Jan 24, 2020
Diplomacy: Sykes-Picot and The Arab States League, A Diachronic Historical Perspective
How an agreement concluded 103 years ago changed the history of a region forever.
The Sykes-Picot agreement and the creation of the League of Arab States belong to different historical periods and reflect different political outlooks. The areas of the world hosting the social and political developments of these affairs possessing crucial diplomatic momentum are, indeed, relatable. The aim of this work is to provide hints on similarities and differences related to the places and the continuity of History to which the two documents relate, with a focus on the issue of sovereignty in the Middle East and the Israeli question across the early half of the 20th century and later.
In the first place, the Sykes-Picot was not foreseen to produce an influence over the totality of the MENA region, to which, instead, the League of Arab Stets relates. Their consequences are tied together and can help us understanding uprisings and conflicts that changed the history of the area.
After the Ottomans
The Ottoman rule over the territory was doomed. English and French foreign policy officers Sykes and Picot came to terms, but it is relevant to highlight that any of the autochthone leaders had not been invited to the negotiations. The division of the Middle East by drawing a line on a map was set to sparkle a series of contradictions and problems. Possibly, the main friction may appear when analyzing the terms of the Paris Conference. As expressed in Robert Gerwarth’s work “The Vanquished, why the First World War failed to end, 1917–1923”, Wilson’s appeal to ensure self-determination to peoples apparently failed to apply for this particular case. Self-determination and full sovereignty are different, but possibly consequential concepts: some view the first principle as a prerequisite of the latter. It might be difficult to foresee functioning institutions and stability in territories still under “protectorates”, in which those institutions are, by different degrees, established by foreign powers and, as a consequence, deprived, partially or totally, of popular approval and legitimacy.
Furthermore, as it happened in the case of Italy’s “vittoria mutilata”, the feeling that the efforts and the loss of life devolved to war had not been rewarded is relevant to this case. This had been, in some specific contexts, embittered by the subsequent Balfour Declaration: the vicissitude of the Sharif of Mecca, Hussein bin Ali al-Hashimi, who had been promised territories and who had been participating in eradicating the Ottoman presence in the North of nowadays Saudi Arabia, is part of this story. European powers missed the chance to fulfill their promises they contracted with this prominent personality of the Hashemite descent.
It is indeed the rediscovery of common cultural patterns, probably in part triggered by an excessive presence exerted by Western powers where the latter enjoy a low degree of legitimation, that leads consequently to the need of strengthening cooperation through Arab countries.
In this view, the Sykes-Picot agreement -or better, its consequences on regional politics- is apparently linked to the growth of Arabic nationalist movements whose main issue was to end Western rule over their territories and ensure sovereignty to Arab people. Interestingly, as stated previously, the ideals of a united cultural community which struggles to gain sovereignty were shared all across the MENA region, providing fertile ground for the establishment of regional unions. Meanwhile, the attitude of England towards the Arab countries had mutated: at that particular point, in the early 40’s, foreign policy was aimed at ensuring alliances in the struggle against Nazism. A reference included in the “Arab League declaration on the invasion of Palestine” –a later document relating to the invasion of Palestine the day after Israel was created in 1948 affirms:
«England reassured them (the Arab States) by affirming […] that this would not prejudice the right of their countries to freedom and independence or affect the political status of the Arabs in Palestine»
Nationalism and the Start of a New Alliance
From this ideological background, the League of Arab States came to life on March 22, 1945 in Cairo, Egypt. It is to notice that the member states of the League are not located in the Middle East in their totality: several North African countries joined across the years, providing complete regional effectiveness over the MENA. The motives and ideals of the counter reaction to Sykes-Picot were, indeed, shared in a similar manner over the Suez Canal and across North African countries.
In this context of strengthening of Arabic cooperation and Nationalism, the Jewish question gains importance. How did the administration of Jewish-inhabited area change and how did Israel insert itself in this context when it came to life in 1948? As a matter of fact, some historians find an instrumental consistency between the Sykes-Picot agreement and the Yalta Conference: both were a set of accords, concluded in wartime, to settle matters regarding post-war period and avoid a possible later conflict arising from colliding claims. However, the position of the two contracting parties on the Jewish settlements and Zionism had not been clarified. In fact, the region matching with today’s Israel and Palestine had been divided in several areas to satisfy the claims of every actor, with France exerting influence on the Galilee zone. British influence would focus on Haifa, a city lying on the Mediterranean possessing a potentially crucial harbor for exchanges. Furthermore, a considerable portion of nowadays’ state of Israel was disposed to be influenced under International control –an area hosting pivotal urban centers such as Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
Chaim Weizmann, a Zionist prominent leader who will serve as the first President of Israel, moved criticism towards the agreement’s administrative divisions defining Israel as a “child […] cut in two and both halves mutilated”. Subsequently, Weizmann’s effort in promoting the drafting of the Balfour Declaration and the success in obtaining the support of the English government marked a shift towards the settlement of a formal Jewish state in the region.
From the layouts deriving from the Sykes-Picot agreement and the Balfour Declaration, the state of Israel comes into existence in an area of cohabitation of peoples. Hence, the League of Arab States strongly boycotted, in a first stance through economic means, the new-born Jewish state. The juxtaposition between the Arab League and Israel had not been expressed only via economic means; the League of Arab states plays a crucial role in the long-lasting and complex Arab-Israeli conflict, sparkled in 1948.
The Pact of the League of Arab States formulated in Cairo in 1945 recognizes Palestine as a special party to the treaty by stating that:
“The States signatory to the Pact of the Arab League consider that, in view of Palestine’s special circumstances, the Council of the League should designate an Arab delegate from Palestine to participate in its work until this country enjoys actual independence”.
Then, it recognized the Arab Higher Committee as the veritable and formal supreme executive body of Palestine. From this point the opposition to the state of Israel is unleashed, which will be translated into military means starting from May 15, 1948 –the day after Israel was formally established. It occurred that the then seven member states of the organization agreed on the coordination of a joint military operation against Israel. Some historians find of a discrete importance to this context the claim included in a cablegram from the Secretary General of the League to the UN Secretary General.
This particular document states that:
the Arab States recognize that the independence and sovereignty of Palestine, which was so far subject to the British Mandate, has now, with the termination of the Mandate, become established in fact, and maintain that the lawful inhabitants of Palestine are alone competent and entitled to set up an administration in Palestine.
To conclude, it has been analyzed how these two events give rise to consequential historical developments. This is relevant for the case of Zionist claims and Israel and also for the Arab counterpart, starting a wave of cultural nationalism that flourished in cooperation through the settlement of the League of Arab States.
