6 January 2015). Ibid.

CHAPTER 4 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

271

THE LEAGUE OF NATIONAL ACTION

Atasi, Radwan. Hashem al-Atasi, 117– 18. Farzat, Mohammad Harb. al-Hayat al-Hizbiya fi Souria, 103. Kayyali, Abdul Rahman. Al-Marahil, vol. I, 185. Hasan al-Hakim Papers, ‘The National Bloc’ (1932). Ibid. Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate, 397. Ibid. FO 371/4055 vol. 16974 (1 July 1933). Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate, 397. Ibid. FO 371/2092, vol. 16974 (31 March 1933). Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate, 399. FO 371/4055, vol. 16974. Todd (Quarterly Report) April–June 1933 (30 July 1933). 14. Thompson, Colonial Citizens, 49. 15. Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate, 400.

Notes to Pages 49 – 76

272 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51.

Ibid., 402. Farzat, Mohammad Harb. Al-Hayat al-Hizbiya fi Souria, 138–40. Ibid. Lisan al-Hal (13 May 1933). Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate, 415. Ibid., 408. Ibid. Ibid., 424. Ibid., 427. Ibid., 432. FO 371/625, vol. 19022, MacKereth to FO (7 January 1935). al-Shaab (16 February 1934). Alef Bae (23 February 1936). al-Qabas (28 March 1936). al-Ayyam (30 October 1933). Interview with Maamoun al-Kuzbari (Beirut, 1 November 1997). Ibid. Rida, Ali. Kissat al-Kifah al-Watani, 381. al-Ayyam (25 November 1935). Ibid. FO 371/863, vol. 20065, MacKareth to Eden (27 January 1936). Ibid. Interview with Colette Khoury (Damascus, 25 October 2010). FO 371/962, vol. 20065 Harvard to Eden (13 February 1936). FO371/1941, vol. 20065, MacKereth to Eden (4 April 1936). al-Shaab (11 February 1936). FO 371/1744 vol. 20065, MacKereth to Eden (31 March 1936). Quai d’Orsay Archives – The Franco–Syrian Treaty of Friendship and Alliance (10 September 1936). FO 371/20066, Ogden to FO (3 October 1936). Ibid. FO 371/6716, vol. 20066, Ogden to Eden (3 October 1936). al-Ayyam (23 December 1936). Ibid. Zueiter, Akram. Yawmiyat Akram Zueiter, 596. al-Qabas (22 February 1936). FO 371/2840, vol. 27291, Gardner to FO (10 April 1939).

CHAPTER 6 1. 2. 3. 4.

THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY

Interview with Aida Sharabati (Beirut, 26 April 2015). Peaux, Gabriel. Deus Annes au Levant, 159–60. FO 371/24591, Political Report (28 May 1940). Interview with Nazir Fansah (Paris, 13 October 2003).

Notes to Pages 76 – 86 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26.

27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44.

273

Ibid. Ibid. FO 371/23276, Political Report (28 January 1940). Ajlani (10 September 1999). Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. The Hasan al-Hakim Papers, ‘Khoury to Hakim’ (15 December 1939). FO 371/23277 Consul General Harvard to FO (13 September 1940). Ibid. Ibid. Ajlani, 10 September 1999. Seale, The Struggle for Arab for Arab Nationalism, 398. Ajlani, 10 September 1999. Ibid. Ajlani, 10 September 1999. Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate, 591. Ibid. The Hasan al-Hakim Papers, ‘Hitler sends envoys to Damascus’ (April 1941). FO 371/27327, Consul General to FO (1– 14 March 1941). Ajlani, 9 September 1999. Amin al-Husseini gave the documents to his friend Maarouf al-Dawalibi, who in turn, made a copy of them for Munir al-Ajlani when the two men were exiled to Saudi Arabia after the Baath Party coup of 1963. al-Ayyam (30 May 1941). Ibid. Seale, The Struggle for Arab Nationalism, 117. Ibid. Mardam Bey, Salma. Syria’s Quest for Independence, 30. Ibid. Ajlani, 10 September 1999. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Atasi, Hashem al-Atasi, 254. al-Qabas (1 June 1941). Gaunson, A.B. The Anglo-French Clash, 41. Ibid., 53 –4. Seale, The Struggle for Arab Nationalism, 429. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., 431.

274 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85.

Notes to Pages 86 – 93 Kersaudy, Francois. Churchill and De Gaulle, 192–210. Interview with Abdulsalam al-Ujayli (11 May 1998). Kersuady, Churchill and De Gaulle, 432. FO 371, 27323, Political Report (6 June 1941). Ibid. Spears, Fulfillment of a Mission, 1. FO 371/31481, vol. 292, Catroux to Hamilton (9 March 1942). Seale, The Struggle for Arab Nationalism, 437. Ibid. FO 371, vol. 31481, Catroux to FO (9 March 1942). Ibid. FO 371/31481, British Consul to FO (4 March 1942). Ajlani, 15 September 1999. FO 371, Anthony Eden (London) to Catroux (Damascus, 10 March 1942). Ashi, 3 November 2002. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Gaunson, The Anglo-French Clash, 80. Seale, The Struggle for Arab Independence, 454. Ibid. Ajlani, 20 August 1999. Interview with Inaam Taj al-Din al-Hasani (Beirut, 10 September 1999). Ibid. Ajlani, 20 August 1999. Ibid. Babil, Sahafa wa Siyasa, 155. Ibid. The Hasan al-Hakim Papers, ‘Hakim to Fares al-Khoury’ (1 September 1941). Ibid. Hasani, 1 September 2000. Ibid. Babil, Sahafa wa Siyasa, 155. The Hasan al-Hakim Papers, ‘Working with Taj al-Din’ (15 September 1941). Ibid. The Hasan al-Hakim Papers, ‘Unity of Syrian Lands’ (12 January 1942). The Hasan al-Hakim Papers, ‘Working with Taj al-Din’ (15 September 1941). al-Ayyam (28 April 1942). al-Ayyam (29 April 1942). Arab Foundation, Emir Abdul-Illah, 306. Ajlani, 20 August 1999.

Notes to Pages 97 – 116 CHAPTER 7 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41.

275

A NEW DAWN: AUGUST 1943

FO 226/240/9/4/180, Memorandum to FO (29 April 1943). al-Qabas (13 June 1943). Ibid. FO 226/240/9/4/180, Memorandum to FO (1 February 1943). Ibid. Ibid. Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate, 599. Ibid. al-Ayyam (8 February 1943). FO 371/35175, Spears to FO (9 February 1943). al-Qabas (2 April 1943). Mardam Bey, Syria’s Quest for Independence, 75. FO 226/240/9/10/469, French Consul (Damascus) to MacKenzie at FO (23 April 1943). Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Interview with Abdullah al-Khani (Damascus, 6 September 2010). Ibid. Ibid. Interview with Suheil al-Ashi (Damascus, 2 November 2002). Mardam Bey, Syria’s Quest, 76. Ibid. Hakim, Yusuf. Souria wa al-Intidab al-Faransi, 330–1. Hawrani, Akram. Muzakarat, vol. II, 252. Babil, Sahafa wa Siyasa, 170. Interview with Abdul-Wahab Homad (Damascus, 7 February 2002). al-Inshaa (18 May 1943). Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate, 690. Atasi, Rawdan. Hashem al-Atasi, 602. al-Ayyam (3 August 1943). Interview with Colette Khoury (Damascus, 25 October 2010). Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate, 603. Mardam Bey, Syria’s Quest, 127. Ibid., 120. Palestine Post (3 July 1944). Ibid. al-Ayyam (17 November 1943). Kourani, As’ad. Zikrayat wa Khawater, 144. Dallek, Robert. Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 520. New York Times (13 April 1945).

Notes to Pages 116 – 130

276

42. al-Inshaa (14 April 1945). 43. Khabbaz, Hanna and Haddad, Fouad. Fares al-Khoury, 134.

CHAPTER 8 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39.

BLESSED ARE THE EDUCATORS

Parliament Minutes (5 April 1945). Ibid. Hourani, Albert. Syria and Lebanon, 219–20. Husari, Sati. Report II to the Minister of Education, 3. Ibid., 86. Ibid. Ibid., Report V, 57. Ibid. Ibid., 59. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Husari, Report III, 13. Ibid. al-Inshaa (11 February 1946). Ibid. Thompson, Elizabeth. Colonial Citizens, 76. Moubayed, Sami. Steel & Silk, 437. Husari, Report IV, 201. Rafeq, Abdul Karim. Tareekh al-Jamaa al-Souria, 293. al-Inshaa (11 February 1946). Ibid. Alef Bae (14 November 1946). al-Ayyam (1 July 1946). Husari, Report, 110. Husari, Report I, 13. Interview with Munir al-Ajlani (Beirut, 9 September 1999). Parliament Minutes, Ahmad Sharabati (30 November 1946). Parliament Ministers, Ali Abdul Karim al-Dandashi (2 May 1946). Husari, Report, 12. Ibid., 22. Ibid., 92. Parliament Minutes, Husni Sabah (30 June 1946). Ibid.

Notes to Pages 130 – 143 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54.

Ibid. Ibid. Sanhouri, Abdulrazzaq. Report to the Minister of Education, 110. Ibid. Ibid., 68. Ibid. Parliament Minutes, Fares al-Khoury (30 April 1946). Husari, Report, 43. al-Ayyam (26 May 1945). Ibid. Husari, Report II, 29. Rafeq, Tareekh, 137. Interview with Abdulsalam al-Ujayli (Beirut, 11 May 1998). Ibid. Ibid.

CHAPTER 9 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

277

EVACUATION

Suhail al-Ashi (Damascus, 2 November 2001). Ibid. Mardam Bey, Syria’s Quest, 205. al-Ayyam (21 May 1945). The Munir al-Ajlani Papers, ‘Antaki to Ajlani’ (5 May 1945). FO 371/45565, Political Report (23 May 1945). Abdul Wahab Homad (Damascus, 7 February 2002). Mardam Bey, Syria’s Quest, 201. Ibid., 213. Ibid. Ibid. Raja Shurbaji (Damascus, 3 November 2010). Ashi, 2 November 2002. Ibid. The Munir al-Ajlani Papers, ‘Notes on the French massacre 29 May 1945’. Ibid. Zuhair Bakdounes (Damascus, 3 March 2015). The Munir al-Ajlani Papers, ‘Notes on the French massacre 29 May 1945’. Ibid. Mardam Bey, Syria’s Quest, 217. Ibid. Ibid. Salma al-Haffar (Damascus, 1 May 1998). Ibid. The Hasan al-Hakim Papers, ‘State of the Army of the Levant’ (15 June 1945).

Notes to Pages 143 – 155

278 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52.

Ibid. Atrash, 10 October 2004. Ibid. Mardam Bey, Syria’s Quest, 217. Ibid. al-Ahram (2 June 1945). FO/371/4/59354, Damascus Consul to Foreign Office (2 June 1945). Ibid. Roger Louis, William. The British Empire in the Middle East, 164. The Hasan al-Hakim Papers, ‘Khoury to Hakim’ (6 June 1945). Ibid. Ibid., 10 June 1945. Ibid. Ibid., 25 June 1945. FO 371/5/33982, British Consul in Damascus to Foreign Office (2 June 1945). Ajlani, 15 September 1999. Mardam Bey, Syria’s Quest, 220. FO 371/5/33982, British Consul in Damascus to Foreign Office (2 June 1945). al-Nasr (5 August 1945). al-Nasr (15 August 1945). al-Ayyam (1 September 1945). al-Nasr (3 August 1945). FO 371/68/3983222, British Consul in Damascus to Foreign Office ‘Report’ (30 June 1945). al-Inshaa (16 June 1945). al-Fayha (8 June 1945). Ibid. al-Ayyam (24 August 1945).

CHAPTER 10 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

DARK CLOUDS

FO 371/38633 ‘National Party backs Al-Quwatly’ (2 February 1947). F0 371/38634 ‘Damascus backs Al-Quwatly’ (5 February 1947). Homad, 7 February 2002. Parliamentary Minutes (February–March 1947). Ibid. Interview with Colette Khoury (Damascus, 25 October 2010). Azm, Muzakarat, 328. Homad, 7 February 2002. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid.

Notes to Pages 156 – 170 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55.

279

Hawrani, Akram. Muzakarat, 634. Landis, Joshua. Nationalism and the Politics of Zaama, 188. Azm, Muzakarat, 330. Kourani, Zikrayat, 175. The Munir al-Ajlani Papers, ‘Quwatli’s new term’ (10 July 1947). Landis, Nationalism and the Politics of Zaama, 95. Ashi, 2 November 2002. Interview with Adonis (Paris, 30 November 2004). The Munir al-Ajlani Papers, ‘Quwatli’s new term’ (10 July 1947). Ashi, 3 November 2002. Babil, Sahafa wa Siyasa, 312. Interview with Nazir Fansah (Paris, 13 October 2003). Homad, 7 February 2002. Ibid. The Munir al-Ajlani Papers, ‘Quwatli’s new term’ (10 July 1947). al-Qabas (30 July 1947). al-Qabas (30 July 1947). al-Shaab (29 July 1947). al-Ayyam (30 July 1947). Ajlani, 10 September 1999. Ibid. Interview with Maamoun Abdul Hamid al-Tabba (Damascus, 17 September 2005). Ajlani, 6 September 1999. Hawrani, Muzakarat, vol. I, 670. Ibid., 671. Ibid. Arslan, Adel. Muzakarat vol. I, 686. Parliamentary Minutes (September 1943–April 1946). Ibid. Ajlani, 10 September 1999. Thompson, Elizabeth. Justice Interrupted, 221. al-Fayha (23 February 1947). al-Baath (3 March 1949). Ashi, 3 November 2002. The Munir al-Ajlani Papers (The Syrian Army, December 1946). Landis, Nationalism, 223. Interview with Jado Izzidine (Damascus, 30 August 2010). Azm, Muzakarat, 225. Rayyes, Munir. al-Kitab al-Zahabi, 408. Ashi, 2 November 2002. Ibid. Ashi, 10 November 2002. Jumaa, Sami. Awrak min Daftar al-Watan, 18. Abu Mansour, Fadlallah, Aasir Dimashq, 26.

Notes to Pages 170 – 187

280 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63.

Izzidine, 30 August 2010. Ajlani, 9 September 1999. Abu Mansour, Aasir Dimashq, 30. Bashour, Hanna. Min Zakiret Abi, 118. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., 119. Ibid.

CHAPTER 11 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33.

ON THE BRINK OF WAR

Sharabati Papers, 17 May 1948. Sharabati Papers, 16 May 1948. al-Inshaa (19 April 1946). The Hasan al-Hakim Papers, ‘Khoury to Hakim’ (15 November 1947). Morris, 1948, 41. The Hasan al-Hakim Papers, ‘Khoury to Hakim’ (23 May 1947). Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Khalaf, Issa. Politics in Palestine, 156– 7. Ashi, 2 November 2002. Ajlani, 15 September 1999. Ibid. The Hasan al-Hakim Papers, ‘Khoury to Hakim’ (13 June 1947). al-Hayat (16 July 1947). Ibid., 18 July 1947. al-Hayat (24 July 1947). Ibid., 25 July 1947. The Hasan al-Hakim Papers, ‘Khoury to Hakim’ (6 August 1947). Morris, 1948, 50. FO 371/61529, Beirut to FO (17 September 1947). al-Ayyam (15 December 1947). FO 371/61877, British Legation in Damascus (15 August 1947). Morris, 1948, 62. Ibid., 63 –4. Ibid. Heptulla, Najma. Indo-West Asian Relations: The Nehru Era, 158. Morris, 1948, 56. Ibid. Interview with Maamoun al-Kuzbari (Beirut, 1 November 1997). Truman, Harry. Memoirs, 158. Cohen, Michael. Palestine and the Great Powers, 296. FO 371/61890, UN Delegation to FO (27 November 1947).

Notes to Pages 188 – 198 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61.

Ibid. Morris, 1948, 65. al-Hayat (1 December 1947). Interview with Abdul-Ghani al-Otari (Damascus, 9 August 2001). al-Ayyam (3 December 1947). Ibid (5 December 1947). al-Ayyam (2 December 1947). FO 371/62184, ‘What happened in Aleppo on 30.11.1947’ Report. al-Inshaa (2 December 1947). Time (19 April 1948). Ujayli, 11 May 1998. Morris, 1948, 85. Landis, Nationalism, 269. Ujayli, Al-Muzakarat al-Siyasiya, 171–2. Ibid., 172. Ujayli, Al-Muzakarat al-Siyasiya, 170. Ashi, 10 November 2002. FO 371/68364, Bush to FO (31 December 1947). The Hasan al-Hakim Papers, ‘Hashemi to Hakim’ (9 December 1947). al-Ayyam (4 December 1947). Sharabati Papers, 22 April 1948. Interview with Omar Arnaout (Damascus, 16 November 2015). Ibid. Morris, 1948, 91–2. Ibid., 632. FO 371/68635, Pierson Dixon, Prague to FO (1 April 1948). Qawuqji, Fawzi. Muzakarat, 334. Sharabati Papers, 15 May 1948.

CHAPTER 12 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

281

THE NAKBA

Morris, 1948, 180. Ujayli, 11 May 1998. Shliam, Collusion across the Jordan, 227–8. Ibid., 227. Ajlani, 15 September 1999. Morris, 1948, 181. Ibid., 182. FO 371/68371, Campbell to FO (1 May 1948). Sharabati Papers, 3 April 1948. Alef Bae (11 April 1948). Shlaim, Avi. The Partition of Palestine, 136. al-Hayat (14 April 1948). Alef Bae (2 April 1948).

282 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57.

Notes to Pages 199 – 207 al-Ayyam (9 April 1948). Sharabati Papers, 24 April 1948. FO 371/61583, Kirkbride to FO (21 December 1937). Interview with Naser al-Din al-Nashashibi (17 October 2003). FO 816/118, Cairo to British Legation in Amman (29 April 1948). Shlaim, Collusion Across the Jordan, 227–8. Morris, 1948, 185. Ibid. Nasser, Gamal Abdul. Falsafet al-Thawra, 10. Morris, 1948, 185. Pappe, Ian. Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 112. Transcript of Husni al-Barazi Interview – 1975 (AUB Oral History Project). Alef Bae (29 April 1948). Ashi, 10 November 2002. The Barudi Papers, ‘1948’. Ibid. Ibid. Glubb, Jon Bagot. A Soldier with the Arabs, 93. Sharabati Papers, 17 April 1948. Ibid. Sharabati Papers, 16 April 1948. FO 371/62497/E9137 ‘The Greater Syria Movement’ (10 January 1948). Interview with Sami Jumaa (Damascus, 29 December 2000). Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Jouma, Sami. Awrak Min Daftar al-Watan, 51. Jumaa, 29 December 2000. Qawuqji, Muzakarat, 334. Sharabati (5 August 1948). Morris, 1948, 187. Ibid., 207. Barazi, Muhsen. Muzakarat, 55. The Barudi Papers, ‘1948’. Ibid. FO 371/68384, Cairo to Foreign Office (16 February 1948). Morris, 1948, 207. Sharabati Papers, 27 November 1948. Sharabati Papers, 10 August 1948. Ibid. Ibid. Jarous, Souad. Min al-Intidab ila al-Inqilab, 291. Sharabati Papers, 11 August 1948. Sharabati Papers, 30 April 1948.

Notes to Pages 208 – 216 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100.

283

Sharabati Papers, 1 December 1947. Sharabati Papers, 2 May 1948. Sharabati Papers, 6 May 1948. Sharabati Papers, 1 May 1948. Sharabati Papers, 8 August 1947. Sharabati Papers, 12 August 1947. Ajlani, 15 September 1999. Seale, The Struggle for Arab Nationalism, 633. Interview with Abdul Rahman Mardini (Damascus, 26 January 2008). FO 816/35, Kirkbride to Thomas Wikeley (29 August 1946). Ibid. New York Times (9 December 1978). Ajlani, 15 September 1999. Morris, 1948, 192. al-Hayat (8 February 1948). FO 371/68818, Bevin to Kirkbride (10 February 1948). FO 816/12 Abu al-Huda to Rais al-Diwan (8 February 1948). Morris, 1948, 193. Ibid. Ibid. Glubb, Soldier, 152. Doran, Michael. Pan-Arabism before Nasser, 134. Interview with General Wadih al-Moukabari (Damascus, 20 August 2006). Alef Bae (16 May 1948). Abu Nowar, Maan. The Jordanian-Israeli Wars, 86. Morris, 1948, 232. Barazi, Muzakarat, 26. Ujayli, 11 May 1998. Mardini, 26 January 2005. Moukabari, 20 August 2006. Ibid. Ujayli, 11 May 1998. Ibid. Sharabati Papers, 15 August 1948. Ibid. Sharabati Papers, 16 May 1948. Ibid. Official communique´s of the Syrian Army, al-Jarida al-Rasmia (May 1948). Sharabati Papers, 16 May 1948. Ibid. Babil, Sahafa wa Siyasa, 382–3. Ben Gurion, David. War Diary, 438. Ibid.

Notes to Pages 217 – 233

284 101. 102. 103. 104. 105. 106. 107. 108. 109. 110. 111. 112. 113. 114. 115. 116. 117. 118. 119. 120. 121. 122. 123. 124. 125. 126. 127.

Sharabati Papers, 17 May 1948. The Barudi Papers, ‘1948’. Morris, 1948, 255. Mardini, 26 January 2005. Ujayli, 11 May 1998. Sharabati Papers, 6 August 1948. Kourani, Muzakarat, 182. Ibid., 29 May 1948. Ujayli, 11 May 1998. Moukabari, 20 August 2006. al-Ayyam (7 June 1948). Ibid. Ujayli, 11 May 1998. The Barudi Papers, ‘1948’. al-Ayyam (2 September 1948). Morris, 1948, 641. The Barudi Papers, ‘1948’. Ibid. al-Hayat (14 December 1948). Seale, The Struggle for Arab Nationalism, 652. Laurens, Henry. La Question de Palestine, 175–94. Ibid. Ibid. Sharabati Papers, 4 August 1948. Sharabati Papers, 30 May 1948. Al-Islah, 22 June 1948. Kourani, Asaad. Muzakarat, 175. In his memoirs Kourani described Sharabati as a ‘generous man and exceptional engineer, who was a very dear friend of mine.’ 128. Parliamentary Minutes (2 June 1948). 129. Ibid. 130. Babil, Sahafa wa Siyasa, 404.

CHAPTER 13 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

THE DICTATOR OF DAMASCUS

al-Inshaa (3 October 1948). al-Fidaa (23 January 1963). Fansah, Nazir. Ayyam Husni al-Za’im, 30. Ibid. Fansah, Ayyam Husni al-Za’im, 32. TIME (11 April 1949). Ibid., 42. Ibid., 86. Ibid.

Notes to Pages 233 – 261 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40.

Ibid. USNA, 350 Syria 3144.0501. Ibid., 19. Ibid., 94. Rabinovich, The Road Not Taken, 68. Interview with Haitham Kaylani (Damascus, July 17, 2002). Shlaim, Avi. Israel and Palestine: Reappraisals, Revisions, Refutations, 67. Ibid. Ibid. Interview with General Husni al-Za’im (al-Inkilab newspaper, 20 August 1949). Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Dimashq al-Masaa (26 March 1947). Barazi, Muhsen. Muzakarat, 62 –3. Ashi (10 November 2001). James Keeley (Washington, DC, 22 January 2006). Copland, Miles. The Game of Nations, 42. Ibid., 49 –60. Rabinovich, The Road not Taken, 85. FO 371/75529, E4-72 (28 March 1949). Khani, 6 September 2010. Khani, Souriya bayn al-Dimocratiya wa al-Hukm al-Fardi, 76. Arslan, Muzakarat, 25. Ram Hamadani, Mustapha. Shahed Ala Ahdath Souria, 74. Rabinovich, The Road Not Taken, 84. Ibid. Fansah, 13 October 2003. Khani, Souriya bayn al-Dimocratiya wa al-Hukm al-Fardi, 80. Ibid. Fansah, Ayyam Husni al-Za’im, 100.

CHAPTER 14 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

285

THE UNITED ARAB REPUBLIC AND ITS AFTERMATH

Khani, Jihad Shukri al-Quwatli, 115. Ibid., 116. Azma, Bashir. Jeel al-Hazima, 183. Azm, Muzakarat, vol. III, 199. Ibid., 200. Ibid., 173. Azma, Bashir. Jeel al-Hazima, 210. Ibid., 211. al-Thawra (6 November 1967).

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Index

al-Abbas, Munir, 92 Abdul-Aziz, King of Saudi Arabia (Ibn Saud), 55–56, 153, 93, 98, 115, 153, 157, 180, 190, 201, 206, 230, 236 Abdul Hadi, Ibrahim, 238 Abdul-Illah, Regent of Iraq, 180 Abdul Qadoos, Ihsan, 207 Abdulhamid II, Ottoman Sultan, and Damascenes, 11–12, 29, 35, 83, 100 Abdullah, King of Jordan, and asylum to Sharabati, 72 –73, 112, 148, 180, 184, 192, 200 and Palestine War, 211 – 213, 262 and relations with Quwatli, 201 –205, 209 Abed Building, 19 al-Abed, Ahmad Izzat Pasha, 70 al-Abed, Mohammad Ali, election of, 48, 59, 60 –61, 90, 108, 157, 231 al-Abed, Mustapha Pasha, 22, 30 al-Abed, Nazeq, 22 Abu al-Huda, Tawfiq, 210 Abu Mansour, Fadlallah, 170 –171, 242 Abu Risheh, Omar, 25 Adonis, 159 Aflaq, Michel, 101 –102, 152, 164 –165, 245, 253, 258, 260 al-Ajlani, Munir, 79, 161, 166 Allenby, General Edmund, 13 Amer, Abdul Hakim, 252 American University of Beirut (AUB), and collaboration with Syrian Education Ministry, 128 –129, 131, 144, 152, 179

and Palestine War, 209, 225 and Shahbandar, 10, 11, 20 and Sharabati, 24 –26, 32, 41, 44, 49 –50, 52, 55, 63, 77, 99, 101, 105, 108, 110, 114, 116, 120 –121 Anbar, Yusuf, 123 Antaki, Naim, 112, 120, 145, 157, 183– 184 Arab League, 143, 150, 155, 179 –180, 189 and Army of Deliverance, 190 –192, 196 –198 and Palestine War, 200, 205, 208–209 Arab Language Assembly, 124 Arab Liberation Society, 49 Arab Socialist Party, 151, 164, 245 Arafat, Yasser, 206 Arazi, Tuvia, 235 al-Armanazi, Najib, 149 Army of Deliverance, 189 –194, 196, 200 Arslan, Emir Adel, 80, 158, 162, 196, 207, 238 Arslan, Emir Shakib, 49 al-Arsuzi, Zaki, 52, 63 Arwad Island, 31 – 32, 100, 146 al-Asali, Sabri defence of Ahmad Sharabati, 225, 227, 255, 259, 263 and League of National Action, 53, 55, 62 –63, 99, 100, 150, 177 al-Asali, Shukri, 99 al-Ashi, Suheil, 106, 229 al-Assad, Hafez, 93, 258, 260 –261

298

The Makers of Modern Syria

al-Atasi, Adnan, 62, 99, 101, 105, 109, 157 –158, 165 al-Atasi, Hashem, 1, 9, 15, 26 and Charles de Gaulle, 82 –83, 91, 93 –94, 98 –99 founding of the National Bloc, 42 –44 and Franco-Syrian Treaty (1936), 58 –61, 80 and General Strike, 54 –55 leadership in Homs, 54 – 56 presidential election of (1932), 48 return to power (1949), 243, return to power (1954), 245 and Shukri al-Quwatli, 107 –108, 122, 153, 157, 230– 232 and United Arab Republic, 251, 255 al-Atasi, Faydi, 124 al-Atasi, Hilmi, 55, 62 al-Atasi, Makram, 54 –55, 62 al-Atasi, Nour al-Din, 260 –261 Atfeh, Abdullah, 168 –169, 204, 219, 221, 262 al-Atrash, Abdul Ghaffar Pasha, 92 al-Atrash, Sultan, 2 and exile, 39, 143, 159 and Great Syrian Revolt, 28 –29 and Hajj Uthman Sharabati, 30 –31, 35, 36 al-Attar, Abdul Hamid, 20 al-Ayesh, Mohammad, 159, 221, 227 Aytouni, Rifaat, 227 Ayyashi, Ghaleb, 190 al-Ayyubi, Ata and cabinet of (1936), 60, 83 and cabinet of (1943), 93, 104 al-Ayyubi, Khaled, 227 al-Ayyubi, Mustapha, 141 al-Azm, Ghaleb, 53 al-Azm, Haqqi, 21 –22, 47, 51 al-Azm, Khaled, 7 and arms deal with France, 170, 176 arrest of (1949), 228 –229, 242, 250 arrest of (1963), 252, 255, 257, 259 and bombing of Damascus (1945), 140, 150, 153, 158, 167 death, 263 and Vichy France, 83, 100 al-Azm, Mohammad Fawzi Pasha, 19 Azm Palace, 33, 109, 246 al-Azma, Nabih, 79, 158 al-Azma, Yusuf, 14 –15, 17, 168, 229

Azzam, Abdul Rahman, and Bloudan Conference, 180, 197, 200, 208, and King Abdullah, 211 Baath Party, 63, 72, 95, 102, 134 –135, 152, 165, 190, 245, 250, 256– 257, 260 Bab Srijeh (neighbourhood), 4 Bab Touma, 20, 32, 141 Babil, Nasuh, 52, 161 al-Bahra, Adnan, 227 Bakdash, Khaled, 95, 152, 253 Bakdounes, Rashid, 20 al-Bakri, Fawzi, 29 al-Bakri, Nasib, 29, 33, 59, 83, 100, 227 Balfour Declaration, 147, 179 Balfour, James, 131, 179 al-Banna, Hasan, 41 Bannud, Anwar, 221 Barada River, 70, 124, 191 al-Baramkeh (neighbourhood), 5, 130 al-Barazi, Husni, 124, 201 al-Barazi, Khalid, 162 al-Barazi, Muhsen, 53, 55, 63, 83, 124, 147, 198 killing of, 242 al-Barazi, Najib, 42, 107 Barmada, Rashad, 161 al-Barudi, Fakhri, 1, 6 arrest of, 59 –60 and bombing of Damascus (1945), 141, 150, 153 –154, 160, 166 and Great Syrian Revolt, 31 memoirs of, 177 and National Youth, 53 and Palestine War, 225 and popularity of, 43 –44 and Steel Shirts, 79 –80, 98, 100, 103, 123 and street campaigns against the French, 57 –58 and Umayyad Scouts, 128–129 Bashour, Tawfiq, 172, 221 Bayhum al-Jazairi, Adila, 124 al-Baysar, Aref, 42 Beck, Walter, 80 Begin, Menachem, 188 Ben Gurion, David, 80, 105, 183, 185, 213, 215 Bernadotte, Folke, 222 Bevin, Ernest, 210

Index al-Bitar, Salah, 101–102, 164–165, 245, 249–250, 255–256, 259 al-Bizreh, Afif, 248 Bliss, Daniel, 25 Bloudan Conference, 180 Blum, Leon, 80, 121, 187 al-Boukhari, Nasuhi, 100, 124, 167 Bouzo, Ali, 161 al-Bzurieh Market, 4, 6, 7 Catroux, George, 69, 81, 85 –86, 88 –89, 91 –94, 103 Chamoun, Camille, 182, 187 Churchill, Winston, 84, 114, 139, 143, 147 Communist Party of Syria, 40 –41, 50 –51, 56 –57, 95, 97, 152, 199, 236 Copeland, Miles, 237 Crane, Charles, 18, 19 and Hajj Uthman Sharabati, 20 –23 al-Daghestani, Taleb, 203 al-Dalati, Fayez, 128 Damascus Chamber of Commerce, 23, 33, 43–44, 46, 59, 82, 100–101, 107, 133 Damascus Citadel, 5–6, 141, 145 Damascus Electricity Company, 57 Damascus University, 10, 26, 31, 44, 48, 59, 63, 88, 99, 119, 124– 126, 129 –131, 133, 145, 162, 252 –253 al-Dandashi, Abdulrazzaq, 48 –49, 58 al-Dandashi, Ali Abdul Karim, 53 –54, 128 al-Daqr, Ali, 101 Darwaza, Izzat, 179 al-Dawalibi, Maarouf, 155, 161, 263 Dayan, Moshe, 217 de Gaulle, Charles, 72, 78, 81, 84 –88– 91, 93, 113, 117, 136 – 139, 147 –148 de Jouvenel, Henri, 34 –35 de Martel, Henri, 60 Dentz, Henri, 81 –83, 85, 90 Diab, Abdul Hamid, 254 Dietrich, Marlene, 78 Eden, Anthony, 84, 138, 145, 148 Eid, Muhibeh, 4 Einstein, Albert, 187 Entizam, Nosrallah, 181

299

Fairuz, 246 Faisal I, King of Syria, 10 crowning of, 19, 50, 54 death of, 57, 78, 91, 971, 124, 142, 168, 189 entry into Damascus (1918), 13 –14 and French ultimatum, 15, 17 Faisal II, King of Iraq, 78, 241, 243 Faisal, King of Saudi Arabia, 144, 263 Fakhri, Sabah, 246 al-Fakir, Tahseen Pasha, 16 Farouk, King of Egypt, 77, 93, 98, 115, 143, 153, 157, 180, 188, 190, 199– 200, 207, 213, 230, 239 Fathi, Abdul Latif, 128 Franco, Francisco, 208 Garbo, Greta, 68 Gemayel, Pierre, 82 George VI, King, 93 Ghazi, King of Iraq, 57, 78 al-Ghazzi, Fawzi, 31 al-Ghazzi, Said, 100, 120, 123, 145, 157, 160 al-Ghouta, 30 –31, 33, 47 –48, 54 –55, 68, 99, 172 al-Ghouta Troops, 54 Glubb Pasha, 202, 211, 240 Gouraud, Henri, 15 –17 occupation of Damascus, 18, 67 Gromyko, Andrei, 181 Gustav V, King, 112 Habash, George, 25 Haddad, Wadih, 25 Hafez, Abdul Halim, 246 al-Hafez, Amin, 260 al-Hafez, Thuraya, 124 al-Haffar, Lutfi, 23 arrest of, 82, 95, 98 – 100 and Baath Party, 102, 124, 150, 154, 177 and coup (1949), 231, 259, death of, 263 and Great Syrian Revolt, 33, 35, 43 al-Haffar, Wajih, 229 al-Hakim, Abdul Wahab, 204, 213 al-Hakim, Hasan, 2, 20, 23, 29, 92, 124, 161, 255, 263 al-Halabi, Kamal, 20 Halbuni, Aref, 44 Hamidieh Souq, 1, 23, 33, 60, 103

300

The Makers of Modern Syria

Hananu, Ibrahim, 42, 44, 48, 55, 58, 156, 259 al-Hanbali, Adel, 227 al-Hariri, Ziad, 257 Haroun, Abdulwahid, 99 Haroun, Asaad, 98 al-Hasani, Badr al-Din, 35 al-Hasani, Taj al-Din, 60, 90 –92 death of, 93, 108, 136 –137 Hashem, Labiba, 124 al-Hashemi, Taha Pasha, 191, 221, 241 al-Hashemi, Yassin Pasha, 241 al-Hawrani, Akram, views on Shukri al-Quwatli, 107 and Arab Socialist Party, 151 –154 and Army of Deliverance, 190, 207 and Baath coup (1963), 257 and coup (1949), 229 and defamation of Sharabati, 225 –226 elections of (1954), 161 –164, 171 –172, 176 and merge with the Baath Party, 245, 250 and nationalisation policies, 253–254 re-election of Quwatli, 156 and secession coup (1961), 255 –256 and United Arab Republic, 253 Heikal, Mohammad Hasanein, 261 al-Hindi, Mahmud, 50 al-Hinnawi, Sami, 203 –204, 240, 242 –243 al-Hiraki, Hikmat, 120 Hitler, Adolf, 73, 76 –77 Homsi, Edmond, 238 Hoover, Herbert, 104 Hull, Cordell, 114 Hurley, Patrick, 104 – 106 al-Husari, Sati, 16, 125, 129, 132 Husrieh, Aziza, 30 Hussein, Sharif of Mecca, 13, 14 al-Husseini, Abdul Qader, 191, 198 –199 al-Husseini, Hajj Amin, 34, 65, 76, 181, 191, 194 al-Husseini, Ibrahim, 229 Ibrahim Pasha, Hasan Fouad, 109 Ibish, Hussein, 68 al-Inklizi, Issam, 229, 238

al-Issa, Suleiman, 135 al-Issa, Yusuf, 42 al-Jabi, Rushdi, 53, 62 al-Jabiri, Saadallah, 32 and 1936 Treaty, 60 and arms purchase, 207 and Bloudan Conference, 180 and bombing of Damascus, 139 –140, 142 –143, 147, 150 death of, 156, 177 government of, 111 health of, 153 – 155 influence in Aleppo, 109 and League of National Action, 58 and National Bloc, 44 and support of Shukri al-Quwalti, 107 –108 and Soviet Union, 113 traits of, 112 and United States, 114, 119, 137 and Vichy France, 82, 98 –99 al-Jabiri, Salah al-Din, 32 Jadid, Salah, 258 – 260 al-Jallad, Irfan, 48 al-Jaza’iri, Emir Said, 42 Jewish Agency, 182 – 183, 186, 188, 210, 220 Jouvenel, Henri de, 34 Jumaa, Sami, 204 al-Jundi, Abdul Qader, 191 Kabbara, Sami, 161 Kallas, Khalil, 190 Kamal, Wasfi, 50, 179 Kaylani, Abdul Qader, 42 al-Kayyali, Abdul Rahman, 32, 42, 44, 99, 109, 124, 224, 226 Keeley, James, 232, 234 –235 al-Khani, Abdul-Aziz, 105 al-Khani, Abdullah, 149 al-Khatib, Bahij, 92, 108 al-Khatib, Muhib al-Din, 34 al-Khatib, Zaki, 92, 161, 207 Kheir, Adib, 100, 103 al-Khoury, Beshara, 137, 180, 200 –201, 209, 230 al-Khoury, Fares, 1 appointment as Prime Minister, 119 –120, 124, 131, 137, 140 background, 10 –11, 14, 20, 22 – 24, 26, 29, 31, 35, 43

Index death of, 156, 159, 177, 179 –183 and dismissal from Damascus University, 59 –61, 77, 91, 95, 98 –100, 104 and election as Speaker of Parliament, 110 –111, 113 and Husni al-Za’im coup, 153 –154 and International Court of Justice, 188, 231 –232 lobby at the UN, 185 –186 and National Bloc, 44 and UN founding conference, 116 and UN Security Council, 144, 148 –149 al-Khoury, Fayez, 93 Khoury, Philip, 47 Khoury, Suheil, 99, 103 al-Kikhiya, Rushdi, 108, 152–153, 155, 160–161, 177, 243, 260, 263 King Crane Commission, 19, 20, 104 King, Henry, 19 Kissinger, Henry, 260 Kourani, Asaad, 225 Kurd Ali, Mohammad, 124, 162 al-Kuzbari, Abdullah, 20 al-Kuzbari, Maamoun, 259 al-Lahham, Ahmad, 229 Lawrence, T.E. (aka Lawrence of Arabia), 13, 14, 25, 72, 238 League of National Action, 3, 38, 40 –41, 43, 45, 47 –64, 67, 94, 97, 100, 105, 179 Lenin, Vladimir, 41 Linadu, Yusuf, 30, 100 al-Maghout, Mohammad, 175 al-Mahayri, Fahmi, 53 al-Malki, Fayez, 227 Mardam Bey, Fouad, 220 –221 Mardam Bey, Ibrahim, 227 Mardam Bey, Jamil, 23, 29 and 1936 Treaty, 61, 65, 77, 90 –92, 94, 98 – 99 and British, 148, 149 –150 and Damascus bombing, 141 –152, 145 death of, 263 and exile, 58 –59 and jihad, 189, 199 and Ministry of Defence, 221 and National Bloc, 43 – 44, 56

301

and Palestine War, 211 and return to power, 156– 158 and Sharabati resignation, 226, 228 and Shukri al-Quwatli’s re-election, 153 –154 and Syrian Army, 169 and United States, 106, 138 –139 Mardam Bey, Khalil, 1 Mardam Bey, Zuheir, 99 Marjeh Square, 13, 19, 20, 29, 53 –54, 56, 191, 220, 230 Marshall, George, 104 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 24 –26, 36, 77, 95, 120 Maysaloun Battle, 14, 168, 173, 189 Meade, Stephen, 232, 237 –239 Meir, Golda, 186, 210 –211 Michaud, Roger, 28 Al-Midan (neighbourhood), 10, 20, 33, 46, 164 Midhat Pasha Market, 1, 33, 123 Molotov, Vyacheslav, 113 Mouayyad al-Azm, Nazih, 29 Mouayyad al-Azm, Sarah, 23 al-Moudarres, Ahmad Khalil, 109 al-Moukabari, Wadih, 214 Al-Mukhtar, Omar, 57 Al-Mulki, Fawzi, 210 Muslim Brotherhood, 41, 63, 152, 206, 213, 232 Mussolini, Benito, 79 Naccache, Alfred, 89 Nader, Emile, 207 al-Nahhas Pasha, Mustapha, 34, 56, 131 Najjar, Nicola, 207 Nami, Damad Ahmad, 35, 83 Nasser, Gamal Abdul, 163, 172, 182, 201, 207, 247, 248, 251 Nassour, Adib, 101 –102 National Bloc, 6 boycott of French companies, 57 bread riots, 83 death of Ibrahim Hananu, 58 differences with the League of National Action, 48 –50, 52 –54 elections of (1943), 95–100, 110, 128, 152, 155, 157–158, 163, 224, 227, 257 founding of, 42 –45 and General Strike, 59 – 61 and Hitler, 77

302

The Makers of Modern Syria

relations with the Arab World, 56 talks with the Nazis, 81 National Party, 3, 40 –41, 51 Damascus, 97 –99 elections of (1943), 102 –106, 109 –110, 112 –113, 120, 139, 149 elections of (1947), 160 –161, 163, 224 –225 elections of (1954), 245, 257 –258 re-election of Shukri al-Quwatli, 152 –153, 155 –158 National Youth, 53 al-Nehlawi, Abdul Karim, 255, 259 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 187 Nickoley, Edward, 20 al-Nocrachi Pasha, Mahmud Fihmi, 199, 239 Novikov, Nikolai, 112 Olivia-Roget, Colonel, 113, 140, 142, 144 Ottoman Empire, 10 –11, 19, 21, 29, 115, 125 Pahlavi, Reza Shah, 93 Paris Peace Conference, 19 Partition Plan for Palestine, 185 Pauley, Edwin, 145 People’s Party (Aleppo), 152, 244 –245, 257, 263 People’s Party (Damascus), 3, 23–24, 29–31, 40, 43, 97, 110 Petain, Philippe, 78 Pharoan, Henri, 144 –145 Pius XI, Pope, 32 Qabbani, Sabri, 161 Qanawat (neighbourhood of Damascus), 53 Qanbar, Ahmad, 161 Qandalaft, Alice, 22 al-Qasmi, Zafer, 226 –227 al-Qawuqji, Fawzi, 186 and Army of Deliverance, 190 –192 background, 189 defeat of, 193 –194, 204, 222 relation with the US, 237 –238 al-Qawwas, Alam al-Din, 203 al-Qudsi, Nazem, 25, 55, 108, 114, 148 death of, 263 election as president (1961), 257, 259

People’s Party, 152, 155, 161, 177, 243, 255 al-Quwatli, Shukri, 7, 10, 26 arrest (1949), 228 –231, 237, 242, 245 attempted arrest of, 140 bombing of Damascus, 142, 147, 152, 155 –156 death of, 263 election as president, 99 –110 and fundraising for the national movement, 34 and Great Syrian Revolt, 31 and League of National Action, 55, 58 and Ministry of Defence, 62, 77 and National Bloc, 43 –44, 49 and National Party, 96, 97 and Palestine War, 199, 211 re-election as president (1947), 159, 167 re-election (1955), 246 and summit with Churchill, 114–115, 120, 123 talks with the Nazis, 79 –82, 88, 91 –95 and United Arab Republic, 247, 255 Zionist threat, 170, 173 – 174, 177 –178 al-Rabbat, Abdul Hadi, 253 Rabin, Yitzhak, 222 Rabinovich, Itamar, 239 Ram Hamadani, Mustapha, 238 Raslan, Mazhar Pasha, 42, 124 al-Rayyes, Munir, 168 al-Rayyes, Najib, 100, 226 Regie de Tabac, 5, 6 al-Rifaii, Aref, 42 al-Rifaii, Samir Pasha, 184 al-Rikabi, Rida Pasha, 14, 167 al-Rikabi al-Sukkari, Rushdi, 4 Roosevelt, Franklin, 104, 106, 112, 181 Saadeh, Antune, 41 –42, 258 Sabah, Husni, 124, 126, 137 Saem al-Daher, Sami, 254 al-Safi, Wadih, 246 Safwat, Ismail, 191, 196, 221 al-Said, Nuri Pasha, 56, 241, 257 al-Said, Rafiq Rida, 227 Saladin, 18, 197, 211 Salam, Saeb, 25

Index Salameh, Ali Hasan, 191 Salameh, Hasan, 191 al-Salhieh (neighbourhood), 3–5, 7, 29, 45, 113, 127, 161, 228 al-Samman, Ghada, 25 Sandstrom, Emil, 181 Sanhouri, Abdulrazzaq, 125, 130, 132 Sarrail, Maurice, 28, 33 Sarraj, Abdul Hamid, 190, 250, 252 Saud, King of Saudi Arabia, 180 Sehnaoui, Jean, 100, 208 Selassie, Haile, 145 Selu, Fawzi, 244 al-Shaghour (neighbourhood), 16, 33 Shahbandar, Abdul Rahman, 2 and 1936 Treaty, 61 arrest of, 22 and AUB, 25 background of, 10 –11 and Charles Crane, 18 –21 and Damascus University, 131, 153, 155, 157, 177, 179 exile, 35 founding of People’s Party, 23 – 24 fundraising for the nationalists, 30 and Great Syrian Revolt, 29 and Hajj Uthman Sharabati, 3 and World War II, 77, 92, 110 Shamir, Yitzhak, 188, 222 Shamiya, Gibran, 50 Shamiya, Tawfiq, 32, 50 Sharabati, Abdulhamid, 4 Sharabati, Ahmad, 1 under Adib al-Shishakli, 244 amnesty, 85 –86 and Arab nationalism, 127 and Army of Deliverance, 191 –192, 196, 199, 204 and assassination attempt, 239 background, 4– 7 and Cairo Stock Exchange, 38, 41 –42 and Damascus University, 130 –131, 135, 136, 140, 149, 151 death of, 263 exile of (1928), 36 –37 and Gamal Abdul Nasser, 248 –252 and League of National Action, 48 –56, 61 –62 life in Aqaba, 72 –73, 75, 77 and Ministry of Defence, 156 – 158, 165, 172 –178, 188 and Ministry of Education, 124 –126

303

and National Bloc, 44 –45 and parliamentary campaign (1943), 95 –100, 103 –104, 107, 110, 119 and private life after (1948), 240 –241 and re-election of Quwatli, 153 –154 relationship with Shukri al-Quwatli, 92, 94 –95 and resignation, 220 –224 and Samakh Battle, 216 Shahbandar influence, 11, 14, 17, 26 and Skaidra, 65 –67, 70 and support of succession coup, 254 –255, 260 Sharabati, Mounira, 5, 70, 72 Sharabati, Subhi, 4 Sharabati, Hajj Uthman arrest of, 32 –33 background, 3 –5 and Charles Crane, 18 –20 cigarette factory, 6 death of, 1 –2 economic views, 21 –22 exile to Cairo, 36 –38 family of, 70, 72, 83, 94, 98, 100 –101, 110, 140 –141, 152, 179 and Great Revolt, 29 –32 and Husni al-Za’im, 7, 8–11 and National Bloc, 44, 50, 66, 68 philanthropy, 24, 26 reconciliation efforts after Great Revolt, 35 and World War II, 12, 17 Sharett, Moshe, 186 al-Sharif, Ihsan, 31, 42 Shatila, Tawfiq, 203 Shihab, Fouad, 255 Shihabi, Ahmad, 52, 54, 128 al-Shinawi, Mohammad Maamoun, 213 al-Shishakli, Adib, 62 and Army of Deliverance, 190 coup of (1949), 243 coup of (1951), 244, 248, 251, 252 al-Shishakli, Tawfiq, 59, 107 Shone, Terrance, 114, 149 al-Sibaii, Hani, 225 al-Sibaii, Mustapha, 41, 152, 213 al-Sibaii, Rafiq, 128 Spears, Edward, 87, 89, 113, 147 Stalin, Joseph, 112

304

The Makers of Modern Syria

Syrian Army, 15 –17, 22, 53, 129 and Arab –Israeli War (1967), 260, 262 –263 and Baath coup, 256 – 257, 258 and British adviser, 148, 150 –151 and Communist Party, 232 –233, 235, 237, 246, 249– 250 creation of, 146 history of, 164 –171, 174, 177 and Husni al-Za’im coup, 229 and Samakh Battle, 213 –220, 222, 224 –225, 227 and Sharbaati memoirs, 178 –179, 191, 194 –195, 197, 199, 201 –202 weapons of, 204–206, 208, 211 Syrian Federation of Scouts, 129 Syrian Red Crescent, 22, 56, 242 Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP), 40 –42, 50 –51, 54, 56, 63 –64, 97, 162, 252, 258 Suleiman, Shafik, 48 al-Sulh, Afif, Plate 7 al-Sulh, Kazem, 50 al-Sulh, Riad, 80, 137, 143, 145, 147, 183, 200, 230 al-Sulh, Takkidine, 50 Sursock Palace (Beirut), 16 Tabba, Abdul Hamid, 100 – 101, 161 Tabbakh, Abdul Majid, 31 Tabbakh, Ismail, 20 Taher, Mohammad Ali, 34 Talal, King of Jordan, 201 Tanneer, Subhiya, 30 Tapline (Trans-Arabian Pipeline Company), 149, 236 Thabet, Kareem, 230 Tillawi, Said, 164 Tomeh, George, 50, 63

Truman, Harry, 139, 143, 181, 187, 230, 234 Tweini, Ghassan, 154 al-Ulshi, Jamil, 103 –104 Um Kalthoum, 246 Umayyad Mosque, 6, 14, 18, 22, 33, 48, 59, 68 Umran, Mohammad, 258 Vapa, Rudolph, 66, 74 Vapa, Skaidra, 65 –78, 239, 263 Von Blomberg, Alex, 81 Von Hohenlohe, Stephanie, 81 Wadsworth, George, 104, 111, 114, 116, 138 Weygand, Maxime, 75 Wilhelm II, Emperor, 70 Wilson, Woodrow, 19, 118 al-Yafi, Abu al-Huda, 51 al-Yusuf, Abdul Rahman Pasha, 68 al-Yusuf, Hasan, 224 Zaghloul Pasha, Saad, 36, 49 al-Za’im, Husni attempted assassination of Ahmad Sharabati, 239 coup of (1949), 226, 228 –232 and Hajj Uthman Sharabati, 7 –8, 118, 149, 154, 173, 176, 203 killing of, 240, 241, 242, 243, 244, 248, 252, 262 and Palestine War, 218 –219, 221 relations with the CIA, 237–238 relations with Israel, 234 –235 Zayn al-Din, Farid, 49, 52–53, 55, 62–63 Zueiter, Akram, 179 Zureik, Constantine, 25, 50, 63

‘This is a well-written history of Syria … meticulously researched, and Sami Moubayed has mined and unearthed previously unknown primary Syrian documents to tell the stories of the lives of a number of prominent twentieth-century Syrian politicians and political influencers.’ david w. lesch, ewing halsell distinguished professor of history, trinity university

‘A moving tribute to the aristocrats who so ably piloted Syria to independence [and] a fast-paced and dramatic narrative of triumph and heartbreak. All Syrians will find wisdom and perhaps inspiration in this collective biography about a seminal turning point in Syrian history when parliamentary life was vigorously contested and led by talented and educated men.’ joshua landis, center for middle east studies, university of oklahoma  n the aftermath of World War I, Syria paved a path towards  democracy. Initially as part of the French mandate in the Middle East and latterly as an independent republic, Syria put in place the instruments of democratic government that it was hoped would lead to a stable future. This book tells the story of modern Syria’s formative years, using previously unseen material from the personal papers of Ahmad Sharabati, a prominent nationalist who served in different capacities during colonial times and early independence, first as minister of education and then as minister of defence. His experiences and those of others of his generation tell the story of Syria’s short-lived democratic years, up to the union with Egypt as the United Arab Republic in 1958. SAMI MOUBAYED is a Syrian historian and journalist. He is the author of Syria and the USA: Washington’s Relations with Damascus from Wilson to Eisenhower and Under the Black Flag: An Exclusive Insight into the Inner Workings of ISIS (both I.B.Tauris).

image credit : President Shukri al-Quwatli and Defence Minister Ahmad Sharabati celebrating Syria’s Independence Day on 17 April 1948

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PLATE 2 A marble plaque at Arwad Island, honouring the national leaders arrested at its PLATE 1 A rare photo of Hajj infamous prison during the Great Uthman Sharabati. Syrian Revolt of 1925 – 1927. Ninth on the list is Hajj Uthman Sharabati.

PLATE 3 Abdul Rahman Shahbandar in 1925.

PLATE 4 Ahmad Sharabati.

PLATE 5

Skaidra Vapa.

PLATE 6 Skaidra Vapa as an equestrian champion in Damascus.

PLATE 7

Rudolph Vapa and his family.

PLATE 8 The triumphant leaders of the National Bloc on Syria’s first Independence Day, 17 April 1946. From left to right: Former President Hashem al-Atasi, Prime Minister Saadallah al-Jabiri, President Shukri al-Quwatli, Parliament Speaker Fares al-Khoury, and Jamil Mardam Bey’s bureau chief Assem al-Naili. Standing in the back is Education Minister Muhsen al-Barazi.

PLATE 9 Prime Minister Saadallah al-Jabiri in the early 1940s.

PLATE 10 Syria’s leadership during the Palestine War, from left to right: Defence Minister Sharabati, Justice Minister Said al-Ghazzi, Prime Minister Jamil Mardam Bey, President Shukri al-Quwatli, and the Golan MP Emir Adel Arslan.

PLATE 11 President Shukri al-Quwatli and Defence Minister Ahmad Sharabati in 1948.

PLATE 12 Sharabati during the Palestine War in midMay 1948.

PLATE 13 Defence Minister Sharabati touring a US warship in 1948.

PLATE 14 Prime Minister Fares al-Khoury at the United Nations in 1948.

PLATE 15 Fawz al-Qawuqji, commander of the Army of Deliverance in 1947 – 1948.

PLATE 16 General Husni al-Za’im, engineer of Syria’s first coup d’e´tat in March 1949.

PLATE 17 The Syrian Parliament, right before it was overrun and closed by Husni al-Za’im in 1949.