Arab Responses to Fascism and Nazism: Attraction and Repulsion

385 Pages·2014·7.65 MB·English

by  Israel Gershoni

Arab Responses to Fascism and Nazism
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Arab Responses
to Fascism and Nazism
Attraction and Repulsion
EditEd by israEl GErshoni
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Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Arab responses to fascism and Nazism : attraction and repulsion / edited by
Israel Gershoni. — First edition.
  p.  cm.
 Includes bibliographical references and index.
 ISBN 978-0-292-75745-5 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Arab countries—Politics and government—20th century. 2. Fascism—Arab
countries. 3. National socialism—Arab countries. 4. Political culture—Arab
countries. 5. World War, 1939–1945—Political aspects—Arab countries.
I. Gershoni, I., author, editor of compilation.
 DS63.A64 2014
 320.53′30917492709044—dc23
2013038483
doi:10.7560/757455
Contents
Preface vii
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction: An Analysis of Arab Responses to Fascism
and Nazism in Middle Eastern Studies 1
israEl GErshoni
PART 1. Syria and Lebanon
1. A Challenge to the Local Order:
Reactions to Nazism in the Syrian and Lebanese Press 35
Götz nordbruch
2. Against the Tide: The Secret Alliance between the Syrian
National Bloc Leaders and Great Britain, 1941–1942 55
MEir zaMir
3. Memoirs Do Not Deceive:
Syrians Confront Fascism and Nazism—as Reflected in the
Memoirs of Syrian Political Leaders and Intellectuals 73
Eyal zissEr
PART 2. Palestine
4. More than the Mufti:
Other Arab- Palestinian Voices on Nazi Germany, 1933–1945,
and Their Postwar Narrations 101
rEné WildanGEl
vi Contents
5. The Spanish Civil War as Reflected in Contemporary
Palestinian Press 127
Mustafa Kabha
PART 3. Iraq
6. Iraqi Shadows, Iraqi Lights:
Anti-F ascist and Anti- Nazi Voices in Monarchic Iraq, 1932–1941 141
orit bashKin
PART 4. Egypt
7. The View from the Embassy:
British Assessments of Egyptian Attitudes during World War II 171
JaMEs JanKoWsKi
8. The Rise of Homemade Egyptian Communism:
A Response to the Challenge Posed by Fascism and Nazism? 195
raMi Ginat
9. “The Crime of Nazism against Humanity”:
Ahmad Hasan al- Zayyat and the Outbreak of World War II 217
israEl GErshoni
10. The War and the Holocaust in the Egyptian Public Discourse,
1945–1947 243
EsthEr WEbMan
PART 5. Other Arab Voices
11. The Tiger and the Lion:
Fascism and Ethiopia in Arab Eyes 271
haGGai Erlich
Notes 289
Selected Bibliography 345
About the Contributors 355
Index 359
Preface
The subject of Arab responses to Fascism and Nazism, particularly Egyp-
tian responses, has guided my scholarship over the past two decades. I have
attempted to understand how Egyptians perceived totalitarian regimes
and positioned themselves vis-à - vis these forces. The further I delved into
the subject, the more I discovered that the literature suffers from gaping
lacunas and outdated methods and approaches. Upon realizing that many
other scholars share my feelings toward the state of the research, I initi-
ated and convened a workshop entitled “Arab Responses to Fascism and
Nazism, 1933–1945: Reappraisals and New Directions” at Tel Aviv Uni-
versity and the Open University. The event took place at the end of May
2010. Renowned scholars worldwide submitted papers that suggested a
profound rethinking and reappraisal of the Arab responses to Fascism and
Nazism and charted a path for future research. They revised established
narratives and commonly held paradigms.
I open the collection with a review essay in which I critically survey the
historiographical literature produced by Middle Eastern scholars on the
subject of Arab responses to Fascism and Nazism. I suggest that alongside
a persisting established narrative, a new revised narrative is emerging. The
historiographical review introduces and situates the volume’s articles that
contribute to this nascent narrative.
The articles collected in this book focus on Syria, Lebanon, Pales-
tine, Iraq, and Egypt as well as the broader Arab Middle East. The ratio-
nale for this selection rests upon the assumption that these countries were
major arenas for Fascist and Nazi activities and Arab responses, although
it is true that North African countries were also an important arena. How-
ever, because the countries of the Mashrek received considerably more at-
tention in Middle Eastern studies and because the conference papers that
viii Preface
focused on the North African arena are published elsewhere,1 this volume
gives priority to the former.
Götz Nordbruch demonstrates how the Syrian and Lebanese encoun-
ters with Nazism and Fascism in the 1930s gave rise to internal debates
and arguments in the public sphere regarding fundamental issues such
as nationalism, ethnicity, religion, gender, class, social order, the politi-
cal system, and political culture. He shows how fascination with Fascist
models coexisted alongside ardent rejection of Fascism and the reasser-
tion of humanist and enlightened values concerning individual rights and
political liberties. Meir Zamir focuses on the Syrian and Lebanese politi-
cal elites’ assessment of wartime developments, highlighting how influen-
tial political leaders anticipated an Allied success despite both resound-
ing German victories in the battlefields and their control of Syria and
Lebanon via the Vichy regime. They secretly contacted senior British
officials in the region in order to secure their countries’ independence in
the event of a Nazi- Fascist defeat. Their efforts to collaborate with Great
Britain suggest that local leaders perceived it as the hegemonic power
in the Middle East that would ultimately emerge victorious. Eyal Zisser
examines individual and collective memories of prominent Syrian intel-
lectuals and political leaders. He counters the commonly held claim that
they tend to remember their admiration for Nazism and Hitler from their
youth and their will to collaborate with them against French colonial rule.
Examining a substantial corpus of memoirs, he clearly demonstrates that
many agents of memory vehemently rejected the Nazi option, its totali-
tarian and racist worldview, and its expansionist ambitions. Some demon-
strated empathy for the persecuted Jews of Nazi Germany.
René Wildangel revisits the question of collaboration between Pal-
estinian leaders and the Nazi regime. He shows that al- Hajj Amin al-
Husayni, the foremost leader of the Palestinian national movement who
participated in the Nazi war efforts and Jewish genocide, was not neces-
sarily the exclusive representative of the broader Palestinian public and
national movement. Although Husayni’s positions undoubtedly reflected
those of important segments of Palestinian society, Wildangel sheds light
on other Palestinian voices that rejected Fascism and Nazism’s racist anti-
Semitic ideology and policies. Many Palestinians viewed support for these
totalitarian regimes as counterproductive and inconsonant with Pales-
tinian interests. Despite the struggle against Zionism and the British
Mandate, in the complicated reality of the worldwide struggle between
Fascism and democracy, they backed the latter. Mustafa Kabha examines
Palestinian attitudes to the Spanish Civil War, which stood at the center
Preface ix
of Europe’s crisis in the 1930s. He concludes that alongside support for
Franco and the monarchists, there were many voices in the Palestinian
press identified with the Republicans and supported their cause.
A prevailing assumption in the historiographical literature locates
Iraq as a country with strong pro- Nazi tendencies and policies in the
1930s. Iraq’s posture culminated in Rashid ‘Ali al- Kaylani’s anti- British,
pro- Nazi revolt in the spring of 1941. Orit Bashkin suggests that there
were other forces and voices. She provides a new reading of interwar Iraq
through a systematic examination of anti-F ascist, anti- Nazi intellectuals,
journalists, public figures, and organizations. She brings the prominence
of these antitotalitarian forces into sharp focus, uncovering their prin-
cipled struggles for liberal, pluralistic, and democratic values as they were
expressed in the public sphere. The fact that Jewish Iraqi intellectuals
were highly active in the Iraqi press and other print media strengthened
Iraqi anti- Nazism.
Egypt was not only the political leader of the Arab world, but also
the largest producer of print culture and thereby the most critical shaper
of Arab public opinion. In addition, during the war, Egypt became the
Middle East’s war front. Owing to these reasons, the Egyptian posi-
tions—the monarchy, the governments, the army, and broader civil so-
ciety—vis- à- vis Fascism and Nazism versus democracy is of utmost im-
portance to this volume and the entire topic. As was the case in other Arab
countries and colonial struggles, Egyptians reached the conclusion that
these totalitarian forces were more vicious imperialist powers that en-
dangered Egypt and the Arab world, despite their potential utility as “the
enemy of my enemy is my friend.” James Jankowski examines the meth-
ods by which the British officials assessed Egyptian public opinion and the
Egyptian government’s position toward the unfolding of wartime events,
particularly during the critical years, 1939–1942. He convincingly argues
that the frequent British tracking of Egyptian positions suggested that
in principle, Egyptian governments and Egyptian public opinion were
in favor of the British and opposed to subversive activities that would
undermine the British status in Egypt and the Middle East. Jankowski
reveals that the British were not impressed with what they perceived as
the limited impact of Nazi propaganda in Egypt. However, as Rommel
and the German army appeared to gain the upper hand in the North Afri-
can battlefields, particularly during 1941–1942, Ambassador Miles Lamp-
son and other British officials feared that in anticipation of an Allied de-
feat, Egyptians tended to show more support for the Axis. According to
the British, the anti- British stance of ultranationalist forces in Egypt re-