THE MIDDLE EAST: Arab Federation?

Seven flags fluttered gaily atop the slate-grey Egyptian Foreign Ministry in Cairo. In an ornate salon on the main floor, delegates from six of the seven Arab states sat on the brittle insecurity of Louis Quinze chairs, stalked haughtily across priceless Iranian rugs. They had met to draw up a constitution for a federation of all Arab lands, from the Nile to the Euphrates.

For the Middle East the occasion was momentous. Egypt’s King Farouk was host. The delegates were Foreign Ministers or their equivalent. Trans-Jordan’s Premier Samir el Refai Pasha underlined the Arabic character of the meeting. Though he wears European clothes in his native desert, he wore stunning Arab robes in Cairo. Most important, Saudi Arabia, keystone of any Pan-Arab federation and outstanding absentee at last autumn’s Alexandria conference of Arab nations (TIME, Oct. 16), would attend the meeting in the person of Al Sheikh Yussef Yassin, personal secretary of King Ibn Saud. Yemen, the little state by the Red Sea, was not represented, but a delegate was also hopefully expected.

If the Cairo conference succeeded, it would put into effect the Alexandria resolution for unified educational, financial, commercial, legal and foreign policies by all Arab nations. It would change the balance of power in the Middle East, might affect Britain, France, Russia, the U.S. But there were difficult, immediate problems:

¶ Syria and Lebanon, whose Foreign Ministers were both present, were deep in conflict with France. They wanted complete liquidation of the French mandate, partially abrogated in 1943. They had sent a demand to this effect to the Big Three at Yalta, were still awaiting a reply. Meanwhile Britain, formerly opposed to continued French rule in Syria and Lebanon, was said to have switched to support of France. Arab solidarity in Cairo might mean full independence for the two states, but France and Britain would have to be reckoned with. The stake of the British Empire was emphasized when Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, en route home from Yalta, spent three days in Cairo.

¶ Palestine, since it is not an independent state, had only an “auditor” in Cairo. But the bitter question of Jewish-Arab conflicts in Palestine was high on the agenda—and here again British interests were vitally concerned.

Arab independence of foreign rule had foundered once before, after World War I, when Britain withdrew her support of the Arabs after they had helped her to defeat Turkey. This time, there was greater power behind Pan-Arab aspirations. The rest of the world eagerly watched and waited.