Sinned Against than Sinning? - Taylor & Francis Online

Diplomacy and Statecraft 15: 303–325, 2004 Copyright © 2004 Taylor & Francis ISSN: 0959-2296 DOI:10.1080/09592290490448843

More Sinned Against than Sinning? The Case of the Arab Office, Washington, 1945–1948 RORY MILLER

In 1945, as a final settlement of the Palestine question drew near, the Arab states established the Arab Office, Washington, as part of their unprecedented effort to influence public and elite opinion on this matter in the United States. It was staffed by many of the leading young Arab intellectuals of the era. This article charts the Arab Office’s attempt to reduce American support for the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. In particular, it examines the accusations, made at the time, that the Arab Office, in pursuing its anti-Zionist agenda had co-operated with leading American anti-Semites and was under the control of the notorious former Mufti of Jerusalem, who had collaborated with Hitler during the Second World War.

I The first serious attempt to present an Arab perspective on the Palestine issue in the United States occurred with the establishment of the Arab National League of America in the early 1930s. Prior to this Arab publicity in the western world on the subject of Palestine had been concentrated almost exclusively on London, the capital city of the mandatory government. The Arab endeavour to sway the British administration in the post-Balfour era commenced in early 1921 with the arrival of the first of several high level Arab delegations (followed most notably in 1923, 1931, and 19361). These visits culminated with the founding of the Palestine Information Centre (PIC) (later known as the Arab Centre) in the mid–1930s.2 Like its sister organization in London, the Arab National League had the “primary purpose of defending Arab rights in Palestine.”3 However, the Arab National League 303

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differed from the PIC, in that it had been founded, funded and organized by Arab-Americans: most notably the scholar and physician Dr George Khairallah; the well-known New York surgeon Dr Fuad I. Shatara; and the journalist and author Habib I. Katibah who had been the special correspondent in the Near East for the Boston Globe between 1929 and 1930. In contrast, the London-based body was funded by the Arab Higher Committee in Jerusalem (the de facto Palestinian Arab leadership) and run by Palestinian Arabs living in London (such as Musa al-Husseini who was a student at London University); experienced Palestinian Arab political figures (such as the Nablus-born Izzat Tannous); or London based diplomats on secondment (such as Abd al-Ghani and Abd al-Rahman Bazzaz of the Iraqi legation). Despite lacking the professional expertise of the London body and unable to call on the services of local Arabists — missionaries, former colonial administrators — who worked closely with the PIC, the Arab National League did become “well known” to the Division of Near Eastern Affairs at the State Department.4 The League also sent memorandums to both the Washington and London administrations arguing the Arab case on Palestine and submitted evidence to the crucial 1937 Royal Commission of Enquiry on Palestine.5 Officials in the British Colonial Office concerned with Palestine viewed such efforts as proof that there were “pro-Arabs in the United States.”6 However, the lack of a professional Arab publicity body in North America increasingly concerned the Arab governments and at the Arab National Congress at Bludan in September 1937, a recommendation was made on the need “to establish offices for research and propaganda in the United States.”7 The outbreak of war in 1939 made the establishment of such a body less critical in the immediate term for two interrelated reasons. The British government’s introduction of the Palestine White Paper in May 1939, if not sating Arab demands, had met the their most pressing concern, by severely restricting Jewish immigration into Palestine to a maximum of 75,000 between April 1939 and 1944, after which time “no further Jewish immigration will be permitted unless the Arabs of Palestine are prepared to acquiesce in it.”8 While the subsequent commencement of hostilities put a freeze on any final decision on the future of Palestine until after the war’s end. Britain’s wartime Palestine policy was viewed by the Zionist movement as a subversion of Jewish national revival in Palestine

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and the abandonment of European Jewry to their Nazi persecutor. This in turn resulted in a severe breakdown in relations between Zionists and the British government and a correspondent shift in Zionist efforts from London to the United States where the American Jewish community, appalled by both the White Paper and the suffering of co-religionists in Europe, was increasingly united behind the Zionist cause.9 This became apparent in May 1942, when a conference at the Biltmore Hotel, New York, headed by the leader of the Zionist movement David Ben-Gurion, officially called for the creation of an independent Jewish state in Palestine. This unprecedented Zionist effort in the United States and the support it was gaining at a political level was not lost on the Arabs. As early as 1941 the US Minister in Egypt was reporting home that “the impression prevails in the Arab world that the influence of American Jewry is one of the principal deterrents to a resolution to the Palestine question.”10 In November 1944, several Arab political societies based in Cairo cabled President Roosevelt asking him to retract a statement made before the presidential election in support of the settlement of Jews in Palestine and warned that the Arab world would spare neither money nor lives in the fight against Zionism.11 In the same year Emir Abdullah of Transjordan wrote to President Roosevelt to inform him of the “great and heartfelt distress throughout the East”12 caused by America’s perceived support for Zionism. By 1945, as King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia was preparing to send an envoy to Washington with a letter to the President on the Palestine issue,13 the Syrian premier Sa’ad Allah al-Jabiri was warning the United States not to become “a victim to one-sided Zionist propaganda.”14 Thus it is not surprising that Acting Secretary of State Joseph C. Grew felt it necessary to inform the President that the “Arabs regard, and will continue to regard, the Palestine question with the utmost concern. Zionist activities in this country will remain the gravest threat to friendly relations between the United States and the countries of the Near East.”15 This growing Zionist effort in the United States was accompanied by a smaller, but nonetheless noticeable, mobilization on the Palestine issue by an increasingly assimilated, educated and prosperous Arab-American community that had grown in size from around 200,000 in the 1920s to about 500,000 by the end of World War Two.16

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As one, albeit Zionist, report of 1945 noted “where formerly Arab propaganda activities were limited and sporadic, within the past 12 months, well co-ordinated Arab-American organisations, apparently well-financed have sprung up with branches in the major cities.”17 In November 1944 more than 150 representatives of various organisations (claiming to represent over 200,000 American citizens of Arabic speaking origin) held a two-day conference in New York on the question of Palestine.18 The same month saw the establishment of the Institute of Arab American Affairs [hereafter, the Institute]. Headquartered in New York it also had branches in Washington D.C., Boston, Chicago, Detroit, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Apart from its president Faris S. Malouf, a Boston lawyer and former city commissioner (who had chaired the November 1944 New York conference), leading members of the Institute included the Jerusalem born but American educated Ismail Khalidi (the younger brother of Dr Hussein Khalidi, Jerusalem’s mayor from 1934–1937); the renowned Lebanese born but naturalised American scholar Professor Philip K. Hitti of Princeton University; and Dr Khalil Totah, a graduate of Harvard University who had spent many years as principal of the Quakers school in Ramallah, Palestine, before returning to the United States in 1944.19 There were also several individuals such as Habib I. Katibah and Dr George Khairallah, who had played a prominent role in the Arab National League during the 1930s. Indeed, one contemporary Arab publicist described the Institute as a continuation of the Arab National League “under a different name.”20 Though ostensibly presented as a body intended to cement Arab American friendship21 its main priority was “defending the Palestine cause and informing the nation about the issue.”22 Like, the Arab National League before it, the Institute lobbied the State Department, liased with the Arab diplomatic missions in Washington and hosted senior Arab political leaders such as Prince Abd al-Ilah, Regent of Iraq, Jamal al-Husseini of the Palestine Arab Higher Committee and Abd al-Rahman Azzam, the secretarygeneral of the recently established Arab League.23 It also organized dinners that were addressed by prominent members such as Hitti, Professor of Semitic Literature at Princeton University, as well as senior members of the State Department including William Philips, special assistant to the Secretary of State and Assistant Secretary of State Norman Armour, and noted American supporters of the Arab


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cause, such as Virginia Gildersleeve, Dean Emeritus of Barnard College and a member of the first United States UN delegation. Despite these efforts, by war’s end the Arab governments had come to believe that it was vital to extend the “free and organized propaganda which circumstances demand”.24 At the seventh meeting of the Pan Arab Conference in Alexandria in October 1944 it was agreed to establish Arab publicity offices, known as the Arab Office, in Washington, London and Jerusalem to meet the Zionist challenge. Responsibility for funding lay with all the Arab governments, though Iraq quickly developed into the primary financial and political sponsor of the new body.25 According to its own constitution the Arab Office had been founded “with the object of giving the American and English public accurate information and correct views about the Arab world and thus improving Anglo-Arab and Arab-American relations.”26 Or as the New York Times put it, the Arab League was “opening propaganda bureaus in both America and Britain to make the public know and understand their problems better.”27 From the outset, the intention was to organize the Arab Office on a “large scale,” that it should “entertain lavishly” and that “everything it does should be first class.” The Constitution gave specific examples as to what this entailed. The Arab Office should supply information and maintain “both official and social” personal contacts with “directors of policy” — politicians, journalists, and government officials. It also had the task of influencing public opinion — through the publication of pamphlets and books “on subjects of fundamental importance,” including occasional pamphlets on current matters and journalism that included articles and letters in the press. There should also be lectures, talks, conferences, and discussions. Its final duty was to “keep the Arab governments fully informed about the trends of English and American policy and opinion in matters which affect them.”28 The intention was to make the Washington Office “more of a propaganda office and less of a political body” than its counterpart in London.29 Though acknowledging that American support for Zionism resulted from several factors — including sympathy with European Jews over Nazi atrocities, a desire for the Jewish vote, a failure to distinguish between the refugee problem and Zionist political aims, and a desire to gain an economic foothold in the Middle East — the Arab leadership maintained that the major factor responsible for Zionist advances was, what Arab spokesman Emile Ghoury

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described as, the “great wave of Zionist propaganda in the United States.”30 Confidential Arab League documents surreptitiously obtained by the British at the time underscore the depth of this Arab belief: “It is to be regretted that . . . so far [we have] not given sufficient attention to . . . the necessary propaganda on the subject. Meanwhile the efforts of the enemy and their propaganda have continued since the last war and have greatly increased recently.” It continued having regard to the fact that the work in America must begin from nothing, owing to our failure hitherto to make our case known in that country . . . . it is necessary in America to have a wide public propaganda different from what circumstances require in England.31

The Washington office registered with the United States Department of Justice under the Foreign Agents Registration Act in Autumn, 1945. As Theodor Hanf would later comment the staff of the Arab Office (in both Washington and London) was a “Who’s Who of proWestern, political and academic Arab intelligentsia.”32 Musa Alami, Director of the new bureau, exemplified these traits. After reading law at Cambridge University he pursued a career in the Palestine administration where he was employed as Secretary to the High Commissioner and then as a Junior Crown Counsel and Government Advocate in the administration’s Legal Department. Later he became the unofficial representative of Palestine in the Arab League.33 He was a committed advocate of presenting a modern Arab face to the western world. In late 1945, for example, he resigned as secretary of the Arab Higher Committee, in part, because of the body’s refusal to adopt a policy of “including young Arabs.”34 It was at Alami’s insistence that the Arab League agreed that the head of the Washington Arab Office should be a: Notable personality . . . should have full knowledge of the English language as well as experience of, and acquaintance with, official and non-official Americans . . . he should be a good mixer in political and social circles . . . he should be moderate, well respected, possessing good manners.35

On the basis of these requirements Ahmad Shuqeiri, a forty-year-old Lebanese born and western educated lawyer was named head of the Washington office. Shuqeiri is best remembered as the first head of the Palestine Liberation Organisation on its birth in 1964, but his appeal in


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the late 1940s had little to do with revolutionary zeal and everything to do with his appearance and education. One Arab Office contemporary remembered him as a “Palestinian of English culture,”36 and he did not disappoint. For example, a profile of the new Arab Office in the Washington Daily News described him in the following terms: Anybody expecting to see the head of the Arab Office dressed up like those Saudi Arabian princes were at San Francisco — all ready to hop on a camel and hump it across the desert — would have been disappointed. Mr Shukairy [sic] turned out to be a young lawyer, dressed in a natty blue suit and a little moustache, with his black hair slicked back over a high forehead. He spoke better English than most Americans . . . and he is a smoothie.37

He was ably assisted in this respect by men and women such as Khulusi al-Khairi, later the foreign minister in the short-lived IraqiJordanian Union of 1958 and the scholar Cecil Hourani, both of whom were educated in England; Wasfi al-Tall a future Jordanian Prime Minister, whom Albert Hourani, later an eminent historian, and himself a member of the London Arab Office, would recall as a “very well educated and highly cultivated man.”38 Charles Issawi, the Oxford educated economic historian, who would later reach the heights of the American academic establishment and who was remembered by his colleagues at Princeton as a man of “wide culture and civilization” was another member of the Arab Office.39 In the words of Arab Office member Najla Izzedin, the new body’s primary objective was to counter “highly organized and allpervading Zionist propaganda.”40 Decades later, Charles Issawi would nicely capture what this entailed: “I lectured, I toured the country, I brought out the Arab News Bulletin (he edited the body’s journal) I was very active in trying to persuade Americans that their policy would lead to disaster.”41 The Arab Office was particularly anxious to get this message across to the opinion-forming readership of the New York Times. Within a week of opening its doors it was running full-page adds setting out the Arab case in this paper.42 While Cecil Hourani, who succeeded Shuqeiri as the head of the Office in mid-1946, became a prolific correspondent to the paper (he had seven letters on Palestine published in the paper between May and December 1946) in an effort to sway its influential readership.43 The Arab Office also attempted to influence the American position over Palestine at the highest levels of policy-making. When President

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Truman, in late 1945, called on Britain to allow 100,000 Jewish refugees to enter Palestine as a humanitarian gesture, the Arab Office lobbied against the proposal, criticizing Truman for failing to consult the Arab world before the announcement and issuing a statement in defence of British Prime Minister Clement Attlee who had rejected Truman’s request. The Office also sent telegrams to all the members of the House [of Representatives] Foreign Affairs Committee warning that Truman’s proposal would dispose of an Arab country against the wishes of its inhabitants.44 In March 1946, Shuqeiri and Albert Hourani gave evidence on behalf of the Arab Office to the Jerusalem hearings of the AngloAmerican Committee of Inquiry on Palestine and the Jewish Problem.45 The Arab Office spokesmen made a major impact at these crucial hearings. Twice in the course of their testimony, Judge Joseph C. Hutchinson, an American member of the committee, interrupted proceedings to congratulate them on their presentation, at one point telling Hourani “if your character is up to your brains you are a pretty good man.”46 In establishing the Arab Office, the Arab League (as well as the British Foreign Office), believed that the “Arab community in America could help either by participating in the work of the offices or by advice and indirect assistance.”47 By the time the Arab Office opened in late 1945, the Institute had established itself at the forefront of Arab-American activities. Its quarterly journal the Arab World, edited by George Khairallah, was classed by the Office of War information as the only English language Arab-American publication of the era.48 It also published pamphlets and books by its own members including Habib Khatibah’s 1946 work Arabic-Speaking Americans. A delegation from the Institute (including its executive director Totah; Professor Hitti; and Dr John G. Hazam of the College of the City of New York) also gave evidence before the Anglo-American Committee hearings in Washington in January 1946.49 By mid-1946 President Truman was informing his British counterpart Clement Attlee that the Institute was one of the Arab organisations (along with the Arab Higher Committee and the Arab League) that should be consulted before any final decision on Palestine was reached.50 Arab League Secretary-General Abd al-Rahman Azzam was adamant that “there was no connection” between the Institute and the Arab Office and that “they were not working together.”51 However, both bodies did co-operate. The Arab Office published and


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distributed a pamphlet by the Institute’s Professor Hitti entitled Zionist Claims and Arab Rights while the Institute introduced high-profile Americans sympathetic to the Arab cause such as Virginia Gildersleeve and the influential Arabist Kermit Roosevelt to the Arab Office. As Cecil Hourani later recalled, Roosevelt, in particular, “opened many doors to us in the society of Washington and New York.”52 Indeed, the efforts of these two bodies were so intertwined that Rabbi Elmer Berger of the Jewish anti-Zionist organisation the American Council for Judaism, described the Institute’s executive director Dr Khalil Totah as the “most active member of the Arab Office.”53 Most importantly the Arab Office and the Institute co-operated in organising the Arab rebuttal of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) partition proposals in 1947.54

II The Arab Office Comes Under Attack In May 1946, the American Anti-Nazi League (hereafter, ANL), a non-sectarian body with the goal “to combat racial tension and fascist tendencies in the United States,”55 claimed that in the course of “advancing its propaganda” the Arab Office in Washington had “cooperated with some of the most extreme anti-Semitic and nationalist bodies in the country” and that this co-operation with “similarlyminded, subversive, anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi forces in the US, actually constituted the main program of the Arab Office.”56 Their allegations were widely disseminated in full-page press adverts under headlines such as “Arab Fascist Propaganda Exposed”57 and in a memorandum submitted to the House of Representative Rules Committee. Specifically, the ANL, a body founded in the pre-war era to organize an anti-German economic boycott in the United States, claimed that Arab Office member Anwar Nashashibi had agreed to speak before a Philadelphia-based anti-Semitic group known as the Blue Star Mothers that had close links to the infamous American anti-Semite Gerald LK Smith. It also alleged that the Arab Office had in its possession a copy of a letter from another “notorious anti-Semitic agitator” that dismissed Democracy as “nothing but Jewocracy” and referred to the Jews of Philadelphia as “kikes.”58 More generally the ANL claimed that the Arab Office was at the centre of a

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well planned effort under the general inspiration of agents of the Arab League and of a network of more-or-less affiliated agencies, to use the evil weapon of organised propaganda to appeal to religious and racial bias and bigotry for the advancement of foreign political purposes.

The ANL also claimed that the Arab Office was under the control of Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the former Mufti of Jerusalem, who had collaborated with the Nazis during the war. On August 2, 1946, Representative Adolph J. Sabath, a Democratic Congressman from Illinois, and chairman of the House Rules Committee, took to the floor of the House to repeat, at times verbatim, the allegations against the Arab Office.59 He also condemned the body for having violated the terms of its registration with the Justice Department under the Foreign Registrations Act by “meddling in the domestic and internal affairs of the United States.” As such, Sabath called on either the House Judiciary Committee or the Senate Committee on Foreign affairs to conduct a full investigation.60 In the second week of March 1947 Sabath’s request was answered when, on the orders of the Office of the Attorney General, two FBI agents entered the Washington premises of the Arab Office. The agents examined material in the office for over a week and files were impounded for further inspection. Ultimately the investigation went no further. The Department of Justice refused to discuss the matter, limiting its comments to a statement issued by T. Lamar Caudle, assistant attorney general in charge of the criminal division, that the incident was simply “in the nature of a routine inspection” under section 5 of the Foreign Agents Registration Act and that “the fact that this inspection has taken place contains no implication whatever with respect to the activities of the Arab Office in Washington.”61 In reality, however, it was no “routine inspection.” The FBI investigation was a response to both the ANL and Sabath’s allegations and was an attempt to establish whether there was any evidence linking the Arab Office to subversive, racist and anti-Semitic groups. The search caused an outcry in the Arab world. The governments of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Egypt, Transjordan, and Lebanon made official protests. King Ibn Saud summoned the American Minister in Saudi to complain about this “hostile act.”62 While Iraq’s Foreign Minister Fadil al-Jamali speculated that the investigation could quite possibly have been the work of American Zionist elements.63


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In the wake of the ANL and Sabath allegations the Arab Office defended its role as both “public and legitimate.”64 In December 1946, following a visit to Washington, Edward Atiyah, the head of the London Arab Office, went further and claimed that the attacks on the body highlighted that the Zionists were “so perturbed by the establishment of the Arab Office that they have deemed it necessary to organise a campaign against it, and to attack it from no less an important platform as Congress.”65 In response to the FBI investigation the Arab Office again argued in similar terms.66 It also claimed that the fact it had openly welcomed the FBI inspection was proof that it had “nothing to hide” and it criticised the media for publishing reports of the FBI investigation “without comment,” thereby giving an unfair and one-sided presentation of the affair.67 This incident came at a critical time in America’s post-war involvement in the Middle East. A final decision on Palestine was looming and events in the wider Mediterranean region — in Iran, Turkey and Greece — were providing some of the earliest tensions in the nascent Cold War. As such the State Department reacted cautiously to the incident. Acting Secretary of State Dean Acheson refused to defend the FBI action and instead promised to initiate a State Department inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the Justice Department’s decision.68 Since its establishment the Zionist movement had been uneasy about the Arab Office’s “large-scale anti-Zionist propaganda... tremendous financial means [and] American publicity agents.”69 As such, it saw the ANL and Sabath’s allegations as an opportunity to discredit the body. As the British Embassy in Washington noted in the wake of the ANL allegations: “the Zionists are now in full-cry on this scent.”70 For example, Congressman Sabath, the leading congressional advocate of the ANL claims was one of the most active Zionists in Congress, using his chairmanship of the House Rules Committee to sponsor bi-partisan pro-Zionist resolutions and hearings.71 Indeed, his activity in this regard even drew comment from Secretary of State Stettinius and President Roosevelt, as well as the British Embassy in Washington, which viewed him as both “a strong supporter of Zionism” and a “professional Anglophobe who will turn his hand to anything.”72 But neither the obvious Zionist delight at the course of events or Sabath’s pro-Zionism meant that the ANL allegations were void ab

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initio. Indeed, though a Zionist, Sabath was a highly respected legislator, who had been a tireless campaigner against anti-Semitic and, more generally, anti-immigrant groups in the United States since he entered the United States Congress in 1907 (he would serve without interruption until 1952). In a warm tribute at the time of his death, President Truman described him as the “sponsor of much progressive legislation” and an “unyielding opponent of special interests.”73 Thus it is necessary to examine further the two most serious allegations — that a member of the Arab Office attended a meeting of antiSemites and that the Arab Office was working under the guidance and influence of the former Mufti of Jerusalem.

III The Arab Office, the Blue Star Mothers, and Gerald LK Smith The accusation that Arab Office member Anwar Nashashibi had attended a meeting of the anti-Semitic Blue Star Mothers, a body linked to Gerald LK Smith, had the potential to seriously damage claims that the Arab office was a non-discriminatory body solely engaged in legitimate opposition to political Zionism. Indeed, following the publication of its original report, the ANL issued a second, shorter, statement that argued that the charge against Nashashibi was the most serious because it meant that the Arab Office was involving itself with “part of the propaganda of race hatred in this country.”74 The Blue Star Mothers — described by the British embassy in Washington “as notoriously pro-fascist and anti-Semitic”75 — had been holding anti-Semitic meetings and distributing “scurrilous antiSemitic leaflets”76 in Philadelphia (at times under the name of the Current Events Club) for at least a year and a half prior to the ANL allegations. Gerald LK Smith was, in the words of the American Jewish Committee’s highly respected annual surveys on anti-Semitism, the “loudest and most publicized of the anti-Semitic rabble rousers during recent years.”77 In January, 1946, he had been called to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. The following April, on the eve of the ANL allegations, he was sentenced to sixty days in jail for contempt of court after distributing statements to reporters during the trial of a racist associate.78 Moreover, there was


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a clear link between Smith and the Blue Star Mothers as the president of this body, Mrs Catherine V Brown, sat on the board of the National Emergency Committee, an organisation founded by Smith in early 1945 to preserve “American Sovereignty.”79 The British Embassy in Washington encouraged the Arab Office’s propaganda efforts as part of its attempt to reduce anti-British feeling over its Palestine policy.80 The embassy publicly defended the Arab Office over the ANL allegations,81 though privately, at least, it acknowledged that Nashashibi had “accepted an invitation to speak at an anti-Semitic rally.”82 The embassy was inclined to put his attendance down to a misunderstanding and was adamant that once Nashashibi realised the nature of the rally “he thereupon refused to speak and left.”83 The Zionist reading of events was somewhat different. In their account Nashashibi not only attended the rally but instead of withdrawing when he realized he was in the midst of “anti-Semitic agitators” he took the opportunity to deliver a harsh attack on Zionism.84 Noting that men like Gerald LK Smith “were of great assistance to the Arab cause,” the non-Zionist American Jewish Committee supported the Zionist claims and brought to public attention what it viewed to be “an active and obviously well-financed group of propagandists for the Arab viewpoint, which, under the guise of explaining the Arab side of the Palestine question, disseminated subtle and sometimes open anti-Semitism.”85 Yet, even accepting the British interpretation of events — that Nashashibi turned up at the meeting but left without participating — the whole incident was a major miscalculation by the Arab Office. From its establishment it had been determined to distance itself from any accusations that its opposition to Zionism was motivated by anti-Semitism. Its Constitution emphasised that the body “should not allow itself to be connected in any way with anti-Jewish propaganda.”86 Senior members, including Cecil Hourani, Alami, and Shuqeiri, took every opportunity to reiterate Charles Issawi’s eloquent words, “The conflict between Arabs and Jews is not . . . a racial conflict. The Arabs are not anti-Semites . . . Moslems revere Hebrew prophets . . . [and] regard Hebrew scripture as sacred.”87 As such, the whole affair was a significant setback to the Arab Office and in early May 1946, after Congressman Sabath had forwarded a copy of the ANL’s memorandum to President Truman, Nashashibi resigned his post and left the United States.88

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It is hardly surprising that anti-Semitic individuals and groups opposed Zionism, which was, after all, a Jewish national movement supported, primarily, but by no means only, by Jews. But the Blue Star Mothers affair highlights the extent to which anti-Semites attempted to oppose actively Zionism by looking to co-operate with Arabs. It is worth recalling that during its two-year existence the Arab Office in Washington was approached so regularly by antiSemitic groups and individuals looking to aid it in its battle against Zionism that its members confided in the British embassy that it had been “inundated with offers of co-operation from anti-Semitic organisations.”89

IV The Mufti of Jerusalem Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the former Mufti of Jerusalem, who had been appointed Grand Mufti (expounder of Muslim Law) by the Palestine High Commissioner Herbert Samuel in 1921, had dominated inter-war era politics in Arab Palestine in his dual role of Mufti and head of the Arab Higher Committee (the de facto Arab leadership in Palestine). In the late 1930s the British had expelled him from Palestine for his leading role in the bloody “Arab Revolt.” During the war, he had collaborated with Nazi Germany and after hostilities had ceased he escaped from French detention and continued to direct Arab affairs from exile in Cairo. In the post-war era both he and his supporters were completely ostracised by the United States government. In May 1947, for example, the State Department, through its Consul in Jerusalem, refused Rasin al-Khalidi, a member of the Palestine Arab delegation destined for the UN meeting at Lake Success, permission to enter the United States because of his links with the ex-Mufti and what it termed his “known record in Germany” during the war.90 In its newspaper attacks on the Arab Office, as well as its various memorandums submitted to Congress, the ANL claimed that since its creation the “Arab Office and its principals” had been “openly acknowledging the spiritual and political leadership of the Grand Mufti . . . who was a close and trusted collaborator of Hitler.” While Sabath described him as the “number one Moslem quisling and collaborationist, agitator [and] arch-criminal.”91


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However, as stated above, from its founding the Arab Office under the guidance of Alami had worked hard to foster an image of modernity and moderation and to dispel the view that the Arab Office was but a “re-establishment” of the pre-war situation when all Palestinian Arab political efforts came under the sway of the Mufti.92 Freya Stark, the English author and wartime propagandist, who visited the United States on an extended tour during the war to defend Britain’s Middle East policy, believed the Arabs would only make headway in the United States if they were able “to make Americans think of Arabs as effendis rather than Sheiks.”93 This was exactly the goal of the Arab Office. As Cecil Hourani would later recall, members of the body felt that “we were part of a new phase in Arab history.”94 It is in these terms that one should view the distaste that the younger generation that staffed the Arab Office had for the Mufti, whose bloody record in Palestine and collaboration with the Nazis was constantly discussed in the media.95 As Sir Ronald Storrs, a former British Governor of Jerusalem and a leading British Arabist, noted in his private diary Albert Hourani “thinks the Mufti a disaster for the movement and blames no Jew for refusing to join any republic of which Hajj Amin is President.”96 These members of the Arab Office were as devoted to their boss Musa Alami, as they were opposed to the Mufti. The same was true for American friends of the Arab Office, such as Kermit Roosevelt who disparaged the “notorious Mufti” by comparing him with Alami, “an ‘honest, able Arab patriot.”97 Though Alami, who was married to the Mufti’s cousin had been the Mufti’s personal representative at the 1939 Palestine Conference in London, by war’s end he had turned his back on his former leader, going so far as to confide in Sir Ronald Storrs that the British had made a mistake by not “pushing him [the Mufti] out altogether.”98 He also told Sir Alan Cunningham, the Palestine High Commissioner, that the Mufti was “doing a great deal of harm” to the Arab cause.99 The Mufti, in turn, distrusted the pro-Western proclivities of Alami and those in his employ at the Arab Office.100 Indeed, this clash between the Mufti and the Arab Office was so entrenched that far from “openly acknowledging the spiritual and political leadership of the Grand Mufti,” as the ANL alleged, the Arab Office was in open disagreement with the Arab Higher Committee, the Mufti’s power base in Palestine.

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The Mufti and the Arab Higher Committee worked hard to isolate and marginalize the Arab Office in its main task of promoting the Arab case among the western public and political elite. As early as April 1945, the month of its opening in London, the British Foreign Office was reporting that the Arab Higher Committee was refusing to co-operate with the Arab Office.101 By 1946, the Arab Higher Committee had begun to organize its own propaganda bodies through out the world “to be entirely separate from the Arab Office.”102 By early 1947 (at the same time that the Arab League officially requested that the British allow the Mufti to return to Palestine), Jamal al-Husseini, of the Arab Higher Committee, was informing the press that his organisation would be sending a delegation to the United States to represent the Arab viewpoint in anticipation of the forthcoming UN meeting at Lake Success. By early March the body had announced its intention to open its own propaganda office in New York and to send its own representatives on publicity tours of the United States and Canada.103

V The Arab Office Closes its Doors In the first week of December 1947, Alami announced the closure of the Washington Arab Office in the face of a “complete and arrogant disregard for Arab rights, Arab interests and Arab feelings.”104 The extent to which the ANL and Sabath allegations, not to mention the FBI investigation, contributed to this decision is unclear. Both the ANL and the Congressman continued their attacks on the Arab Office throughout 1947,105 and there is no doubt that the allegations constituted a serious challenge to a body determined to present itself as modern, enlightened and free from anti-Semitic motive. But Cecil Hourani, who led the body through the crisis, minimised the negative impact of the scandal and recalled that the FBI investigation actually benefited the Arab Office by giving it a considerable amount of publicity and resulted in an increased awareness of its arguments in the media, schools, universities and churches.106 There were also several other reasons why the Arab Office closed at this time. The most significant related to the, November 29, 1947 decision of the United Nations General Assembly to support a resolution calling for the partition of Palestine into two independent


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states — one Jewish, the other Arab — linked in an economic union. Throughout 1947, the Arab Office’s major task had been to block a UN decision in favor of partition, and once it had failed to do so, and with a shortage of funds, a decision was made to focus all Arab Office resources on London because, as the Arab News Bulletin explained, “the final decision still rests with Britain as the mandatory and occupying power in Palestine.”107 Moreover, the early ambitions of the Arab Office to provide a successful antidote to Zionist propaganda in the United States had not been fulfilled. At the time of the ANL allegations the British Embassy in Washington dismissed the claims that the “frontal attack on the Arab Office” was motivated by Zionist fears over the body’s publicity efforts and reported back to Whitehall that “it would be inaccurate to claim that the Arab Office was exerting any appreciable influence in the United States at all.”108 Arab Office member Izzat Tannous recalled in his memoirs that the Washington office had faced an “almost insurmountable task” in doing its job and that the Zionist movement had been “able to suppress all [its] activities.”109 A recollection supported by leading Jewish anti-Zionist Rabbi Elmer Berger whose memory of the “anaemic Arab Office in Washington” was hardly more positive.110 The Arab Office also faced debilitating opposition within the Arab world from sources other than the Mufti and his supporters. The head of the Arab League, Abd al-Rahman Azzam, and the leadership of his native country, Egypt, the dominant power in the Arab League, made life difficult for the Arab Office. In particular, Egypt viewed the Arab Office as a puppet of Iraq (the main financial backer of the body) and too pro-western. As Alami noted, Egypt detested him and the Arab Office, “considering them little better than British agents.”111 Indeed, such was the ill-feeling towards the Arab Office emanating from Egypt and Azzam Pasha that as early as April 1945, Lord Killearn was reporting from Cairo that that the whole Arab Office affair was in danger of turning into a “propaganda flop.”112 It is a testament to the factionalism and disunity within the Arab world, that even without the Blue Star Mothers affair or the FBI investigation, the Arab Office was severely hamstrung in its ability to carry out its objectives. Indeed, the month before the FBI entered its Washington headquarters, the New York Times was reporting that

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the Arab Office “had virtually ceased functioning because of disagreement over its administration.”113

NOTES 1. On the earliest of these missions see Palestine Arab Delegation, The Holy Land: the Moslem-Christian Case Against Zionist Aggression (London, John Murray, 1921); J.M.N. Jeffries, Palestine The Reality (London, Longmans, Green & Co., 1939). There were also Arab delegations in Britain at the time of the 1937 Royal Commission on Palestine and the 1939 Palestine Conference. 2. On the propaganda effort of the PIC (and its successor the Arab Centre) see Mrs Steuart [Beatrice Caroline] Erskine, Palestine of the Arabs (London, George G. Harrap & Co., 1935), pp.80–92; Frances Newton, Fifty Years in Palestine (Wrotham, Cold Harbour Press, 1948). 3. Izzat Tannous, The Palestinians: A Detailed Documented Eye Witness History of Palestine Under the Mandate (New York, IGT, 1988), p.206. 4. See memorandum of conversation, J Rives Childs, United States (hereafter U.S.) Department of State, January 20, 1939, Foreign Relations of the United States (hereafter cited as FRUS, followed by appropriate years), 1939, 4:701. 5. Memorandum of Arab National League of America to Rt. Hon. Stanley Baldwin, February 2, 1937, British Public Records Office [hereafter PRO], Colonial Office [hereafter CO] 733/344/1. See evidence of the Arab National League of America to the Royal Commission of Enquiry on Palestine, February 23, 1937, PRO/CO 733/344/1. 6. See minutes and memorandum on Arab National League evidence before the Royal Commission on Palestine, February 23, 1937. Also see British Embassy, Washington, to Colonial Office, February 2, 1937, PRO CO 733/344/1. 7. See Translation of the report submitted by the Propaganda committee to the Arab National Congress held at Bludan, September 14, 1937, PRO Foreign Office [hereafter FO] 371/20814. 8. Cmd. 6019: Palestine, Statement of Policy (London, H.M. Stationery Office, May, 1939). 9. See Chaim Weizmann to Mr Justice Louis D. Brandeis, May 8, 1939, FRUS, 1939, 5, 749; Rabbi Stephen S. Wise to the Secretary of State, May 22, 1939, ibid., p.761. 10. U.S Minister, Cairo, to Department of State, June 28, 1941, FRUS, 1941, 3:613. See also Department of State to Cairo, July 15, 1941, FRUS, 3:615. 11. New York Times, November 20, 1944, p.A5. 12. Emir Abdullah of Transjordan to President Roosevelt, March 3, 1944, FRUS, 1944-, 5:582. 13. See minutes on Ibn Saud’s memorandum on asserting Arab Rights in Palestine January 11, 1945, PRO FO 371/45235. 14. New York Times, November 7, 1945, p.A12. 15. See memorandum by Acting Secretary of State, Joseph C. Grew to President Roosevelt, January 12, 1945, FRUS, 1945, 8:680.


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16. See Philip K. Hitti, The Syrians in American (New York, George H. Doran & Co, 1924); Habib I. Katibah, Arabic-Speaking Americans (New York, Institute of Arab American Affairs, 1946). 17. William Saphire, ‘Arab Propaganda in the USA’, Zionist Review, August 3, 1945, p.6. 18. New York Times, November 28, 1944, p.A17. 19. Eliahu Elath, Zionism at the UN: A Diary of the First Days (Philadelphia, The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1976), p.168. 20. Tannous, The Palestinians, p.211. 21. See, for example, H I Katibah’s letter in the New York Times, June 7, 1945, p.A18. See also New York Times, March 16, 1945, p.A8. 22. Michael W. Suleiman, ‘Arab-Americans and the Political Process’, in Ernest McCarus (ed.), The Development of Arab-American Identity (Ann Arbor, The University of Michigan Press, 1994) pp.37–60, p.45. 23. See New York Times, June 2, 1945, p.A8; memorandums of meetings between senior members of the State department and the Arab Ministers in Washington, October 3, 1945, October 12, 1945, November 13, 1945, FRUS, 1945, 8:756, 766, 820; New York Times, October 30, 1945, p.A9; New York Times, November 7, 1945, p.A12; New York Times, November 5, 1945, p.A1. 24. Memorandum of the Government of Iraq on the Founding of the Arab Offices, August 17, 1944, PRO FO 371/45235. 25. On the debate within the Arab League states on the founding of the Arab Office see minutes of the Seventh Meeting of the Pan Arab Conference, Alexandria, Egypt, October 5, 1944, PRO FO 371/45235. Also see Memorandum on the Establishment of Arab Propaganda Bureaux in Washington and London, April 11, 1945, PRO FO 371/45238. On Iraq’s support for the Arab Office in Washington, see Michael Eppel, The Palestine Conflict in the History of Modern Iraq: The Dynamics of Involvement, 1928–1948 (London, Port, Oregon, Frank Cass, 1994), p.150. 26. See Arab Office Constitution, PRO FO 371/45238. 27. New York Times, March 7, 1945, p.A9. 28. Arab Office Constitution, PRO FO 371/45238. 29. Ibid. 30. New York Times, June 4, 1947, p.A5. 31. See Arab League’s memorandum on Arab Offices, Cairo, October 1944, PRO FO 371/45236. 32. See Theodor Hanf’s review of Cecil Hourani’s An Unfinished Odyssey: Lebanon and Beyond in Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 24 No. 1 (January, 1988), p.127. 33. On Alami see Bernard Wasserstein’s ‘Clipping the Claws of the Colonisers: Arab Officials in the Government of Palestine, 1917–1948,’ Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 13, No. 2 (May, 1977), pp.171–194. 34. See Report on Private Conversation with Musa Alami by Sir Alan Cunningham, British High Commissioner in Palestine to Colonial Office, January 1, 1946, Cunningham Papers, Private Paper Collection, Middle East Centre, St. Antony’s College, Oxford, Box 5/1. 35. See Arab League’s memorandum on the Arab Offices, Cairo, October 1944, PRO FO 371/45236.

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36. Tannous, The Palestinians, p.369. 37. Washington Daily News, October 5, 1945, p.6. 38. See interview with Albert Hourani in Approaches to the history of the Middle East: interviews with leading Middle East historians, Nancy Gallagher, (ed.) (Reading, Ithaca Press, 1994), p.27. 39. See Jessica Hafkin, ‘Renaissance man: Professor emeritus Charles Issawi remembered,’ The Daily Princetonian, 15 February 2001, www.dailyprincetonian. com/archives/2001/02/15/news/2342.shtml 40. Nijla Izzedin, The Arab World: Past, Present and Future (Chicago, Henry Regnery & Co., 1953), p.253. 41. See interview with Charles Issawi in Approaches to the history of the Middle East: interviews with leading Middle East historians, pp.54–55. 42. See, New York Times, November 7, 1945, p.A18. 43. Cecil Hourani, New York Times, May 8, 1946, p.A18. See also his letters on June 8, p.A19, September 5, p.A25 & September 24, p.A30; October 10, p.A26; 6 December, p.A 22, December 18, p.A28. 44. See New York Times, October 30, 1945, p.A9; November 8, 1945, p.A6; December 18, 1945, p.A15. 45. See ‘Statement by Mr Ahmed Shukayri and Mr Albert Hourani representing the Arab Office,’ in Public Hearings before the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine and the Jewish Problem, March 25, 1946 (Jerusalem, 1946), pp.96–132. 46. Ibid. p.199. 47. Memorandum on the Arab Offices, PRO FO 371/45236. Also see Arab Office Constitution, PRO FO 371/45238 and British Embassy, Washington to British Foreign Office, January 16, 1945, PRO FO 371/45235. 48. Saphire, ‘Arab Propaganda in the USA,’ Zionist Review, August 3, 1945, p.6. 49. See official transcript of evidence of the Institute of Arab American Affairs, before the Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry on Palestine and the Jewish Problem, Washington, D.C., State Dept Building, January 11, 1946 (Washington, Ward & Paul, 1946). 50. President Truman to the Prime Minister Atlee, May 8, 1946, FRUS, 1946, 7:596. 51. Judah Magnes, ‘Notes: Conversation with Azzam Pasha’, May 18, 1946, in Arthur Goren (ed.) Dissenter in Zion, From the Writings of Judah L. Magnes (Cambridge, Mass./London, Harvard University Press, 1982), p.436. 52. Cecil Hourani, An Unfinished Odyssey: Lebanon and Beyond (London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson), p.100. 53. Elmer Berger, ‘Memoirs of an Anti-Zionist Jew’, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. V, No.s 1–2 (Autumn 1975–Winter 1976), pp.3–55, p.24. 54. See Cecil Hourani, Unfinished Odyssey, p.102; New York Times, November 21, 1947, p.A15; November 30, 1946, p.A.68, August 31, 1947, p.A15; September 16, 1947, p.A10. 55. See British Embassy, Washington, to British Foreign Office, May 20, 1946, PRO FO 371/52569. 56. See Anti-Nazi League memorandum Arab Office and Related Agencies Linked with Subversive Groups and Former Axis Agents in the United States in


57. 58. 59.

60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67.

68. 69.

70. 71.

72.

73.

74. 75. 76.

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Campaign to Defeat President Truman’s Palestine Policy and Stir up Domestic Discord on Religions and Racial Lines (Washington, Anti-Nazi League, 1946). (Hereafter, ANL memorandum, Arab Office and Related Agencies). World Telegraph, May 10, 1946, p.6. See Anti-Nazi League memorandum Arab Office and Related Agencies. See ‘British Treatment of Jews in Palestine Cries to Heaven While Arab Office Turns out Propaganda,’ Extension of Remarks of Hon. Adolph J Sabath of Illinois, in House of Representatives, Friday 2 August 1946, Congressional Record, Vol. 92, part 12, 79th Congress, 2nd session, 20 June 1946–2 August 1946, p.A 4937–A4940. (Hereafter, ‘British Treatment of Jews in Palestine’) Ibid. p.A4939. See press release issued by U.S. Department of Justice, March 11, 1947, PRO FO 371/61544. New York Times, March 20, 1947, p.A9. As-Difa’a, 18 March 1947; Falastin, 16 March 1947. New York Times, March 17, 1947, p.A7. New York Herald Tribune, May 12, 1946, p.2 New York Times, March 12, 1947, p.A9. Edward Atiyah, ‘Notes on Palestine,’ Arab News Bulletin, No. 28, 27 December 1946, p.2. ‘The Arab Office and the US Government,’ Arab News Bulletin, No. 33, 21 March 1947, p.3. New York Times, March 12, 1947, p.A9; ‘Notes on the American Press: A Report on the American Press by the Arab Office Washington’, reprinted in the Arab News Bulletin, No. 35, April 18, 1947, p.5. New York Times, March 12, 1947, p.A9. ‘Geneva-London’, Zionist Review, July 27, 1945, p.1. See also ‘Arab anti-Zionist Activities in the US’, Palestine Affairs, Information Bulletin of American Zionist Emergency Council, Vol. 1, No. 1 February 1946, pp.8–9. British Embassy, Washington, to British Foreign Office, May 20, 1946, PRO FO 371/52569. See Sabath’s statement in support of Zionism in American and Palestine, Reuben Fink, (ed.) (New York, Herald Square Press, 1945), pp.367–68. See also his letter in support of Zionism in the New York Times, 12 March 1948, p.A18. See ER Stettinius, Secretary of State, to President Roosevelt, December 8, 1944, FRUS, 1944, 5: 644–645; British Embassy, Washington, to British Foreign Office, March 12, 1948 PRO FO 371/68502. See statement by President Truman on the death of Representative Adolph J. Sabath of Illinois, 6 November 1952, Public Papers of Harry S. Truman, 1952–53, http//www.trumanlibrary.org/trumanpapers/pppus/1952/327.htm. World Telegraph, July 10, 1946, p.6. British Embassy, Washington, to British Foreign Office, May 20, 1946, PRO FO 371/52569. The American Jewish Yearbook 5705, Vol. 46, Harry Schneiderman (ed.) (Philadelphia, The Jewish Publication Society of American, 1945), p.274.

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77. The American Jewish Year Book 5707, Vol. 48, Harry Schneiderman & Julius B Maller, (eds.) (Philadelphia, The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1947), p.191. 78. New York Times, April 9, 1946, p.A29. 79. The American Jewish Yearbook, 5705, p.272–273. 80. See Wallace Murray, NEA, to Secretary of State, FRUS, 1941, 3:611; Dean Acheson, Acting Secretary of State to U.S Embassy, London, August 30, 1946, FRUS, 1946, 7:690. See also the British Foreign Office memorandum on the Arab League Information Office in Washington, British Embassy, Washington, November 22, 1945, PRO FO 371/45241. 81. See Press release of British Embassy, Washington, August 26, 1946, PRO FO 371/52555. 82. British Embassy, Washington, to British Foreign Office, May 20, 1946, PRO FO 371/52569. 83. Ibid. 84. Alliance with Fascists: The Arab Office Indicted’, Zionist Review, May 17, 1946, p.6. 85. The American Jewish Year Book 5707, pp.189–190; The American Jewish Year Book, 5709, Vol. 50, Harry Schneirderman & Morris Fine (eds.) (Philadelphia, The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1949), p.216. 86. See Arab Office Constitution, PRO FO 371/45238. 87. See transcript of address by Charles Issawi to Canadian Club of Montreal, 26 January 1948, PRO FO 371/68502. 88. See ‘British Treatment of Jews in Palestine’, A 4939. 89. British Embassy, Washington, British Foreign Office, August 26, 1946, PRO FO 371/52555. 90. New York Times, May 6, 1947, p.A5; May 13, 1947, p.A13. 91. See ‘British Treatment of Jews in Palestine’, A 4939. 92. See Lord Killearn, Cairo, to British Foreign Office, January 18, 1945, PRO FO 371/45235. 93. Freya Stark to Elizabeth Monroe, April 15, 1944, Freya Stark Letters: Vol. 5, New Worlds for Old, 1943–1946 (London, Michael Russell, 1983), p.82. 94. Cecil Hourani, An Unfinished odyssey, p.60. 95. See EA Mowrer, ‘Call the Mufti! Author of Jewish Extermination Goes Free’, Forum, March 1946, pp.611–612 and IF Stone, ‘The Case Against the Mufti’, Nation, May 4, 1946, pp.526–527. 96. See Private Diary of Sir Ronald Storrs, October 24, 1947, Storrs Papers, Pembroke College, Cambridge, Box 6/7. 97. Roosevelt, Arabs, Oil and History (London, Victor Gollancz, 1948), pp.189–190. 98. See Private Diary of Sir Ronald Storrs, July 6, 1946, Storrs Papers, Box 6/7. 99. See report on conversation with Musa Alami by Sir Alan Cunningham, 1 January 1946, Cunningham Papers, Box 5/1. 100. Cecil Hourani, An Unfinished Odyssey, p.65. 101. See British Foreign Office memorandum on the Arab Office, April 6, 1945, PRO FO 371/45238. 102. See report from British Embassy, Santiago, Chile to British Foreign Office, December 6, 1947, PRO FO 371/61759.


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103. New York Times, February 23, 1947, p.A45; New York Times, March 7, 1947, p.A4. 104. See Alami’s statement on the closing of the Washington Arab Office, reprinted in the Arab News Bulletin, No. 52, December 12, 1947, p.2. 105. See, for example, Sabath’s repeated attack on the Arab Office in the House, ‘Adequate Investigation of Activities of the Arab Office and its Fronts will prove its Co-operation with Native Fascist, Violation of Alien Registration Act and Complicity of British,’ Extension of Remarks of Hon. Adolph J. Sabath, in the House of Representatives, July 24, 1947, pp.A4133–A4135. 106. Cecil Hourani, An Unfinished Odyssey, p.62. 107. Arab News Bulletin, No. 29, January 10, 1947, p.1. 108. British Embassy, Washington, to British Foreign Office, May 20, 1946, PRO/ FO 371/52569. 109. Tannous, The Palestinians, p.86. 110. Elmer Berger, ‘Memoirs of an Anti-Zionist Jew,’ p.24. 111. Private Diary of Sir Ronald Storrs, 6 August 1946, Storrs Papers, Box 6/7. 112. See Lord Killearn, Cairo, to British Foreign Office, April 7, 1945, PRO FO 371/45238. 113. New York Times, February 23, 1947, p.A45; March 7, 1947, p.A4.