Zionism and the Arabs, 1936-1939 (RLE Israel and Palestine) by Ian Black

Author:Ian Black [Black, Ian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Regional Studies
ISBN: 9781317442707
Google: HT6sCQAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2015-05-22T05:02:55+00:00

The Bludan Conference

The increasingly wide manipulation of the Palestine issue ir. the Arab world has been seen as reaching a new level in the Bludan conference of September 1937. Attended by some 400 delegates from Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Transjordan but mostly from Syria and Palestine, it was the culmination of the attempts of the Arab Higher Committee to mobilize Arab public opinion and organizations against the proposed partition of Palestine. The Mufti's representatives couched their demands in unequivocally pan-Arab terms, stressing that in Palestine Arabism and Islam confronted "World Jewry" and they therefore "every Arab and Moslem must bear his share of the burden of her defence."43

Bludan was seen by the Zionists as a direct continuation of the 1931 Moslem Congress in Jerusalem, as part of the Mufti's attempts to create a general Arab organization to fight Zionism while at the same time retaining firn political control ever the struggle. It was felt to be an Arab response to the Zionist Congress in Zurich which had Just ended.44

Press comments played down the significance of the conference and concentrated on its unrepresentative character. The participants were invited and not elected and were almost all faithful to the Mufti. There were, Michael Assaf wrote in Davar. no important Egyptians present and no Saudis or Yeminis at all. Iraqi representation was unconvincing; most of the 12 delegates were on holiday in Syria anyway; Bludan, only an hour from Damascus, had not seen any official representative of the Syrian Government.45

The participants in the conference, HaAretz felt, dealing in the "politics of generalized and uncompromising refusal," had learnt nothing iron the events of the last two years. The Jews would not be deterred by Arab threats of boycott. Bludon's only function, the Zionist press felt unanimously, had been to serve internal Arab purposes, and to divert attention from. troublesome domestic situations. 46 It vas nevertheless encouraging tc note that the Lebanon had "not departed from her policy of friendly non-intervention in Palestine affairs"47 and that the Emir Abdullah was taking strong reasures against Transjordanians who had attended the meeting.48 KaBoqer stressed the behind-the-scenes politicking and intriguing that had been necessary to give a semblance of Arab unity to the event.49

The Zionist press' appraisal of the Bludan conference vas extremely forceful; yet for an event of such negative significance its interest in it and obvious need to commment on it at length was an indication of a certain nervousness. The reaction to Bludan was exasperated, a result of the hidden fear that despite it being little more than a facade, etc., it was a propaganda victory of considerable importance for pan-Arabism. Indeed, it was admitted in private that the conference was not quite the farce the Hebrew press made it out to be. Individuals like Shakib Arslan and Ihsan Bey al-Jabari had been present, and although they were ir. the pay of the Italians, and although it was unlikely that the conference delegates would be prepared to cake real sacrifices on behalf of the Arabs of Palestine, it was nevertheless to a certain extent a victory for the Mufti.

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