Coll 6/43 'Pan Arab Congress 1933. Attitude of H.M.G. to a Pan Arab Movement' [‎363v] (727/1144)

■ HiHH
known, and Egypt had not then made up her mind whether she was really Arab
at all. In Syria and Palestine the Hashimite rebellion won more adherents, but
these two countries were too strongly held by the Turks for the Arabs there to
give effective support. The vicissitudes of King FeisaTs career need not be
recapitulated here. So long as he lived, some of the ambitions, which his father
claimed to have been recognised in the MacMahon correspondence, survived, but
the Hashimite conception of Arab unity had in reality ceased to be practical
politics when King Abdul Aziz conquered the Hejaz in 1925. With the death
of King Feisal the last dream of a Hashimite hegemony over Arabia finally passed
away. For a while there was nothing to take its place, but although King Feisal
was dead, the men who had led his troops and who had been his Ministers still
remained, and before long they began to evolve a new plan for Arab unity. It is
this revised conception of the older ideal which is now being developed and which
is the characteristic feature of the pan-Arab movement of to-day.
6. The heart of the movement is now in Iraq, where the political leaders
have become masters of their country’s destiny and are free to turn to wider
issues. Palestine and Syria are still shackled by mandates, and until these
shackles are broken the attention of the Arab leaders in these countries will
inevitably be focussed on their local struggle for independence. Saudi Arabia is
free from foreign domination, but is too backward and too self-centred to be able
to take the lead. Egypt, like Palestine, is at present preoccupied with the settle
ment of her relations with Great Britain. It has therefore fallen to Iraq to
inspire and direct the revival of the pan-Arab movement.
7. I have reported some of the chief indications of this revival in my
despatch Xo. 101 of the 24th February last. Since then other events have
continued to reanimate national sentiment. Another semi-official Iraqi delegation
has been vociferously welcomed in Syria, Palestine and Egypt, a treaty of Arab
Brotherhood and Alliance has been concluded between Iraq and Saudi Arabia to
which it is open to all other independent Arab States to accede, and a significant
rapprochement has taken place between Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The disorders
in Palestine and the struggle of the Arabs for a positive limitation of Jewish
immigration have at the same time evoked strong feelings in Iraq.
8. The immediate objective of the leaders appears to be the steady
strengthening of a common national feeling among all Arab peoples. Their
methods are incessant propaganda and the fullest possible personal intercourse
between the leaders and publicists of the principal Arab countries, Iraq, Egypt,
Saudi Arabia and Palestine. Their ultimate aims are less easily defined. They
are no longer dreaming of an Arab Empire under one ruler or ruling family.
They think more in terms of some form of close federation which would leave a
wide autonomy to each individual State and which might perhaps stretch some
day from the Persian border to the Atlantic.
9. The essence of their ideals was, I think, revealed in the negotiation of
the Iiaq—Saudi Arabia 1 reaty, in which a defensive alliance between all Arab
States, a common Arab foreign policy, a common Arab culture and economy and
the facilitating of intercourse between all Arab countries were at first the’main
issues discussed. For a variety of reasons provisions concerning all these points
could not in the end be embodied in the treaty, but I suggest that they may be
accepted as the objectives which the leaders of the pan-Arab movement are
striving ultimately to reach.
10. The attitude of these leaders towards Great Britain is not I believe
unfnendly. Bitterness about the alleged failure of His Majesty’s Government to
lulni the so-called MacMahon pledges to King Hussein is now a thing of the
past, and the straightforward honesty of British policy in Iraq, our friendship
with I bn baud, our stand for Abyssinia and the present hopefulness of the
situation in Egypt are all facts which encourage confidence in the goodwill of
His Majesty s Government. In Syria, I am told, the Arab nationalists constants
eulogise the success of Great Britain’s work in Iraq. It is only the Jewish
question m Palestine which tends at present to embarrass our relations with the
pan-Arabs; and the best of the leaders in this country and, I believe, elsewhere
(although I cannot speak for Palestine) have not yet lost confidence in the desire
and m the ability of His Majesty’s Government to devise an equitable solution
ot this problem. It Jus can be done, 1 see no immediate reason why the pan-Arab