Chapter 13, Part 2: The Labor Pains of Union: Steps Toward Egypt

When signs of rapprochement or federation with Abdel Nasser's Egypt appeared, we welcomed them and went along with those heading toward it.. Is this not what our Constitution, on which we swore the oath, enjoins?

In fairness, the members of the Baath Party were more eager than we were on this path, and this is a generous course on their part for which they deserve congratulations.. They raised the slogan and insisted on putting federation into every national agreement or cabinet statement.. But we too supported them and gave the federation the means of success. For they were a minority in the Chamber of Deputies, while we held the relative majority.. And if they were more enthusiastic than others, we were more patient and deeper in our study.. Even when the reins slipped from the hands of all the civilians, and the subject changed from federation to union.. the People's Party was with it too.

The independent political leaders also declared their unionist leaning toward Egypt.

On 18/1/1956 the freedom fighter Nabih al-Azma sent Abdel Nasser a telegram pledging allegiance to him as leader of the Arab nation and congratulating him on his steps toward liberation. It said:

"You are the hope of your people, the trust of your nation and the undisputed leader of its unity in all its countries, which have long been deprived of sincere leadership and guidance, lost to them for a long time."[1]

The Syrian steps toward federation with Egypt went forward safely and with God's blessing, one step after another.. as follows:

A. On 3/3/1955 Syria and Egypt agreed on the following:

1. Not to join the Turkish Iraqi pact or any other pacts.

2. To set up an Arab defense and cooperation organization whose members undertake to act together against any aggression on any of the organization's states.

3. To set up a joint command to supervise the training, arming, organization and deployment of the military forces.

4. To form an Arab economic council to direct economic policy.

B. When the cabinet of Mr. Sabri al-Asali was formed on 13 June 1955, its head made the following important statement in the Chamber of Deputies (session of 27 June): "I would like to inform your honorable Chamber that the Council of Ministers has unanimously decided to authorize a ministerial committee to negotiate between Syria and sister Egypt with a view to a federal union between us. I hope this will be achieved very soon.. And I would like to announce that this federation will remain open to all the liberated Arab countries."

C. At the same session the Chamber of Deputies passed the following resolution:

"In execution of the third paragraph of Article One of the Constitution, which provides that the Syrian people are part of the Arab nation, the Chamber supports the government decision announced by His Excellency the Prime Minister at this session."

D. When Sabri al-Asali formed the national cabinet on 14 June 1955, which included three members of the People's Party, Rashad Jabri, Ahmad Qanbar and myself, the Council of Ministers decided on 5 July 1956 to form a three-man committee of Sabri al-Asali (National Party), Ahmad Qanbar (People's Party) and Salah al-Bitar (Baath Party) to begin unity negotiations with Egypt. The Council of Ministers, under the chairmanship of the President of the Republic, studied the federation plan the ministerial committee had reached at its session of 14 July 196, and approved it unanimously.

There was complete harmony among all the members of the government.

Rashad Barmada spoke on behalf of the People's Party, saying:

"The People's Party, which from the first day of its formation set before its eyes the precious hope of Arab unity, congratulates the respected government and blesses this blessed step it has taken, which the Syrian people support."[2]

Faydi al-Atassi (also of the People's Party) spoke, commenting on the words of the Minister of Defense, Khalid al-Azm, who had said that the federation would be confined to three fields, namely:

national defense, the economy and foreign policy, and said:

"There will not be a single person in this country who will not welcome this federation, rejoice in it and cheer. And full satisfaction with this federation means that it should be a true federal union in name, structure and meaning."[3]

Khalid Bakdash supported this federation on behalf of the Central Committee of the Communist Party.

On 26 July 1956 Abdel Nasser nationalized the Canal. I was with a Syrian parliamentary delegation, his guests at lunch, and then he took us with him to the main square of Alexandria to announce the nationalization of the Canal.

While we were at lunch as his guests, the head of the delegation, Dr. Maarouf al-Dawalibi, asked him: Why did Suleiman al-Halabi come from Aleppo to kill General Kléber in Egypt? Sheikh al-Baquri answered him, saying it was because Suleiman al-Halabi was a soldier of the Arab resistance and killed the French commander for his aggression against Egypt.

As a joke I note that al-Dawalibi asked a question with a regional flavor, since Suleiman al-Halabi came from his own quarter, "al-Bayyada", in Aleppo.[4]

In this speech Abdel Nasser said "This is the Canal of the Arabs" and did not confine it to Egypt, which had dug it.

On 29 October 1956 the Tripartite Aggression on sister Egypt took place, and Abd al-Hamid al-Sarraj blew up the English Iraq Petroleum stations in Syria to help Egypt in its war effort, and what he did was a splendid act.

Prime Minister al-Asali made a statement in the Chamber of Deputies in which he said:

"We were on the point of swift action, but we received contrary instructions to wait and watch, because the battlefield had shifted from the Sinai desert (facing Israel) to confronting the forces of the two aggressor states (France and England), which had landed their forces on the Canal."[5]

For the record: President al-Quwatli returned from the Soviet Union shortly after the Suez War began, and we went out to meet him at al-Qabun, for he came by car from Aleppo for fear that his plane might be attacked by Israel.. He told the journalists that thousands of Soviet volunteers would fight alongside us and that the arms coming to us were very plentiful.. This statement was broadcast to the world. It had a very bad echo in Western circles and Arab circles alike.. and the least that was said of it was that it gave away military secrets. I was among those who met the President that night, and I noticed that he was deeply moved by that wicked aggression on Egypt, and he made his statement in a state of great agitation.

E. In August 1957, after the Qatana mutiny, the Military Council was formed in Syria under Major General Afif al-Bizri. It had 24 members representing all the military blocs and a number of commanders who belonged to none of these blocs. The council regarded itself as a council of the revolution and set as its aims protecting Syria's independence, preventing it from joining foreign pacts, and also watching over the conduct of the government. Yet the government enjoyed the support of this council and was in fact its own creation.

The Arab countries adopted the principle of positive neutrality as their general policy and program when on 27 February 1957 they issued the following communiqué:

"The Arab states meeting here, grown stronger through the awareness of their peoples, and in faith in the soundness of their aims and the firmness of their idea, affirm what they declared earlier, their determination to keep the Arab nation out of the Cold War and away from its conflicts, and their commitment to the policy of positive neutrality, thereby preserving their national interests.

Likewise, the defense of the Arab world must spring from within the Arab nation, guided by its true security and outside the framework of military pacts."[6]

The expression "non-alignment" had appeared in the joint statement issued by the three presidents, Gamal Abdel Nasser, King Saud and President Shukri al-Quwatli, on 12 March 1956.

Mr. Mahmoud Riad wrote the following in his memoirs:

"But Syria went back to dual rule between the army and the government formed from the political parties, even though the balance had now tipped in the army's favor.

This Military Council was no better off than the government. It was made up of groups and blocs of differing tendencies..

There was a bloc of Baathist officers bound by the party's political decisions, and there were the independents, each of whom also had political ties..

And there was the Marxist left, represented by Afif al-Bizri.

And the outbidding over union with Egypt began.."

I would like to dwell on the last sentence in Mahmoud Riad's memoirs:

"And the outbidding over union with Egypt began.."[7]

When we advised against rushing, al-Bitar would answer me: We must impose union on Egypt!.. And imposition is a diseased doctrine, because it paralyzes the mind and kills initiative.

F. On 14 October 1957 the Chamber of Deputies elected Mr. Akram al-Hourani as its Speaker against Dr. Nazim al-Qudsi (the People's Party candidate). The result of the second round of voting was 63 votes for Akram al-Hourani and 57 for Nazim al-Qudsi, and two blank ballots were found.

It should be noted that the National Rally and the Baath Party sent an envoy, the deputy Nawfal Ilyas, to the People's Party to say that they would agree to Dr. AbdulWahab Homad's candidacy for the Speakership if al-Qudsi withdrew. But al-Qudsi held to his candidacy, and he did not win.

Al-Hourani's place in the Speaker's chair gave him the means to push the question of federation with Egypt with all force and determination.

G. That month the Egyptian forces arrived in Syria, and we felt reassured, filled with a deep feeling that our position was sound and that we had become, in practice, a great power.

Our reassurance grew with the launching of the Russian satellite Sputnik on 24 October 1956, that is, at the height of the fighting against the Arabs. True, the satellite was Russian, but it delighted us, because it troubled and worried the Western countries.

Endnotes:

[1] From the book "Awraq Nabih wa Adil al-Azma" (The Papers of Nabih and Adil al-Azma), p. 148.

[2] Session of 5 July 1956, p. 152.

[3] The same session, p. 168.

[4] Mahmoud Riad told this story in his memoirs, vol. 2, p. 204.

[5] Session of 17 November 1956.

[6] See: Dr. Nur al-Din Hatum, in his book Qadaya Asrina (Issues of Our Age), Damascus, Dar al-Fikr, 1972, p. 633.

[7] The Memoirs, vol. 2, p. 209.