During 1944, Arab governments started to consider a new propaganda campaign in Western countries in order to influence their future policy towards Palestine. In August 1944, the British Embassy in Jeddah reported to the Foreign Office that Ibn Saud had received a telegram from the Iraqi government requesting his opinion and support on the establishment of Arab bureaus in Washington and London.404 The idea of
establishing propaganda offices in Washington and London was first brought up at the preparatory committee for the Arab congress in Alexandria between September and October 1944. The Saudis presented a memorandum to discuss the idea. Its preamble stated that the “danger of Zionism is one that threatens the interests of all Arabs and Moslems.” The plan was first to send a delegation to President Roosevelt and the King
of England to ascertain their views. Their missions would have to be kept secret. Otherwise, “the Jews and their supporters will create confusion and nullify our work.”
If the other Arab states agreed, they proposed the dispatch of a propaganda mission, which should commit itself solely to the issue of Palestine and refrain from other particularistic, possibly contentious issues.405 The idea was again brought up at the
402 Ibid., 5–6. 403 Ibid., 16–19.
404“From Jedda to Foreign Office,” August 21, 1944, TNA CO 733/462/1.
405“Translation of a Memorandum Regarding the Establishment of Arab Propaganda
Bureaus in Washington and London,” in 1943-1944, vol. 3, The Arab League: British Documentary Sources, 1995, 594.
134 inter-Arab Alexandria Conference in October 1944, which prepared the establishment of the Arab League. In his speech, Musa Alami proposed the creation of an Arab fund modelled on the Jewish National Fund to finally stop Arab land sales to Jews. The body’s mission was to acquire land and turn it into waqfs as well as improving the cultivation methods of Arab peasants. The Arab Development Society would later grow out of this project. Musa Alami also touched upon the topic during his speech in Alexandria. He proposed sending Arab delegations to London, Washington and Moscow to lobby the respective governments with regard to the Palestine question, with Syrian Prime Minister Saadallah Jabiri suggesting the attachment of a propaganda officer to each delegation.406 The inter-Arab discussions on propaganda in the West
continued after Alexandria and took on a more concrete form.
In December 1944, a draft proposal for a comprehensive propaganda campaign on behalf of an Arab state in Palestine, including the establishment of Arab Offices, was submitted to the delegates of Arab governments. It noted that insufficient attention had so far been paid by the Arabs to propaganda, while “the efforts of the enemy and their
propaganda have continued since the last war and have greatly increased recently.”407
Therefore, it was expedient to start a large-scale public diplomacy effort in the West, aimed both at influencing public opinion and lobbying the government. The plan foresaw the opening of two Arab Offices in London and New York with branches in Washington, San Francisco, Chicago and Boston. While the Arabs could count on a large network of supporters in England, the draft assessed that the situation would be more difficult in the US. Here, the Arab propaganda effort would also have to rely on employing the services of PR-agencies as well as on the support of the local Arab community. Mahmoud Fawzi, the Egyptian Consul General in Palestine, was suggested for director of the New York office, while Hussein Khalidi, president of the Reform Party (Arab. Islah) and a member of the AHC, would head the London office. Both offices would be assisted by an Advisory Committee consisting of prominent supporters of the Arab cause from the arenas of politics, the military, media, science and religion. The suggested Advisory Committee for the Arab Office in London included
406 Anita LP Burdett, The Arab League: British Documentary Sources, 1943-1963
(Archive Editions, 1995), 579–88.
135 MPs from both Labour and the Conservatives, for example, the influential travel writer Freya Stark, the historians Hamilton Gibb and Arnold Toynbee, Army Colonel Newcombe as well as others. They would thus make use of the existing anti-Zionist network, which was already involved in the Palestine Information Office. Furthermore, the draft suggested that another office be opened in Cairo and delegations sent to the Soviet Union and the Vatican.408 The British enjoyed a good relationship with Musa
Alami and were regularly updated by him on such plans. Thus, he told the Oriental Counselor at the British Embassy in Egypt in November 1944 that, at the Alexandria conference and the subsequent Preparatory Committee of the General Arab Conference, the sum of £1 million for the propaganda campaign had been discussed. Egypt would cover half of the expenses and Iraq a fourth, while the rest would be divided among the other Arab countries. Interestingly, they planned to invest the bulk of the money in the US.409 This underlined the fact that the Arabs, like the Zionists,
considered the US to be the central area of the struggle over the future of Palestine. However, it seems that these proposed budgets were subject to frequent changes because of the power struggles between the different Arab states, which will be discussed below.
Despite initial skepticism, there were voices within the British Foreign Policy establishment who looked with favor upon the increased Arab propaganda effort. In September 1944, the Eastern Department sent out a letter, collecting opinions on the Arab plans. The British ambassador to the US, the Earl of Halifax, was most enthusiastic about such plans. Like the Arabs, he believed that the Zionists held sway over the public arena: “Hitherto propaganda in the United States about the Middle East has mainly been conducted by extreme Zionists. In consequence, the Arab countries and we ourselves have suffered. An organization presenting the Arab case in the United States would in my view be helpful, provided it is conducted on the right lines. But it would have to reckon on unscrupulous opposition from Zionists with ample funds
and much influence.”410 The Earl of Halifax made several recommendations regarding
408 Ibid., 88–93.
409“Telegram from British Embassy in Cairo to Anthony Eden,” November 26, 1944,
TNA CO 733/462/1.
136 the procedure and organization of these offices. Thus, he advised them to recruit Arabs who had been educated at Western institutions in the Arab world, maybe some Americans, but no British. Furthermore, their work should not focus on the playing off of Western nations against each other or against their Jewish communities. Instead, it should primarily address the American public, emphasizing the cultural, scientific and historical achievements of the Arabs and their current needs. He suggested Turkish propaganda which had promoted a “new Turkey” as a role model to emulate.411
It is interesting to mention at this point that the British ambassador not only encouraged the Arabs to conduct propaganda in the US but would also organize his own campaign. For this purpose, he sent the Orientalist and committed anti-Zionist activist Freya Stark on a lecture tour of the US.412 This could not halt the rising sympathy for Zionism in the
US, which resulted from the expanding knowledge on the horrors of the Holocaust. The fate of the displaced persons (DPs), Jewish refugees lingering in German camps, who had mostly sought to emigrate to Palestine, was used by the Zionists to further raise sympathy. The British therefore started another propaganda campaign in the US, which not only sought to disassociate the question of the DPs from the future status of Palestine, but also to taint the image of the Zionists.413 This attempt, however, was met
with little success. On October 4, 1946, Truman publicly endorsed the establishment of a Jewish state and the admittance of 100’000 Jewish refugees to Palestine, coupling both questions and thus rendering the British campaign in the US obsolete. Musa Alami was meanwhile pursuing his plans for the establishment of Arab propaganda bureaus. In January 1945, Musa Alami met with the Saudi King, Abdulaziz Ibn Saud, to discuss the issue of Arab propaganda abroad. Ibn Saud was averse to the idea of opening the
411 Ibid.
412Efraim Karsh and Rory Miller, “Freya Stark in America: Orientalism, Antisemitism
and Political Propaganda,” Journal of Contemporary History 39, no. 3 (2004): 315– 332; Simon Albert, “The Wartime" Special Relationship", 1941—45: Isaiah Berlin, Freya Stark and Mandate Palestine,” Jewish Historical Studies, 2013, 103–130.
413Arieh J. Kochavi, “Britain’s Image Campaign against the Zionists,” Journal of
Contemporary History 36, no. 2 (April 1, 2001): 294–96,
137 offices immediately. Instead, he favored sending representatives of each Arab nation to King George, Roosevelt and Churchill, respectively. Upon completion of their mission, these emissaries would decide whether there was a need for propaganda offices. If so, he would personally dispatch his son Faisal to work for the offices and contribute to their funding. Alami was skeptical, informing the British that he felt that Ibn Saud was reluctant to support the establishment of the offices because he could not offer as much financial support as his position in the Arab world demanded.414 In a
telegram to the British embassy in Jedda, the Foreign Office rejected the idea of sending special emissaries to London and Washington given the war situation, but agreed with the need for a careful selection of personnel for propaganda offices, underlining again their involvement and the care that they had invested in the project.415 This intervention again underscored the impression that they were not
merely observing the Arab propaganda effort, but were a partner in it.
At the next Arab League conference in Cairo, the plans for establishing propaganda bureaus and an organization similar to the Jewish National Fund were largely confirmed. It was decided to endow the Arab Offices with £2 million and the Arab Development Society with £5 million. Both organizations were placed under the chairmanship of Musa Alami.416 But when he turned to the respective governments to
deliver on their promises, they demurred. During lunch with Brigadier Clayton and British embassy staff in Cairo, Musa Alami told them that the plans had become the object of inter-Arab rivalry. Every party sought to appoint their own candidates, with no regard for qualifications. The Egyptians originally had promised £250’000, reducing the sum later to £200’000. In return for the money, they also asked for a say in choosing the Offices’ staff.417 Eventually, only Iraq complied, paying a mere £250’000 for the
Arab Development Society for the first two years and then discontinuing its payments
414“Telegram from Jedda to Foreign Office,” January 22, 1945, TNA CO 733/462/1. 415“Telegram from Foreign Office to Jedda,” January 24, 1945, TNA CO 733/462/1. 416 Sir Geoffrey Warren Furlonge, Palestine Is My Country: The Story of Musa Alami
(Praeger, 1969), 137.
417T. R., “British Embassy Memorandum on Musa Alami,” June 29, 1945, TNA CO
138 as well.418 The payments were done under the sponsorship of Iraqi strongman Nuri
Said, whom Musa Alami had met for the first time several years before while collaborating to negotiate an end to the Arab general strike in Palestine in 1936. Later, they also met at the London Conference and in Iraq in 1940, when Nuri advised the Arab exiles to accept the 1939 White Paper.419 Nuri Said probably sought to strengthen
Alami as an independent leader at the expense of the Mufti Amin al-Husseini and his followers, whom Nuri considered an enemy since he had instigated the Iraq coup in 1941. At that time, the coup had forced Nuri Said to flee his native Iraq for Palestine temporarily.420 But the Iraqi contributions turned Alami’s projects into a contentious
issue in the inter-Arab rivalry. There were two rifts: One between the Hashemite countries, Iraq and Jordan, and the rest of the Arab countries, and one between the followers of Amin al-Husseini, known as the Husseinis, and their foreign and domestic enemies. It was almost impossible to reconcile these different factions with each other, even for a man as understanding as Musa Alami. Arab League Secretary Azzam Pasha was also instrumental in cutting support from the Arab Offices, which enjoyed a high degree of independence under Musa Alami.421 This inter-Arab rivalry affected the
efficiency of the Arab propaganda campaign. Alami had initially planned to open offices in Jerusalem, London, Washington, Paris and Moscow, although the latter two are not mentioned in the Arab League protocols as permanent offices but as delegations. As a result of the refusal of all Arab states apart from Iraq to meet their obligations, Alami had to raise the money by himself and so scrapped the plans for offices in Paris and Moscow. Thus, in 1945, Arab offices were only opened in London and Washington, with the central office located in Jerusalem.
This was not the end of the dispute. The Arab League conference in the Syrian town of Bludan in June 1946 strengthened the authority of the AHC and confirmed its claim to be the sole representative of the Palestinian Arabs. Therefore, the delegates
418 Furlonge, Palestine Is My Country, 137.
419Khalidi, “On Albert Hourani, the Arab Office, and the Anglo-American Committee
of 1946,” 64–66.
420 Ibid., 67.
139 decided that the AHC was the only organ allowed to present the Arab case to an international audience and that the Arab Offices had to work under its authority. Musa Alami, who had effectively been toppled, and Iraq did everything to sabotage these plans. Jamal al-Husseini meanwhile raised money from the Syrian and Lebanese governments for AHC propaganda, receiving more than £1’000’000 from Syria alone by March 1947. He however failed to convince the Iraqi government to change their view and provide support for placing the Arab Offices under the authority of the AHC. Due to its failure to overtake the Arab Offices, the AHC planned to launch its own propaganda campaign. 422 Propaganda delegations visited Russia, North and South
America as well as Europe to lobby for the Arab cause. Izzedin Shawa was sent to London to establish a separate AHC Propaganda Office, although it was to collaborate with Alami’s Arab Office.423 Other AHC Propaganda Offices were established in New
York and Washington.424 In early 1946 another office was opened in Beirut led by
another member of the Husseini clan, Dr. Daud al-Husseini.425 However, the damage
was already done. The Arab leaders’ lack of will to compromise had invariably weakened their ability to win the struggle for the hearts and minds of Western audiences. This contributed to their loss at the UN in November 1947. Not long after that, in December 1947, Iraqi Premier Salah Jabr informed Alami that it would cease payments to his Arab Offices within a week. Without Arab League support and lacking funds, the Washington Office closed within months, while the London Office continued for another two years.426 The Arab League would cease its propaganda activity for a
few years.
422 Levenberg, Military Preparations of the Arab Community in Palestine, 1945-1948,
101–3.
423 Ibid., 111.
424 Furlonge, Palestine Is My Country, 150. 425 Ibid., 139.
140