Before These Memoirs - Part 30: Dawalibi's Claim That al-Shishakli Once Asked Him to Meet Secretly With Ben-Gurion

Wednesday the 29th

Mr. al-Husami and I paid a visit to Dr. Farid Zeineddine, who was keen to assure me that he had never said, on the morning of 28 March 1962, when we were summoned to the General Staff headquarters, that he had demanded the formation of a government. His own view, he said, had been that resorting to forming such a government would be wrong until the direction of events had become clear.

But what actually happened that day was that he pressed hard for the formation of a coup government, and I opposed this formation firmly. Nazim al-Qudsi benefited from my own opposition, for had this government actually been formed, his own era would have ended then and there, and he might well have found himself facing calls for his own trial. But since no "revolutionary" government was ever formed, his own era remained "legitimate," and the presidential seat stayed vacant.

Which is why His Excellency was restored, I say restored, not that he simply returned, to his former post. Dr. Zeineddine told us that Akram al-Hourani had visited him, and they had discussed the Jordan River diversion issue, and he had shown Mr. al-Hourani his own grave error on this subject. He repeated to him what we all already know, that he had been a member of the committee Abdel Nasser formed, when the debate in Cairo's own Council of Ministers grew heated between Ahmad Abdel Karim in particular and the President, over the possibility of preventing Israel from diverting the Jordan River from its own territory by military force. He said he had prepared a detailed report on this same subject for the President, after the Baathists' resignation, and that the President adopted it and presented it to the Arab League Council, which adopted it unanimously.

The only thing the President took issue with in this report, Dr. Zeineddine says, was that it dwelt too heavily on the Palestinian question and sought to remove it from any outside influence whatsoever, since he, God rest his soul, feared Jordan might consider the report aimed against itself, and might then withdraw from the Arab League.

To leave no room for doubt in our minds, he said he was prepared to publish it in the newspapers, though he was confident these same newspapers would never publish a report that would expose as liars those who claimed Abdel Nasser had refused, on principle, to resist Israel by force should it move to divert the Jordan River.

Among the world's own cruelties toward me is that I found myself obliged to receive certain hardened secessionists in my own home, sharing lunch or dinner with them.

Today's portion fell to Mr. Zuhdi al-Jasser, the former journalist who became, during the union, general manager of the Aleppo Oil Company, and who remains extremely close to both Rushdi al-Kikhya and Nazim al-Qudsi.

I do not know whether he came to give me a lesson in the concept of Arab nationalism.

He pressed, throughout his own long, agitated conversation, three points:

1. When, in their own history, did the Arabs ever form a single state?

2. When was there ever any union at all, of any kind, between Egypt and Syria?

3. And are we truly Arabs at all, and in what sense?

Here is a fine sample of the moral collapse of secessionist reaction, which has lost even its own convictions, forgetting what it once shouted so loudly it nearly tore its own vocal cords in the process.

They have lost their own minds. And when Jupiter wished to destroy a people, he would first afflict them with moral madness.

And they got, praise God, exactly what they never wanted, sooner even than they had feared.

Friday the 31st

Every time I look at the newspapers publishing the "speeches" of the Syrian delegation's members at Chtaura, and think of the degraded level they sank to in cursing a hero of Arabism and Islam, President Abdel Nasser, I am struck anew by the sheer squalor of narrow partisanship. It is only natural that the delegation representing "the United Arab Republic" would walk out of sessions closer to a common street brawl, born of coarse manners and upbringing, than to any genuine dialogue among statesmen searching for a dignified way out of the standing dispute.

And indeed, this delegation did walk out yesterday.

Because of this walkout, the Arab League Council was unable to reach any decision, and so decided to suspend its own sessions "indefinitely," keeping the session technically open, in case some reconciling development might yet appear on the horizon.

I doubt this will happen, for those who have rushed to burn every bridge, out of fear for their own lives and interests, could never accept any rapprochement with Abdel Nasser's Egypt.

Nor do I imagine the Israeli danger, whose own harm they seem to have made their peace with, troubles their sleep in the slightest.

Khaled al-Azm sent a telegram of congratulations to the head of the "Syrian Arab," or "Arab Syrian," delegation, taking a sly jab at President al-Qudsi and the secessionist government in it, saying: "Our own delegation shone and achieved a great success, while our own diplomacy proved its own incompetence and weakness."

My memory carried me back to what Mr. Rushdi al-Hamid once told me, long ago, trying to bring us and Khaled al-Azm closer together, that "the man" regretted his own stance on union, and stood ready to wash away his own past and end his political life on a dignified note. We met with him, and how I wish we never had.

Political circles were startled by Prince Talal bin Abdulaziz, King Saud's own brother, taking refuge in Egypt. From there, he broadcast a statement attacking both his own brother and King Hussein bin Talal of Jordan, over the agreement the two had struck, aimed at opposing Abdel Nasser rather than opposing Israel.

The exiled prince demanded the establishment of a democratic system in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, one in which the people would be the true master and the final word over its own rulers and its own wealth, its oil riches especially, squandered as they are on conspiracies and the buying of consciences. He also demanded that Saud step down from the throne, considering him unfit for it.

This statement is certain to unsettle the Saudi rulers, though it poses no real danger to them, since they are considered a pillar of Western, and especially American, policy, one capable of protecting their own throne, in exchange for their own surrender of free control over their own fabulous oil resources.

Still, it is an episode not entirely without its own irony.

Sunday, 2 September

Mr. Rafiq Bishur, Deputy Speaker of the secessionist chamber of deputies, told me that the Syrian government's own days are effectively numbered, and that the chamber of deputies "which had dissolved itself" would be summoned to convene, its own resignation quietly set aside, its session to be a brief one, in which it would grant the President of the Republic the "legitimacy" he seeks, before dissolving itself once more. Its members would be rewarded with fourteen thousand pounds each, to settle their own back salaries lost through resignation.

The press claimed that Egypt's own cultural attaché in Rome had sought asylum in Syria, joining the first defector, Zaghloul Abdul Rahman.

The Syrian press rejoiced greatly at this news, considering it "an early sign" of the regime's collapse in Egypt. But its joy did not last long, for the story turned out to be a cheap fabrication with no basis in truth at all. Yet it felt no shame at all over its own lies, for as the popular saying goes: "One more hole does the sieve no harm."

Monday the 3rd

Today belongs to our friend Sheikh Maarouf al-Dawalibi.

He declared to journalists, in his own well-known fondness for self-promotion, that he no longer favored party political activity, "until the country is purged of its saboteurs."

Perhaps this remark referred to the clashes that had begun breaking out between the Muslim Brotherhood, whom the Sheikh considers his own people, and the Communists, whom he had once shown real sympathy toward, so much so that he was nicknamed "the Red Sheikh."

Mr. Ahmad al-Mahmoud, a well-known Latakia lawyer and a fellow student of mine at the Damascus Faculty of Law in 1937, told me he had heard Dr. al-Dawalibi give a speech, a few days earlier, in an orchard in Latakia owned by our friend Hajj Qasim Yassin, in which he claimed that Adib al-Shishakli had once asked him to meet with Ben-Gurion, Israel's Prime Minister at the time, to begin peace negotiations between Syria and Israel behind the Arab countries' own backs, but that he had refused this assignment, and threatened to make the matter public unless al-Shishakli abandoned these dangerous ideas.

Mr. al-Mahmoud went on to say that he had relayed what he had heard to Mr. As'ad Harun, a notable of Latakia and one of the senior figures who had cooperated with al-Shishakli, who assured him that what al-Dawalibi had said was "a lie upon a lie."

For the sake of historical accuracy, we, who opposed al-Shishakli and followed his own actions closely, never heard a single word about any effort by al-Shishakli to make peace with Israel.

Nor did Dr. al-Dawalibi ever send us word, from his own voluntary "exile" in Beirut, of any such assignment, even though he and I were both members of the People's Party we had founded together in 1948, working toward one single goal, bringing down the dictatorial regime. A piece of news like this, had it been true, would have been more than enough to shake al-Shishakli's own era to its foundations.

Given the gravity of this accusation, I visited the Leader (today called a Brigadier General) Amir Shallash at his own home,[1] who had been the army Chief of Staff's own deputy, and asked him whether he knew anything of this matter, given that he had served as Adib al-Shishakli's own deputy and met with him several times a day. He found the claim strange, and denied any knowledge of it whatsoever, stating firmly that al-Shishakli had never once shown any leaning of this kind, and adding that even had he thought of such a thing, he would never have entrusted it to Mr. al-Dawalibi, considered as he was one of the era's own enemies, but would instead have sent someone trustworthy, capable of keeping the secret until some resolution was reached.

Two or three days after this speech, "His Excellency" declared to the newspaper Al-Sada al-Aam that "he had confirmed information that Abdel Nasser would be finished within a single month."

We have no idea where he draws these delusions from, tales that have grown ever more frequent these days, repeated with real amusement in the cafés.

In this gloomy, repulsive atmosphere, we read an article in the newspaper of Mr. Kamal Jumblatt, Lebanon's Minister of Interior, attacking all Syrians in order to focus his fire on the secessionists. This article said: "The Syrians once overthrew the Umayyad state, the Abbasid state, the Fatimid state, and Saladin himself. And now here they are, sliding into cursing Abdel Nasser. Is this some awakening of the blood of Hulagu and Timur?"

The Syrian press flew into a rage, sinking its own sharp claws into Jumblatt's own reputation, backed by the radio, the state's own official apparatus, in its frenzied campaign against this Druze leader of Nasserist leanings and sympathies.

Saturday the 8th

A bomb exploded in a café in Hama yesterday evening. The newspapers reported a large number of wounded, among them Harsho al-Barazi, who had once assassinated the late General Sami al-Hinnawi in Beirut, in revenge for his own relative Mr. Muhsin al-Barazi, and Mr. Ali Adi, one of the most prominent members of Mr. Akram al-Hourani's own party.

This gave these same newspapers the occasion to pin the blame for the bombing on the sinful "Nasserists," though Al-Sada al-Aam instead accused the Muslim Brotherhood, standing as they do in opposition to al-Hourani's own movement. Al-Sada al-Aam, for its part, likes to drape itself in the mantle of progressivism, while fighting the Muslim Brotherhood at every turn.

To keep these two pro-government camps from clashing with one another, the Ministry of Interior issued a statement pinning the blame squarely on the Nasserists instead.

There is no doubt that the language of bombs is the language of crime, one that admits no justification whatsoever, for politics is meant to be a matter of debate and the presentation of principles, followed by an appeal to the ballot box, so that the people may have the final word.

Tuesday the 11th

The Lebanese newspaper Al-Hurriya reached Damascus today.

I read an article in it dividing Syrian citizens into two camps.

The first, the unionists, described as "the socialist masses of the people."

The second, the secessionists, a coalition of reaction, opportunism, and sectarianism.

The Syrian authorities stood accused of setting off the bombs themselves, spreading terror in order to strike at the unionists, who pose a real danger to them, exactly as Abdel Karim Qasim does in Iraq.

They had dragged the unionists into a lopsided battle, the article said, "and inflicted upon them a terror without parallel."

This was a measured article, one that made reason its own instrument of argument.

I had heard Cairo's own Voice of the Arabs, over the past two days, broadcasting in a notably more realistic tone. It had previously claimed that the masses were expressing their own views by setting off bombs in the secessionists' own bellies, a claim we ourselves never once entertained.

Today the "dissolved" chamber of deputies is being summoned to convene, for one single session, to vote confidence in Khaled al-Azm, after which the deputies will vote to dissolve themselves, bringing this whole farce to its own end.

One of these deputies told me, word for word: "So long as I'm getting my own 14,000 pounds, I'm ready to vote for Abdel Nasser himself."

Incidentally, he is one of the "moderate" secessionists, and had once tasted the flavor of real standing as a member of the National Assembly, made up of both Egyptian and Syrian deputies, during the union. Yet he holds to the principle that "whoever marries my mother becomes my own uncle."

Saturday the 15th

Here is the account of a senior Aleppan judge, since retired and confined to his own home, Mr. Abdel Raouf Sultan. I visited him this morning, and we spoke of some of our own shared memories from the judiciary, he having served as head of the Council of State while I was Minister of Justice. I had once consulted him on dismissing certain corrupt judges, and he gave me the names every fair-minded observer agreed had to be removed from the bench, should I fail to lift their own immunity so as to use the weapon of dismissal instead.

I never did use it.

He spoke of the union as though holding back his own tears.

He said: I am a man standing at the very edge of my own grave, and I ask nothing more of this world but God's own mercy. Yet I long for the return of the former union, for even though I myself may soon leave this world, I have children who will go on living in this homeland.

We were once a great state, forming the very nucleus for gathering the Arab nation together, but the secessionists, through their own "black crime," as he put it, destroyed our own national hopes. Morning and evening now, we hear nothing but the rejoicing of reaction and of Israel.

He passed away to be with his Lord not long after, and God never granted him the mercy of living to see the processions of union return.

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Endnotes:

[1] On the evening of Monday (December 1995).