The Syrian Social Nationalist Party

by Salim Mujais

  THE QUESTION OF PALESTINE

  Saadeh had been dissatisfied with the course of events in Palestine, but had been unable to voice his views in the midst of the various confrontations and obstacles. The publication of the report by the Peel commission in July of 1937 gave him the platform to articulate formally the position of the SSNP vis-à-vis the Palestinian question.

  The 1948 Palestinian exodus, also known as the Nakba, occurred when more than 750,000 Palestinian Arabs were forced to leave their homes in Palestine.

  The Royal Commission was established by the British Government in the wake of the 1936 revolt in Palestine. It was chaired by Earl Peel, former Secretary of State for India. It heard testimonies from November 1936 to February 1937, predominantly by Zionists and their supporters as many of the Palestinian political and religious figures boycotted the Commission. The Commission’s report finalized on June 22 and published on July 7, 1937, recommended the termination of the British Mandate and the establishment of two independent states, a Jewish and an Arab one, in the territory of the Mandate Palestine (defined as land west of the Jordan River). An enclave, to include Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth, the Sea of Galilee, and a corridor from Jerusalem to the Mediterranean would remain under British Mandate to ensure protection of the Holy Places (indefinitely).61 The proposal was not original and revisited ideas presented previously. It signified that Britain had dismissed the strategic importance of Palestine. The retention of the Holy Places was a manifestation of pure racist imperialism. The British did not believe the “natives” capable of preserving the Sacred Places. Only a European power could guarantee this “sacred trust of civilization.” 62 The most dangerous part of the Commission’s report, however, was that it introduced and favored the idea of population transfer to render the two states ethnically homogenous. It sanctioned, promoted, and detailed the mechanisms for ethnic cleansing. “The existence of these minorities clearly constitutes the most serious hindrance to the smooth and successful operation of partition… If the settlement is to be clean and final, this question of the minorities must be boldly faced and firmly dealt with.” The Commission used the example of the Greco-Turkish “population exchange” during which 1.3 million Greeks and 400,000 Turks were compulsorily transferred in the 1920s. In the present case, 1250 Jews would be removed from the putative Arab state and 225,000 Palestinians removed from the territory proposed for the Jewish state. The transfer recommendations delighted Jewish leaders. Ben Gurion wrote,

  “The compulsory transfer of the Arabs from the valleys of the proposed Jewish state could give us something which we never had, even when we stood on our own during the days of the First and Second Temples… We are being given an opportunity that we never dared to dream of in our wildest imaginings. This is more than a state, government and sovereignty – this is national consolidation in an independent homeland.” 63

  Saadeh directed his reply to the League of Nations.64 In this memorandum, he offered a reasoned systematic framework for the rejection of the recommendations of the Peel Commission and laid the foundations for formal argumentation in international law. He affirmed the following principles that will remain the framework for the SSNP’s position on the question of Palestine.

  The Jews have not historical rights in Palestine.

  The claim to a 'Promised Land' is a non-issue in international law. It is a particularistic view of religion.

  The Balfour Declaration is a political commitment that has no legal power in international law and contradicts Article 22 of the League of Nations charter.

  There are no benefits imminent or delayed for the Syrians in a partition plan.

  Any partition plan carries critical and major benefits for the Jews and leads to the formation of an exclusively Jewish state. He considers the issue of population transfer as “forceful dispossession of land that will turn the Syrians into scattered refugees”. He was fully aware of the benefits to the Jews that Ben Gurion welcomed: “It allows the Jews to call their state a national home in the broadest sense of the term… and makes the constituency of the state exclusively Jewish.”

  LEBANESE POLITICS

  Saadeh’s release from prison was at the cost of offering nominal support of the Eddeh-Ahdab government. With the approach of the Lebanese parliamentary elections, contacts between the SSNP and the various political groups interested in gaining ground in the new legislative caused concern in government circles. The Lebanese government representative in the negotiations with the SSNP leadership kept insisting that the SSNP should declare publicly its support of the candidates aligned with the government. He threatened that any failure to do so in the shortest delay would lead to a resumption of pressure on the SSNP. Saadeh countered that the government had not done anything concrete to prove that it did not harbor hostile intentions towards the SSNP and had not facilitated its work. He refused to declare the public support of the SSNP until the government fulfilled certain promises, among them presumably was the permit to publish a daily newspaper. In addition, Saadeh requested dropping of charges in pending lawsuits and assurances that persecutions would not resume after the elections were done. He wanted the understanding with the government sealed in a face-to-face meeting between him and President Eddeh.65 The government, which was in an acute confrontation with the opposition, finally agreed to the terms and the meeting took place. Additionally, the permit for an-Nahda was issued. Saadeh then declared his support for the candidates on the government loyalists’ slate.

  The publication of an-Nahda was one of the important fringe benefits of the truce between the SSNP and the Eddeh government. The press with its power to alter public opinion was a key tool in the realization of the political-social program of the SSNP. With the publication of an-Nahda, the SSNP had a forum to explain its views about the Lebanese state:

  “We do not demand arbitrary political union sought after by politicians for non-nationalist purposes camouflaged under the banner of nationalism (reference to the unification calls by Muslim leaders of the littoral). We work for national union. Political union depends on the will of the nation. We work constructively within the Lebanese framework for the prosperity and advancement of the Lebanese people. This work does not imply that we ceased to consider geographic Syria as constituting a socio-economic unity. Once the existence of Lebanon had been acknowledged, it became the realm of all Lebanese, us included. It is the duty of all Lebanese to exercise their civil rights. We are among those Lebanese exercising their civil rights for the betterment of the Lebanese people.” 66

  The truce with the Lebanese government was manifest in the measured tones with which an-Nahda tackled the governmental crisis in Lebanon. The SSNP also attempted reaching a modus vivendi with the Mandate. Noting the retrenchment of French influence in the face of British expansionism in the Levant, Saadeh suggests:

  “The latent intellectual and cultural power in the area of the French mandate is the greatest of its kind in the Near East. Freeing this power will open for it and for French influence new horizons in the Near East… An alignment between the interests of Syria and France would guarantee success.” 67

  An-Nahda championed a variety of issues related to civil and political rights. It took the banner of women’s suffrage and declared its support to give women equal rights not only in the political sphere (the right to vote), but also in the civil sphere by calling for a change in laws governing individual rights still linked to gender-biased religious law.

  LEBANESE POLITICAL PARTIES

  On November 17, 1937, three weeks after the end of the parliamentary elections, the Lebanese government officially disbanded three paramilitary organizations: the Qumsan al-Bayda’ (The White Shirts, the paramilitary organ of the Lebanese Union Party, a Maronite organization), al-Kataeb (The Phalanges, a Maronite organization) and an-Najjada (The Rescuers, a Muslin Sunni organization). On November 20, the Lebanese police raided the offices of these organizations, confiscated their content and sealed them. The Maronite organizatio
ns, notably the Kataeb, called for a demonstration that took place on Sunday November 21, the one-year anniversary of the founding of the Kataeb. The mass rally deteriorated into an armed clash particularly after a French soldier was killed.

  The Lebanese paramilitary organizations arose because of the anxiety of their respective groups’ vis-à-vis the emergence of the SSNP and the widespread support attracted by its ideology and organization. Later historians would come to interpret the rise of these paramilitary organizations through the prisms of European models of fascism. The truth is much simpler and more direct from contemporary narratives. True some of the founders of these organizations did travel to Europe and observe paramilitary organizations in Germany and Czech Republic (like Pierre Gemayel from the Kataeb and Husayn Sij’an from the Najjadah). Various parties in the Near East adopted colored shirts like their European counterparts (The Blue Shirts and Green Shirts in Egypt, The White Shirts in Beirut and Aleppo, the Steel Shirts in Damascus, the Khaki Shirts in Iraq). These local groups, however, arose in response to local conditions and needs and displayed none of the formalism of their European models.

  The first Christian reaction to the SSNP was the Party of Lebanese Unity (LUP). Its leader declared in 1937, “the LUP was founded to resist the SSNP which was attracting a large number of youth even in the pure Lebanese areas.” The LUP was blatantly an exclusively Maronite party as reflected in its membership, symbolism and ecclesiastical support.68

  In typical sectarian counterbalance to the LUP, the Muslim Consultative Council emerged, but it was not a grass root organization and was supplanted by the Muslim Najjadah. These groups aroused and exacerbated sectarian tensions.

  On November 21, 1936, the al-Kataeb was formed. The group soon split over the conflict between President Eddeh and his archrival Bechara al-Khoury. The Kataeb gradually shifted away from President Eddeh, which elicited his wrath, and hence the disbanding order.

  The leaders of the future Najjadah were originally leaders of the Muslim Scouts. When this latter group gained enough membership to represent a potential political force, the mandate issued instructions prohibiting anyone over 20 from joining and the group was barred from holding mass rallies without government authorization. To bypass these injunctions, particularly after the events of November 1936 to which these leaders were party, the Najjadah was formed presumably for graduate scouts who had reached age 20, but in reality as a Muslim paramilitary group. Like its Christian counterparts, “it became a sectarian political organization… and all three organizations endangered national interests and national unity and were a factor in the strengthening of destructive sectarian passions.” 69

  DEALING WITH THE NATIONAL BLOC

  The attacks by the National Bloc on the SSNP appeared soon after the discovery of the existence of the SSNP and while National Bloc politicians remained very ignorant of the SSNP’s ideology and organization.70 From the very beginning, the National Bloc used rumor and sectarianism to combat the spread of the SSNP. However inaccurate and biased these claims may seem today, they were not without effect as recurrent defections (publicized by the National Bloc) from the SSNP testify. So successful was the political strategy that it thwarted for a while the penetration of the SSNP into significant areas of the hinterland. The characterization of Saadeh as a Christian leader and Syrian nationalism as a sophisticated ploy to divert the masses from the true path of Islamic Arabism and as a cover for Phoenicianism had undeniable force among the unenlightened masses. In a pamphlet titled “Arabism our eternal nationhood” published in early 1936, National Bloc authors state: “The leaders of the SSNP did not call for this Syrian nationalism but for a hidden sectarian allegiance. They feared assimilation as a minority in Arab nationalism so they called for a Lebanese or Syrian nationality to safeguard their sectarian existence”.71 The attacks continued throughout 1936 and were characterized by vehement denouncements of the SSNP and elaboration on its relations with foreign powers. ash-Sha’ab newspaper in Damascus on June 30, 1936 declared:

  “The SSNP has exhaled its last breath in Syria and defections from its ranks are continuing. It is fair to say that its existence in Syria has become but a historical anecdote. Our newspaper in Damascus has undertaken to unmask this party and expose the truth that underlies its actions and the secret elements that manipulate it that many of its members were unaware of. We have in our war on this party targeted two aims: to prevent the embroilment of our Syrian youth in the service of a foreign country and to prevent the proliferation of political parties in Syria so that it remains unified in Arab nationalism. It would have been better for the leaders of this party to have restricted their efforts in Lebanon alone”.72

  The most flagrant case of confrontation occurred in Hama in June of 1936. National Bloc leaders and Muslim clerics forcibly required SSNP members to withdraw from the party and to pledge on the Holy Quran that they would not resume any activity on behalf of the SSNP. Saadeh’s visit to the region of Hama and Homs in the summer of 1937 did not succeed in reviving organizational efforts in the city in the face of aggressive sectarian resistance.

  The leaders of the National Bloc and other hinterland notables looked upon the political groups on the littoral as subsidiary. Even the Muslim leaders of Beirut, Tripoli and Saida chafed at the hubris of the Damascus notables. That Saadeh was a Christian and advocating Syrian and not Pan-Arab nationalism must have rankled their ire. This was further inflamed by Saadeh’s attitude to deal with the hinterland politicians as equals.73

  Saadeh, however, decided to attempt to cooperate with the National Bloc. From his jail cell in early 1936, he issued instructions to his lieutenant to open negotiations with the Bloc. Salah Labaki and Ma’moun Ayyas traveled to Damascus and met with the Delegation preparing to head to Paris for the Treaty negotiations. A memorandum was later sent to the delegation urging it to safeguard the possibility of a future political union between Lebanon and the hinterland.

  Saadeh met Jamil Mardam in the summer of 1937 when the latter was in Sawfar for a meeting between the Syrian and Lebanese governments. The meeting took place at the Grand Hotel and lasted for two hours. At the conclusion of the meeting, Mardam expressed great appreciation for the SSNP and its leader and agreed to a follow up meeting that took place in the fall of 1937. At this meeting, Saadeh raised the issue of Alexandretta and the grave national consequences of the loss of the district. He proposed to the Syrian Prime Minister a plan by which the National Bloc, if it so chose, could remain uninvolved yet allow the SSNP to mount a vigorous campaign to safeguard the national interest in Alexandretta. Mardam thinking more in terms of local politics than national consequences demurred and suggested that he found the removal of Syrian sovereignty over Alexandretta not as grave a consequence as Saadeh stated. On the contrary, he saw the development creating serious problems for Turkey because of the non-Turkish elements in the district. Mardam was approaching the issue in ethnic terms. Saadeh was appalled by the irresponsible position of his interlocutor. This grave realization coupled with the continuing opposition of the National Bloc to obstruct any SSNP activity in the hinterland convinced Saadeh of the futility of any attempt at collaboration. It was clear that the SSNP and the National Bloc had incompatible positions and were likely to be on a collision course.74

  After the failure of the SSNP initiative with the National Bloc, Saadeh had no longer any reason to refrain from open criticism. With the publication of an-Nahdah, Saadeh and the SSNP had now a forum to voice their views on events and policies in the hinterland. The National Bloc government did not remain silent and arrests of SSNP members recurred between September 1937 and January 1938. Petitions to the Mandate and the League of Nations decrying the oppressive tactics of the National Bloc government had little effect. The SSNP had delivered two memoranda to the hinterland government objecting to acts of violence against the SSNP by National Bloc operatives and the collusion of police forces in these attacks on May 11, 1937 and October 23, 1937, to no avail.

 
; In addition to critiques on the pages of an-Nahda, Saadeh extended his critique of the National Bloc to other venues. In an open letter to the Syrian diaspora in January 1938, he offers the following characterization:

  “It pains me to announce to you that all political “actions” that were taking place prior to the emergence of the Syrian National Party were the work of private political corporations working for their private gain and influence. They were unconcerned with the creation of institutions vital for the life of the nation, and lacked any real appreciation of the concept of true nationhood and ideas of national reform… In these corporations, some worked for personal glory, others pursued nefarious personal interests, and most were remnants of the old feudal class, proficient in narrow local politics and very inept on the national level… The “nationalists” in the hinterland called for a single party, the national Bloc, that while not devoid of national sentiment, was not a party with national, social and economic principles, but a group of individuals with influence who pursued limited political goals. The result of their work was the Franco-Syrian treaty, the loss of Alexandretta, and the jeopardization of the upper Jezira.” 75

  As the attacks of the National Bloc continued and the policies of the hinterland’s government towards the SSNP became more and more confrontational and its rhetoric more strident, Saadeh increased the tenor of the critiques on the pages of an-Nahda. In February 1938 when the National Bloc government initiated a series of arrests involving opposition figures, Saadeh wrote:

  “There is no doubt that the erratic policies of the National Bloc that we have been critiquing on the pages of an-Nahda are sterile from the national perspective. The treaty gained by the Bloc is still suspended between heaven and earth, but the nation lost the fertile district of Alexandretta and has been shackled by a string of foreign entitlements. Apparently, this great national disaster is nothing in the eyes of the Bloc compared to the gain of the treaty… The leader of the Bloc declares that critique of the government is treasonous… Accusing critics with treason is taking tyranny to new levels.” 76