Eliezer Tauber. The Journal for Interdisciplinary Middle Eastern Studies. Volume 8, Issue 1, Spring 2022.
In the early 1940s, Arab lobbying activities started to be noticeable in Canada. In 1944, Muhammad Said Massoud, a Druze emigrant from Lebanon, founded the Canadian Arab Friendship League in Montreal. The League soon became the spearhead of Arab lobbying activity in Canada with a declared goal of improving Canada’s relations with the Arab world. The Canadian Arab, published by Massoud between May 1945 and December 1947, was the most significant enterprise of the League. Being the first of its kind in Canada, the journal was intended to refute Zionist arguments regarding Palestine and prevent Canadian public opinion from being sympathetic to the establishment of a Jewish state. The journal, in English but with the editorial also translated into Arabic, was distributed gratis to statesmen, religious leaders, university lecturers, teachers, lawyers, businessmen, and libraries. Besides Massoud’s editorial, it included news, political essays, protests, correspondence, and historical reviews.
Introduction
In the early 1940s, only about 12,000 Arabs lived in Canada. As early as 1938, the Arabian Muslim Association was founded in Edmonton by a group of local merchants of Arab origin to build a mosque. The mosque, inaugurated in November of that year, was the first to be established in Canada. It was, however, only in the early 1940s that Arab lobbying started to be noticeable in Canada as a reaction to Zionist lobbying. In 1944, Muhammad Said Massoud, a Druze emigrant from Lebanon, founded the Canadian Arab Friendship League in Montreal. Massoud, a wealthy merchant who arrived in Canada in 1909 at the age of 16, became involved in lobbying activities, according to his own evidence, because of an offensive article published in the Montreal Daily Star by a Jewish rabbi. It described the Arabs as lazy people who had dried up Palestine into a desert—the Jews, on the other hand, would make it flourish. Massoud responded with a counter-article, and soon a press campaign between him and Canadian Zionists began.
A short while later, Massoud decided that more significant action was needed to promote the Arab cause and make Canadian public opinion aware of it. He established the Canadian Arab Friendship League, which had its national headquarters in Montreal and several branches in other cities. The League’s declared goal, according to the first article of its constitution, was “to promote, encourage and propagate friendship and understanding between Canada and the Arabic speaking nations of the world”. In order to accomplish this, the League would hold meetings and approach statesmen and newspapers (mainly the Daily Star, where Massoud had some friends), combating and protesting against Zionist propaganda, particularly when it offended the Arab image. The League also set up the Canadian Arab News Service, a non-profit service intended to “better relations between Canada and the Arab world”. Massoud subsidized it and also started to collect all news related to Arabs from many North American newspapers, sorting and indexing them and responding when needed. A weekly Arab-Canadian Newsletter followed, published by Massoud and sent gratis to Canadian newspapers and leading Canadian personalities.
While the author of this article studied the broader scope of the lobbying activities of the Canadian Arab Friendship League in a previous paper, the purpose of this article is to concentrate on its most significant enterprise in the media realm, The Canadian Arab journal, published by Massoud from May 1945 to December 1947. Being the first Arab political organ in Canada, it was intended to refute Zionist arguments regarding Palestine and prevent Canadian public opinion from being sympathetic to the establishment of a Jewish state. The journal was distributed gratis to statesmen, religious leaders, university lecturers, teachers, lawyers, businessmen, and libraries (“a cross-section of Canadian society”), and its circulation by 1947 reached 4,000 copies. During these years, The Canadian Arab became the spearhead of the Canadian Arab Friendship League’s lobbying activities. The present article will examine the journal’s framework and structure, its participants and contributors, and its main themes, which focused on the struggle against Zionism, trying to prove Palestine’s Arabness and advocating against Jewish immigration and “terrorism”. As a journal representing the Arab minority in Canada, the journal also defended the Arab image, refuting allegations of Arab backwardness and Arab incompatibility with democracy, as well as of double allegiance on the part of the Arab immigrants.
The Journal’s Framework
Twenty issues of The Canadian Arab appeared. The first issues were published monthly and contained about 20 pages. However, the number of pages continually decreased, first to about 15 pages and then to 12, before in September 1946, the following announcement appeared in the journal: “Owing to the existing paper shortage and other circumstances beyond our control we have decided to issue this magazine—for the time being—every third month. Until we will again be able to publish monthly, our page number will be increased to a total of twenty.” The subsequent issues, which appeared every third month until the demise of the journal, contained 20 pages as promised (but only if the title page is taken into account), except for the last issue of October-December 1947, which again dropped to 15 pages.
On the front page of each issue, the journal’s title ‘THE CANADIAN ARAB” appeared in capitals, with all the A’s shaped like pyramids. At the bottom of the title page, there appeared the journal’s motto: “A link of friendship between Canada and the Arab world”. On the second page of each issue, there was the issue’s table of contents and, beneath it, the following announcement: “THE CANADIAN ARAB is a monthly publication printed by THE CANADIAN ARAB NEWS SERVICE, a non-profit making organization sponsored by M.S. Massoud, Montreal, in the interest of better relations between Canada and The Arab world. Copies of THE CANADIAN ARAB are distributed free of charge to a selected group of friends and students of Arab affairs.”
At the beginning of the first issue, Massoud presented The Canadian Arab as “a venture into universal friendship and understanding” and “a messenger of good will” among all people who wished to understand “the many problems facing Canadian citizens of Arab origin”. He promised the journal would be removed from political and personal prejudices and serve “as a true link between Canadians and the Arab world”, answering frequently asked questions about Arab culture and history. The authors of the journal’s articles would be “the most outstanding authorities” on Arab affairs in Canada and elsewhere. They would counterbalance the “irresponsible and often ignorant propagandists who never saw our native land but have made it their profitable business to speak and to write about our ancestors”. In practice, however, most of the articles that appeared in The Canadian Arab were not written especially for it but were reprinted from other journals or newspapers. Often, they were reprints of addresses delivered in various events related to the League.
The items that appeared in The Canadian Arab can be divided into the following categories:
Editorials. Each issue opened with an editorial by the journal’s owner and editor, Muhammad Said Massoud, in which he would comment on current affairs, mainly in relation to the Palestine problem, at times using excessively harsh language. Usually, the editorial numbered two to three pages. While all the articles of the journal, including the editorial, were published in English, the editorial was also translated into Arabic. The Arabic translation would appear, in clear and very legible handwriting, in the back pages of the journal. (On rare occasions, other pieces were also translated into Arabic.) The decision to publish The Canadian Arab in English in French-speaking Montreal deserves an explanation. The main reason for this choice derived precisely from the fact that the journal mainly focused on the fate of British Mandatory Palestine and wanted to influence English-speaking officials, whether Canadian, American, or British. An ancillary reason might be the very fact that Massoud was a Druze. While the Lebanese Maronites were traditionally identified with France, this was not the case with the Lebanese Druze, who had traditionally been pro-British for a long time. The fact that the editorial also appeared in Arabic apparently did not just represent pride in the ancestral heritage but was also meant to assist Arab immigrants who had not yet mastered English well to be able to at least read the editorial.
News and press reviews. The most frequent type of article in The Canadian Arab were the reports, in full or in excerpted form, of news from other journals and newspapers. Most of the journal’s press reviews referred to the Canadian English-speaking press. Among the Canadian newspapers used as sources for the journal’s press reviews were the Montreal Star, Daily Star, Gazette, and Standard, the Toronto Star and Telegram, the Victoria Colonist, and the French La Presse. Among the American newspapers used by the journal, one can find The New York Times and The New York Herald Tribune, as well as one article from the Newsletter of the National Economic Council (about an American Jewish industrialist condemning Zionism). The Arab press also served as important source material for the journal. While the usage of Arabic-speaking newspapers such as the Cairo Al-Ahram was relatively rare, the usage of English-speaking Arab journals was very common, among them the New York Arab World magazine, the Bulletin of the Institute of Arab American Affairs, and the Arab News Bulletin published by the Arab Office in London. The Canadian Arab also extracted information from various news agencies, among them the Canadian Press, the British United Press, the Associated Press, and Reuters. The news reported by the journal usually referred in one way or another to the Palestine question, but also to the Arab world in general and to Western-Arab (and Canadian-Arab) relations in particular.
General information and League information. One of the journal’s objectives was to deliver information about the Arab world. An example of such an article was a survey of Egyptian civil aviation, written by an Egyptian aviation expert. It described Egypt’s place in world aviation, Egypt’s aviation facilities, and Egypt’s national airline company, emphasizing that all aviation activity in Egypt was directed “both in the technical and administrative fields” by Egyptian and Arab nationals alone. However, articles of this type were not frequent in the journal, though there were quite a few articles of a historical nature, which will be discussed below. On the other hand, there were many informative articles about the Canadian Arab Friendship League’s activities. These included a general article about the League’s background in the first issue of the journal, written by the League’s general secretary, as well as texts of addresses delivered on various occasions connected to the League, resolutions passed by the League, statements issued by the League, and press reports about the League’s activities. The rationale for publishing this material was because “the purpose of the League and the aims of this magazine have much in common”, to use Massoud’s own words.
Political essays. The political essay was The Canadian Arab’s main instrument for conveying its opinions to the readers. These were quite long, at times with as many as three sequels, and bore titles such as “A Britisher Looks at Palestine”, “Political Zionism as a Threat to Future Peace”, and “The Cause for Which We Stand”. As attested by the titles, almost all of them dealt with the Palestine question, elucidating the convictions of the League and its supporters. At times, they were written in response to other pro-Zionist pieces published elsewhere, like the one written by George Khayrallah, editor of The Arab World magazine, as a rebuttal to an article published in the American monthly This World by the pro-Zionist former Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles.
Historical essays. In several instances, The Canadian Arab published essays of a historical nature. The reason for publishing them was usually in order to defend the Arab image and explain the virtues of Arab culture. The first article of this type was again published by George Khayrallah and focused on the Druze. It explained the schism in Islam that produced the Shi’a and how a ruler of the Shi’ite Fatimid dynasty, al-Hakim, became the founder of the Muwahhidun sect, that is, the Druze, as they were called by outsiders. For almost a thousand years they fought for their survival, and “they are still with us and form the most determined and valiant nationalistic group in Syria and Lebanon”, Khayrallah concluded. This article, dealing with the persuasion of the journal’s editor (Massoud), was meant to be the first of several about the various sects of the Arab Middle East, but it had no continuation. There were, however, other historical essays, such as the general essay on the history of the Arab peoples by Professor Philip Hitti, which described the founding of Islam and the history of the Arabs from the seventh century to modern times, or another article by Khayrallah that discussed the Roman emperor Septimius Severus and his relative of Syrian origin, Emperor Alexander Severus.
Statements and speeches. Many articles published in The Canadian Arab were actually full citations of statements and speeches related to the Palestine question in general and the League’s stance on it in particular. Thus, the journal published statements issued by the Arab Office in Washington (including one by Ahmad Shuqayri, future chairman of the PLO), a statement delivered by the Arab Higher Committee, statements made before the United Nations General Assembly by Kamil Sham’un, head of the Lebanese delegation, and by Jamal al-Husayni, head of the Palestinian Arab delegation, a statement by Abd al-Rahman Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League, and statements made by Massoud and T. F. Summerhayes before the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry. Among the speeches cited by the journal, one might mention speeches and discourses delivered on various occasions by Norman Jaques MP, whose peculiar personality will be discussed below.
Correspondence. The journal also cited in full various telegrams and letters sent by Massoud in the League’s name concerning Palestine’s fate to the Canadian government, the chairman of the External Affairs Committee of the Canadian House of Commons, the diplomatic representatives in Ottawa of Britain, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union, President Truman, and the president of the United Nations General Assembly.
Documents. As a service to its readers, the journal also reproduced the text, either in full or in part, of several documents, most notably the Balfour Declaration, which was one of the journal’s main foci of interest.
Book reviews. On one occasion, The Canadian Arab published a book review. This was of Elmer Berger’s The Jewish Dilemma (New York, 1945), described by the reviewer as “the most searching, fearless and damning indictment of Zionism and Zionists from the viewpoint of the Jews themselves”. The author, the executive director of the anti-Zionist American Council for Judaism, advocated the assimilation and integration of the Jews in their countries of domicile. On other occasions, the journal published passages from or summaries of several publications, always related to Jews, Zionism, and Palestine.
Cartoons. On three occasions, The Canadian Arab printed cartoons, always of a political nature. The first one shows a row of seven boats, named Poland, France, USA, Palestine, Canada, England, and Germany, with Palestine in the middle. All the boats are filled with water. However, the owner of each boat is pouring the water into the neighbouring boat, with Canada and the USA, from the right and the left, pouring their water into the Palestine boat, but no one is there to safeguard the interests of the latter. Its owner (dressed as an Arab) is running frenziedly on the shore. It was titled “The Palestine Problem in a Nutshell”, and the water, of course, represented the Jews, sent from one country to another until they were eventually cast into Palestine, where there was no one to safeguard the rights of Palestine’s Arab owners. The second cartoon, titled “Time to Come Down off His High Horse”, dealt with another issue: the French occupation of Syria. It shows an angry-looking, very tall horse, with a small Charles De Gaulle in French army uniform on its back, trying to ride it. The horse is stepping on a piece of paper on which is written “French Syrian Stand”. To one side, there is a cowboy, whose head is shaped like a globe (and resembles Winston Churchill’s face), who is saying to De Gaulle: “The Arab horse looks too big for you to handle.” This represented the pressure laid on the French by the British and others to evacuate Syria. The third cartoon again dealt with the Palestine problem. It was titled “Still Looking for the Right Recipe” and shows an oven captioned “Middle East” on which there were two boiling pots, both covered with clouds of steam, with the labels “Jews” and “Arabs”. In front of them stands a cook, on whose hat is inscribed “Britain”, holding a piece of paper that says “British American commissions recipe”. He is saying: “It only made ’em both boil over!” Uncle Sam is peeping from a nearby door, looking worried and holding a newspaper in his hands that says “Ball Scores”, apparently to represent what really interested the Americans. The caricaturist thus expressed his opinion that the solutions proposed by the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry would only aggravate the situation in the Middle East.
Maps. On the back cover of the first issue, there was a map titled “The Arab World”, which included, besides the Arab countries, regions in West Africa, most of the eastern shore of the African continent, a portion of the island of Madagascar, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, vast regions in Central Asia, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Evidently, the painter did not differentiate between Muslims and Arabs. Although they were Muslim by religion, all the abovementioned regions were not Arab by origin. The map on the back cover of the second issue (and until the end of the first volume) was less presumptuous and bore a different goal. It demonstrated how Palestine lay at the heart of the Arab world. It encompassed most of the Arab countries, with Palestine in the middle and two arrows pointing at it from the east and west. The eastern arrow was captioned “20 million Arabs”, while the western arrow bore the caption “40 million Arabs”. At the bottom of the map was an explanation by one Jabir Shibli, which established that “Palestine is the heart and center of the Arab world. Extending, as it does, from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, Palestine is the keystone state of the coming Arab union. Its settlement by Jews would be equivalent to the occupation of Pennsylvania by France or Russia. Palestine is the only bridge between the twenty-million Arabs of Western Asia and the forty-million Arabs of Northern Africa. Its conversion into a Jewish state would sever the Arab world and prevent its unification. It is no wonder that the Arabs are determined at any cost to keep Palestine in the Arab fold.”
Special inserts. Twice, The Canadian Arab included a special insert, which was not a regular part of the journal itself but was printed separately and inserted into the issue. On both occasions, it contained speeches delivered by Norman Jaques. The first was an offprint of the House of Commons Debates Official Report and included a speech by Jaques on the “Arab-Zionist Question”. The second was a reprint of The Canadian Social Crediter and included a speech Jaques had delivered at a banquet of the League’s Edmonton branch (being its guest of honour) on the Palestine menace to world peace. Later on, the Montreal post office forbade Massoud from attaching enclosures to the regular mailing of the journal.
Participants in the Journal
At the beginning of the first issue of The Canadian Arab, Massoud promised the journal’s contributors would be “the most outstanding authorities” on Arab affairs.
The first article published in the journal was a political essay by Professor A. E. Prince, head of the Department of History at Queen’s University, described by Massoud in an editorial note as “a well known authority on all questions concerning the Near and Middle East”. Prince, who was one of the League’s main advocates among non-Arabs and participated in many of its meetings, served as a British soldier during World War I in Gallipoli, Egypt and Palestine, where, according to his own evidence, he learned to respect Muslims. His later service in the British administration of Palestine turned him, again according to his own evidence, from an “ill-informed” and “vague” sympathizer with Zionism into an ardent supporter of the Arab cause. He got “a new orientation” on the Arab-Zionist question and, after “thirty years” of studying it, reached the conclusion that the Jews had made “the most tragic mistake” when advocating the establishment of a separate Jewish state. In early 1946, Prince was supposed to participate in a League delegation to give evidence before the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry but could not attend on the grounds of ill health. He died in September following his illness and was the only person who received an obituary in the journal. He was described by Massoud as “[m]y dear friend and collaborator”, whose “principal aim” had been to find “a permanent basis for mutual trust and sincere friendship” between the Arabs and the Western world. Yet Prince was not the “well known authority” on Arab affairs he was claimed to be by Massoud. An examination of Index Islamicus, the most authoritative guide to publications on Islam and the Middle East published in acknowledged academic journals since the beginning of the twentieth century, reveals no publications of his on this subject.
The case was different for Professor Philip Hitti, some of whose speeches and lectures were published by The Canadian Arab, including one radio broadcast. Massoud described him as “a well known lecturer on Arab affairs” too, but this time with justification. In 1937, Hitti, a professor of Oriental history at Princeton University, published his major work, A History of the Arabs, which acquired him world fame and by the mid-1940s had already been reprinted several times. (Its abridgement, The Arabs: A Short History, had also been reprinted several times by then.) Hitti also delivered some of his addresses in Canada, on one occasion at a League meeting in Ottawa. Another constant contributor to the journal was Dr. George Khayrallah, editor and publisher of Arab World. Khayrallah was a veteran activist in the cause of Syria’s interests and had been since he established the New Syria National League in late 1918 (Hitti was the co-founder of the organization). He believed in a Greater Syria extending from the Taurus Mountains to the Sinai Peninsula (that is, encompassing Palestine).
Other contributors of Arab origin were the Boston lawyer Faris S. Ma’luf, president of the Institute of Arab American Affairs (Massoud said in an editorial note that his “expert knowledge” of Zionism “gained him a high reputation”), who delivered an address at a League banquet, and Elias Karam from Ottawa, the League’s general secretary. (Massoud described Karam as the author of many articles on the Middle East, whose “argumentative style and sincerity have found a great deal of appreciation among many students of Arab affairs”.) Another non-Arab contributor who used to attend the League’s meetings was T. F. Summerhayes of Toronto, a social service chaplain of the Church of England in Canada. Two years earlier, he had circulated a paper among the clergy and bishops of his church in Eastern Canada against the Zionist “back to Palestine” movement. Having studied Zionist arguments “for a number of years”, he reached the conclusion that they were “unfounded”, and he said his “sense of duty and public service” compelled him to expose this fact.
Finally, there was Norman Jaques, a member of parliament from Alberta for the Social Credit Party, who was undoubtedly the most anti-Semitic member of the Canadian parliament in those days. He used to deliver frequent speeches against international conspiracies, pointing at the Jews as the common denominator among all forces striving for world domination. He accused Zionists of collaborating with the world left and of manipulating the United Nations and considered the struggle for Palestine the key to global control. He tried to persuade Parliament that the Jews wanted the British to “be driven into the sea” and that “political Zionism” was generating animosity between Britain and the United States, whereas world peace was dependent on friendly relations between them. Zionist propaganda, basing its case “on racial, cultural and commercial superiority”, was the greatest threat to the peace, he maintained. Jaques was always fearful that the Zionists would succeed in silencing him.
Indeed, because of his blatant anti-Semitic remarks, radio stations refused to broadcast his speeches, which for him served as proof of the Zionist conspiracy to hush up his findings. He used to attend the League’s meetings (as the guest of honour), and Massoud considered his appeal for “sound judgement” concerning Palestine to be “one of the bravest and most honest services rendered to our nation”. When Jaques died in early 1949 of a heart attack, some of his colleagues pinned it on the tension inherent in his crusades, but others blamed his allegedly pro-Zionist doctors for his early death.
The Palestine Problem
The Palestine problem was the major issue on The Canadian Arab’s agenda from its inception. Following World War II and the Holocaust, there remained about 200,000 Jewish refugees in Europe who were living in camps and elsewhere as displaced persons and were forbidden by the British to enter Palestine. American president Harry S. Truman was of the opinion that Britain should immediately admit 100,000 of them to Palestine. Britain, dependent after the war on American economic support, proposed in autumn 1945 to send a combined Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry to Palestine to investigate the situation there. The proposal was accepted, and in December, such a Committee was appointed, comprising six Americans and six Britons.
Among the Arab and Jewish representatives of their respective communities in North America who met with the Committee while it was in Washington was a delegation sent on behalf of the Canadian Arab Friendship League. Massoud, one of the delegation members, reported about it in the journal and reproduced the complete minutes of the delegation’s meeting with the Committee. Expressing the hope that the Committee would settle the Palestine problem finally and not be satisfied with temporary arrangements, he emphasized that “the average citizen” in Canada expected a decision based on justice. It was the League’s intention to do its best, “in the press, at meetings and elsewhere”, to apprise the members of the Committee of “the truth” about Palestine.
The British, perplexed by the unremitting waves of illegal Jewish immigration into Palestine, further proposed in January 1946 to allow an immigration quota of 1,500 Jews per month pending the conclusions of the Committee. The British High Commissioner for Palestine approached the Arab Higher Committee (the supreme authority of Palestinian Arabs), asking them for their approval. The answer, reported verbatim in the journal, was an utter refusal. The Arab Higher Committee insisted that Britain had to adhere to the 1939 White Paper and stop Jewish immigration. The continuation of Jewish immigration in order to create a good atmosphere in which the Committee could operate would just constitute a concession to terrorism.
The Canadian Arab reported on further developments related to the Committee, such as the statement delivered to it by King Ibn Saud, in which the latter remarked that while Truman insisted on the admission of 100,000 Jews into Palestine, he would not accept such a number of Jews in the United States. But eventually, the Committee reached a conclusion that was quite close to Truman’s opinion: the White Paper policy had to be abolished and 100,000 Jewish refugees had to be admitted immediately. It was a stupid and shameless decision, the journal claimed; the Arabs would never stop their struggle until their rights were secured. On the other hand, British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin’s “unequivocal” refusal to endorse the Committee’s recommendations was praised by the journal.
However, the negative British approach did not deter Truman, and he issued “foolish statements” in support of the Committee’s recommendations. Moreover, on the eve of the Jewish Yom Kippur of 1946, he sent a note to the British government demanding the admission of 100,000 Jewish refugees. It was “part of the Democratic Party’s campaign to the secure the large Jewish vote”, The Canadian Arab explained. Truman was actually trying to impose “the politically dictated views of the American Government” on another government. However, Palestine was Britain’s responsibility, and the journal assured its readers that the British would not let any “American political expediency” influence it.
In February 1947, after three decades of the British presence in Palestine, they gave up and decided to share the Palestine problem with the United Nations. In early April, they approached the Secretary-General of the United Nations, informing him about their decision and asking him to summon a special assembly in order to set up an international commission that would go to Palestine and prepare a report on the situation there. The special assembly took place in April-May, and in June, a United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) was sent to Palestine to investigate the situation. The special assembly’s decision to “study” the Palestine problem was “most disappointing”, The Canadian Arab commented. The Arabs hoped for a speedy solution, while “the delaying tactics of the United Nations” could just serve the Zionists. The United Nations had not yet given proof of its adequacy as an instrument of international accord. Therefore, the Arab states were not giving it “blind allegiance simply because it exists”. The Palestine question was a test case for the organization’s ability to create a “rightful relationship between people”. The Arabs therefore expected proof that the “world’s conscience” was not less sympathetic to their grievances than to those of the Jews. Massoud, however, was not satisfied with these moderate expressions, and in a telegram he sent to the President of the United Nations General Assembly, fully cited in the journal, he blamed the special assembly for being “intimidated” by “terrorist tactics”. A news release issued by the League further established that “So far, the debate of the U.N. Assembly has been a series of insults and threats to the Arab nations”.
When UNSCOP arrived in Palestine, the Arab Higher Committee announced that it would boycott it. There was no need to study the situation. Arab rights over Palestine were quite clear. In an editor’s note, Massoud announced that “We sincerely approve the attitude taken by the Arab Higher Committee.” Soon enough, however, and to a certain extent because of the boycott, the Arabs were to learn that the majority of UNSCOP’s members favoured the partition of Palestine between Jews and Arabs, as was advocated by the Jews. Other members favoured the establishment of a federal state in Palestine, an idea also rejected by the Arabs outright. The Canadian Arab hastened to express its “shock” at UNSCOP’s attitude towards partition, pointing out that it also opposed the “federated state” option, an “impossible” state for all practical purposes. The Zionists, the journal elaborated, enjoying no political or diplomatic recognition from any nation, were not legally entitled “to influence the decision of nations to the detriment of the Arab World”. Yet it seemed that they would gain from UNSCOP “more than the greatest optimists among them had expected”: an independent Jewish state.
However, it was not just a matter of UNSCOP adopting partition. It so happened that Canada’s role in the formulation and, eventually, the adoption of the resolution to partition Palestine was a crucial one. Mr Justice Ivan Rand of the Supreme Court of Canada was one of UNSCOP’s prominent members and a major advocate of partition. He opposed all other options: a unitary Arab state, a bi-national state, and a federal state. “Justice Rand was by far the main contributor to the partition scheme”, said Leon Mayrand of the Canadian Department of External Affairs, who accompanied Rand to Palestine. The League was surprised “at the negative and incomprehensible attitude” of the Canadian delegates to UNSCOP and protested against it, according to Massoud’s cable to the chairman of the External Affairs Committee of the Canadian House of Commons.
Things were just getting worse. In late November, in the second regular session of the United Nations, the General Assembly adopted the partition plan, thus securing the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, where, once again, the Canadians’ involvement was crucial. Differences of opinion between the United States and the Soviet Union about the timetable for the termination of the British Mandate and other topics had been about to cause the entire partition plan to fail. However, Lester Pearson, the Canadian representative in the Palestine debate, succeeded in mediating between the two superpowers. He formulated a compromise regarding all topics, and thus saved the partition plan, securing the necessary two-thirds majority in the General Assembly, attainable only through the support of both world blocs. It was not for nothing that Pearson was dubbed “the Balfour of Canada” by Canadian Zionists when he returned to Ottawa. The Arab nations “have been betrayed”, The Canadian Arab concluded. All hopes had been “torn into shreds” by the “shameful decision” of the United Nations, by its “intrigues” and “treacherous act”. Expressing surprise at the unprecedented American-Soviet agreement (“to satisfy the political Zionists”), Massoud hinted that Canada’s attitude and that of some South American states were subject to American pressure, which in turn stemmed from “subservience to Zionist influence”. As Canadians of Arab origin, they were gravely disappointed with the role played by the Canadian delegates to the United Nations, who had been the “authors” of the “disgraceful partition scheme”. Neither Pearson nor Rand “had any right to represent the interests of the Jews at the United Nations, as they have done”. “The Arab world, I am sure, will remember them”, he threatened.
Throughout its three-year existence, The Canadian Arab tried its best to prove the rights of the Arabs over Palestine, on the one hand, and to discredit the Zionist stand, on the other. The following sections are an analysis of some of the arguments put forward by the journal.
Arab Palestine. One of the main arguments professed by the journal was that Palestine was an Arab country. The Arabs were the majority in Palestine at a rate of ten to one before World War I and ten to four in the mid-1940s. In 1947, there were more than 1,300,000 Arabs in Palestine in comparison with 600,000 Jews. (Even in the regions intended to be part of the Jewish state according to the partition plan, there were some 400,000 Arabs out of a total population of 900,000.) In fact, the Jews had never constituted a majority in Palestine during the previous 2,000 years.
The Arab presence in Palestine began, according to The Canadian Arab, with the Canaanites and Philistines, who, “strictly and ethnologically speaking”, were “the ancestors of the present inhabitants of Palestine” (although they had only begun to be named Arabs since the Muslim conquest in 637). The Arabs “represent the native stock which inhabited the land when it was called Canaan”, before the advent of Abraham and Joshua. “The Hebrews came and went but these people remained.” “In other words, the so-called Arabs of Palestine have been in complete possession of the land from the dawn of recorded history”, certainly before the English occupied the British Isles or the Canadians Canada. Indeed, they had inhabited Palestine “twice as long as the English have inhabited England”. There was a “continual occupation, uninterrupted settlement and unbroken cultural association” of the Arabs in Palestine. Furthermore, for the past thirteen centuries, the Arabs had defended Palestine from foreign invasion. Even during the 400-year Turkish rule, the Arabs never gave up their struggle for independence. Therefore, the Arabs had more historical rights over Palestine than the Jews.
As for the Jews, they came to Palestine as invaders during biblical times and were driven away by the Romans, who in turn were defeated by the Arabs. ‘The Arabs did not take Palestine from the Jews”. It was the Jews themselves who “conquered it by force from the previous inhabitants” like the Canaanites. Later on, Palestine was conquered by other peoples, like the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians, and with the Roman conquest, “the history of Jewish Palestine ended”. While Arabs had always lived in Palestine, Jews had lived there for only some 400 years and then dispersed. The Zionist claim that Palestine belonged to the Jews because they had once controlled it was equivalent to saying that Britain belonged to the Italians because the Romans had once conquered it. Furthermore, the original Semitic people who established Judaism in Palestine had never had any connection with the Eastern European Jews then professing Zionism. Therefore, the Zionists had no right to “repatriation” to a “homeland”. Even the original Jews wishing “to return” would be “highly dubious”. What right would people whose ancestors had left Palestine 2,000 years previously have to claim it? It would be as if the Indians were to demand America back. The Zionists were aliens, intruders, who had no more rights over Palestine than the Arabs over Spain (occupied by them for centuries). In any case, the right of the Jews to claim Palestine “as a nation” was “highly questionable” since “they belong to many nations and owe their loyalty and allegiance to many countries”.
Even religious grounds provided no answers for the Zionists. Palestine was holy for Muslims and Christians too, not just for the Jews. It was holy for all Arabs, all of whom, both Muslims and Christians, were united against a Jewish state. As for the claim that Palestine made up only one per cent of the Arab world, the same went for Vermont in the United States—would the Americans be willing to vacate it? On the contrary, since Palestine was already small, the idea of partitioning it had to be rejected “categorically”. To partition this small country into two independent states would cause “insoluble” problems. For example, it would create the problem of a large Arab minority in the Jewish state, and any attempt to transfer them from there would be resisted “bitterly”. All of Palestine was Arab territory. Palestine was primarily the national home of the Arabs. As Mahatma Gandhi said in 1939, ‘Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English”. Therefore, “it would be just as fair for the Jews to ask that Canada be made their national home”.
Democratic principles. Another argument advocated by The Canadian Arab was that Palestine should belong to the Arabs according to the principles of democracy that were “so dear” to Canadian, American, and British politicians. Listening to Western politicians, they were surprised to find that Anglo-Saxons, who stood for the rights of minorities, disregarded the rights of a majority. The Arabs were the majority in Palestine and therefore, according to Woodrow Wilson’s principles of self-determination and under the terms of the Atlantic Charter, had the right to rule it. As a majority, their “democratic right” entitled them to decide their own fate by themselves. Cognizant of the “elementary principles of democracy”, they wanted to govern Palestine through the vote of the majority. To form a Jewish state in Palestine would be against the spirit of democracy. To delay the establishment of an Arab state would be a violation “of all democratic principles”. It would be tantamount to “racial discrimination”, and the world was already “sick and tired of racial strife”. Neither partition nor continued mandate could be considered a solution, only the immediate establishment of a democratic government representing “the present inhabitants” of Palestine. The Jews would have rights “as individuals”. “This is democracy as we know it in Canada, England and even the United States of America.”
However, Zionists had “little concern for justice, equality, self-determination and fundamental humane morality”. The Jews had entered Palestine against Arab will and constituted a minority (refusing the immediate institution of a democratic government before they had become a majority). They had no right to self-government against the will of the Arab majority. The whole concept of forming a Jewish state was “both unprecedented and illegal”. It was “contrary to all human laws of equity and justice”. If the fact that the Jews had occupied Palestine for a certain period gave them rights over it, then this could be applied to many other parts of the world, and the map would have to be redrawn. Furthermore, the Jews could not both claim Palestine for themselves and, at the same time, demand equal rights in their countries of domicile. To grant them this would be “incompatible” with the principle of equal rights.
Western Christians caused the Jews great injustice throughout history, but this could not be rectified by inflicting another injustice on another people. As Gandhi said, “It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs.” It was also undemocratic to force the Arabs to accept Jewish immigration until they became a minority in their own land. “The Zionist proposals to turn a Jewish minority into a majority must be permanently scotched.” The Canadian people were therefore called to adhere to their “traditional sense of justice” and oppose the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.
Threats. The Canadian Arab did not refrain from making threats about what would happen if the Arabs did not get their way or if the Zionist demand to establish a Jewish state was granted. First, Palestine would become a bloody battlefield. Zionism would ignite a new war. The Arabs were “the masters in war”, and “the powerful Arab League” would help them if attacked by Zionists. If “physical force” were necessary, it would be used. “Once angered”, the Arabs “may again throw all foreign elements into the same sea”. The Jews would bring about “their own doomsday”. If a Jewish state were to come into existence, there would never be peace in Palestine. The Palestinian Arabs “would live in an inferno of hatred and revenge”. A Jewish state would not be able to survive. “The Moslem and Christian of the Middle East would make short shrift of it”. The Arabs would fight “to the last” to save their brothers in Palestine “from becoming slaves” to the Jews. Actually, Palestine’s liberation from Judaism was near. The Arabs were ready “for a knock-out blow” whenever the signal was given. They meant business, and an Islamic holy war could be anticipated “within the next few months, if not weeks or days”. Unless Palestine was recognized as belonging to the Arabs, the real decision about its fate was to be made on its “sacred hills”.
How were the Zionists expecting to survive Arab opposition? Whose military force was expected to expel the Arabs from the proposed Jewish state? Who would maintain law and order in Palestine afterwards? There would be a need for the presence of a power, or a group of powers, to maintain peace in Palestine. The Zionists were expecting to exist on British bayonets directed against the Arabs. Were the Canadians, as members of the Commonwealth, expected to participate? Were the Canadians ready to sanction “the sacrifice of their sons” for this target? The Christian world had to realize that the Zionists were pushing it towards another crusade against the Arabs.
There also was the consideration of the numbers involved. A Jewish state opposed to 50,000,000 Arabs and 275,000,000 Muslims (according to Hitti) would not be able to survive economically and militarily. It was “impracticable and indefensible”. Palestine was considered “an integral and inseparable part of the Arab world”. Zionist plans would therefore cause bitter opposition among all the Arabs and create a bloc of 60,000,000 Arabs and 300,000,000 Muslims (according to the Arab Office in Washington) against the Jews. “Palestine will never become a Jewish state” against the will of 80,000,000 Arabs (according to Massoud). An attempt to transfer the Arabs from the territory of the proposed Jewish state would be resisted “bitterly” with the support of the entire Arab world and 400,000,000 Muslims (according to the Arab Office in Washington, a year and a half later).
Furthermore, it was not just a matter of war in Palestine. When advocating the establishment of a Jewish state, the Jews had made “the most tragic mistake”, with “direst consequences” for themselves, for the Arabs, for the British, and for world peace. It was “the surest and quickest road to another World War”. If the United States, Russia, and Canada continued to support the Jews, the Arab world would become “the Balkans of our age”, the war already in progress in the Middle East would spread to the whole Arab and Western worlds, and a third world war would draw nearer. Indeed, another world war could not be avoided if the United Nations decided to establish a Jewish state in Palestine. Therefore, “at this eleventh hour”, the journal was begging the United Nations delegates to remember their mission to seek peace. Otherwise, the future of the United Nations was bound “to be smeared with the blood of millions”. As another world war could only serve “a small minority whose leaders are interested in political power”, Zionism and the idea of establishing a Jewish state had to be abandoned “for the peace of mankind”.
The Canadian Arab further recounted all the political and economic damage that would occur to the Western world because of the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. The establishment of such a state would antagonize the Arab and Muslim worlds. It would incur the enmity of Arabs and Muslims alike. Three hundred million people would lose their faith in the United States. The Jews were liable to cause “an explosion in the whole Arab and Moslem world”, regions which were “the very center of allied military security”. “The good-will built up by the United States in Africa and Asia” would suffer “grievously”. Islam took no account of political boundaries—”an explosion in Palestine shakes the mosques in Delhi”. The Muslim world was watching Palestine “as a cat watches a mouse”. “The coercion of Arabs by any Christian power for the benefit of Jews” would have grave repercussions in Asia. An “explosion” in the Middle East would endanger British and Allied military positions. The Soviet campaign for support among the smaller nations, on the other hand, “will certainly be noticed by the Arabs”; in the past, the Arabs had always supported Britain in all the United Nations conferences. The Zionists were pressuring Britain to act against the interests of the Commonwealth. British imperial interests compelled cordial relations with the Arab world since Britain had more than 100,000,000 Muslims under its rule. It was only Zionism that “fomented” a “breach” between Britain and the Arabs. The “Hitler War”, though, had “at least this one good result”: it opened the eyes of the British to the implications of Zionism in the Orient.
If the Americans supported a Zionist Palestine, sanctions against their interests in the Arab countries and an open boycott would be just the first step. American oil interests in the region, mainly in Saudi Arabia and Iran, also had to be taken into account. What would the result be if the Arab countries boycotted all Canadian, British, and American firms in the event the latter supported Zionism? They would suffer unemployment and the loss of foreign markets “for many years”, and their missionaries would find it hard to operate among the Arabs. As for the Arabs themselves, they would be able to buy goods from the Russians. British and Allied maritime, economic, and commercial interests were liable to be endangered. People had to take into account that “future exports to Oriental markets will decide whether Canada and America will live in comfort or return to the years of depression”.
The Balfour Declaration. Among the documents related to the Palestine problem that The Canadian Arab dealt with, the treatment of the Balfour Declaration, which had promised to establish a Jewish “National Home” in Palestine, almost reached the level of an obsession, being discussed in numerous articles. Regarding the arguments against its validity, the journal firstly stressed that the Declaration was not a binding legal document, as claimed by the “Zionist propaganda machine”, but a mere letter sent by Arthur Balfour to “a private English citizen”. (In contrast to the McMahon-Hussein “Treaty”, or “Agreement”, which promised to recognize the independence of the Arabs.) Secondly, when the Declaration was issued in 1917, Palestine was not under British rule but inhabited by Arabs. Therefore, the British had no right to promise it to the Jews. They had no right to issue the Declaration. Palestine was not theirs to offer without Arab consent. Thirdly, the Declaration contradicted previous British pledges to the Arabs. During World War I, the Arabs sided with the British in return for “a definite pledge” for Arab independence, which “definitely” included Palestine. This pledge, the McMahon-Hussein “Agreement”, preceded the Balfour Declaration by two years. It was only due to “high-pressure Zionist propaganda” (and because of Dr Chaim Weizmann’s discovery about acetone, which enabled the production of stable explosives) that the British began to support Zionism and issued the Declaration.
Furthermore, the journal claimed, even according to the Declaration itself, there had never been a promise to convert Palestine into an entirely Jewish “National Home” or state, but only to form a “Home” within Palestine. No one had ever spoken of a complete “taking over” of Palestine by the Jews. “Even a moron” could see that. The Zionist demand for a state went far beyond the original intention of the Declaration. The Zionists were misinterpreting the Declaration. They actually sought its extension and not its implementation. The authors of the Balfour Declaration never contemplated “such an ambitious scheme” as establishing a Jewish state, as was “often” claimed by the Zionists. The British interpretation of the Declaration was different, and they officially announced it in the White Papers of 1922 and 1939, clarifying that they intended to impose the Jews on the inhabitants of Palestine. In the White Paper of 1922, Britain decided “to put an end to the wild interpretations” of the Zionists regarding the “National Home”, making it clear that Britain did not intend “to create a wholly Jewish Palestine”. Therefore, since the Balfour Declaration did not set Palestine aside for the Jews, the 1939 White Paper, which significantly limited Jewish immigration into it, was not a breach thereof, as claimed by the Zionists. In this White Paper, the British actually “corrected”, “in a measure”, the “mistake” made in the Balfour Declaration. Furthermore, since the Declaration, the Jewish population in Palestine had increased from 80,000 to 600,000. Therefore, in the 1939 White Paper, the British declared in “unmistakable terms” that, as far as their obligation to the “National Home” was concerned, they considered it fully fulfilled.
Another complaint made in The Canadian Arab against the Balfour Declaration was that there was no reference in it to the political rights of the existing Arab population of Palestine. Moreover, describing the Arabs, who at the time constituted ninety per cent of Palestine’s population, as an “existing non-Jewish community” was “contemptuous and insulting”. Considering all this, the Arabs rejected the “unilateral” Balfour Declaration altogether and did not consider it binding. It was not just they who rejected it—the “more far-sighted” leaders of British and American Jewry opposed the Declaration as well (it was mostly Zionists from Eastern and Central Europe who promoted it). They well understood the damage it would cause to the status of the Jews in other countries and that Zionism would “put back the clock of progress of Jewish emancipation”. Indeed, the Balfour Declaration was written “in letters of blood”. Never during the previous 2,000 years had anti-Semitism been so rampant and widespread and persecutions and pogroms against the Jews so terrible as after the Declaration. In addition, hundreds of Arab and British lives were lost in Palestine after it.
Jewish immigration. One of the major aspects of the Palestine problem discussed by The Canadian Arab was that of Jewish immigration into Palestine. It claimed it was a form of invasion. It was parallel to a foreign state deciding to open the doors of immigration into Canada and the new immigrants trying to take over the country. While the Zionists were complaining against British imperialism, they themselves were imperialistic, invading Palestine with 600,000 people and buying the land. How would the Canadians react if millions of aliens were forced upon them and bought their lands? Furthermore, the illegal Jewish immigrants were entering Palestine “armed with guns, bombs and dynamite”. There was no meaning to victory in World War II if, in order to solve the problem of one displaced group in Europe, another group in Palestine would become displaced. People who had protested against their own uprooting should not get even with the inhabitants of Europe by uprooting the Arabs. “It is hard to believe” that the Jews, who had suffered in Nazi concentration camps, were willing to fight the Arabs “who gave them shelter when they were not wanted in any other country”. The Jews, who had suffered the injustice of being evicted from their homes by the Nazis, should not now evict the Arabs from their homes.
For the Zionists, immigration constituted a “chief weapon” to garner sympathy around the world, although, with the end of the war, there was no more need for a Jewish haven. The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) “adequately” cared for the 100,000 Jewish refugees in Europe. To send them to Palestine would be to place them in danger. However, the Zionists’ aim was political rather than humanitarian: it was not to rescue the survivors of Nazi massacres but to achieve Jewish sovereignty over Palestine by building a Jewish majority. In order to conceal this, the Zionists were “cleverly” and “deliberately” confusing the issue, using the European refugee problem as “a stalking horse”, intended “to befog” the real issue of Palestine. Indeed, for the Arabs, it was not just a matter of numbers but of principle, “involving their life and survival”. It was not a question of “humanitarianism”, since the Jews were not looking for a refuge. They wanted to become a majority and establish a state. “Great or small” Jewish immigration was of political significance. The Arabs, therefore, opposed this immigration, which was meant to reduce them from majority to minority.
In order to prove that the Zionists were not interested in the humanitarian aspect of immigration, the journal described the bad reception a group of Jewish immigrants encountered when arriving in Tel Aviv in great detail (“Not a glass of water, not a chair on which to sit”). After they had arrived, the Jewish Agency did not treat them “as refugees and unfortunates” but was only interested in getting rid of them. Many of them, including the old ones, spent their first night in Palestine “in the open air”. The Immigrants’ Home in Tel Aviv looked “almost like a jail”. Immigrants who had been in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp said that the conditions there “were much better” than in the Immigrants’ Home. In the Hebrew press, on the other hand, one could read “many nice words” on how the new immigrants were received. Furthermore, when the immigrants arrived, they were told by the Zionists that Palestine was soon to become an independent Jewish state. They were then disappointed to discover that this was not the case. Instead of finding shelter in Palestine, they were asked to kill British soldiers, whom they had known in France and Germany as their liberators. It would have been better for these immigrants “had they known the real truth of Palestine’s ownership before they paid their total savings to the Jewish National Fund”.
Notwithstanding that the area of Palestine was less than one and a half per cent of the area of Quebec, densely populated, and without sufficient resources even for its present needs, more than half a million Jews had been absorbed in it since World War I. Palestine was not large enough to accommodate all the Jews. It was “impracticable” to “dump” all Jewish refugees in it. Palestine could not provide a solution for the Jewish problem. In fact, it had already contributed more than any other country in the world to the relief of the Jews. The Arabs, who were not responsible for the Jewish problem, had already taken “more than their share of the refugees”. They were therefore expecting the United Nations would not leave them to bear the whole refugee problem. “The Arabs feel that they have done their share”.
No other nation, and especially not the United States and Britain, was altering its immigration laws to admit a portion of the Jewish refugees into its own lands. Canada, which had enough space to absorb the Jewish refugees, was not asked to do so either. Were countries in Europe and North America expected to receive a large number of Jews? Were the Americans ready to grant “the so-called homeless and stateless Jews” a homeland within their own borders? President Truman insisted on the admission of 100,000 Jews into Palestine but “very shrewdly” said nothing about the number of Jews that would be accepted in the United States, since he would not admit such a number domestically. For Britain, instead of complicating its own “trials” in the Middle East with another 100,000 Jews, it would be “immeasurably more simple” if the United States were to open its doors to them, given that, according to Truman, the American people felt “such deep personal concern” for them. The United States had more right to send the Jews to Carolina than to Palestine. So long as the United States kept its doors closed in the face of the Jews, the Arabs had the right to object to Jewish immigration. There also were other vast, sparsely populated areas in the world, like Australia, that could absorb the Jews. However, because the peoples of these countries were strong, they were not called upon to take in any refugees. The Jewish refugee problem was a European one. It was a world problem. The Arabs did not create it, and they should not be the ones responsible for solving it. Solving this problem concerned the entire civilized world. “The democracies have no moral justification for imposing upon the Arab world a burden which they themselves are not ready to share.” The answer to the Jewish problem lay in “the large spaces” of the United States, Canada, Madagascar, Australia, Russia, and Brazil.
The solution to “the so-called Jewish problem” was the settling of the Jews throughout the world and their assimilation. The Jews had to integrate in their countries of domicile. A distinction had to be drawn between the Palestine problem and the Jewish one. Any attempt to treat them as the same was to make them both “insoluble”. Jewish immigration could only complicate the Palestine question. The mandatory government enabled the Zionists “to pour their immigrants” into Palestine and buy “all the lands they could”. Thus, the ratio of Arabs to Jews dropped from ten to one to two to one, and about a third of the cultivated land was purchased by Zionists. The latter wanted “to swamp the Arabs with immigrants and force them out”. However, the Palestinian Arabs would not submit to becoming a minority in their own land and refused to permit Jewish immigration “to such a degree that the Jews could swamp the Arab inhabitants”.
Jewish terrorism. The Canadian Arab tried its best to discredit the Zionists for being terrorists, trying to capitalize on the fact that many English-speaking Canadians sympathized with the British and their difficulties in Palestine. Zionism had become a danger not only to Arabs, the journal declared, but also to the Jews and Christians who opposed it. Jewish terrorists were intimidating nations and individuals, trying to influence the United Nations to recognize a Jewish state. The Zionists were trying to force their way in with machine guns and hand grenades. Peace in Palestine was threatened by Jewish terrorism. Jewish terrorists were causing “violence and lawlessness” there. Encouraged by their successes against “outnumbered” British outposts, they were preparing “a general military offensive against the Arabs”.
Many Arabs and British lost their lives in Palestine because of the Zionist movement. The Zionists had attacked the British during the war, were fighting them “today, despite all the good they have done them”, and were liable to turn against them in the future. They were “openly speaking of ‘war in the Holy Land'”. One of their Revisionist leaders declared that “Violence is the only language the British Government understands” (forgetting that, without Britain, “there would be no Jewish problem to solve, for if the British had not stood firm in 1940, and Hitler had won, the Jews would have been liquidated”). Zionist terror groups were openly endangering British troops and smuggling immigrants “in defiance of all regulations”. In fact, there was “a full fledged campaign” in Palestine against the British. The Jewish “malcontents” were waging “a sort of guerilla warfare”, whose victims were both British and Arabs: “Thousands of Arabs are daily in danger of being made the victims of Jewish terrorists.” The Zionists had already killed hundreds of Arabs and British soldiers. “Arab villages have been razed to the ground, their homes and mosques and their cemeteries entirely wiped out”. The extremist Zionists had even “adopted fascist Nazi methods”.
The Canadian Arab frequently reported on terrorist actions committed by Jewish underground organizations (mostly in its “Press Review” section, which, on one occasion, was called “Press Reports on Palestine Terrorism”). The assassination of Lord Moyne was referred to several times, as well as a plan to assassinate Britain’s Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin. The murders, attempted murders, and kidnappings of British officers and soldiers were mentioned repeatedly in the journal. Moreover, Jewish terrorist activity was not confined to Palestine alone. There were reports of Zionist youngsters being arrested in Cairo, guilty of trying to provoke disturbances and of participating in an organization connected to Palestine’s Zionists. Letter bombs were reported to have been mailed to prominent Britons, King George VI among them. It would be a “war of nerves” until Britain was “knocked out”, the sender is said to have written. Another letter suspected of being a bomb was reported to have been discovered in Vancouver. Further reports were related to the accumulation of illegal arms—even during the war, Zionist terrorists had stolen arms from the Allies. The involvement of the Jewish Haganah in the explosion aboard the British battleship “Ocean Vigour” was exploited by the journal to prove that the Haganah did not differ from other terrorist organizations, contrary to the claim of Canadian Zionists that it was a mere defence organization. Finally, the journal cited a memorandum sent by the Christian clergy of Palestine to the Pope, according to which, “Frequent armed robberies, political and private assassinations, counterfeits and falsifications… have now become very common”. The Jewish terrorist organizations “arouse disorder in the country, kidnap persons, blast buildings, bridges, railroads… [and] rob banks”. “In short, the country of Christ has become a land of gangsters.”
Members of the Jewish terrorist organizations brought to trial refused to recognize the jurisdiction of the military court, the journal pointed out. British soldiers were kidnapped in order to commute the death sentences of terrorists found guilty of murder so that they could later commit murders again. The entire Jewish community decided on a policy of non-cooperation with the Palestine government until their leaders were released and the searches of Jewish settlements stopped. During these searches, however, “pretty good” evidence was found linking the Jewish Agency to the Haganah. Another accusation brought up by the journal was that Zionist terror groups were also undermining the currency of many Middle Eastern states “by illegal traffic in money”. They would bring about the economic downfall of the entire Middle East to facilitate the establishment of a Jewish government that “would be able to control British sea lanes and Arabic trading posts in India and the Orient”.
When the Arabs were engaged in disturbances in 1936-39, the British treated them in a much harsher manner, The Canadian Arab complained. There were still Arab prisoners who had been held in custody or exile since 1938. No Zionist leader had ever been arrested as a political prisoner for such a period, although some of them encouraged “open breaches of the law” and terrorist activity. Since 1937, 142 Arabs but only one Jew had been executed in Palestine for carrying arms. Britain’s weakness when dealing with Zionist terrorists in comparison with its sternness towards the Arabs was also responsible for the situation in Palestine. It could have been different if the British mandate had not prevented the Arabs “from cleaning up some five thousand [Jewish] terrorists who are still at large in Palestine”.
The journal further blamed the North American press for glorifying Jewish terrorism. Campaigns in aid of anti-British organizations were conducted “right under the noses”. Canadians and Americans were “indirectly and actively supporting Jewish terrorists in Palestine”. Fundraising in Canada and the United States for Zionist purposes had “the same terrible goal as the subversive plans” of the Jewish terrorists: the money raised was used to buy weapons for them. Jewish terrorists were “equipped with American dollars, passports and ammunition”. Zionists’ “powerful allies” among Americans were assisting the terrorists with ships and machine guns. A special attack was conducted against the American Jewish leader Stephen Wise, who, according to The Canadian Arab, defended the Jewish terrorists in Palestine. He and his “henchmen” annually collected “millions of dollars” to support the Haganah fighting British and Arabs. Other organizations in Canada and the United States that defended their respective causes were criticized “for assisting undemocratic activities”. The Arabs were waiting for similar treatment to be applied to men like Wise. “After all”, Canada was still a part of the British Empire. Then the journal brought up a peculiar story about Jewish air crewmen trained in American army schools to fly Jewish refugees from Europe to Palestine. The refugees were expected to parachute into Palestine and mingle there with the local Jewish population. Some of the planes for this project were said to have been obtained in Canada.
What really irritated The Canadian Arab was the fact that some Canadians had “the audacity to compare our early history to the present terror in Palestine”. One of them, Senator Arthur Roebuck, “an ardent apostle” of a Zionist state, had “definitely besmeared Canadian history” when he said that there had also been shooting and rioting followed by hangings in early Canada. “How in the face of historical evidence” could any “decent” Canadian make such a comparison? They were thus encouraging Jewish terrorists, who were no more than “common murderers and criminals”, to continue their reign of terror. “The planned wholesale killing of innocent people has no precedent in Canadian history”.
Armed banditry in Palestine was not a solution, the journal concluded. The United Nations Charter outlawed attempts to seize sovereignty by force. “There can be no claim-jumping now at the point of a gun.” This was what the war was being fought about. The time had come for the world powers to take a stand against “Zionist anarchy” in Palestine.
Zionist propaganda. A main theme on The Canadian Arab’s agenda was its continuous struggle against Zionist propaganda. For a quarter of a century, Zionist propaganda had “misrepresented the Arab character”. “They [had] so far succeeded” and gained the support of many Canadians and Americans “without any appreciable opposition”. The public was hearing only the Zionists and never the Arab side. Seven hundred million Christians and Muslims were praying for peace, but their prayers could not be heard “because of the heavy salvos of Zionist propaganda in Canada and the U.S.A.”. People had the right to know the truth about the Palestine question. The Zionists were feeding the world “with a deafening barrage of untruths calculated to conceal their conspiracy against Palestine”. Canadians had “to beware of political Zionism and its ‘henchmen'”. The Zionist campaign was “dictatorial, selfish, slanderous and deceiving”. “Propaganda, distortion of facts and an appeal to the sentiments rather than reason of the Canadian people are the chief stock in trade of Zionists.” The “aggressively advanced agitation” by the Zionists for the creation of a Jewish state was “diligently pursued” in Canada and the United States. “The bondsmen of the terrorists” in Canada were conducting propaganda against friendship with the Arab world. Zionism and its “Canadian propagandists” were “sowing the seeds of disunity and misunderstanding among the nations striving for peace”. “Zionist imperialism” aimed at “ruling the world by a control of public opinion”. Therefore, “at a time when political forces and paid propagandists systematically undermine our peace efforts”, the journal saw its duty as warning its friends “of the danger surrounding them”. The continuation of Zionist propaganda in Canada, the United States and elsewhere would cause “a major problem to all members of the United Nations”.
America did not know the truth about Palestine since the press, the radio and other means of public expression were in the hands of the Zionists. Zionists in Canada and the United States were moulding public opinion by controlling the means of propaganda. The Canadian Arab cast a major accusation in this respect at American politicians, who were focused only “on the Jewish electoral votes”. All the love for Jews that they professed was mere words, intended only to secure their votes. Votes were a factor, and so were business and finance. Zionists in the United States were pressuring and manipulating most candidates and parties—”the tail is wagging the dog”. The endorsement of Zionism became “a primary consideration in elections” in the United States. As a result, senators and congressmen were trying to superimpose a Jewish state on the Arabs of Palestine. “To our amazement”, the United States, mindful of its “political home front”, lacked the courage to face the Palestine issue. The attitude of the American government “has very obviously been dictated” by the Zionists. President Truman, led by Zionists and Zionist-inspired Christians, was especially indebted to his Jewish and Zionist voters. His demand to admit 100,000 Jewish refugees to Palestine was “part of the Democratic Party’s campaign to secure the large Jewish vote” in the forthcoming elections. America had to decide whether it would acquiesce to being a tool of “a small but ruthless and unscrupulous minority of a minority people”. The English-speaking peoples ought not to let “a compact, determined, political pressure group” misguide them.
When a new Labour government came to power in Britain after World War II, the Zionists expected it to cancel the 1939 White Paper and open the doors of Palestine to Jewish immigration. Indeed, many in the British government leaned towards Zionism due to personal and electoral considerations. It was the British people and Prime Minister Clement Attlee who would not tolerate it. Still, the fact that the British in Palestine had not inflicted “an exemplary punishment” upon the terrorists was due to high-pressure groups in Britain and the United States and Zionist propaganda. The situation in Canada was much worse. Zionists in Canada controlled public opinion. Zionist political pressure in Canada on senate committees and members of parliament “represent[s] today the greatest power for destruction”. ‘Their fifth column is already at work”. It was perhaps even “more dangerous than the atomic bomb”.
With respect to Zionist propaganda in Canada, a special emphasis was laid on the activities of the Canadian Palestine Committee, accused by the journal of adopting a “contemptuous and dictatorial tone” towards the Arabs. The Canadian Palestine Committee was an enterprise to enlist non-Jewish Canadians for the Zionist cause. It was founded in 1943, comprising influential Christians, politicians, journalists, businessmen and clergymen who believed in the Zionist viewpoint about Palestine and volunteered to present it before the Canadian public. Its chairman was Ellsworth Flavelle, a staunch adherent of Zionism, and its executive director was Herbert Mowat, a former Anglican preacher. It was officially independent, but for all practical purposes, the United Zionist Council of Canada directed the Canadian Palestine Committee. “Zionist propagandists” organized it, The Canadian Arab established. Ministers of the Gospel assisted the representatives of the “aggressive and dictatorial forces” of Zionism in Canada, it complained. Many Christians, misled by some of their ministers, were encouraging the “barbarian and criminal acts” of Zionism. “Many of these ministers of the Gospel have betrayed their sacred trust. Instead of preaching peace and justice they have promoted war, hatred and subversive activities, including disloyalty to Canada.”
As for the contents of Zionist propaganda, The Canadian Arab blamed Zionists for spreading the “myth” of rivalries between the Arab princes. It was “just another tale”, spread “to blackmail and discredit Arab Governments”. More frequent was the “demonstrably false” argument that Palestine benefited from the Jewish presence. No Arab had ever benefited from the Zionist colonization, the journal emphasized. Arab profit from Zionist hospitals and universities was “very little”, almost negligible. Moreover, Zionists were buying the best lands in Palestine and forcibly evicting the Arab tenants who had lived there for generations. “None of these lands were desert which were brought to blossom in the hands of Zionists.” Contrary to Zionist pretensions, Zionist agricultural settlements were a failure: they accumulated huge debts, and all had to be subsidized. The Arabs were therefore determined to prove the falsehood of Zionist propaganda “with blunt truth” and that no such propaganda could ever make possible the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.
Finally, it was established in The Canadian Arab that not all Jews were Zionists. It was only that the Zionists, by controlling the major means of propaganda, saw to it that only their side was heard. Anyone who dared to criticize them was accused of anti-Semitism. The Zionist ability “to have things their way” stemmed from the organized pressure they put on people who did not agree with them, threatening to call them anti-Semitic. By smearing anyone who did not endorse their policies “as Fascist and anti-Semitic”, Zionists in Canada and the United States were “effectively” denying “the right of free speech”. By slandering and bringing about economic ruin, Zionists stifled opposition, even among those Jews who just wanted to be “good Americans”. The few Jews who tried to warn the public against the Zionists were either ignored or found that “something happened” to them.
Anti-Semitism. While condemning the Zionists for calling their opponents anti-Semites, The Canadian Arab itself markedly excelled in anti-Semitic remarks. Firstly, doubt was cast in it over the Jewish origin of the Zionists. It was claimed that not all people who were religiously Jewish really belonged to the Jewish “race”. “Generally”, the Zionists were “the direct descendants of the people of the Khazar Kingdom” of Eastern Europe and converted to Judaism in the late seventh century. Zionism was a movement of Eastern European Jews with “neither a racial nor a historic connection with Palestine”. The original Semitic people who established Judaism in Palestine never had any connection with these Jews. Hence, the Zionists had no right to “repatriation” to their “homeland”. Less than ten per cent of world Jewry wished for a Jewish state, and this ten per cent consisted “almost entirely of the non-Semitic” Eastern European Jews. Zionists coming from Eastern Europe were carrying “this virus of ‘non-assimilation’ based on ‘homelessness'” with them and were now communicating “this infection” to Western Jews.
Zionism was based “on racial, cultural and commercial superiority”. “In the interest of peace, justice and freedom”, the Canadians were called to “dissociate themselves from racial and political Zionism”. However, the journal did not stop at this point but actually compared Zionism with Nazism. “Long before Nazism was created”, the Zionists “showed racial discrimination and believed themselves of a superior race”. Zionists barred assimilationism. “So did Hitler from another angle.” “Both Hitlerism and Zionism are based on narrow racialist, non-assimilationist, nationalist premises.” The “imperialistic and dictatorial rule” of “the bosses of the Zionist political machine” was only equalled “by the broken totalitarian powers”. The extremist Zionists were adopting “fascist Nazi methods”. They were causing the “peaceful Arab population” of Palestine “greater outrages than those they themselves” had suffered. The Zionists had “as little concern for justice, equality, self-determination and fundamental humane morality” as those who had persecuted them.
“Leftists and internationalists” backed Zionism. “Zionists, their agents and communist cousins” were working their hardest for Britain’s downfall. Supporters of Zionism in Canada were mentioned in official government reports “as chief espionage agents” who sold valuable information to a foreign power, betraying the people who accorded them positions. Zionism and communism were “the two greatest forces in Canada, conspiring to wreck the peace of the world”. The Canadian Palestine Committee (mentioned above) of Flavelle and Mowat sponsored the communist Canadian-Soviet Friendship Council. “The Jewish-Communist magazine” Today, “preaching hatred”, was among the supporters of the “Zionist machine”. Actually, it was difficult to differentiate between communism and fascism. Norman Jaques is cited as saying, “Fascism you can describe as Gentile Communism and Communism you can describe as Jewish Fascism. I believe that is as near as you can get to it”.
When preparing for an Arab invasion, Zionist leaders instructed their men to kill “every Arab” in the vicinity. However, Zionist expansionism did not stop at this. The “Zionist political machinery” was following in the footsteps of former imperialists. “They, too, seek to build a colonial empire.” The Zionists intended to expand the Jewish state “over the Fertile Crescent”. They wanted it to extend “from the Nile to the Euphrates”, “as Hertzl advocated”. The Zionists were interested in Palestine because it cut the Arab world in half; because it commanded the Suez Canal, Britain’s lifeline to India and the Far East; because the pipelines of Arabia passed through it; because of the Dead Sea’s “incalculable” mineral wealth; and because of “the power and prestige” of converting the Holy Land into the capital of the Jewish world.
The Zionists implanted their agents in various countries to secure their interests. They were keeping “their finger on the pulse of other nations in order to safeguard the interests of Jewry”. Here, The Canadian Arab explained the connection between Zionism and money in detail: “milk and honey” ran in Palestine only so long as American dollars continued “to flow by the millions into the Zionist inflation pump”. The Zionists were building up Palestine by investing millions of American and Canadian dollars, deducted by American and Canadian Jews from their income tax. These millions of dollars supported Jewish illegal immigration. In sum, the Zionists wanted to establish a state based on charity. Zionism intended to convert the promise made to Abraham into “a piece of real estate”.
Furthermore, because of the Zionists, Palestine was “becoming one of the most irreligious, most atheistic, immoral and anti-Christian of countries”. The Zionists were “atheists” who “profess no religion and observe no moral law”. They were “basically anti-Christian” and considered Christ “the destroyer of their old reign”. Palestine was called the Holy Land because of Christ, considered by the Christians their saviour, by the Muslims a great prophet, but by the Jews “an executed blasphemer”. The Jews were denouncing Christ “religiously day by day”.
Zionism resulted in anti-Semitism, the journal concluded. Never during the previous 2,000 years had anti-Semitism been so rampant and widespread or persecutions and pogroms against the Jews so terrible. It was because of Zionism that anti-Semitism “has markedly increased”. In the late nineteenth century, anti-Semitism was dying, but then Theodor Herzl revived “aggressive” Jewish nationalism, thus “fanning the flames of anti-Semitism” instead of extinguishing it. Zionism caused all the Jews to be blamed for “cherishing two allegiances”, increasing anti-Semitism “all over the world”. The prediction of the more “far-sighted” leaders of British and American Jewry that the Balfour Declaration would stir up anti-Semitism and involve the Jews in bitter feuds was realized. Continuing the present Zionist policy would also cause anti-Semitism to spread to Asia and Africa, where it did not exist before.
In order to defend itself from the accusation that it was anti-Semitic, The Canadian Arab continuously cited Jews who held similar views. It cited a London Jew who, in a hearing before the Anglo-American Committee, had stated that the Jews were citizens of the countries in which they resided. A Jewish state in Palestine would only aggravate anti-Semitism, he said, as Jews elsewhere would be called to leave their countries and go to Palestine. The journal also reviewed a book written by an American Jew advocating the integration of Jews in their countries of domicile and exposing “the folly of modern Zionists”. The Zionist non-assimilation policy “played into the hands of anti-Semites”, the book established. The book also showed Herzl for the “real” person he was (opportunist, snobbish, etc.) and unmasked the “machinations” of Zionist leaders in the United States. A Montreal Jew was cited warning against dual loyalty—a Jew could not be both a Canadian and a Zionist. He said that Zionists “have distorted facts and suppressed truth” and used “the suffering remnant of their people as a tool for their own political ends”. Moreover, only a small percentage of world Jewry belonged to the Zionist movement. Most Jews regarded themselves as only a religious community. Then, a memorandum submitted to the United Nations by an American Jewish organization was quoted as stating that the establishment of a Jewish state “would be harmful to Jews throughout the world”. Millions of Jews would suffer, rather than a small fraction of the Jews who lived in Palestine. The Zionist claim that the Jews had “automatic rights” over Palestine was “abhorrent”, according to the memorandum, which also denied the right of the Jewish Agency to represent world Jewry.
Finally, the journal categorically established that the Arabs were not anti-Semitic. It was “absurd” to charge them with anti-Semitism, they themselves being Semitic. The Arabs had no quarrel with the Jews but rather with the “aggressive” Zionists who sought to deprive the Palestinian Arabs “of their rights, home and country”.
Other Political Issues
Syria and Lebanon constituted major focuses of interest for The Canadian Arab, perhaps because its editor and writers were mostly of Syro-Lebanese origin, yet these were dealt with significantly less than the Palestine problem. The two principal topics discussed in the journal regarding Syria and Lebanon were the French occupation and the concept of Greater Syria.
French imperialism in the Middle East. In May 1945, Syria and Lebanon demanded a complete evacuation of all French troops from their territories. The French made it conditional upon the signing of a treaty granting France certain privileges in the region. Both the Syrians and the Lebanese refused. French reinforcements arrived, demonstrations followed, and soon the entire region was in turmoil. French retaliation was harsh, including the bombardment of Damascus. Following these events, the journal commented that France, through the mass killing of innocent civilians in Syria and Lebanon, belied Arab expectations after the war for an era of conciliation and liberation. The French use of military force was “undemocratic” and “dictatorial” and contradicted promises for sovereignty previously accorded to Syria and Lebanon. However, while “de Gaullist murder” had “greatly dimmed the light of freedom” and the operations against helpless civilians “clearly violated all standards of decency”, the Arabs would not condemn the French nation for this, but only “de Gaulle’s ruthless colonial system”. They were sure that the French would eventually find another leader. France was expected to honour the full independence of Syria and Lebanon.
French military reprisals resulted in British intervention in favour of the Syrians. The French had to back off, and in April 1946, the last French soldiers left Syria. A similar evacuation occurred in Lebanon several months later. When this happened, the journal analyzed what was awaiting the two states after independence. They would at last be able to divert their energies to solve their domestic problems, synthesizing “East and West”, which was “in the opinion of many thinkers the most important of many problems now facing the Arab world”. Given the states’ backgrounds, the journal was confident that Syria and Lebanon were “particularly fitted” for this.
With the achievement of independence of Syria and Lebanon, this topic disappeared from The Canadian Arab’s agenda. However, the journal continued to treat another issue related to French imperialism in the Middle East, namely the French presence in North Africa. In May 1945, Algerian nationalists rioted against the French authorities and French settlers. The French suppression of the revolt was brutal. While the official figures were lower, the journal blamed France for the “shameful” killing of 12,000 Arabs in Algeria. In another article, it accused France of neglecting education in Tunisia “culpably”. Only seven per cent of the children there received schooling of any kind, and nearly ninety per cent of the teachers were Frenchmen, who promoted French at the expense of Arabic. The journal reviewed the press reactions in the United States to the affair of the escape from French captivity of Abd al-Karim al-Khattabi, the Moroccan rebel against the Spaniards and French in the 1920s, with an emphasis on the continuity of brutal French imperialism in North Africa. Azzam Pasha, the Secretary-General of the Arab League, was quoted as saying that the Arab nations would not cooperate with France or Spain so long as they continued to occupy regions in North Africa.
Greater Syria. Since the beginnings of Syrian nationalism, the Syrians had always perceived the term “Syria” as comprising the regions nowadays known as Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Jordan. Outside Syria, this concept was called the Greater Syria idea. According to it, Palestine was considered the southern part of Syria. The pan-Syrian nationalists called it Southern Syria (Suriyya al-Janubiyya). It was evident that Massoud, The Canadian Arab’s editor, adhered to this idea. The Arabs would never stop demanding freedom for “Southern Syria or Palestine (as it is known today)”, he declared in an editorial. They would defend the rights of “their fellow citizens in Southern Syria”. He pointed out in another editorial that the “South-Syrian” inhabitants of Palestine were on the alert. Unless Palestine was recognized as belonging to the Arab majority, he warned in a telegram he sent to the president of the United Nations General Assembly that the real decision on this issue would be made “in the sacred hills of Southern Syria”. He cited Syrian President Shukri al-Quwwatli as stating that, when celebrating its own independence, Syria did not forget its “southern part, Palestine”. Many of the other participants in the journal also held to this concept. Palestine had been part of Syria “since the days of Nebuchadnezzar”, Faris Ma’luf indicated. Palestine had always been an integral part of Syria and could not survive outside it, Philip Hitti added. Until 1917 Palestine had “never existed as a separate political entity”, the Palestinian Khulusi Khayri, director of the Arab Office in Washington, declared. “It formed part and parcel of Syria”. Therefore, the “carving out” of Palestine was against the will of both Syrians and Palestinians.
Greater Syria also encompassed Lebanon. When reporting about the Syrian and Lebanese participation in the United Nations conference in San Francisco in 1945, Massoud, the Druze emigrant from Lebanon, pointed out that “Syria-Lebanon”, Egypt, Iraq and Saudi Arabia were recognized as “equal partners”. He also reported that the “Syrian-Lebanese” delegation met with representatives of the Armenian community in the United States, who thanked them for the good treatment the Armenians were enjoying in “Syria-Lebanon”. The “Syrian-Lebanese” delegates replied that the Armenians in their countries were a law-abiding and loyal minority.
Defending the Arab Image
One of the goals of the Canadian Arab Friendship League was “to defend ourselves against misinterpretation, malicious propaganda or injustice relating to the historical, cultural, moral and spiritual heritage of Arabic-speaking people living in Canada”. “The dispelling of any reflection upon the character of their racial origin” was considered by The Canadian Arab to be one of the essential assignments for Canadians of Arab origin. There existed many instances of “misinterpretation, distrust, general ignorance and discrimination” against Arabic-speaking people in Canada. It was therefore “our greatest need at the present time as Syrians and Lebanese… to be more widely and more favorably known… [and to] share with our fellow men some of the blessings and riches of the unsurpassed heritage we bring with us”. It was especially essential because, according to the journal, the representatives of Zionism in Canada and the United States were “constantly at work trying to undermine the prestige” of the Arab nations. For a quarter of a century, Zionist propaganda had “misrepresented the Arab character”. The journal therefore took it upon itself to defend the Arab image against any offence, especially when it referred to Arabs’ assumed backwardness, non-democratic character, and the problem of their double allegiance.
Arab backwardness. One of the beliefs that The Canadian Arab felt obliged to combat was that the Arabs were relatively backward. It was the Zionists, of course, who were to be blamed for this. For a quarter of a century, they had tried “to belie the records of history respecting [the Arabs’] magnificent contributions to civilization”. However, in the end, the Arab side would carry more weight in world opinion than the “pre-fabricated stories of so-called Arab ‘lack of education and modern machinery'” since the Arabs had “the blessings and riches” of an “unsurpassed heritage” to offer. The Arabs were neither primitive nor fanatical. They provided the system of numerals and algebra and made contributions to other fields of science. In a historical essay written by Professor Hitti, the journal demonstrated the various debts Western culture owed to Arab culture. While admitting that there was a period of darkness in Arab history, in the twentieth century, the Arab nations regained their vitality. There was therefore “every reason to believe that the Arabic-speaking peoples, who in the past contributed so greatly to the enrichment of man, shall in the future continue to make their contribution to the progress and welfare of humanity”.
The journal further claimed that it was the Turks (especially in the times of Sultan Abd al-Hamid II and the Young Turks) who caused the Middle East to degenerate. However, in the 1860s, there started “a remarkable Arab nationalist movement” that brought about a cultural renaissance in Syria. During World War I, the Arabs assisted the Allies in their liberation. It was only because of the “terrible purge” of Syrian and Palestinian Arabs carried out by the Young Turk commander Jamal Pasha that they were not the core of the Arab Revolt of Sharif Husayn of Mecca. While the Zionists “nowadays” tended “to depreciate” this revolt as a “myth”, the Germans, according to the journal, adopted some of its methods in their blitzkrieg during World War II.
Arabs and democracy. Another impression that The Canadian Arab deemed essential to refute was that the existing Arab regimes were far from democratic or that democracy in general was not compatible with the Arabs. The journal considered it of special importance because it was operating in a state where democracy was an imperative. References to democracy repeatedly appeared in its articles, trying to prove that the Arabs too held to democracy.
When discussing the United Nations conference in San Francisco, the journal pointed out that as Canadians of Arab origin, they were proud to see how the conference had shown all nations that “democracy can work and produce positive results”. They were particularly proud of the Canadian delegates, “who played such an important part in the defence of the rights of small nations”. The delegates “of our native Arabic-speaking countries” also demonstrated their desire “to become equal partners in the strongest organization for the maintenance of peace”. Another report on the conference referred to a meeting between the Syrian and Lebanese delegates and representatives of the Armenian community in the United States. The latter thanked the former for the good treatment the Armenian minority was enjoying in Syria and Lebanon. Evidently, this piece of information was reported as proof that the Arab states were safeguarding the rights of their minorities.
Further proof of Arab democratic attitudes was the “yeoman assistance” rendered by them to the Allies during both World Wars. The Canadian Arab attacked Zionist claims that Iraq and Egypt did not assist the “democratic nations” during World War II and claimed that this was just a misrepresentation of Arab character. Many Palestinian Arabs enrolled in the British army during World War II, despite their 1936-39 revolt against the British. In fact, when the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem started the revolt, it was not against the British people but against the British policy of unrestricted Jewish immigration. When World War II broke out, he stopped the revolt, and his men fought on behalf of the British during the war. Also, “Canadian citizens of Arab origin have gallantly fought for the ideals of just peace in this war”. One could therefore be proud of the loyalty always shown by the Arabs to the Allies and the democratic world.
In an article referring to the murder of Lord Moyne, it was emphasized that the Egyptians who caught the Jewish assassins did not kill them on the spot but delivered them to justice because of their attachment to the principles of “just democracy”. In an editorial discussing the mass killing of civilians by France in Syria, Lebanon and Algeria, the editor stressed that “in accordance with the policy of this paper”, the journal would not recommend violent retaliation. “We firmly believe in peace”. The Palestine problem also involved democratic considerations, according to the journal, as was shown earlier in this article. The Arabs, cognizant of the “elementary principles of democracy”, wanted to govern Palestine through the vote of the majority, a principle “so dear to politicians here, in U.S.A. and England”. And when it was all over and the partition resolution had been passed by the United Nations General Assembly, the journal angrily declared that the Arab nations “have been betrayed”—promises given to them by “democratic countries” had been broken.
Double allegiance. Any minority involved in political activity for the benefit of another state might be accused of double allegiance. In representing the Arabs in Canada, yet mainly advocating the cause of their countries of origin, the journal tried its best to prove that this was not at the expense of Canadian interests. First, there was the problem of definition. They were “Canadians of Arab origin” (mostly), “Canadian Arabs”, “Arab Canadians” (rarely), or, on one occasion, even “Canadians of Arabic-speaking racial origin”. However, The Canadian Arab made it clear that although they were people with a “moral obligation toward our relatives”, their first duty was to Canada, “the country of our allegiance”. “We had come here to remain and become an integral part of this great Canadian nation”. They would “cede first place to none in the loftiest ideal of citizenship”. They were declaring to the pioneer builders of Canada that “though we arrived late to aid you in laying the foundation of this great nation, we have not come in vain”. They would use their talents and energies to loyally share in the building of Canada. “Now” was the time to demonstrate their devotion to Canada’s laws and contribute to its “glory”.
The common goal of the Arab societies existing in Canada was to build the Canadian Arabs “into most worthy citizens in the country of their adoption” while simultaneously “acting as interpreters of their own noble heritage”. Their intention was to “graft the cedar of Lebanon into the maple tree of Canada”. The Canadian Arab Friendship League was founded not only for the benefit of Palestine, the League’s General Secretary explained, but also for improving Canada’s international relations with the entire Arab world. “The Canadian public needed such patriotic service”, he added. The League professed to be so staunch in its allegiance to Canada that when the Institute of Arab American Affairs was founded in the United States on similar lines, since it belonged to a different country, “owing their allegiance to their American government”, the League stated it “preclude[d]” any affiliation with it. When foreign Arab diplomats spoke at the League’s events, the journal saw to it to report that they had told their listeners to “never falter in their loyalty and devotion to Canada”.
With the Zionists, on the other hand, it was different. Supporters of Zionism in Canada had been mentioned in official government reports “as chief espionage agents” who sold valuable information to a foreign power. They had proved to be disloyal to Canada. They had betrayed the people who had accorded them positions. “Thank God” no Arab Canadians were among them, the journal concluded. “Arabs do not sell out their adopted homeland”.
Furthermore, The Canadian Arab pointed out that the Arabs in Canada did not collect funds for arms in Palestine and did not deduct it from their taxes, as the Zionists had done. The journal complained that when the Zionists were collecting millions of dollars each year to support the Haganah it was all right, but when other organizations in Canada and the United States defended their respective causes, they were severely criticized for “assisting undemocratic activities”. The Arabs were waiting for similar norms to be applied to the Zionists.
Canadian-Arab Relations
The Canadian Arab was supposed to be “a link of friendship between Canada and the Arab world” in accordance with the first article of the League’s constitution: “to promote, encourage and propagate friendship and understanding between Canada and the Arabic speaking nations of the world”. In an article about the League’s background, its General Secretary, Elias Karam, explained that it had been established in order “to contribute with every means at our disposal to a better understanding between Canada and the Arabic speaking countries”. They found it their duty to make use of their knowledge of Arabic and of Arab history, culture and traditions to foster friendship between “the country of our allegiance” and the Arab countries and to keep the Canadian public well-informed of this aspect of international relationships. “The Canadian public needed such patriotic service”, he added in another article. It was the League’s “main function”, Massoud stressed, adding that The Canadian Arab was “the only Canadian magazine serving the cause of Canadian-Arab understanding”.
With this goal in mind, the journal reviewed several visits of Arab personalities to Canada, such as the Iraqi regent, the Syrian charge d’affaires in Washington, and the wife of the Lebanese minister to the United States, placing special emphasis on the warm reception they received from the local Arab colony in particular and from the Canadian public in general.
The need for Canada to reevaluate its relations with the Arabs was raised by the journal when it became clear how crucial the role of the Canadian delegates to UNSCOP was. In an angry telegram to the chairman of the External Affairs Committee of the Canadian House of Commons, Massoud emphasized that by supporting partition, the Canadian delegates “alienated some of our most loyal friends in the Arab world”. “They have created distrust between this country and the Arab world”. Therefore, “as Canadian citizens interested in a better understanding between this country and the Arab world”, they protested against “the unjust policy” pursued by the Canadian delegates, who had harmed the interests of Canada and Britain, denying Canada the leadership of the small nations.
Conclusion
In his memoirs, published in 1976, Massoud asserted that The Canadian Arab ceased publication in 1948, following the defeat of the Arab armies in Palestine. (“We were all ashamed at the retreat of the seven Arab nations.”) However, the journal in fact stopped appearing by the end of 1947, well before the failed Arab invasion of Palestine, which only began in May 1948. It seems, therefore, that Massoud’s frustration with the poor political results yielded by the journal was the main reason for his decision to close it down.
The declared prime target of the Canadian Arab Friendship League was to improve Canada’s relations with the Arab world. The motto of the League’s journal, The Canadian Arab, inscribed on its front page, was to be “a link of friendship between Canada and the Arab world”. An essential by-product of this was supposed to be the defence of Arab image whenever needed. However, most of the journal’s articles did not concentrate on Canadian-Arab relations but on the Palestine problem. The journal completely immersed itself in the Arab-Israeli conflict. In this respect, it was a failure. Arab lobbying in Canada was no match for Zionist lobbying. Its influence on Canadian policymakers was nil. George Ignatieff, who served on the permanent Canadian delegation to the United Nations, related in an interview many years later that the Canadian delegates to the United Nations “were clearly more responsive… to Jewish pressure and influence than they were to Arabs”. Not only did the Canadian government ignore the Arab viewpoint and support the partition of Palestine and the establishment of a Jewish state there, but Canadian diplomats were also actually among the main initiators of the partition plan. Canada’s role in the formulation and, ultimately, the adoption of the United Nations General Assembly’s Resolution 181 (II) to partition Palestine was crucial. The unremitting interventions of Canada’s Lester Pearson during the Palestine debate in the United Nations secured a compromise between the United States and the Soviet Union, thus securing the support of both world blocs for partition and, with it, the necessary two-thirds majority. Without the Canadian effort, the United Nations might never have adopted the partition of Palestine, which meant the establishment of a Jewish state in the core of the Arab world, thus inevitably affecting the history of the Middle East for years to come.
In April 1947, Massoud wrote the following to the assistant of the Postmaster General of the Montreal post office, trying to convince him to allow some pamphlets to be inserted into copies of the journal, which was against postal regulations: “As I told you, my whole purpose in distributing the Canadian Arab is the creation of good-will among the Arab world and Canada. The writing, the printing and the mailing of this magazine is done at my expense… I have no staff to help me address the envelopes.” The Canadian Arab was a one-man project at one man’s expense. When Massoud realized that he was not getting the expected political benefits from it, he saw no point in continuing the onerous venture. The Canadian Arab failed primarily because it concentrated on topics that were outside the expected scope of a migrant newspaper. Most of the Arab immigrants to Canada until the 1940s were Lebanese and Syrians and definitely not Palestinians. Instead of focusing on immigrant affairs and on improving Canada’s relations with the Arab world, the journal focused on the Palestine question, which was unrelated to the condition of the Arab immigrants in Canada. It resulted in the journal failing in both what it was trying to focus on and what it had to focus on. The Canadian Arab was the first Arab political organ in Canada, but the wrong decisions taken by its owner regarding its contents brought about its failure, despite the fact that Arab Canadians were in need of such a journal. It would take another fifteen years before the Arab community in Canada tried to issue another political organ.