by Adel Beshara
The number of books and articles that Sayegh wrote while teaching, as well as the wide variety of their subjects, is staggering. While he continued to produce material in stirring defense of the Palestinian question, he also began to write about the dominant themes and issues of the time: Neutrality, Arab unity, Arab socialism, propaganda, etc. Aroused primarily by Nasser’s pan-Arabism and spectacular rise in world politics after the Suez crisis, these themes and issues became the research subject for many scholars around the world, and chief among them was Sayegh. His treatise “Arab unity: hope and fulfilment”, which represents his first book-length work in English, was probably the highlight of this period. It stood out both for its thoroughness and insightful analysis:
In sum, Arab Unity is the only major treatment to date of the subject in English and is a serviceable and welcome contribution to western understanding of the modern Arab World.5
Sayegh participated in a symposium on Arab neutrality, from which another book surfaced: The Dynamics of Neutralism in the Arab World. He also co-authored a book entitled Arab Socialism: A Documentary Survey, which, in its time and place, reflected a universal push to provide a theoretical structure to “Arab Socialism”. Together with an earlier essay on the “Arab mind” (published by the Organization of Arab Students in the United States in June 1953) and the various works on Zionist ideology, these books aimed to promote mutual understanding between the Americans and the Arab peoples. However, the message failed to get through. The gap of misunderstanding and mistrust continued to widen, especially in the United States where the Cold War had paralysed the ability to think and act outside the official line.
Attributing this anomaly to the effectiveness of Zionist propaganda, Fayez responded with a monograph on the rhetorical tools used by Zionist propagandists to shape political attitudes of Americans.6 Drawing on his experience looking at American political habits and speech, Sayegh identified that certain patterns had appeared in Americans’ acceptance or rejection of ideas. From this eight ‘keys to the American mind’ were recognized and discussed:
The Underdog: American instinctive sympathy towards and compassion for “the underdog” – the person who is exposed to superior power in such a way that he cannot be expected to resist, much less to survive, that power.
Respect for Guts: The admiration for the guts of the underdog in standing up to challenges which lesser people would avoid.
“What about now?”: The recognition that most Americans, like majorities everywhere, do not live in the world of abstractions and do not as a matter of habit think historically but are interested in the “now”.
Cause and Effect: That is the effect of the causal sequence of events. They condemn the Palestinians for their hostility today without going back into its causes and linking effect with cause.
Social Engineering: Every social problem, the moment it comes to the consciousness of Americans, becomes a challenge for a solution. Americans want to know “Now what can we do about it or what must we do about it?” [. . .] As a result, he who can present an acceptable and plausible solution to the problem is more likely to find his version of the problem accepted by Americans than he who describes the problem and puts a full-stop and turns his back and goes.
Simplification: Reducing a message to very simple and compelling terms as “All we want is negotiations” or “it’s about loving your own kind”. Such terms are likely to strike a stronger note than going through the more sophisticated and more complex description of the solution.
Belief in Compromise: That every problem has two sides is an axiom of the American mind, and if every problem has two sides then every solution must be somewhere in between the two sides. Israelis stand before American audiences and declare that the Palestine problem is a conflict of two rights, not a conflict of right vs. wrong. Says the Israeli, “Don’t the Arabs have other countries? We don’t have another country and therefore we are entitled to Palestine”. That almost ends his presentation.
Realism: This key to the American mind has been exploited assiduously and manipulated by Zionist spokesmen for years. The “realistic” often-repeated slogan, “Israel is there to stay”, has far more effectiveness on the American mind than Arabs can even imagine.
Apparently, it was a wake-up call that Sayegh had received shortly after his arrival in the United States and which he never forgot that brought Zionist propaganda techniques to his attention: “I was called to make a speech on the Palestine problem. I started the speech with an historical review dating from World War I, and by the time the hour was up, I had not yet gotten as far as 1948. At the end of the speech my host came to me and said, [. . .] You loused it all up. Do you think any one of the people who came to listen to you came in order to listen to a history of Palestine? These people are too busy; they don’t have time; they are reading that there is trouble in Palestine; they came to learn what it’s all about. They did not come to get a course in history.” I thanked him for his advice, and I never forgot it. [. . .] what they want to know is what the problem is all about now. . . It is much easier for them to begin with the present.”7
By the late 1950s, Sayegh had carved for himself a reputation as ‘the most articulate’ exponent of the Arab point of view in the United States”. This description comes from a flyer found among his personal papers. Ostensibly used to introduce him at public speaking events, it goes on to describe as “perhaps the best known Arab spokesman in America — having appeared on dozens of coast-to-coast television and radio programs and hundreds of local interviews, participated in over fifty conferences on the Middle East, and lectured widely on the campuses of all the major American universities and before diverse audiences in all parts of the country”.
In 1965, Sayegh founded the Palestine Research Center in Beirut and became the Director General. Early that year, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) had asked Sayegh to establish a research center on Palestine in Beirut. It took him less than three months, from February 1, 1965 to April 30, 1965, to complete the establishment of the Center. Upon completion of the task, Sayegh reported to the Organization and suggested the appointment of a permanent full-time director. Although it did appoint a full-time managing director, the Organization asked Sayegh to continue to “supervise” the work of the Center during the formative period of its infancy and be available to the Organization as a “technical consultant” on matters of research. Sayegh acceded to the request, but not before running into trouble with the AUB, which judged his “outside activity” as an intrusion on its academic independence. Fortunately, Sayegh was a first-rate persuader. He convinced the AUB Board that his extra-curriculum duties with the Palestine Research Center, limited to few hours a week with little to nothing in remuneration, would not conflict with his teaching responsibilities and research at the university. In his letter of appeal to the Board, Sayegh poignantly observed:
Inasmuch as the Palestine Problem is an important international problem in its own right, inasmuch as it is also an important national problem for the people of this region, and inasmuch as very little has been done by way of scholarly research to illuminate and analyze the various aspects of the problem, the initiation of a program of responsible, scholarly research is both a contribution to the national cause that is of extreme importance to Arab youth (including many AUB students) as well as to the academic purposes of a university (particularly a university located in the Arab World). As a teacher of international relations, I feel that my participation (in a supervisory and consultative capacity, as well as a contributing author) in this program is an edifying asset . . . [Furthermore] my acceptance to continue with this activity will not interfere this year (as it did not interfere last year) with my full discharge of all my responsibilities as a member of the faculty.8
As a cultural and educational institution, the Palestine Research Center helped to document various aspects of the Palestine problem. It conducted academic research on all aspects of Palestinian and Zionist politics, and it
acquired large numbers of books, documents, and publications relevant to the Palestinian question. Subsequently, the Center became the largest research institution specializing in the Palestinian problem. Its library included over 25,000 volumes. The Center published a monthly journal entitled Shu’un Filastiniyyah (Palestine Affairs) and over 400 books and other publications. As a frequent contributor, Sayegh published at least two of his well-known titles through the Center: Zionist Colonialism in Palestine and Discrimination in Education Against Arabs in Israel.9
Sayegh devoted much of his life to building a better understanding of fundamental human problems. His gentle personality, simple style of speaking and strength of character won him many friends and admirers:
Fayez Sayegh was different. I enjoyed his intellectual coolness, which was not without passionate conviction and commitment to the cause of justice and political rights for the Palestinians. Fayez was then simply a junior associate of Charles Malik of Lebanon, who, at the time, was “the White Arab” for Americans. But diplomatic rank was not important to me - nor, I think, was power-brokerage Fayez’s first concern. We each had some things to learn from the other. And without ever saying so, we explored each other’s thinking.10
Sayegh pushed himself hard for meanings and explanations. He allowed nothing to affect his resolve or deflect him from his course. Even on the bleakest of days, he never gave up trying to make sense of the world and his place in it. In the pursuit of this objective, he built a stellar reputation for which he is still remembered. First, both his admirers and detractors grant that he was a prolific writer. A cursory review of his works presented to the University of Utah is enough: four to five hundred written works, several hundred tape recordings and films of his speeches and interviews, and a personal library of four to five thousand volumes, including collections on theology (Islam, Christianity and Judaism), international law, U.S. foreign policy, world history, and philosophy. The quality of his output was of such high standard that some of his works were translated into 16 languages including English, Arabic, French, Spanish, German, and Russian. No doubt, his prodigious knowledge, memory, and vast archive gave him a crucial edge: “Fayez was famous for citing, by heart, paragraphs of given UN resolutions, dates of issuance, and books with page numbers. He kept excellent archives of his own cross references long before the computers became popular.”11
Second, Sayegh established an international reputation as a masterful speaker and debater. His thoroughness, incisiveness, brilliant analysis, and ability to present logical and coordinated arguments in a pleasing manner were phenomenal. He spoke with vigor and adroitness and seemed to have a politician’s sense of the right phrase at the propitious moment. One could describe him as a “natural born speaker” whose eloquence and simplicity embodied the power of the spoken word and who exemplified that rhetoric can be used to both reflect and shape reality.
Sayegh developed and perfected his oratory skills during his involvement with the SSNP. He was fond of choosing simple, direct words to convey his meaning and he usually spoke with the objective of persuading his audience. Indeed, his power of persuasion was often decisive in steering the views of the majority in his direction. He even swayed the hard-hitting “Jewish” television presenter, Mike Wallace,12 to a Palestinian perspective at the height of Zionist influence in the U.S. During an appearance on “Larry King Live”, Wallace made a startling confession when King asked him whether it was tough for a Jewish reporter to be objective about Israel:
Wallace: It shouldn’t be if you’re a professional reporter… I was fortunate enough as a young, much younger reporter back in the 50s, I met a man by the name of Fayez Sayegh who was a Palestinian, and he was really a Palestinian to his roots, and he helped to let the scales fall from my eyes about the relationship between Palestinians and Israelis, between Arabs and Jews. And you take on quite a chore when you go against your own religion, go against what you learn, what I learned from my folks growing up, but if you are a professional reporter, you do it.13
Wallace provided a little more detail about this “Palestinian” who “helped to let the scales from my eyes” in his 1984 memoir Close Encounters. Co-written with Gary Paul Gates, the book alternated between Wallace’s first-person reminiscences and Gates’s third-person narrative. Gates wrote about the evolution of Wallace’s thinking and Sayegh’s lasting influence on it:
As a Jew growing up in America, [Wallace] had been taught to believe that the gospel according to Israel was almost as sacred as the Torah itself. Yet the more deeply he delved into the savage desert politics of the Middle East, the more he came to recognize that the Israeli view of the region’s past, present and future was not the only defensible position.
This shift to a more balanced perception of Israel’s historic dispute with its Arab neighbors was gradual and evolved over many years. During that time, Wallace made a dozen or so trips to the Middle East, where he interviewed almost every major leader... But no interview on the subject was more important, in terms of its effect on Wallace’s own thinking, than one he conducted in New York back in 1957. For that was his first serious encounter with a spokesman for the Palestinian cause, and it left an enduring impression on him.
The individual who impressed him so greatly was an Arab scholar named Fayez Sayegh whom Wallace had first met when he was a guest on [Wallace’s program] “Night Beat” ... Wallace was so impressed and stimulated by Sayegh that he invited him home to dinner the following week: a social courtesy he seldom extended to guests on the program. The two men talked for several hours that night, first over dinner and then over coffee. To be more accurate, Wallace listened as Sayegh elaborated on the tragic dilemma of the Middle East from a Palestinian point of view.14
In 1967, an exchange on television with the sharp Zionist TV host David Susskind established Sayegh as a masterful debater. His “encyclopedic knowledge of the Middle East, his marvelous facility in English and his passionate honesty left the cocksure Susskind at a loss for words.”15 Susskind found it impossible to provoke Sayegh and was surprised by Sayegh’s calm and logical presentation. As As’ad Abu Khalil pithily put it, “He presented his case with the precision of a jeweler”.16 The following excerpts from that interview will suffice:
David Suskind: What effective role can the U.N. play, finally, in the Arab-Israeli issue?
Fayez Sayegh: Well, let’s not forget that it was the role of the United Nations, to begin with, that created the present troubles in the Middle East, by recommending the establishment of a Jewish state on what was Arab Palestine—or, on a portion of what was Arab Palestine. So we feel that if the United Nations can be effective for ill, it certainly should be able to be effective for good....
DS: How do you think you’ve fared so far, compared to the Israeli presentation at the U.N. [regarding the Six-Day War]?
FS: The United Nations system represents a progressive concept of world order which, until 22 years ago, was still a dream in the minds of many people. Under this system, no state can take arms against another state, invade its territory, occupy its land, and retain that land. Therefore, under this system, which is the only hope of mankind today, what the Arabs are demanding, that Israel withdraw unconditionally from Arab territory occupied by force, is, far from being an irrational demand, the only rational demand, and the only demand consistent with a system of law and order, which can give this world any peace, and any hope of peace.
DS: Is it your contention that Israel commenced war against the Arab countries?
FS: It is not even the contention of Israel that it did not, sir. Israel certainly sent its Air Force across the demarcation lines and the borders, into Arab air bases, and at a time when Arabs were being told by the United States, by France, and by the Soviet Union, “As long as you do not invade Israel, don’t worry about Israel invading you.” And the Arabs were assuring these great powers that we shall not invade first...
DS: Dr. Sayegh, why will the Arab countries refuse to sit down, at this p
oint, with Israel to negotiate peace?...
FS: For the simple reason that, when Israel asks for negotiation, it says it wants to negotiate with the Arab states. It so happens that the party primarily responsible for discussing the fate of that area is the people of Palestine. We, in Kuwait, Syria, the UAR, Iraq, all the Arab states, have no right to dispose of a portion of Palestinian territory. It is up to the Palestinians to decide what they agree to and what they do not agree to, by way of ultimate disposition of their land. Israel wants to negotiate with non-parties, rather than with the party to the problem.
Secondly, by saying, “let us negotiate directly,” Israel is saying—in a whisper—“keep the United Nations out of the picture”. This is the virtual implication of the demand for direct negotiations: the ouster of the United Nations, the blockage of the way of the United Nations to intervene.
Now, let me remind you, the United Nations has been responsible for the creation of every stage in the evolution of the Palestine problem, from 1947 until today. Israel cannot, having benefited from a partial implementation of U.N. recommendations in the past, having benefited from U.N. actions, and from U.N. inaction, Israel cannot now say, “Let the U.N. stand out of the picture; I want to deal directly with the Arab states”. It cannot at one time say, “The whole problem should be decided upon by the U.N.”, and then, at another stage, say, “The U.N. has no say in the matter.”...
Now, you say we refuse to recognize Israel. Yes, we refuse to recognize Israel because the Israel you are speaking about is an act of usurpation of an Arab territory, and Arab land; an act of ouster of an Arab population. Every Israeli who is in Israel today is living in the home of an Arab who has not been compensated for his property. Every Israeli who is in Israel today is there because an Arab has been ousted. Israel is, because Palestine has been made not to be. The being of Israel is the non-being of Palestine. We do not endorse the non-being of an Arab country called Palestine. We will not recognize Israel as long as that means non-recognition of Arab Palestine. ...
