Divided Loyalties? Syria and the question of Palestine, 1919–39

Abstract

No event of the 1930s captured the attention of the Arab world as did the Arab Revolt in Palestine. Its progress was eagerly followed in the daily press of Cairo, Baghdad, Damascus, and in the capitals of North Africa. It was also carefully monitored by Arab leaders and regimes. On one hand, the revolt aroused Arab nationalist sentiments in ways not witnessed in the region since the days of Faysal's Arab Kingdom; on the other, it alarmed Arab rulers who feared its repercussions on domestic political life in their respective countries. The impact of the revolt on the Arab world differed from country to country. It coincided with and helped to erode Egypt's longstanding political insulation from the Arab nationalist movement (despite Cairo's own central role in the birth of the nationalist idea and as a political asylum for nationalist activists from Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine) and contributed to its new Arab orientation.2 It helped independent Iraq to establish itself as a vital centre of Arab nationalist activity, enhancing Baghdad's political reputation among the Arabs. In Transjordan, the ambitious Amir Abdullah, while not at all pleased by the use of his territory as a conduit for arms and fighters, sought to benefit from the revolt by expanding his influence in Palestinian politics.3 In Syria, the impact of the revolt and the reaction of the political leadership was especially mixed. Syria's involvement in the affairs of Palestine is not only of importance for our understanding of the conduct of the revolt, but it also casts new light on the tensions between the established Syrian framework of political factionalism and new forces trying to break out of that framework; on the tensions between Syrian provincialism and pan-Arabism; and on the different means the imperial powers had at their disposal to bend local elites their way. The major dilemma facing the leadership of the Syrian national independence movement the National Bloc (al-Kutla al-Wataniyya) in 1936 was that as its prospects for getting control of government grew brighter, it encountered a number of obstacles which had the potential to ruin these prospects. A resurgence of pan-Arab sentiment focused on developments in Palestine was one such obstacle. The Bloc leadership could neither avoid involvement in the Palestine question nor allow Palestine to divert it from its quest for