The New Zealand Herald AUCKLAND, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1943 ARAB WORLD ASTIR

New Zealand Herald, Volume 80, Issue 24747, 22 November 1943, Page 2

The New Zealand Herald AUCKLAND, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1943 ARAB WORLD ASTIR

The crisis in the Lebanon is lasting too long. Optimistic reports that the situation was calm, and that it gave no cause for alarm, have been directly denied by Mr. R. G. Casey, who says that it has not relaxed in any way, but remains serious. If the Lebanon alone, or only Syria and the Lebanon, were involved, it would be bad enough, for they are important, strategically, to the United Nations. That the ultimate effects reach much further has been proved by voices from far off India, from Turkey and from Egypt. It has been reported that Ibn Saud, supreme in the Moslem holy of holies, Mecca, has spoken also on behalf of the Lebanese, though this has not yet been confirmed. Moslem India is not too remote from the scene to be discounted. The bond of a common faith is powerful throughout Islam, and sectarian or national differences can temporarily be forgotten if the cry of the Crescent versus the Cross is raised. Because they thought Turkey was being oppressed by the western Powers after the last war, the Indian Moslems grew restive and at least a section of them even made common cause with the Hindus against the British Raj. These are not the times for anything like that to be risked in India, nor can the Allies afford to have suspicion and resentment grow in the Arab world. It may continue to do so if a settlement is not speedily made in the Lebanon. It must be a just settlement, but it need not be an all-in surrender to the Lebanese. If the French have any measure of right on their side, it can safely be asserted, for the Arabs recognise and respect justice. The one thing to be avoided at all costs is temporising, with the risk of relations between the two peoples going from bad to worse. Feeling in favour of Arab independence and Arab unity rides high at present. The cause of Syria and of the Arabs of Palestine draws support from all other parts of the Near East and the Middle East. The Arabs have never shown great capacity for unity, but when Arab feeling is affronted by occurrences such as those in the Lebanon the sense of nationalism temporarily transcends some of the historic divisions among sections of the Arab people. Ibn Saud by his exploits in the years following the last war, as well as by his possession of Mecca and Medina, is an outstanding figure in Islam. He and his Wahabi followers, strict in their Moslem puritanism, tend because of it to stand alone among their coreligionists. In spite of that tendency to isolationism Ibn Saud not many months ago made a direct and strong statement on the side of the Palestinian Arabs. At the same time he expressed the belief that after the war "the Arabs will realise their union with the help of the Allies." He seemed, in so saying, to have temporarily forgotten his suspicion that some of the proposals for unity —notably that embracing Syria, the Lebanon, Palestine and Transjordan —might mean a growth in the power of his great rival and former enemy, the Feisal family. At the opposite pole from Saudi Arabia and the Wahabi stand the Senussi of Cyrenaica. They, too, in the past, have stood apart as fanatical Moslem puritans. The fact has not prevented them from gaining the support of their fellow-Arabs in their demand that they should not again be made subject to Italy.

Concentration on the task of winning the war should not, indeed must not, allow the significance of these stirrings and movements among the Arab nations to be overlooked. If political unity and independence are achieved, they will hold one of the world's most vital strategic areas —vital in peace and in war. Originally the historic land bridge between Europe, Africa and Asia, cutting of the Suez Canal made it a flank of an equally important sea route. Developing air transport before the war used it as an essential link in a chain of communications running not only to Asia but far beyond—in the ultimate stretching out even to New Zealand. The Arabs, however closely united, cannot hold this great territory unaided. They recognise the fact themselves. It is implicit in Ibn Saud's phrase about achieving union "with the aid of the Allies." That aid presupposes goodwill on both sides. Malign influences worked long and hard before the war and in some places are still working, to foster ill-will, especially against Britain. If the chance occurs again, other efforts to create trouble will he made. The best insurance against them is to deal with grievances, grant just demands, cultivate friendship and confidence. That is why, on the long as well as the short view, such happenings as that in the Lebanon are dangerous, and why no effort should be spared to arrive at a speedy and just settlement.