Journal Article

The Arab League's Propaganda Campaign in the US Against the Establishment of a Jewish State (1944–1947)

Rickenbacher, Daniel

2020

Overview

In 1944, the Arab League started planning a propaganda offensive in Western countries to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. The League's focus of attention was the United States, where, members believed, Palestine's future would eventually be decided and where they deemed it imperative to counter the Zionist campaign. In 1945 and 1946, it opened offices in Washington, D.C. and New York. The efficiency of these offices in undermining support for Zionism in the US was, however, hampered by infighting between Musa Alami, head of the Arab Offices, and the leader of the Palestinian national movement Amin al-Husseini. When the British relegated the Palestine Question to the UN, the Arab League and the Arab Higher Committee (AHC) were therefore ill-prepared to meet the challenge. Omar Haliq, a member of the anti-Zionist Institute of Arab-American Affairs (IAAA), devised a strategy to mobilize Catholic anti-Semitism in Latin America and Europe for their cause. As a result of these recommendations, in April 1947, the AHC sent a team of senior members, many of them experienced in the field of propaganda, to the US. Moreover, a special committee staffed by the Arab representatives at the UN and functionaries of the AHC was set up to organize a propaganda campaign focusing on South America. The strategy, however, was not successful. Most of Latin America and Catholic Europe voted for UN resolution 181 on November 29, 1947, at the UN session in Lake Success. The article explores the strategy of the Arab League in its propaganda campaign in the US, its Arab Office activities and its actions in 1947, which aimed at preventing the establishment of a Jewish state by the UN. It further discusses why these efforts failed. It is based on records of the Arab League, the Jewish Agency, the British Foreign Office and the Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League located in US, British and Israeli archives and on documents left by the actors themselves.

• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Subject: Alami, Musa al / Anti-Nazi movements / Antisemitism / Arab people / Campaigns / Catholics / Committees / Hitti, Philip K / Hourani, Cecil / Jewish people / Planning / Propaganda / Sectarianism / Special Section: 70 Years of Israel and the UN / Strategies / Studies / Teams / Zionism / Zurayk, Constantine K