Dialogues in Arab Politics: Sovereignty and Statism, 1967

Dialogues in Arab Politics: Negotiations in Regional Order

Michael N. Barnett

Fall 1998

6. Sovereignty and Statism, 1967–1990

The June war delivered a defeat that only millennialists would have predicted—in six days Israel captured Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan, the Sinai from Egypt, and the Golan Heights from Syria. The residues of the defeat, many of which would become clearer and more dramatic with time, were public, undeniable, and touched nearly all who were in any way associated with it. Even before the war had formally ended on June 10, Nasser announced his resignation and took full responsibility. But he returned to power after throngs of Egyptians coaxed him back, unwilling to have the Israelis claim another casualty of the war. Yet there was no hiding his devastation. “I can’t forget what I went through during the first few days after the war in June,” Nasser would later recall. “There is no doubt that what happened in 1967 has affected us all psychologically, morally, and materially.” ₁ Conservative and radical leaders alike were humiliated; those who participated and those who sat on the sidelines shared in the blame and suffered the repercussions.

One immediate consequence was a new period of malaise, self-criticism, and self-doubt. ₂ The Moroccan historian Abdullah Laroui and the Syrian scholar Sadeq al-Azm found in the defeat lessons for where Arab society had gone wrong and places for the possibility of renewal. For some the road had led to defeat because Arab states and societies were not radical enough—they had made too many compromises along the way. In Egypt a student movement appeared to challenge the government’s credentials. The Palestinians became radicalized, and various factions, most notably George Habash’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, came to the fore; many Arabs now viewed the Palestinians as the potential vanguard of the revolution, or at least the embodiment of Arab nationalism. For others the radicals were now on trial and the jury was Islam: the road to ruin had been paved by secularism, because Arab-Islamic societies had turned their backs on tradition and religion. Islamist movements, on the defensive in the region since the imposition of the mandate system, began to reassert themselves in political life. The defeat caused one and all to rethink the past, present, and future.

The 1967 Arab-Israeli War inaugurated a new chapter in the debate about the desired regional order; the debate was shaped by the decline of Arabism and the faint beat of statism. Arabism quickly became a whipping boy for the defeat. And not without good reason. Arab leaders taunted and challenged each other in the name of Arab nationalism as they beat a path toward war. Against his better judgment, all military estimates, and the belief that Syria’s Arabism would lead nowhere good, Nasser undertook a series of actions that he knew risked an unwanted war. All in the name of Arabism. Fearing that he had more to lose by standing on the sidelines than by declaring war on Israel, King Hussein had flown to Cairo on the eve of war to announce his stand with Nasser and to sign a joint defense treaty. All in the name of Arabism. And Syria could be blamed for having begun the miserable episode by intentionally and publicly embarrassing Nasser by challenging his credentials. All in the name of Arabism. Arabism spurred Arab leaders to engage in escalating actions that they believed were militarily foolish but politically expedient, outbid one another to the point of an unwanted war, and divert resources from the Arab-Israeli conflict and toward inter-Arab feuds. “For the first time, Arab leadership suddenly ceased to be a plausible ambition,” wrote Malcolm Kerr. “There could hardly be competition for prestige when there was no prestige remaining. The old ideological conflicts had lost their meaning.” ₃

Yet if fingers were pointed in Arabism’s direction, it was because many had already tired of it. By the mid-1960s pan-Arabism had lost its luster. The UAR had failed, the unification talks between Syria, Iraq, and Egypt had concluded unsuccessfully, and the various military and political agreements between these and other Arab states had come to naught. Nasser already had concluded that although Arab leadership remained a worthy cause, he would no longer champion unification. Arab societies had grown weary of these staged unity talks and moribund decrees, identifying Arabism’s principal accomplishments as propaganda wars and failed unity efforts. The 1967 war was only the latest and most ruinous reminder that Arabism’s promise outstripped its payoff.

Two long-term developments reinforced the verdict in favor of a more conservative orientation. The first was the regional shift in power from ideology to oil, from symbolic capital to economic capital, from the Mashreq and the heart of Arab nationalism to the Arabian Gulf and the periphery of Arab politics. Beginning soon after 1967 and solidifying after 1973, the era of revolutionaries became the era of petrodollars, famously described by Mohamed Heikal as the change from thawra [revolution] to tharwa [riches]. ₄ Oilmen like King Faysal had replaced revolutionaries like Gamal Abdel Nasser as the region’s celebrated figures. The Gulf Arabs, who had never been as invested in Arab nationalism, supported a more statist environment and were willing to pay handsomely for it. Within a few years “the rhetoric and revolutionary nationalism of the 1950s and 1960s began to sound peculiarly out of place in the more pragmatic and businesslike atmosphere of the 1970s.” ₅

The second factor that encouraged a more conservative orientation was the growth of territorial nationalism and the growing identification of citizens with their states. The constant feuding between Arab states, the failure of the UAR and the unity talks of 1963, and the 1967 war encouraged citizens, however reluctantly and halfheartedly, to transfer their loyalties, if not simply to resign themselves, to the territorial state. Such developments combined with and reinforced ongoing state-building projects intended to increase the loyalties of societies to the state and by association to the regime in power. The surprise of the post-1967 period was the longevity of many Arab regimes and the decline of unification attempts, suggesting and reflecting the ascendance of the Arab territorial state, not only because of coercion but also some semblance of legitimacy. ₆ The failures of pan-Arabism and infighting among the Arab states had undermined the cause of Arabism, but the 1967 war, the rise of the Arab oil states, and the relative accomplishments of state formation projects buried it deeper.

Yet Arabism did not quite disappear. Some scholars and practitioners tend to declare the 1967 war Arabism’s Waterloo. But such claims are misleading on two counts. Unification had already dropped off the political agenda by 1964; few treaties or associations established between 1964 and 1967 were draped in unification’s clothing. Also, Arabism did not disappear but became defined by and expressed through the Arab-Israeli conflict. In the past, radical and conservative Arab states had been defined by their stance toward Sykes-Picot Agreement that had created the territorial divisions in the Arab world, and by their stance toward the West, but beginning in the mid-1960s those labels increasingly depended on where they stood toward Israel. Arabism still shaped how Arab states were expected to present themselves, represented a source of symbolic capital, subjected them to Arab public opinion, and held them accountable to each other, but such processes came to rest almost exclusively on the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The defining feature of the post-1967 debate concerned how Arab states should deal with the Arab-Israeli conflict. Unilaterally or collectively? Diplomatically or militarily? Piecemeal or through comprehensive solutions? Some defined Arabism as a collective, confrontational, and comprehensive approach; for others it accommodated a more flexible and supple set of practices. How far could the meaning of Arabism be stretched? What was permissible, desirable, and acceptable? After the 1967 war the Arab states quickly answered these questions with the infamous “three no’s”—no negotiations, no recognition, and no peace with Israel—but reopened the debate with force and consequence after 1973 as Egypt continually tested and pushed the normative expectations of Arabism as it pertained to the Arab states’ relations with Israel. With each step on the road to its peace treaty with Israel, Egyptian president Anwar Sadat continuously attempted to redefine the meaning of Arabism, and Syria and other Arab states fought him every step of the way. To be sure, how these Arab governments attempted to define and redefine the norms of Arabism was connected to their various interests, but which definition won out was not wholly dependent on their material power. Egypt found itself expelled from the Arab family, and the Arab Gulf states could do little to halt an outcome they generally wanted to avoid.

These dialogues directly contributed to a splintering of the ranks. A defining theme of the post-1967 period is the relationship between the Arab-Israeli conflict and the normative fragmentation of Arab politics. My account of the peace process, then, will not recount its details, “missed opportunities,” or how Arab and Israeli bargaining styles and negotiating principles made a complicated and highly conflictual issue even more intractable and frustrating. Instead, I will focus on how the Arab states’ debate about the peace process shaped the organization of Arab politics. Once Arabism became defined by the Arab-Israeli conflict, any breaking from the ranks became a threat to the very meaning of Arabism and the ties that bind. This was the threat represented by Sadat and Camp David. He insisted on negotiating with Israel with the Arab states’ blessing, but that could happen only if the meaning of Arab nationalism was weakened to accommodate Egyptian national interests and to leave Egypt less accountable to other Arab states. He was successful in that quest—until Camp David. Although the Arab states responded to Camp David with a show of solidarity, this was only a show, and backstage they were engaged in infighting that questioned the foundations of Arab politics. Of course, other factors contributed to the growing fragmentation in Arab politics—after all, transformations of this sort are rarely the result of any single force—but the dialogues about the norms governing the confrontation with Israel were critical.

Khartoum and the Consecration of Sovereignty

The surest sign of the magnitude of the defeat was the collective silence of Arab leaders in the days following the 1967 war. Perhaps they were in collective mourning or simply too shellshocked to offer much of an explanation for recent events and chart a course for redemption. But as some began to sift through the damage and contemplate their next moves, they instinctively called for an Arab summit, demanding that the Arab states gather in some dramatic setting and make bold proclamations concerning the future. Nasser, among others, was cool to the idea, suggesting that conditions were not right. The failure to convene a summit then produced its own set of commentaries and interpretations. Bourguiba of Tunisia noted that the Soviets and the Americans had set aside their ideological differences to defeat Germany in World War II, so why could the Arab states not do the same? ₇ Egypt’s Mohamed Heikal observed that Israel, itself a product of mixed socioeconomic, ethnic, and national heritages, had managed to organize itself into a powerful military machine, and he raised the possibility that a failure to produce a unified Arab stand portended a deterioration of the Arab nation and perhaps even an Arab “civil war.” ₈ How is it, asked many, that the Arab states could not even convene a summit? And, if they could not perform this simple task, how would they ever coordinate their military policies? What was the meaning of Arabism in such circumstances?

Arab governments could not give a perfunctory performance because they first needed to resolve some basic differences among themselves. As embarrassing as the failure to convene a summit was, far worse would be to hold a meeting that only telescoped their animosities. The core of their divisions concerned the relationship between their past troubles and the causes of the defeat; to offer a diagnosis of how inter-Arab relations had created the conditions for the 1967 war was to offer a prescription for how inter-Arab relations should be organized to overcome the Israeli challenge. Because how Arab states had related to each other was responsible for the defeat, a new phase in the conflict that would lead to a better result required a new relationship among Arab states.

But this new relationship was premised on converging on a meaning of Arab unity. This was the debate during the summer of 1967. Iraq and Syria proposed that the reason for the defeat was a lack of unity, which they defined as integration. Iraq, for instance, called for the “organizational nonconstitutional unity among the Arab states,” including a unified military and common foreign policy. ₉ Syria labeled the 1967 war a “setback” and intimated that victory was premised on greater radicalism. ₁₀ For Syria and Iraq, then, integrating the Arab ranks was the surest and fastest way to reverse the results of June.

Cairo, once willing to match Iraq and Syria word for word, hinted that it had little time for such bidding and began to offer an interpretation of the past and the future that more closely resembled its pre-1955 statements and the positions espoused by the conservative Arab states—a change directly attributable to the 1967 war. In the context of discussing how to convene the long-awaited Arab summit meeting and prepare for war with Israel, Mohamed Heikal wrote that the first principle was to relegate “social differences to the past or the future.” ₁₁ The subtext was that Nasser was no longer interested in exporting his revolution and was prepared to cooperate with all Arab states as equals. Communiqués and government-influenced editorials signaled that Cairo was retreating from its recent views on Arab nationalism and embracing a more modest and Israel-centered interpretation.

Egypt’s change of doctrine was certainly influenced by the shocking outcome of the war. Nasser left little doubt that scarce resources had to be channeled toward recovering the Sinai and not toward harassing the conservative Arab states. For Nasser, according to Tahseen Bashir, the Khartoum conference became the moment of the new realism, the ascendance of realpolitik over ideology, a commitment to the status quo rather than to revolution. ₁₂ Nasser vowed that his goal was to regain Egyptian—and not Arab—territories. ₁₃ Although Egypt shared with Syria and Iraq an understanding that reversing the outcome of the war required a reorganization of Arab politics, Nasser was proposing their separation whereas they were demanding integration.

Jordan and Saudi Arabia insisted that a successful confrontation of Israel was premised on inter-Arab “cooperation,” that is, recognizing the legitimacy of each other’s states. Feeling that he had atoned for his past sins because he had stood alongside Egypt and Syria and paid the heaviest price of the three, Hussein confidently took a more assertive role in Arab politics and insisted that, first, the failed promise of unification was responsible for the current mess and, second, that Arab states needed not integration but “coordination.” However, coordination was possible only if Arab leaders recognized the principle of coexistence, the existence of different “experiments” in the Arab world. ₁₄ The Jordanian newspaper Al-Dustur reflected: “Co-existence is a need which we must recognize at the present stage. An attempt to force others to adopt a certain system would . . . eventually divide the Arab ranks.” ₁₅ The Egyptian reaction was different than in the past; now Cairo was echoing a similar theme of coexistence—and Amman wasted little time in giving Cairo positive reinforcement. ₁₆

Saudi Arabia too had been subjected to Nasser’s Arabism in Yemen and made it clear that any hope of cooperating on the Arab-Israeli front was premised on resolving the Yemen war. But the war was not just an interstate struggle. It also symbolized the divisions in the Arab world and the fight over the Arab order. Saudi Arabia made its attendance at any summit contingent on ending the war in Yemen—Egypt and Saudi Arabia would have to agree on some new principles for Arab politics, and throughout the summer they attempted to negotiate a solution. ₁₇ In general, a long-standing goal of both Jordan and Saudi Arabia was to see an interpretation of Arabism that was consistent with sovereignty accepted by the Arab states, and Egypt was now among the converted.

The military defeat had unleashed a regional debate about the meaning of Arabism, and the summer-long air clearing and name calling was essential for building a consensus. Now that Arab governments had begun to converge on an understanding of Arab unity, they could meet and consider the relationship between inter-Arab relations and the Arab-Israeli conflict. The first critical meeting came in Khartoum in early August when the Arab foreign ministers met to lay the groundwork for an Arab summit. Sudanese prime minister Muhammad Ahmad Majhub welcomed the gathering by stressing a recurring theme: the need for unity in the ranks and unified action in the shared struggle against Israel regardless of the differences between Arab states. ₁₈ To this end the Arab foreign ministers emphasized the importance of the 1965 summit resolutions, which called on Arab states to cease their propaganda wars and to recognize the principle of noninterference. ₁₉ The Arab states agreed to recognize each other’s sovereignty and the legitimacy of the separate Arab experiments, and they furthered the prospect of cooperation by pledging that they would desist from attempts to destabilize each other from within through their medias.

Having made progress on these critical questions regarding inter-Arab relations, they turned to the matter of Israel. An early item for consideration was the Iraqi proposal to impose an oil embargo on the West for an indefinite period as a way to punish it for its support of Israel and to pressure it to pressure Israel. The other Arab oil-exporting countries dissented from the Iraqi proposal, and Kuwait offered to transfer funds to Syria, Jordan, and Egypt. ₂₀ The Iraqi proposal became the basis for discussions at the Arab oil ministers’ meeting in Baghdad a week later. ₂₁ Saudi Arabia and Kuwait again objected to an oil embargo on the grounds that it would lead only to a loss in revenue and be interpreted by the West as a declaration of war. ₂₂ Unable to reach a decision, the oil ministers left the matter for the Arab leaders to decide. ₂₃ Iraq left the conference sounding the theme of integration and the necessity of economic and political unity, but it was largely alone in advocating this view. ₂₄ Although the Arab states still had important differences of opinion regarding the next steps, they had laid the groundwork for a meeting of their heads of state.

The Arab leaders gathered in dramatic fashion for their long-awaited summit in Khartoum in the last days of August. The first order of business was to achieve a détente between Saudi Arabia and Egypt. A good omen came early when President Nasser and King Faysal embraced each other at their hotel at the beginning of the meeting on August 30, signaling that they would literally and figuratively stop shooting at each other. This they did. By the end of the conference they joyfully announced an agreement to end the Yemen war, an event touted as one of the summit’s crowning achievements.

The agreement on Yemen paved the way for the summit to discuss how to organize the Arab states’ activities for the next round of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The proposal for an oil embargo was the first item considered. According to a participant at Khartoum, Nasser, infuriated and dumbstruck by the proposal, exclaimed: “Who are these foreign ministers? From what countries are they? Do they not realize that we just suffered a major defeat and that we have little time for such foolishness! They are talking as if we had won the war.” ₂₅ By foolishness Nasser meant the tendency of the Arab states to propose flamboyant and dramatic gestures that looked impressive on paper but were impotent in practice; rather than an oil embargo, Nasser offered, think about how the frontline states should repair their militaries to recover the occupied territories. The Iraqi proposal died an ignoble death.

Nasser’s abrupt dismissal of the Iraqi proposal reflected his postwar plans that he calculated required a less restrictive arrangement that was better able to achieve his principal objectives of rebuilding his military and recapturing the Sinai, by force if necessary. Toward that end Nasser had various choices. He rejected a military alliance, or at least an alliance that resembled those of the past. Arab states had a penchant for creating military arrangements that looked great on paper but hardly ever became operational. This was partly by design: many of these alliances had been constructed to control another Arab state’s foreign policy or to keep up appearances. The recent Syrian-Egyptian treaty of 1966 represented Nasser’s unsuccessful attempt to tame Syria’s actions toward Israel; it was not primarily intended to coordinate Egyptian and Syrian military forces. King Hussein flew to Cairo on the eve of the war in order to become part of the Arab consensus and to satisfy his domestic and regional critics; the three countries established no effective mechanisms for coordinating their military forces or sharing intelligence information, which Hussein would later claim was partially responsible for the magnitude of the defeat. These past and recent experiences led Nasser to conclude that to continue down this particular multilateral path was to invite inaction or worse and that he needed Arab leaders’ financial assistance but not their participation in decisions as he prepared to confront the Israelis.

This appraisal of the causes of past failures and what was required for redemption drove the organization of the Arab effort. The Arab states agreed that the frontline states should be compensated for their losses from the 1967 war and helped to rebuild their militaries. Specifically, the Arab oil states established a fund for Egypt and Jordan (Syria was not included in the original compensation package because it refused to attend the summit). Although the Arab states nominally agreed to use the Joint Arab Defense Council, an inter-Arab coordinating body, to mobilize and coordinate the Arab military effort, in fact they emphasized that military development and planning would be left up to the individual countries. ₂₆ In keeping with this initial decision Arab states during the next few years transferred, coordinated, and negotiated most resources on a bilateral rather than a multilateral basis. “We have a sense of unity of purpose,” recalled one observer. “But each country has to rebuild on its own; it must fend for itself.” ₂₇

The other major decision at Khartoum concerned their collective response to the possibility of negotiations with Israel. One hopeful scenario after the war was that it would conclude in much as had the Suez War of 1956: a return to the status quo ante. But Israel would have none of that and was tying its withdrawal to a comprehensive peace and hinting that it might make some territorial modifications in addition to its earlier decision to extend Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem. The Arab states responded to the prospect of a diplomatic, piecemeal, and bilateral settlement with the famous no’s: no negotiations, no recognition, and no peace with Israel. Although some Arab states privately preferred a more flexible document if only to present a more conciliatory image to the watching world, to suggest anything short of this formula left them vulnerable to the charge of “defeatism.” For the time being the Arab states had publicly committed themselves to retrieving the occupied territories at all cost and (rhetorically at least) with no concessions.

What occurred at Khartoum was the birth of a new order, that is, a reconsideration of the relationship between the Arab regional order, the norms of Arabism, and their Arab identities. Arab states determined that their ability to confront Israel was dependent on establishing some new rules of the game. The first order of business therefore was to decide what these rules would be; without much hesitation they agreed to acknowledge and work within the parameters of their separate geographies. The Arab states reiterated that sovereignty was the foundation of the Arab order; now they would tolerate various experiments. No Arab state formally denounced the idea of unification, but its lack of popularity was evident in the insistence of the vast majority of Arab states that recovering land lost to Israel was contingent on recognizing each other’s sovereignty. Nasser withdrew from the cause of radicalism and dedicated himself to the task of retrieving Egyptian land and Arab dignity, symbolically consecrated when he closed down the Sawt al-Arab [Voice of the Arabs] radio broadcasts. The conservative Arab states, which had prayed for this moment for more than a decade, were quite willing to compensate him for doing so.

With unification fading from the Arab agenda the social purpose of the Arab state became more closely defined by the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the Arab national interest became more closely identified with the Zionist threat than ever before. The close connection between the organization of Arab politics and the organization of the Arab-Israeli conflict had been an emergent property of the Arab states system since the beginning of the summit system in 1964, but Khartoum had made the relationship explicit. Throughout the summer of 1967 and in the hallways at Khartoum Arab leaders pressed for a new chapter in the Arab-Israeli conflict that was premised on a new chapter in inter-Arab politics. Although Iraq and Syria proclaimed that this required genuine integration, theirs proved to be the minority voice and lost out to the more prevalent demand for separateness and sovereignty. The new regional order was premised on sovereignty, and Arab nationalism became more nearly defined by the struggle against Zionism.

This new pragmatism was directly related to the types of policies that Arab states entertained to mobilize Arab resources to confront Israel. Arab states defined mobilization as coordination and cooperation—not as integration. Whereas only three years before they had answered the crisis over the Jordan River with the Unified Arab Command, now they hardly discussed military integration. The Iraqi proposal for an oil embargo and Iraq’s desire for political and economic unity were the last gasps of a dying era—unceremoniously dubbed foolishness by Nasser. The mechanisms that Arab states would use to mobilize the war effort reflected a growing impatience with integrated efforts and the growing allure of modest coordinated measures. From the definition of the Arab national interest to the mechanisms they would adopt to pursue that interest, Arab states clearly had negotiated a new regional order.

That Khartoum symbolized the birth of a new order was apparent on the faces of those who gained and those who lost. King Hussein offered that the Arab world was being asked to choose between two roads. The first “was to continue the negative policies which harm us most of all . . . a continuation of the old superficial policy characterized by extemporization . . . whose harmful consequences were exposed and experienced by the people. The second road began with shouldering responsibilities . . . [which] made it incumbent upon them [Arab states] to abandon outbidding.” ₂₈ The Jordanian newspaper Al-Dustur wrote that if the Arab world would “not tolerate the interaction of Arab experiments, we will never progress toward Arab coexistence and will never approach our basic aim—Arab unity.” ₂₉

Others were less happy with the results. Syria knew what was coming and preferred to stay at home rather than bear witness, shouting from afar that the attempt to smooth over differences meant sacrificing Arab nationalism for a new conservatism: “This ‘Arab Solidarity’ in effect means to keep silent about all the abnormal internal conditions faced by the Arab people in some Arab countries. It also means to keep quiet about the suppression of every progressive voice.” ₃₀ Iraq lamented the new “realism” and “unity of ranks.” President Abd al-Rahman Aref chided the conference for failing to address directly the issue of military integration or military action, give a full hearing to his proposal to reorganize the Arab military command, and consider the issue of economic integration. ₃₁ Others also wrote of Khartoum as a selling out of Arab nationalism, as signaling the victory of conservativism over radicalism in Arab politics.

The new conservatism was shaped by Arab governments that were attempting to connect their various interests, the norms of Arabism, and the desired regional order in the context of their plans to reverse the outcome of the 1967 war. The conservative Arab states portrayed the war as the tragic result of inter-Arab rivalries and the unwillingness of the radical states to accept the legitimacy of different Arab experiments. Arab nationalism, they argued, was premised on mutual recognition of each other’s sovereignty and protecting the Arab nation from the Zionist threat; honoring the former was necessary for furthering the latter. Of course, this position was related to their own interest in regime survival. For more than a decade they had attempted to use sovereignty as a normative shield against Nasser and transnational Arabism, and the 1967 war gave their position a more favorable hearing because of the growing conviction that the radical states’ version of Arab nationalism was partially responsible for the disastrous loss. And so they argued with greater assertiveness for coexistence, less fearful that their position would be successfully framed as reactionary politics and more confident that it would be received as the proper path for confronting Israel. The military loss to Israel became the fodder for a normative victory against the radical Arab agenda.

Nasser adopted a more conservative orientation and supported the view that cooperation among all the Arab states was necessary for preparing for the next phase of the Arab-Israeli conflict. To be sure, Nasser’s willingness to defend an order that he had recently savaged was connected to his conception of his, Egypt’s, and the Arab national interests at the time. The 1967 war had been a profoundly demoralizing and dispiriting debacle, and Nasser was ready to do all he could to recoup his prestige, Egyptian land, and Arab dignity. If this meant forging a détente with the conservative Arab states and accepting their subsidies, so be it. His former radical allies chastised him for his choice of friends and for trying to bury a movement that once bore his name. This seemed a small price to pay, given the circumstances and the historic task at hand.

But Nasser’s newfound orientation was not so new. He had begun to break from the radical camp a few years before, had devised the summit system for that purpose, and then was tempted back against his better judgment but with the hope of maintaining his status and taming a potentially renegade Syria. He spent the months before the June war fearful that Syria was dragging the Arab states into an unwanted war with Israel and constantly worrying how he would avoid that outcome without soiling his credentials. A process that he hoped to control soon controlled him, and he found himself going down a dangerous path because of Syria’s symbolic sanctions and his symbolic entrapment. This was not an unfamiliar dynamic; after all, the destructiveness of symbolic competition was the featured outcome of the establishment of the UAR and other episodes that were masked as cooperation among radical Arab states. Now in the aftermath of the war Nasser gazed at the Israeli army on the other side of the Suez and concluded decisively that Arabism had bred self-destructive outbidding and therefore could be partly blamed for the defeat.

Nasser, far from disavowing the Arab nationalist movement with which he was so closely identified, helped to legitimate a more conservative meaning that could better accommodate his current plans. This more conservative orientation was quite familiar to him for he had originally espoused it in the early 1950s, only to renounce it later that decade in favor of a more radical orientation that brought him some prestige but also considerable suffering. But he still had to connect this conservative meaning to the times and to have these norms of Arabism legitimated collectively by his own society and other Arab states. Few obstacles obstructed him. Nasser was nearly beyond the ideological criticisms that might have wounded other Arab leaders. But equally important was that his arguments resonated with the times. Egyptian society generally accepted Nasser’s new orientation because it was determined to reverse the Israeli occupation and had traditionally maintained a more state-centered understanding of Arab nationalism, which the events of recent years had reinforced. ₃₂ And he received few arguments from other Arab leaders, most of whom either had little taste for radical causes or believed that the spirit of radicalism should be directed at Israel and not at each other. The Arab governments negotiated a regional order that tied together regime interests, the norms of Arabism, and the confrontation with Israel.

But Arabism continued to place limits on what Arab states contemplated or considered to be politically viable. As Arab leaders debated what the contours of the post-1967 order should be, they referred to a moral order that both defined their goals and constrained what was possible. Fouad Ajami nicely concluded: “Few struggles for power are ever waged without pretensions to ideological or normative stakes. The protagonists drag ideas into the game both because they take the ideas seriously and because they wish to invest their quest with moral worth and to provide a cover for what otherwise would seen to be narrow and selfish goals.” ₃₃ Although this order was shaped by regime interests, it was still defined by Arabism. Arabism shaped the interests of Arab states and the means that they would contemplate or calculate as politically feasible for pursuing those interests. Arabism, after all, continued to define Israel as a threat and continued to orient Arab states in a similar direction. An order that embraced a severe individualism, that allowed Arab states to negotiate a separate deal with Israel, was not even considered; to forward such an order would have been labeled defeatist, illegitimate, and blasphemous. Nasser refused an Israeli offer to return the whole of the Sinai in exchange for a peace agreement. ₃₄ It was one thing to desist from bludgeoning Arab rivals but quite another to make a unilateral peace with Zionists. The Arab states pledged their three no’s, which constrained their public actions regardless of their private preferences. Although the regional order consecrated at Khartoum was a far cry from the one that they had been debating only a few years earlier, it was still an Arab order. The Arab states filed out of Khartoum claiming that they had established a new Arab order that would allow them to make peace among themselves and war with the Israelis.

Challenges to the Khartoum Order

No political order is ever fully institutionalized, self-regulating, or without need of attention and repair, and this was certainly true of the Khartoum order. Two of its central tenets concerned the socially sanctioned means by which the Arab states could confront Israel and the recognition that the inter-Arab state system was premised on sovereignty or, as viewed by those who opposed Khartoum, conservatism. Both tenets would be challenged during the next few years but defended through symbolic sanctions in the case of the challenge to the three no’s and brute force in the case of the challenge to sovereignty and conservatism.

The three no’s. The Arab states left Khartoum proclaiming the sanctity of the three no’s and repeating Nasser’s slogan of “what was taken by force cannot be retaken but by force.” But the chance remained that an Arab state might defect from this consensus. Soon after the 1967 war and continuing for the next several years various instances of real and rumored conversations involved Arab states and several intermediaries regarding the terms of a potential political settlement; U.N. Resolution 242, a deliberately ambiguous document regarding the possibility of a settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict based on some equation of “land for peace,” usually provided the basis for such discussions.

The War of Attrition of 1969 and 1970 was the pretext for a flurry of diplomatic activity. In March 1969 Nasser commenced a series of military strikes against Israeli positions on the Suez Canal for various strategic, political, and symbolic reasons; soon Israel and Egypt were involved in an escalating cycle that far exceeded the 1967 war in terms of casualties and even involved dogfights between Israel and the Soviet Union, which was playing a greater role in Egyptian defenses. Seizing on what might be an opportunity and fearing a war that might have global implications, the United States began trying to broker a cease-fire and to raise the possibility of far-ranging talks. By the fall of 1969 there were various rumors that Saudi Arabia, which was having a difficult time reconciling its commitment to the Khartoum resolutions alongside its long-standing ties to the United States and interest in reducing the Soviet presence in the region, was warmly receiving a U.S. proposal for further negotiations that resembled one previously proposed by the Soviets and rejected by Nasser. The frontline states vehemently objected to the United States—Saudi discussions and threatened to stay away from the upcoming Rabat summit until all the Arab states reaffirmed that the battlefield rather than the bargaining table was the means to retrieve Arab lands and dignities. To not renew their vows meant defecting from the consensus and being exposed to regional and domestic sanctions, and so all Arab states took the pledge. Nasser then used the Rabat summit to “excoriate the Saudis implicitly but clearly for their association with the United States,” and the subtext was that even the impression of impropriety was to be forsworn. ₃₅

The War of Attrition provided the backdrop for another set of negotiations the next year, though this time Egypt was the truant. In the summer of 1970 U.S. Secretary of State William Rogers successfully brokered a cease-fire between Israel and Egypt. Nasser portrayed the agreement as tactical rather than as strategic but correctly predicted that other Arab officials would receive it as evidence of potential capitulation and negotiations with Israel. ₃₆ Perhaps because they believed that Nasser might be contemplating comprehensive talks, or perhaps because it was an easy way to score some political points, Syria and Iraq painted the Rogers initiative as defeatist. The more radical elements of the PLO similarly accused Nasser of treason and of flirting with a political solution. ₃₇ If Nasser had any thoughts of joining the peace process, he quickly discarded them after the reception given the Rogers initiative.

The dynamics surrounding the Rogers initiative testify that regardless of whether various Arab states had private doubts about the three no’s, once they had publicly pledged themselves to these principles they could not deviate from them without subjecting themselves to ridicule. Even those Arab leaders who might have privately contemplated a political compromise did not hint publicly of such sentiments for fear of being placed outside the consensus: therefore even they tended to reiterate the harshest line. ₃₈ This is not to say that a different Israeli response might not have drawn a different Arab reaction. But Arab states had to be fairly convinced of the possibility of success and an outcome that closely resembled the Khartoum resolutions before they would willingly subject themselves to the inevitable symbolic sanctions. Nasser suggested that negotiation with Israel might be possible if the Israelis gave clear assurances in advance, but outside these terms considering such a possibility was politically unthinkable. “The heart of the problem was now apparent. Both sides [Israel and Egypt] had strong reasons to sue for peace, but the taboo made direct contacts perilous for any Arab leader.” ₃₉

The Jordanian civil war. The most dramatic challenge to the post-1967 order occurred in Jordan in 1970 in regard to the relationship between Palestinian nationalism and Jordanian sovereignty. Because the eventual confrontation between Jordan and the PLO represented a clash between the principles of sovereignty and the personification of Arab nationalism, the symbol of Arabism was also the opponent of the new order. “The talk about the bankruptcy of traditional orders and the revolutionary nature of the masses met its test in Jordan when the Palestinians faced King Hussein’s army.” ₄₀

Palestinian-Jordanian relations traditionally were defined by mutual suspicion and hostility, born of Abdullah’s annexation of the West Bank, his near peace with Israel, and his assassination in 1951. Relations between the two remained suspicious and occasionally confrontational for the next decade, and the establishment of the PLO in 1964 marked a new phase: now the Palestinians had a formal organization that might challenge the king’s authority over Jordan’s Palestinian population and the West Bank.

The tensions between the PLO and the Jordanian government, barely contained through the pre-1967 period, became unbridled after the war. Several factors contributed. First, the PLO established a more independent line, less willing to view the Arab states as the guardians of the Palestinian cause. This meant that the traditional rivalry between Hussein and the PLO for the hearts, minds, and loyalties of Jordan’s Palestinian population became more intense after the war because the PLO’s stature was on the rise and a segment of Jordan’s Palestinian population was radicalized by the defeat. At the Rabat summit the Arab states endorsed the PLO as the sole representative of the Palestinians, an issue that was far from settled and would be revisited in several forms for years to come and that only publicized and intensified the conflict between Hussein and the PLO.

A second area of conflict concerned the “freedom of the Palestinian fida’i action and the method of rendering assistance to the Palestinian fida’yin.” ₄₁ Soon after the war the PLO established bases in Jordan and Syria and began launching raids into Israel. Not only did this produce the inevitable Israeli retaliation, but the establishment of these bases could, if unchecked, challenge the state’s authority. The PLO and Jordan did agree that the PLO would restrict its activities to the Jordan valley and away from the major towns, but Israeli shelling of PLO encampments led the PLO to move toward the interior and the central cities. By the fall of 1969 tensions between the Jordanian authorities and the PLO were on the rise, and they were forced to revisit the question of how much “freedom” the military arm of the Palestinians should be accorded. This was not just a Jordanian issue. It was also an Arab issue: the Rabat summit of December 1969 discussed but proved unable to answer these concerns. ₄₂

The tensions between the PLO and Jordan escalated unchecked. Now various fedayeen groups were establishing a nearly autonomous existence, denying the authority of Jordanian law, representing themselves as an alternative to the king, and virtually creating a state within a state. While Fatah, a moderate wing of the PLO, was seeking an agreement with the Jordanian government, other factions, such as the George Habash’s PFLP and Nayef Hawatmeh’s Popular Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, took a more confrontational line and began openly declaring, first, their opposition to the king and, second, that Jordan was Palestine. From King Hussein’s view he now hosted a people who comprised a near majority, who bore him open hostility, and whose official representative had established military activities that challenged his authority. But to clamp down on the PLO risked: being accused of betraying Arabism; being branded an enemy of the Palestinians, a particularly stinging charge given their long and hostile relations; and a civil war. By June 1970 there were feverish negotiations alongside open clashes between Palestinian guerrillas and the Jordanian military. Yasir Arafat urged the PLO’s splinter groups to show some restraint and to try to settle their differences through compromise.

Such negotiations and urgings had no apparent effect. In early September the PFLP hijacked a number of planes, flew them to Amman, and blew them up. This highly provocative action was a direct challenge not only to the Jordanian government but also to Arafat’s leadership. “In the game of revolution,” Kamal Salibi has observed, “moderation rarely carries the day,” and Arafat soon sided with the radicals in order to maintain his credentials. ₄₃ Many fedayeen began claiming that Amman would become the “Hanoi of the revolution.” On September 16, in response to the fedayeen’s declaration of a “people’s government” in the city of Irbid, Hussein launched an offensive against the PLO. The bloody confrontation began.

Hussein defended his actions by referring to his long-standing Arab nationalist credentials and his authority to act granted by sovereignty. In a letter addressed to Nasser and broadcast over Jordanian radio, and then in a subsequent exchange between Hussein and Nasser, Hussein portrayed the PLO’s actions as part of a larger conspiracy against the Jordanian people and army, both of which had sacrificed dearly for the Arab struggle. ₄₄ Hussein took pains to note that the “survival of this country and the safety of all Arab steadfastness” dictated that he regain control over the situation; in other words, he linked stability and order in a sovereign Jordan, him at its head, and the struggle against Israel. Conversely, any party that attempted to undermine Jordan’s sovereignty was a threat to the Arab cause. ₄₅

The response from other Arab leaders was fierce and conflicted. The sight of Arabs aiming rifles at each other when by all rights those rifles should have been directed at Israel caused tremendous anxiety and turmoil throughout the Arab world. One commentator confessed: “The Arab, following the news of the fighting between Arab brothers on the soil of Arab Jordan, is about to lose his mind.” ₄₆ “The violence was deeply disturbing to the Arab public,” wrote Malcolm Kerr, “the more so because of its apparently deliberate and systematic character and because the victims were already objectives of general sympathy.” ₄₇ The conflict between Jordan and the PLO was not an internal matter but one that concerned the entire Arab nation.

No Arab leader could sit still while the Palestinians were being dealt a blow that far exceeded anything ever meted out by Israel. Yet this clash between the PLO and Jordan also provided another excellent opportunity for Arab states to demonstrate their support for the Palestinians. Iraq and Syria each threatened to intervene militarily to protect the Palestinians. ₄₈ Iraq declared its stand with the PLO and offered to make available Iraqi troops stationed on Jordanian soil, noting that the “road to victory and the liberation of Palestine passes through Amman.” ₄₉ Ultimately, however, Iraq remained idle when the fighting heated up. Syria repeatedly referred to the “puppet Jordanian authority” and linked Jordan’s “massacre” to its past and present association with U.S. interests in the region. ₅₀ Syria then made good on its pledge to intervene on behalf of the PLO and crossed the Jordanian border on September 19. This development brought an immediate response from Israel and the United States. Israel feared that if the PLO toppled the king, Israel would have a radical enemy on its longest border; consequently, Israel threatened to intervene on behalf of Jordan if Syria continued southward. The United States, also fearing that a moderate pro-Western Arab state would fall to radical forces, pressed Israel into service. Syria retreated on September 22. ₅₁

Arab leaders were torn. They had a vested interest in defending the principle of sovereignty, but they also supported and sympathized with the Palestinians; to side with Hussein risked being portrayed as an enemy of the Palestinians, but to side with the PLO at this moment was to challenge a fundamental tenet of the political order. In a message that exemplified this dilemma Algerian president Hourari Boumedienne communicated to King Hussein and Yasir Arafat his full concern “for the sovereignty and independence of Jordan” and that Algeria did not want to “interfere in the internal affairs of fraternal countries” but was unable to “remain indifferent at any action whose aim is to put an end to the Palestinian Resistance.” ₅₂ To be sovereign entailed authority over domestic space, but to be an Arab nationalist meant to support the Palestinians. Hussein had the right to assert his authority, but he did not have a license to bludgeon the Palestinians.

Nasser was particularly split by the war. He was the leader of Arab nationalism, the long-standing adversary of King Hussein, and a genuine supporter of the Palestinian cause; he also had recently resigned from the radical Arab agenda and signed the Rogers initiative that the radical Arab states had labeled as defeatist. In this tug of loyalties and interests Nasser ultimately sided with Hussein. Perhaps part of the reason had to do with his rumored soft spot for Hussein because of the 1967 war; Hussein had followed through on his alliance commitments and suffered for doing so. ₅₃ But any soft spot Nasser had for Hussein only reinforced the convergence of their strategic and political interests. ₅₄ Both were committed to the status quo and proceeding cautiously in the next phase of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Hussein’s downfall would undoubtedly introduce a more radical and less controllable entity that was rumored to be committed to a policy of tawreet, dragging the feet of the Arab leaders into battle, which in turn would signal a return to the pre-1967 period. ₅₅ While reminding everyone of his unimpeachable nationalist credentials, Nasser accused Iraq and Syria of instigating the civil war (if not actually carrying it out in collusion with Israel and the United States), which only undermined the cause of Arab nationalism and played into the hands of Israel. At times Nasser hinted that the PLO was the enemy of Arab nationalism. Such messages conveyed Nasser’s commitment to the status quo.

Arab states convened a summit in Cairo on September 22 to discuss how to stop the civil war in Jordan, how to curb the crisis and prevent any further foreign intervention, and “how the future status of Jordan could be defined after what has happened.” ₅₆ All sides put numerous proposals on the table. Sudanese president Gaafar Mohamad Numairi, no friend of Hussein’s and critical of his offensive against the PLO, reflected the commission’s principled tension between the desire to maintain Jordan’s sovereignty and the commitment to the Palestinians. The issue at stake was not only a “constitutional one concerning Jordan alone,” he insisted, “but is a historical and humanitarian responsibility affecting the destiny of the whole Arab nation.” ₅₇ Hussein demanded an end to the conflict that reaffirmed Jordanian sovereignty and restricted the PLO’s activities to the occupied territories and the Jordan valley. “The State will exercise its full sovereignty over everyone present on its territory. All shall respect that sovereignty.” ₅₈ Although sympathetic with his demands, those at the Cairo summit also insisted that Hussein cease his offensive against the PLO. Hussein dismissed their severe criticism and veiled threats, in part because he was convinced that their words were intended for Palestinian and popular consumption. ₅₉ The war continued.

Finally, on September 27 the PLO and Jordan signed the Cairo Agreement. ₆₀ The Cairo conference, according to Adeed Dawisha, was a “turning point in the history of inter-Arab relations no less important than the Arab defeat of 1967. It marked the beginning of the gradual decline of the Palestinian movement as a radicalizing and destabilizing factor in Arab politics.” ₆₁ The PLO was established in 1964 as a conservative organization that was to be controlled by the other Arab states. The 1967 war, however, had radicalized and loosened the strings, leaving the PLO more determined than ever to strike out on its own and strike on its own. Such developments meant that this symbol of Arabism was also a threat to an order that had sovereignty and territorial integrity at its core. However genuine or artificial their expressions of conflicting sentiments, the Arab states supported in some cases and in others acquiesced to Jordanian sovereignty even if that meant bludgeoning the symbol of Arab nationalism. Although this tension between state sovereignty and the aims of the PLO would clash in the future, Hussein’s blow to the Palestinians represented a brace for the status quo.

The Cairo agreement designed to end the civil war ultimately reproduced rather than resolved the contradictions between Hussein’s claim to sovereignty and the PLO’s claims to authority. Jordanian sovereignty was reaffirmed. And the PLO retained the right to establish bases in restricted areas. ₆₂ The result was that the conditions that precipitated the civil war persisted, nearly guaranteeing another round of violence. ₆₃ And so there was. Although the violence never attained the heights of Black September, with each succeeding crisis Hussein winnowed the PLO’s territorial and political space. And with each crisis came cries of protest from around the Arab world, but with each succeeding crisis the outcry was increasingly muted. King Hussein finally evicted the PLO from Jordan in July 1972. The tensions between sovereignty and Arab nationalism were now for Lebanon to resolve—or not.

Nasser died on September 28, 1970. Although this was a “man of defeats,” the Arab world had lost its leader and its pulse. ₆₄ The last few years had not been particularly easy or distinguished ones for Nasser. In contrast to the Nasser who set the agenda of the 1950s and 1960s, and who urged the masses to unify and fulfill pan-Arabism’s mission, in recent years Nasser had abandoned the cause of unification, shifted his rhetoric from the “unity of purpose” to the “unity of ranks,” lost the Sinai to the Israelis, retreated from Arab socialism and resurrected the same private capitalist class he once had excoriated, accepted the Rogers initiative, and intervened to save the king of Jordan in his fight against the PLO. The Nasser of the 1970s was hardly the Nasser of the past. He had entered politics as the revolutionary who challenged the dominant order. He exited as one of its guardians.

The War of Ramadan, the Peace Process, and Constricted Arabism

As soon as the 1967 war ended, the frontline states began mobilizing their societies for war, and Arab leaders everywhere began predicting that they soon would reclaim Arab lands and dignity. Such proclamations grew increasingly stale as each year passed and the battle was nowhere nearer in sight; many began doubting that war would ever come, grumbling that they were sacrificing for nothing. But the impasse ended dramatically when Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on October 6, 1973, and smashed through Israeli defenses. Initial Israeli losses were quite heavy as Egypt captured part of the East Bank of the Suez and Syria landed a highly damaging blow to Israeli positions on the Golan Heights. But within a week Israel stabilized its position and soon thereafter established military dominance, establishing a presence on the West Bank of the Suez Canal, surrounding the Egyptian army on the East Bank of the canal, recapturing all the territory it initially lost to Syria, and threatening to march on Damascus. After several weeks of fighting and a near conflict between the Soviets and the Americans, the United States made Israel heel and accept a cease-fire on October 24.

The Arabs celebrated the October War. The airwaves were thick with messages of self-congratulation, testimonials to how the Arab army had demonstrated its mettle, how it had fought and defeated the supposedly superior Israeli army. The applause grew louder as the Arab oil-exporting states imposed an oil embargo on October 20, an option that they had consistently rejected but now undertook for strategic, economic, and symbolic reasons. ₆₅ The unprecedented coordination of the Arab states’ military, political, and economic resources was an impressive demonstration of Arab power and unity.

But behind the curtain of unity stood relatively modest coordination at best and the shadows of divisions at worst. Syria and Egypt had received nominal troop contributions from the other Arab states. Egyptian officials, impatient with all-Arab mechanisms, had prepared and then conducted a campaign that was designed to reclaim the Sinai and restore Egyptian pride. Syria too limited its military plans to retaking the Golan Heights and stopped its tanks from continuing toward the old Syrian-Palestinian border; through its military actions Syria conveyed that it was thinking in territorial terms. ₆₆ Although the symbols and shadows of the war were of the pre-1967 generation, the motivations and goals of its leaders and its conservative and statist orientations were of the post-1967 period. ₆₇

The Arab states would now face the challenge of coordinating their postwar political and diplomatic strategies, which meant revisiting the questions that had dogged them at Khartoum—unilaterally or collectively? piecemeal or through comprehensive solutions? But the different set of circumstances hinted that they would have a more difficult time maintaining the facade of unity. Understanding the developments and dynamics that emerged during the next several years requires attention to how Arab states went into the post-1973 phase with different interests, schedules, and relationships to Arabism and thus susceptibility to symbolic sanctions. Such differences informed the pace of the post-1973 peace process.

The first issue concerns the interests and timetables of the different Arab states after the 1973 war, and here the most important players were Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and the PLO. Sadat emerged from the 1973 war with three interdependent goals designed to restructure Egyptian politics and the country’s place in global politics. He concluded that reclaiming the occupied territories would have to come through diplomatic negotiations and not through military encounters. Egypt had spent the past seven years engaged in sustained war preparation, and the best it could accomplish was a psychological victory and a dent in Israel’s vaunted military superiority. Second, Egypt’s economy was in shambles largely as a result of the costs of war. Sadat had little interest in dusting off Nasser’s Arab socialism, and intended to welcome domestic and foreign capital. Indeed, foreign capital, in terms of technology from the West and petrodollars from the Arab Gulf states, was essential to Egypt’s economic strategy because, in the words of a former finance minister, “That was where the money was.” ₆₈ The package of economic changes became known as infitah and represented a structural change in Egypt’s economic orientation. Third, Sadat was intent on restructuring Egypt’s place in regional and global politics. Egypt already had a détente with Saudi Arabia, but now Sadat intended to strengthen those ties. More dramatically, Sadat planned to end Egypt’s twenty-year alliance with the Soviet Union and jump to the United States, a move that would further his goals of economic development and recovering the Sinai.

A reconsideration of Egypt’s national identity and relationship to Arabism furthered and stimulated this wholesale reorientation of Egypt’s domestic and foreign policy. Although domestic critics offered resistance and raised objections to Sadat’s approach to Israel and withdrawal from Arabism, the growth of Egyptian nationalism cushioned his road. ₆₉ Having sacrificed blood, money, and soil for Arabism and carried much of the burden of the Arab-Israeli conflict for decades, many Egyptians believed that they had paid their dues and that it was time to concentrate on national development. In this respect the national mood was similar to what emerged after the 1948 war: a questioning of Egypt’s relationship to Arabism and an assertion of a form of Egyptian nationalism. ₇₀ Sadat cultivated and encouraged such sentiments, for they were consistent with his foreign policy initiatives and made them politically palatable; to this end the Egyptian government developed various symbols of Egyptian nationalism that were intended to better distinguish Egypt from the other Arab states. ₇₁ The result was a debate about the Egyptian national identity and whether Egypt was even Arab. This “dialogue of the 1970s” was a highly polemicized discussion about Egypt’s relationship to Arabism and the practices constitutive of that identity. ₇₂ Of course, these questions had no definitive answers. But the fact that these issues were up for debate meant that Sadat would be less susceptible to symbolic sanctions and might be better able to define Arabism in ways consistent with his foreign policy plans, which were geared toward recovering the Sinai and cozying up to the United States. ₇₃

King Hussein’s position during this period was as conflicted as ever. Of paramount importance was regime survival. Such imperatives directly informed many of Hussein’s actions. As the head of a country without a state-national identity and that housed a large Palestinian population, King Hussein staked much of his legitimacy on Arab nationalism. He certainly had an interest in solving the Arab-Israeli conflict if only because it was a highly destabilizing force in Jordanian politics. If at all possible, he wanted a solution that left him in control of the West Bank and Jerusalem. Therefore, although the United States and Israel counted King Hussein as a potential partner in the peace process, and although he met secretly with various Israeli officials over the years and participated in various discussions with the PLO concerning its prospects in any future Arab-Israeli negotiations and rule over the West Bank, ultimately he turned away from anything substantive because of the fear of domestic repercussions. ₇₄

Saudi Arabia’s post-1973 objectives were like those of the past: maintaining regional stability in the Gulf and the immediate vicinity, calming the Arab-Israeli conflict because it encouraged Arab radicalism and Soviet involvement, and attempting to shield itself from inter-Arab squabbles. But its newfound oil wealth changed matters, thrusting Saudi Arabia into a position of power and preeminence in Arab politics, a position that was a mixed blessing. ₇₅ With such power the Saudis hoped to protect themselves from various threats and challenges from other Arab states through checkbook diplomacy and “political petrolism.” ₇₆ In this regard Saudi Arabia used its oil wealth not to underwrite its hegemony but to block the attempts by others to establish hegemony in Arab politics. ₇₇ But Saudi Arabia’s past policy of taking a low profile on the Arab-Israeli conflict and minimizing its visibility in inter-Arab quarrels was long gone, further eroded as Egypt withdrew from Arab politics during the 1970s.

To further its objectives Saudi Arabia had tacit alliances with the United States and Egypt. For several decades the Saudis had discretely leaned on the United States, and the decline of Arabism alongside its oil wealth made the Saudis less apologetic and more inclined to rely on the United States. Their alliance with Egypt was a more recent development. Saudi Arabia and Egypt began to forge a détente in 1967, but only after the 1973 war did their relations develop into what was frequently characterized as an “axis.” Relations warmed quickly because these two central Arab states saw the Soviet Union as a threat to their interests and the United States as a potential force for good, and they wanted to find a compromise solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. But Saudi Arabia’s alliance with the United States and Egypt potentially placed it at odds with its commitment to Arabism: the United States was still viewed as a potential menace to the region and was Israel’s chief supporter; Sadat’s road to Camp David placed Saudi Arabia in the increasingly difficult position of having to choose between Egypt and Arabism.

That the tensions between Saudi Arabia’s alignments and Arabism were not greater is a testimony not only to its oil wealth and the decline of Arabism but also to Saudi Arabia’s traditionally lukewarm stance toward Arabism. The Saudi government always leaned more on Islam than on Arabism as a legitimation device, remained fearful of an Arabism that was identified with its Hashemite rivals and radicalism, and historically had been rather distant from Arab nationalism. But Saudi Arabia was still an Arab and Islamic country, part of the Arab League, subject to Arab public opinion, and dependent on an Islam that treated Israel as an enemy to legitimate its rule. If it ventured too far from Arabism, Saudi Arabia would find itself the target of a regional and domestic backlash.

Attempting to read Syria’s objectives is akin to reading tea leaves. Syrian officials consistently proclaim that Syrian and Arab interests are interchangeable: Syria is Arab, the guardian of Arab nationalism, the protector of Palestinian rights, and the first and last defense against Israeli imperialism. To be sure, such rhetoric has an instrumental side, but such rhetoric also reflects the fact that a specifically Syrian identity is only late in the making if present at all. Accordingly, much of the Syrian state’s legitimacy derives from its Arabist credentials, thus fusing the relationship between domestic stability and its Arabism. As Egypt withdrew from the Arab cause after the 1973 war, Syria increasingly portrayed itself as the caretaker and defender of Arab nationalism. Syria’s Arabism was clear and overdetermined.

The centrality of Arabism in Syria’s political calculations—whether instrumental or genuine—meant that it was in no rush to make a deal with Israel to retrieve the Golan and was willing to use various Arab nationalist symbols, including occasional references to Greater Syria, to pursue its objectives. ₇₈ Because its timetable was less hurried than Egypt’s, and because Syria feared that its position would be weakened if other Arab states were on an accelerated schedule and open to bilateral deals, Syria’s strategy was to establish a norm prohibiting separate agreements and insisting on a collective and coordinated Arab approach. Through such norms Syria could control the foreign policies of other Arab states and forestall the possibility of a breakthrough on terms other than its own.

The PLO was the other key actor of this period. ₇₉ During this period the PLO’s concerns pertained to who was authorized to represent the Palestinians at the bargaining table because Israel refused to negotiate with the PLO, whether authorizing such agents was a forbidden compromise, and whether the PLO should set preconditions (usually involving the eventual status of Jerusalem and the occupied territories) before any substantive negotiations. Also, the PLO was comprised of various groups, some of which, like Yasir Arafat’s Fatah, were arguably more prone to conciliation on key issues; some of which, like Habash’s PFLP, were not; and some of which were virtually indistinguishable from the Arab states that provided their financial backing. To manage such divisions the PLO frequently settled on the lowest common denominator, that is, arguably a stance more confrontational than if majority-rule mechanisms were applied.

Further, as the sole and only legitimate representative of the Palestinians, the PLO was invested with tremendous symbolic capital and thus quite capable of wielding symbolic sanctions to control the foreign policies of other Arab states. ₈₀ The Arab states were hardly the PLO’s adoring fans—they clashed with the PLO about strategy and tactics regarding the peace process, and in important historical episodes an Arab state took on the PLO directly, including Jordan’s bloodying of the PLO in 1970, Syria’s intervention in Lebanon and against the PLO in 1975—76, and Egypt’s signing the separate peace with Israel in 1979. But because the Arab states had said repeatedly that a comprehensive peace would best protect the rights of the Palestinians, and because the PLO was recognized as the final arbiter and protector of those rights, the PLO had near veto power over the pace and direction of the peace process and probably could bar the participation of other Arab states if it withheld its approval. This was most notable in the case of Jordan. Although King Hussein might have been willing to join the peace process, he certainly was unwilling to be viewed as negotiating on behalf of the PLO or undermining its interests. He and other Arab leaders generally felt duty bound to defer to the PLO on most matters regarding the peace process.

Four dynamics that emerged during the post-1973 period follow directly from these observations. First, Egypt pushed the normative envelope through its unilateral moves—and was fought every step of the way by Syria, Iraq, selected other Arab states, and the PLO and occasionally was censured and implicitly tolerated by the Gulf Arab states. Those who opposed Sadat resorted to symbolic sanctions, but such sanctions would work only to the extent that the potential domestic or regional censure outweighed the regime’s other interests. In this regard perhaps one of Sadat’s defining characteristics was that he held the other Arab states nearly in contempt and tended to shunt aside rather than accommodate Arab obligations, even if that meant suffering regional and international ostracism. ₈₁ Second, Sadat calculated that to negotiate alongside the other Arab states had both advantages and disadvantages: Egypt obtained tremendous cachet from being the Arab world’s recognized power, and its bargaining position was significantly strengthened by this role, but to proceed collectively also meant being weighed down by the lowest common denominator. ₈₂

The third feature flows directly from Sadat’s response to the constraints and advantages offered by Arab nationalism: he attempted to amend the meaning of Arab nationalism so that it was consistent with his policies toward Israel. Simply put, Sadat challenged a meaning of Arab nationalism that rendered Arab states accountable to each other regarding nearly every aspect of their policy toward Israel. By asserting that it was his prerogative to negotiate with the Israelis for the return of the Sinai and to do so in a unilateral way, Sadat was flagrantly challenging the long-standing norms of Arabism. That he coupled such claims to the declaration that his policies were permitted by Arabism and demanded by Egyptian national interests only accentuated how he was harmonizing Arabism and Egypt’s national interests to the point that they were becoming synonymous. His path, though strewn with obstacles by a coalition of Arab states that framed Sadat’s policies as a betrayal of Arab nationalism and as dividing the Arab nation, remained passable until his peace treaty with Israel. At that point Egypt found that it had punched through the normative envelope and was outside of Arabism looking in.

Fourth, Egypt’s path to Camp David and consistent effort to redefine Arabism not only triggered a heated debate but also encouraged fragmentation in Arab politics. Egypt sought from other Arab states greater latitude in its Israel policy, latitude that it claimed was permitted by Arabism and sovereignty but that its opponents viewed as tantamount to particularism and statism. Both Egypt and its opponents were correct. The debate about the organization of the Arab effort to confront Israel had immediate implications for the Arab countries’ social relations: as they steadily weakened the norms of Arabism to accommodate Egypt’s policies, they steadily promoted their own separateness and authority. Although the Arab states responded to the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty with a show of solidarity, Egypt’s eviction did little to arrest this fragmentation and, according to some observers, hastened it. The 1980s became a period defined by paralysis in Arab-Israeli politics and fragmentation in intra-Arab politics.

The Debate About Disengagement

In their first postwar meeting at the Algiers summit in December 1973, the Arab states were forced to confront the central issue of how would they handle the next round of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Would they approach Israel multilaterally or bilaterally? Was a separate peace possible? They already knew that they held different priorities and timetables, and Egypt in particular was hinting of its American and bilateral orientation. After considerable debate the Arab states advised against any separate political agreement and called upon each other to seek only a comprehensive solution based on the return of all the occupied territories and the fulfillment of Palestinian rights. The summit sanctioned Sadat and Hafiz al-Asad to continue their negotiations with Israel but instructed them not to act unilaterally on political issues that might affect a final settlement. ₈₃

The tension between Egypt’s foreign policy plans and its relationship to Arabism came early. On January 18, 1974, Egypt and Israel concluded a disengagement agreement that resolved various issues concerning the cessation of hostilities from the last war. Syria accused Egypt of betraying the Arab cause, readying itself for unilateralism, and violating the Rabat resolutions. ₈₄ Sadat defended the agreement on the ground that it was a military rather than a political act and said that Syria should follow suit. Saudi Arabia discretely supported Sadat and attempted to mollify the Syrians by promising that it would try to limit the scope of any future agreement. ₈₅ Syria soon thereafter concluded its own disengagement agreement, which it emphasized was military and technical and absolutely not political. Nevertheless, the agreement represented a “psychological watershed . . . weaning it from its earlier strategy of rejectionism.” ₈₆ The Arab states also discussed a Jordanian-Israeli disengagement agreement, but then concluded that because Jordan had not been a party to the 1973 war, such an agreement would be political rather than strictly military. ₈₇

The next chapter in Egypt’s unilateralism came in March 1975 when U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger renewed his shuttle diplomacy, which signaled that side deals and separate agreements might result. To alleviate such fears and to hammer out some common understandings the principal Arab states met in Riyadh in April. They agreed on some common principles—no surrender of Arab territory, no separate peace, and no final settlement without securing Palestinian rights—that were consistent with past summit resolutions. But they could not agree on a common strategy. Syria feared that Kissinger’s escapades were designed to lure Egypt away from the Arab front, an outcome that Sadat coveted but that would weaken the bargaining position of the Arab states; consequently, Syria proposed that the Arab parties go to Geneva, a multilateral negotiation forum to discuss the Arab-Israeli conflict and its resolution. Sadat, who was determined to reach a limited agreement with Israel and understood that Geneva’s multilateral format represented an institutional constraint on him, insisted that they should agree on some basic principles but allow some flexibility in strategy. The Saudis again intervened on Sadat’s behalf. ₈₈ Shuttle diplomacy now swung into high gear.

The results of Kissinger’s efforts were a second disengagement agreement with Israel. ₈₉ Announced on September 1, Sinai II returned four hundred square miles of the Sinai, including the oil fields and strategic passes that are the doorways between the western and eastern parts of the Sinai; provided for a separation and limitation of forces; and included an array of provisions that practically ended the state of war between Egypt and Israel. The reaction to Sinai II was as much a fight over the future as it was over the agreement. Saudi Arabia again defended Sadat and characterized the agreement as a breakthrough and an important step toward reclaiming Arab soil and solving the Palestinian problem. ₉₀ Indeed, it launched a particularly bitter attack on the PLO, portraying its criticisms of Sinai II as representing the “voices of Arab communists”—“hirelings” of world Communism misguidedly refusing to renounce the possibility of a political solution in favor of a military solution—and in fact as comfortable with a military solution because that “would leave the situation unresolved” and allow Israel, a socialist experiment, to exist. ₉₁ Kuwait announced that it did not “question the right of sister Arab countries part of whose territory is under occupation to use such means as they deem suitable for the liberation of their territory, provided this does not affect the crux of the basic question, namely the Palestine question.” ₉₂ In typically tortured fashion King Hussein gave his modest approval while expressing “reservations regarding the Agreement itself,” namely, the renunciation of military means, the failure to connect disengagement to other dimensions of the conflict, and the continuation of arms deliveries to Israel. ₉₃

Syria led the fight and attempted to mobilize Arab public opinion against Sinai II. In a speech commemorating the second anniversary of the October War President Asad accused Egypt of abandoning the military option, the principle of unanimity among the Arab ranks, the boycott of Israel (because Israel could now use the Suez Canal), and the Palestinians. ₉₄ Later Syria denounced Egypt for dividing the Arab front and transforming the Arab-Israeli conflict into a border conflict. ₉₅ Although Syria understood that it could do little to halt the agreement, it was intent on deterring any follow-up agreements and making it more difficult for Egypt to receive strong support from the other Arab states. ₉₆

Iraq also labeled Sinai II a violation of Arabism. But, as always, Iraq painted Syria as much if not more the villain. Although Egypt was withdrawing from pan-Arab causes, perhaps because of its deteriorating economy, at least it was not masking its treachery. ₉₇ Syria also was retreating from pan-Arabism but liked to pretend otherwise through tactical gestures, such as the attempt to establish a Syrian-Palestinian joint political and military command that was intended first to extract a better bargain for itself on the Golan and second to allow Syria to control the Palestinians lest they disrupt a future deal. Syria was using the cloak of Arab cooperation to cover its betrayals.

Sadat defended his policies as consistent with Egypt’s Arab obligations and commented on the current state of Arab affairs in a series of high-profile speeches addressed to the Egyptian public and the Arab world. ₉₈ In a speech to the People’s Assembly and the Arab Socialist Union he defended himself by saying that he had reclaimed Arab land without sacrificing the tenets of Arab nationalism, had never divorced the Palestinian issue and the other occupied territories from his discussions, or indicated a willingness to sign a separate peace with Israel. Then he pleaded for realism and pragmatism, saying he was attempting to deliver peace to the Palestinians through deeds and not words, and he challenged other Arab regimes to follow his lead. ₉₉ Sadat also accused Syria of theatrics, of having prior knowledge of the disengagement and raising no objections at that time, and added, “All right, I concede that the Syrian Ba’ath Party has domestic troubles. But why drag the national (qawamiyyah) cause into these domestic troubles? We all have domestic troubles.”

Sadat was attempting to frame his policies as consistent with Arabism and permitted by Egyptian sovereignty. He was “painfully frank”: “I say that what concerns the Arab nation is consultation among all of us, but what concerns the Egyptian homeland is the concern of the people of this homeland, since in exercising our national (wataniyyah) sovereignty we are not burying anything with the rights of others nor do we accept anything liable to hinder the united Arab march.” ₁₀₀ Attempting to balance his desire to retrieve Egyptian territory within the parameters of Arabism was not easy. ₁₀₁ In a wide-ranging and pointed interview Sadat defended himself through a mixture of assertive sovereignty and defensive Arabism against the charge that he had abandoned Arabism for the mere retrieval of land: Egypt had the right to follow whatever course of action would retrieve the Sinai so long as those policies were consistent with Arabism, which of course was the case. ₁₀₂ That Sadat was hardly apologetic but rather contemptuous and cantankerous suggested how determined he was to go it alone if need be. ₁₀₃ In any event, Sadat claimed that his retrieval of part of the Sinai through political negotiations and without the formal approval of the Arab states was consistent with Arabism; in doing so, Sinai II relaxed the norms of Arabism and created another category of actions that Sadat could take without first obtaining the approval of other Arab states.

Camp David

Those who predicted that Sinai II was a preview of coming attractions were right on the mark. In early 1977 Jimmy Carter, the newly elected American president, began to float a series of proposals to restart the stalled peace process. Much time and energy focused on reconvening Geneva, but it became painfully clear that these prenegotiations were unlikely to get the parties to the table, let alone to produce any breakthrough. Sadat, who had already tired of traveling with an entourage, began considering various ways to maneuver on his own. Although the Israeli elections brought to power Menachem Begin’s Likud Party, which had a well-deserved hawkish reputation, Sadat received some encouraging responses from the new Israeli government to his diplomatic overtures. By late fall he had determined he would go to Jerusalem. The debate and speculation concerning the motives behind this highly controversial act are considerable—and include domestic political and economic pressures, Sadat’s belief in diplomacy as shock therapy, that he was misinformed, and that he was clueless. ₁₀₄ Whatever the reason, he flew to Jerusalem in November 1977. In a moment that was stirring if only for the drama, his speech was a masterful blend of conciliation and a challenge to Israel to do what it must for peace. By becoming the first Arab head of state to visit Israel—and controversial Jerusalem, no less—Sadat challenged all the conventions of Arab politics and bent if not snapped the many established summit resolutions.

But Sadat was not done. After nearly a year of circular negotiations between Egypt and Israel Carter invited Sadat and Begin to the presidential retreat at Camp David in September 1978 for an indefinite period of intensive and extensive closed-door negotiations. From what is described as an extraordinary and excruciating experience by all those present, the three delegations emerged exhausted but enthralled by their feat. The result was the Camp David accords, which actually were two documents: the outline of an Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty and the parameters for negotiating Palestinian autonomy on the West Bank and Gaza. Sadat had fulfilled his long-standing goal of recovering the Sinai, and the agreement on Palestinian autonomy allowed him to claim that he had not sacrificed, but rather provided an opportunity for, the Palestinians.

But even at this moment of seemingly unparalleled strategic behavior, Arabism shaped Sadat’s negotiating strategy and the ultimate framework of the Camp David accords. There is little doubt that Sadat’s ultimate objective was to reclaim every inch of the Sinai. But the negotiations at Camp David stalled and nearly broke down over the demand for a second framework to deal with the West Bank. Simply stated, if Camp David were to deal only with the Sinai, an agreement probably would have been concluded within a few short days. But because Sadat felt compelled for presentational purposes to be seen as not abandoning Arabism or the Palestinians, he insisted on a more demanding set of agreements that he might legitimately show to the rest of the Arab world as the real fruits of his negotiating acumen and efforts. Although he would soon find that his efforts would not shield him from the general perception that he had traded the Palestinians and abandoned Arab nationalism for the Sinai desert, the lengths to which he went to conclude an agreement with the Israelis to cover the occupied territories—and, without that agreement, he probably would have walked away from the table—are a testimony to the constraints that Arabism placed on Sadat’s policies.

Sadat’s trip to Jerusalem and the Camp David accords each triggered a nearly identical set of responses and debates in the Arab world about whether Egypt had violated the norms of Arabism and, if so, what Sadat’s punishment should be. On each occasion Sadat attempted to defend himself by framing his actions as consistent with Arabism and permitted by Egyptian sovereignty. Upon his return from Jerusalem he told the People’s Assembly that risks had to be taken for peace, he had not capitulated to Israel or betrayed the Arab nation or Palestine, and Egypt had the right to make these decision because of its sovereign status and its constant vigilance of Arab nationalism. ₁₀₅ His actions were hardly traitorous, he insisted, but followed from well-established Arab principles and represented a step forward for the Palestinians and a major breakthrough now available to other Arab states. Indeed, he would sometimes assert, other Arab countries had little right to criticize Egypt, for Egypt had contributed more than any other Arab state to the Arab nation and the cause of Palestine. ₁₀₆ Too bad, Egyptian officials and some media commented, that other Arab states could not appreciate what Egypt had done for the Arab nation. ₁₀₇ Defensiveness also became aggressiveness. Of those who charged that he was damaging Arab unity, Sadat pointedly and sarcastically asked where this so-called unity, this vaunted solidarity, was. This unity, Sadat would lecture his listeners, was better characterized by conflict than by cooperation; look at Syria’s actions in Lebanon, Iraq’s meager contributions to the various Arab-Israeli wars, the ongoing disputes among the North African states, and on and on and on. ₁₀₈

The Arab states were divided over their response to Sadat’s initiatives. Morocco, Oman, and the Sudan condoned and defended both his trip to Jerusalem and the Camp David accords on the grounds that they handed the Arab states an opportunity to advance their objectives in a manner consistent with Arabism and permitted by Egyptian sovereignty. The Gulf states were modestly approving and defended his right to go to Jerusalem if it achieved a breakthrough in the stalled negotiations. ₁₀₉ Saudi Arabia, while noting its reservations on the questions of Jerusalem and Palestine, said that it did “not give itself the right to interfere in the private affairs of any Arab country, nor to dispute its right to restore its occupied territories through armed struggle or through peaceful efforts insofar as that does not clash with the higher Arab interests.” ₁₁₀ Adopting a stance similar to its position on Sinai II, Saudi Arabia wanted the benefits of Sadat’s actions without having to suffer the wrath of its Arab opponents. ₁₁₁ Bahrain rejected the Camp David accords on the ground that they failed to explicitly recognize the PLO. Qatar rejected them as unilateral. ₁₁₂

Jordan criticized Sadat’s flight to Jerusalem and denounced Camp David on various grounds but argued for calm in order to avoid further fractures in the Arab ranks. ₁₁₃ In staking out his position, Hussein avoided the inevitable regional and domestic outcry that was sure to follow if he appeared to be negotiating on behalf of the Palestinians and over the future of the occupied territories. Instead of joining the Camp David process, he reiterated both his commitment to past Arab summit resolutions and said that only the PLO was authorized to negotiate on behalf of the Palestinians. The United States, Israel, and Egypt were all disappointed by King Hussein’s unequivocal rejection of Camp David because they counted on his participation if it was to have a chance. But they did not fully count on his dependence on other Arab states for regime survival and his own society for the social approval that came from being viewed as a member in good standing.

Iraq, South Yemen, Syria, Algeria, Libya, and the PLO vehemently objected to Sadat’s actions, decrying them as constituting a dire threat to the Arab nation and as threatening to fragment and weaken its ranks. When Sadat flew to Damascus a few days before going to Jerusalem to get a mandate from Asad, Asad responded by telling Sadat that he was lucky not to be arrested. ₁₁₄ Iraq chided that it was “idiotic irony for Sadat to describe his treasonable action as civilized behavior.” ₁₁₅ In response to Sadat’s trip to Jerusalem these states gathered in Libya in December 1977 to formulate a common front; the other Arab states refused to attend what they understood to be a public hanging of Sadat. ₁₁₆ Subsequently calling themselves the “Steadfastness States” but more commonly known as the rejectionist states, Iraq, South Yemen, Syria, Algeria, Libya, and the PLO began to meet periodically to publicize their outrage at Egypt’s policies and interpretations of Arabism. ₁₁₇

After Camp David they pumped up the volume. ₁₁₈ Iraq, never one to pass up an opportunity to implicate Syria, claimed that Syria was using Sadat’s treasonous act as a “minesweeper on the road to treason in order to cushion Arab reactions.” ₁₁₉ But Iraq’s outrage at Sadat was equaled by their fear that other Arab states might be tempted to follow his lead. That Sadat’s actions were supported by some and not condemned outright by others indicated that he might be a bad influence. Accordingly, Iraq’s messages and symbolic sanctions were directed not only at Sadat but also at those who might either follow his example or give comfort to his policies. To convincingly brand Sadat as a traitor to the Arab cause was the best way to preclude other Arab governments from following Sadat or condoning his actions. ₁₂₀ Once Sadat’s actions were framed in this way, it became virtually impossible for Arab states to support him without also presenting themselves as a traitor.

Camp David received a trial at the Baghdad summit of November 1–5, 1978. Baghdad and Damascus were adamant that Sadat’s actions were a test of Arab solidarity as they defined it—namely, greater financial assistance to the confrontation states and ostracism of Sadat. Failing to punish Sadat for his treason would, warned Iraqi president Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr, spell the end of Arab unity and signal the Arab states’ failure to live up to their pan-Arab responsibility. Indeed:

We will not argue about the right of every ruler to act within the framework of his sovereignty in his own land. However, we cannot, under any circumstances, consider the action taken by the Egyptian head of state as merely an act of sovereignty and ignore the great truth that the struggle between the Arabs and the Zionist enemy is not a regional dispute confined to the Arab states whose territory was occupied in 1967 and not a mere territorial or border dispute or a war in defense of national sovereignty. Had this been the case, what would have happened in 1967 would not have happened. . . . Therefore, and without encroaching upon the right of any Arab ruler, we do not agree that such a ruler should arrogate himself the right to deal with such a struggle and to end it according to his own will. ₁₂₁

Bakr appropriated the message Nasser had used to ostracize Iraq’s Nuri al-Said during the fight over the Baghdad Pact. And it just so happens that Iraq, symbolically hosting the summit that would oversee the expulsion of Egypt, would be a beneficiary of Egypt’s departure.

There was little doubt that Sadat would be judged guilty of having violated Arabism, but suspense was considerable concerning what, if any, sanctions would be imposed. The Steadfastness States adamantly called for Egypt’s expulsion from all Arab institutions and organizations, including the Arab League, and ineligibility for aid and assistance from Arab states. ₁₂₂ Some even went further and argued that Egyptian citizens should not be allowed to travel to other Arab states, in effect denying Egyptian workers access to the Gulf states. Yet other Arab states were notably reserved in their willingness to punish Egypt or to expel it from Arab organizations. Saudi Arabia, which privately saw Camp David as largely consistent with its interests, ₁₂₃ said that isolating Egypt, the heart and soul of the Arab nation, would be impossible, that such a policy would only harm the Arab states’ interests, and that it “does not see any interest for our basic cause in diverting Arab efforts toward blaming a certain state.” ₁₂₄ The Kuwaiti foreign minister voiced a similar theme, and Kuwait’s working paper at the Arab Foreign Ministers Conference in Baghdad hinted that Egypt should not be expelled from Arab political life. ₁₂₅ Oman publicly supported the accords and urged its brethren not to isolate Egypt. ₁₂₆

Although the Gulf states had filed into the summit hoping to shield Egypt from sanctions and expulsion, they quickly reversed course under the threat of being branded as Egypt’s coconspirators. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia had reiterated their soft line only a few days before at the Arab Foreign Ministers Conference, but “by the time the Baghdad Summit was convened the Saudis had come to view the pressure of the anti-Camp David forces as irresistible and had concluded that the only thing they could do was fight for an opportunity for Egypt to reconsider its course.” ₁₂₇ According to a former top-ranking Jordanian official, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia switched their policies because they did not want to go against the Arab consensus, a position that would have led to their ostracism. ₁₂₈ To fail to condemn Egypt was to support it, to support Egypt was to place oneself squarely outside the consensus, to be outside the consensus could easily unleash unwanted domestic and regional denunciations. ₁₂₉

The results of the summit were a resounding success for the Steadfastness States and a testimony to the sting of symbolic sanctions. In the final communiqué the Arab states reaffirmed that only the PLO was authorized to negotiate for Palestinians; specified that “it is not permitted for any side to act unilaterally in solving the Palestinian question in particular and the Arab-Zionist conflict in general”; declared that resolutions of previous summit conferences maintained their moral force and that any future solution must be submitted to a summit for consideration; that Camp David violated past resolutions and occurred outside the “framework of collective Arab responsibility”; and warned that Egypt would be roundly censured and face sanctions should it not immediately rescind the accords. ₁₃₀ The Arab states did not level any sanctions at this point, a concession to the Gulf Arabs, reserving such actions for when Sadat followed through on his plans. ₁₃₁

Sadat, though expecting the Steadfastness States to react harshly and to support sanctions, was visibly upset that the Gulf Arabs fell in line. He reserved some of his choicest and harshest words for them, accusing them of various crimes and of now being aligned with the Soviets and the “madman” of Libya. ₁₃₂ The Gulf states responded by urging Sadat to reverse course and blaming him for bringing about his isolation in order to make a peace treaty more palatable to the Egyptian people. ₁₃₃

After a winter of negotiations Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty on March 26, 1979. There was no denying that Egypt had challenged the very core of Arabism, had openly defied all past resolutions and the warnings of Arab states. That Egypt, the Arab world’s cultural and symbolic power, had signed the separate peace made the transgression that much more serious. Many Arab newspapers and officials stressed that Israel had achieved a major victory by coaxing Egypt from the Arabs, that for Arabs to band together was now more important than ever to ensure that no one made similar gestures. ₁₃₄ Newspapers and commentaries spoke of loss and betrayal.

Although the Baghdad summit had decreed automatic sanctions if Egypt signed a peace treaty, the Steadfastness States and the Arab Gulf states again clashed before their next scheduled summit at Tunis over whether such a step was necessary or productive. The Steadfastness States left little doubt that Sadat’s actions should be met with unified ostracism and threatened to stay away from the summit unless the Baghdad resolutions were implemented. ₁₃₅ These symbolic sanctions placed the Gulf states in a politically dangerous position, for they now appeared to be siding with Sadat and thus with Israel. Saudi Arabia was forced to chose between its Arab brethren and Egypt when it was already feeling insecure because of the Iranian Revolution. The other Gulf states felt similar pressures. ₁₃₆ Consequently, they reversed course. The Tunis summit implemented a series of sanctions, including the severing of diplomatic ties, the suspension of Egypt’s membership in the Arab League and other all-Arab organizations, the cessation of various economic linkages, and the transference of the headquarters of the Arab League from Cairo to Tunis. ₁₃₇

Sadat responded in characteristic fashion, reminding everyone of Egypt’s past sacrifices, boasting that his efforts were generating opportunities and rewards for the Arabs, and labeling those who opposed Egypt’s policies as dwarfs and ignorants who had made comparatively little contribution to Arabism. ₁₃₈ Sadat gave one of his most spirited defenses of Camp David and attacks on his opponents in an April 5, 1979, address to the People’s Assembly. ₁₃₉ Appearing soon after the sanctions were imposed, Sadat defended Camp David and Egypt’s Arab credentials, denied that this was a separate solution, and then launched a no-holds-barred attack on other Arab leaders. Other Arab states are accusing Egypt of forgetting the PLO, railed Sadat, but it was Egypt in 1976 that insisted that it be made a full member of the Arab League. In case there were doubts regarding the enemies of the Palestinians, Sadat reminded all that it was the Syrians “who slaughtered the Palestinians in Tall az-Za’tar” in Lebanon, King Hussein who “slaughtered” them in Amman in 1970, and that Iraq contributed little to the Palestinian cause or any of the Arab-Israeli wars. Rather than killing them, Sadat boasted, he got Israel to release Palestinians from its prisons and to acknowledge Palestinian claims. The Gulf states were not immune to the wrath of Sadat as he directed a hailstorm of criticism their way, guaranteeing an irrevocable break.

Egypt’s defection and eviction from the Arab fold have led to considerable speculation that Sadat was determined to pursue his conception of Egyptian national interests as defined by state power and untainted by Arab nationalist concerns. Although throughout his campaign he attempted to frame his policies as consistent with Arabism, his words and deeds also laid claim to the view that as the leader of the Arab world Egypt could define Arabism any way it saw fit, and as a sovereign state Egypt was entitled to retrieve its territory and make peace with whom it wanted. It is unknown whether Sadat genuinely believed that his policies were consistent with Arabism. But strong evidence exists that he was driven by a desire to reclaim the Sinai at all costs—even if that meant domestic opposition from those who believed that Sadat’s policies were an affront to Arab nationalism or were costing Egypt too much in terms of regional censure and isolation. Indeed, various Egyptian officials resigned rather than be associated with acts that they believed were strategically unwise and unprincipled, and even those Egyptian officials who remained were quite disturbed by the high price Egypt had to pay for peace. ₁₄₀ Regional ostracism and domestic opposition slowed Sadat’s path to implementing Camp David, but it did not block it. If Sadat found his way without the obstacles that other Arab leaders at other times might have faced, it was probably because he was particularly thick skinned when it came to Arab nationalist causes, and Egyptian society was drifting toward a more Egypt-centered view of Arab politics and thus was more receptive to his policies.

Those who opposed Sadat did so because they felt it was in their interest to do so. But such statements are tautological without some substance. Asad and the other Steadfastness leaders knew that their vocal opposition to Sadat would sell well with their societies and could enhance their regional reputations and aspirations. But why deny that these same leaders who came from the cradle of Arabism might not also be committed to various features of Arab nationalism and found in Sadat’s actions a challenge that could not go unmet? If Sadat could engage in unilateral actions to the point of a separate peace with Israel, pretend that he was working for justice and the Palestinians when he was merely retrieving territory and furthering Egypt’s strategic and economic interests, Arabism meant little if nothing at all. The struggle over Camp David was not only a struggle about regime interests but also about the meaning of Arabism.

Those who opposed Sadat attempted to stop him—and others from condoning his actions or following them—by deploying symbolic sanctions. From the start of Sadat’s negotiations Syria and others framed them as a threat to Arab nationalism. Symbolic sanctions were most effective in the epicenter of Arab nationalism but less forceful in the hinterland; if the Gulf states were less susceptible to these sanctions, it was not simply because they had the wealth to shield themselves but also because their societies were latecomers to Arabism. But ultimately, the opposition’s characterization of Sadat’s policies as an affront to Arabism caused even moderate Arab leaders to tone down their support in some instances and to withhold it in others; by the time Sadat reached Camp David, even those who might have wanted to give him a tongue-lashing and nothing more yielded to the pressure and assisted in his public hanging.

Egypt paid a price for its heresy. It faced a series of sanctions that symbolically and politically excised it from the Arab body politic. Egypt was not the first Arab state to be condemned for actions that were viewed as a violation of Arab norms. The Arab states responded to the rumors of a peace treaty between King Abdullah and Israel by threatening him with a variety of sanctions, including expulsion from the Arab League. Nuri al-Said was never formally evicted from the Arab League for the Baghdad Pact, but his alliance with the West placed him outside the prevailing sentiment in Arab states. But the real penalties were not doled out to these states but to the leaders viewed as responsible for betraying Arab nationalism. King Abdullah was assassinated in 1951, in large measure because of his flirtations with the Israelis. Nuri al-Said died in July 1958 at the hands of revolutionary elements in the Iraqi military whose grievances included the Baghdad Pact and Iraq’s isolation in Arab politics. Anwar Sadat was assassinated in October 1981, and his assassins accused him of a laundry list of crimes, including his close ties to the West and his peace with Israel. ₁₄₁ Betraying Arab nationalism came with a price.

But the Arab response to Sadat and the Arab response to Abdullah and Nuri were different in an important way—the latter event led to a tightening of the Arab ranks, and the former event led to the opposite outcome. To stop King Abdullah in his tracks the Arab states established a prohibition against separate relations with Israel that lasted several decades. To limit the strategic alliances between Arab states and the West most Arab states signed on to Nasser’s vision of positive neutrality. In each case, then, the Arab states responded to the triggering event by establishing a norm that more closely circumscribed what was considered proper conduct for Arab states.

The post-1973 debate about the next stage of the Arab-Israeli conflict and Egypt’s unilateral policies fragmented the Arab ranks. On the surface Camp David represented another point at which Arab states tightened their ranks; after all, they evicted Egypt and renewed their vows of collectivism. But such surface impressions are misleading. By the late 1960s Arabism had come to be defined largely around the Zionist threat. The implication was that the group’s identity and solidarity were increasingly dependent on an external threat that the group agreed to address in a collective manner; potential defections from these norms were interpreted not simply as free riding but as threatening the group’s existence. Because the norms of Arabism were tied to their Arab identity, to “narrow” these norms was tantamount to weakening the Arab identity.

This scenario and development came to define the Arab debate about Sadat’s policies. Sadat argued for an interpretation of Arab nationalism that could accommodate Egyptian national interests and that he claimed was consistent with sovereignty. The Steadfastness States insisted on a more restrictive definition that more closely circumscribed the activities of Arab states and predicted that a more narrow definition of Arabism would weaken their social bonds. Sadat and his critics disagreed publicly about whether his policies were consistent with Arabism, but they largely agreed that his policies were narrowing the meaning of Arabism, reducing the range of issues on which they were accountable, and bringing them closer to statism. The immediate implication was that, as Arab states discussed the demands of Arabism, they implicated their own identities; as they defined and presented themselves, they also drew conclusions concerning how Arab politics should be organized. Although the Arab states responded to the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty by evicting Egypt from the Arab fold, the dialogue among the Arab states about Egypt’s policies had reduced the scope of Arabism and allowed for greater particularism.

Fragmentation in Arab Politics

Egypt’s eviction from Arab politics gave the temporary appearance of solidarity, but it also had the unintended effect of creating a more permissive environment in Arab politics that encouraged Arab states to orient their policies in separate directions. Arab scholars and policymakers frequently couple Egypt’s departure from Arab politics with the conflict and drift that emerged in Arab politics in the 1980s. But they do not link such changes to the loss of Egypt’s economic and military power; after all, Egypt’s leadership position in Arab politics was hardly defined by its deployment of military sticks or economic carrots. Rather, they focus on Egypt’s cultural and symbolic power, its ability to project a sense of purpose and thus to act as magnet in Arab politics. According to one former Jordanian official: “Egypt, as the largest Arab country, was the center of Arabism. Imagine a family and the father abandons them—the immediate reaction is to try and cope with the new demands but after a while the family begins to understand that there is no father figure who can provide guidance and consequently begin to go their own way at the first opportunity. Arab countries now begin to go their own way.” ₁₄₂ Mohamed Heikal similarly concluded that “one inevitable consequence of Egypt’s surrendering her traditional role as the main modernizing and unifying Arab country was that the Arab world split up into small political and geographical entities, busy with their own affairs and often squabbling among themselves.” ₁₄₃ Egypt’s path to Camp David had fragmented the Arab ranks, and its departure from Arab politics only hastened that trend.

The very structure of Arab politics was changing. Commentaries throughout the 1980s echoed the theme of the decline of Arab national interests and the rise of state interests, the elusive quest for Arab solidarity, and the virtual disappearance of issues that could mobilize Arab states for collective action. ₁₄₄ Time and again Arab states were consumed at the Arab summits by the subject of the causes, consequences, and cure of their fragmentation. The signs of their fragmentation were everywhere, and a constant topic of conversation. But the development of subregional organizations, new patterns of inter-Arab rivalry and conflict, and the desire to institutionalize sovereignty in order to halt their rivalries best signaled and most fully contributed to that fragmentation.

Subregional Organizations

A telltale sign that Arab states were moving in separate directions was the development of new organizational forms. Specifically, whereas Arab states once found that the Arab League was institution enough to accommodate and express their shared identity and interests, during the 1980s subregional organizations emerged that enabled Arab states to pursue their interests and potentially express more localized identities. ₁₄₅ The Iran-Iraq War was the trigger for the Arab world’s first subregional organization when Oman, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait created the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in May 1981. These Gulf states shared a common fear that the Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini’s Islamic message might stir instability among their substantial Shi’ite populations and that the Iran-Iraq War might spill over to include them. ₁₄₆ But the GCC states also drew a boundary between themselves and the other Arab states, stating that, although they were all Arabs, the GCC states shared certain historical considerations that unified them and separated them from the other Arab states. ₁₄₇ The GCC states, moreover, denied that the GCC would become the stepping-stone to integration and unification; in fact, its members went some distance to explain that this association was intended to be a “realistic foundation” for cooperation. ₁₄₈

The appearance of the GCC in the context of an already troubled Arab order caused many to openly ask whether Arab summits and even the Arab League would matter in the future as Arab states found more appropriate forums to express their localized identities and interests. ₁₄₉ In response to this question King Hassan of Morocco, in his capacity as the host of the 1985 summit, insisted that subregional organizations did not contradict the Arab League and in fact might even strengthen the cause of Arab unity. ₁₅₀ But such hopeful rebuttals became even less plausible after Iraq, Jordan, Yemen, and Egypt formed the Arab Cooperation Council (ACC) in February 1989, and later that year Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia founded the Arab Maghrebi Union (AMU). Now the tenor of the times turned to how to coordinate relations between the subregional organizations and between each of them and the Arab League. ₁₅₁ King Hassan’s once optimistic appraisal turned cautionary as he warned that “these subregional groupings must not inspire a spirit of isolation.” ₁₅₂ Although many Arab elites claimed that subregional groupings were broadly compatible with pan-Arab principles and the charter of the Arab League, the prevailing sentiment was that Arab states were going their separate ways because they were organizing their activities based on geography rather than shared identity.

Inter-Arab Conflict

Alongside these new patterns of cooperation were new forms of conflict. Arab states were more than accustomed to rivalry and hostility. But there were important differences between the forms of rivalry that existed for much of inter-Arab politics and those that were now being detected. Whereas Arab states once proceeded on the assumption that they had a shared Arab identity that grounded them and oriented them in each other’s direction, now they were openly questioning whether that shared Arab identity was enough to bring them back to the fold. And whereas Arab states once channeled their hostility and conflict through symbolic means, the evidence was growing that they were leaning toward more militarized gestures. These changes in the form of inter-Arab conflict, argued Arab officials and intellectuals, represented and contributed to the fragmentation of Arab politics.

No sooner had the Arab states pledged to respond to the heresy of Camp David with solidarity than they descended into animosity and rivalry. The 1980 Arab summit was a microcosm of these dynamics and a taste of the times to come. ₁₅₃ In the summit’s opening address King Hussein introduced a theme that he would recycle throughout the decade: growing divisiveness and the failure to achieve even a modicum of stability or unity were producing a “widening trend of caring for regional interests at the expense of pan-Arab interests” and creating a “revival of methods of outbidding.” ₁₅₄ Syrian foreign minister Abd al-Halim Khaddam summarized the overall sentiments when he said, “If we look at the map of the Arab homeland, we can hardly find two countries without conflicts. These conflicts have already erupted or are explosive. We can hardly find two countries who are not in a state of war or on the road to war.” ₁₅₅

Although Arab leaders vocalized their need to rise to the challenge, their actions betrayed their words. Syria refused to attend the 1980 Arab summit, reiterated its support for Iran in its war with Arab Iraq, ridiculed the summit and King Hussein, and then moved its army toward the Jordanian border on the pretext of Jordan’s covert operations in Syria (a charge Hussein first denied and then several years later confessed was correct). ₁₅₆ The Arab leaders at the summit pleaded for calm and for fraternal Jordan and Iraq to find more pacific ways to settle their differences. Although a war was averted, the willingness of Syria to amass its troops on the Jordanian border invited commentators across the region to opine that Arab states were better at conflict than they were at cooperation. Egyptian foreign affairs minister Boutros Boutros-Ghali could only gloat from the sidelines: “Cairo cannot help feeling some satisfaction at seeing the Arab world, which expelled Egypt from its midst, being torn apart.” ₁₅₇

The remainder of the decade percolated with the theme of dissension; it seemed as if every failure to cooperate and every instance of conflict was transformed into a symbol of the Arab states’ disintegration. The 1981 summit, the briefest in history, led to a flurry of postmortems that saw dissension as a sign of the deteriorating state of Arab politics. ₁₅₈ The following year the Arab states failed to confront the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. ₁₅₉ At the 1985 Arab summit in Rabat, King Hassan said that a central agenda item was “the situation prevailing in the Arab nation and the need to clear them of everything that might tarnish that atmosphere.” ₁₆₀ In his opening speech Hassan noted how the states of the European Economic Community, which do not even have a common language, are able to come to agreement on major issues, convene meetings with “a smile and look happy,” are the powerful, “arm us with the most modern weapons,” and discuss issues with responsibility to resolve common interests. ₁₆₁ Echoing Hassan’s theme, King Hussein lamented that it was impossible for the Arab nation to make progress when “there is disintegration instead of congregation, regionalism instead of pan-Arab solidarity, plotting instead of harmony, hegemony instead of fraternalization, destruction instead of construction, and the placing of obstacles instead of their removal.” ₁₆₂

Arab officials had good reasons to take every opportunity to claim that their conflicts were signs of their disintegration: the conflicts between Arab states were more numerous than ever before, and militarized conflicts too were multiplying. ₁₆₃ Between 1949 and 1967 Arab states had roughly ten militarized disputes (three of those coming in the Maghreb); they had nineteen militarized disputes between 1967 and 1989. That is, the twenty-two years since 1967 produced nearly twice as many militarized disputes as had the nineteen years before 1967. Not only were there more militarized conflicts than ever but the cause of these conflicts increasingly was territorial grievances and the desire for strategic influence rather than strictly domestic factors such as a spillover of a internal conflict or the attempt by a regime to increase its popularity by manufacturing or playing up an external grievance. According to Malik Mufti, the Arab states were increasingly demonstrating “their willingness . . . to justify the pursuit of national interest through military means.” ₁₆₄ This was a dramatic turnaround from previous years when Arab officials almost always used Arab nationalist precepts to justify and legitimate their foreign policies.

These two factors—more inter-Arab disputes were militarized than ever before, and more of these disputes derived from realpolitik impulses—led Arab officials and intellectuals to claim that these conflicts represented and caused their growing statism, particularism, and fragmentation. Arab states were no stranger to conflict, they commented at the time, but conflict in the past had always unfolded amid the assumption that they had a shared set of interests because of their shared Arab identity. This shared identity and interests had always brought them back home even in the worst of times. But perhaps no more. Indeed, the more likely that Arab states were to contemplate the use of force to settle their grievances, the more likely Arab officials and societies were to consider other Arab states a potential threat. From such developments sprang further doubts that their shared identity handed them shared interests. No longer debating or dwelling on various proposals for economic or political integration, the summit meetings of the 1980s concerned resolving differences and healing wounds. Even during their darkest days of the 1950s and 1960s Arab states never coupled their conflict to impending disintegration. Not so anymore.

Sovereignty

To try to orient each other’s foreign policies in a more constructive manner Arab states once again addressed the rules that should govern their relations. This discussion focused on a familiar arrangement: sovereignty. But a change marked how sovereignty was being discussed and advanced in this debate about the desired regional order. Previously, Arab states gravitated toward sovereignty to dampen Arab nationalism and the tendency of Arab leaders to use Arabism as an instrument for symbolic sanctioning; now few Arab leaders viewed Arab nationalism in the same light, and more were interested in institutionalizing sovereignty in order to limit their conflicts. Arab states once forwarded pan-Arab ideals as the inspiration for cooperation; now they were looking to base their cooperation on norms that were indistinguishable from those of international society. Arab states once insisted they had shared interests because of their shared identity; now they were hinting that proximity and geography were better and more realistic rationales for inter-Arab coordination. Arab states once were looked to sovereignty to defend their individuality against Arabism; now they were looking to sovereignty to preserve their Arabism against unbridled individualism.

The draft protocol regulating joint Arab action that was discussed at the 1985 Arab summit exemplifies the remedies that Arab states sought for their ailments. The protocol specified that “each Arab country will pledge to respect the system of rule in other Arab countries, not to interfere in the domestic affairs of other Arab countries, and refrain from assisting any elements that act against the sovereignty, independence, and safety of the territory of any other Arab country.” ₁₆₅ In addition to other clauses concerning the peaceful settlement of disputes, the draft protocol “obliges the member-states not to permit the establishment of foreign military bases and not to grant any military facilities or any foreign military presence in their territories,” to withhold support from any foreign country at war with another Arab country, and to refrain from interfering in Palestinian affairs and proposing a separate agreement on the Palestine issue. Echoes of past Arab nationalist principles carried over into these proposals, but the central points that animated their debate revolved around the desire to use sovereignty to better protect their territoriality and perhaps to provide the basis for cooperation.

No one was a more active or outspoken advocate on these issues than King Hussein. Throughout the Arab summits of the 1980 he made the importance of sovereignty a routine feature of his speeches. According to Taher al-Masri, a former prime minister of Jordan, behind this move were various Arabist and self-interested reasons. ₁₆₆ Without an agreement on the basic rules of the game Arab politics would only fragment further. In other words, absent some general norms to guide their relations in ways that might encourage cooperation, Arab states were likely to orient their policies in disconnected directions. Moreover, Jordan’s location—at the center of the Arab world and containing a large Palestinian population that blurred the boundaries between Jordan and other Arab countries—gave it a keen interest in establishing such an order. ₁₆₇ When pressed to address why King Hussein was now pushing sovereignty when these same “destabilizing” conditions were present during the 1960s, Masri responded without hesitation: “This is because the era of Arab nationalism is over. Now that nationalism has declined, we can begin to emphasize sovereignty without being accused of being opposed to Arab nationalism.” According to another former top-ranking Jordanian official, “There are new rules of the game. There is a general understanding that Arab nationalism had created only turmoil and instability.” So, he continued, Jordanians were much more interested in sovereignty, and the decline of Arab nationalism allowed King Hussein to make the pitch even more strenuously and successfully than in the past. ₁₆₈

By the end of the decade the Arab states had healed some wounds—Egypt had returned to the fold in 1987, the bloody Iran-Iraq War had finally ended—but they were still discussing their rules of the game. At the 1989 Arab summit in Casablanca King Hussein commented on the relationship between the individual national securities of the separate Arab states and the desire for unity in the context of Palestine. His speech is worth quoting at length, for it dramatizes the ongoing debate and tension between acting collectively and individually with regard to Palestine and how statism was creeping into regional life:

On the one hand, the problem has an Arab aspect concerned with the Arab order and with inter-Arab relations within the framework of our regional institution. On the other hand, there is the aspect of relations with others, of our conflicts, and of cooperation with others. . . .

A decision must be made. Sooner or later, the ambiguity must be resolved. We simply cannot continue to oscillate between the two concepts without a thorough examination or proper clarification. If the question is purely one pertaining to individual states, then Jordan’s problem becomes quite simple, in essence not exceeding the occupation of a few square kilometers of Jordanian territory in Wadi Arabah and the northern segment of the Jordanian valley. . . . The question then becomes: If the Palestine question pertains to individual states, why should Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon continue to sustain a situation of protracted attrition? Why should they sit and wait? And in whose interest is this situation? If on the other hand, the question is a pan-Arab one, as indeed it is, where are our collective efforts and pan-Arab commitment?

What breaks the heart and calls for sorrow and concern is that the Arab League, the oldest regional organization in this world since World War Two and the one having the most components of cohesion, development, and survival, has sunk into disarray at a time when the world is moving toward regional blocs, multilateral institutional cooperation and integration between resources and capabilities in the search for a comprehensive development and entrenchment of the pillars of regional security. Where is the common Arab market? Where is the Collective Arab Defense Pact? ₁₆₉

The problem, according to Hussein, was that although the rhetorical rules reflected a hope for pan-Arab aspirations, Arab states increasingly adhered to alternative principles. Such gaps were causing confusion and conflict.

What was the ultimate cause of the present state of disarray in Arab politics? Hussein bluntly noted that individualism dominated:

First, the obstacle lies in bilateral differences, which usually grow out of political disagreement and occasionally lead to punishing the peoples of the two concerned countries. . . . Second, another problem is a narrow pan-Arab vision resulting from the preoccupation of each Arab state with its own development, security, and defense concerns. . . . It has also resulted in diminished concern for and demotion of pan-Arab issues to the lowest level of state priority, except in cases of a directly perceived connection between a particular state and an outside threat. Third, the unjustified exaggeration in the implementation of the principle of profit and loss in dealing with pan-Arab issues. ₁₇₀

Arab states were now evaluating their policies based on state rather than Arab national interests and were likely to be more stingy when asked to contribute to Arab national concerns.

Using his country’s first appearance at an Arab summit since 1978, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak forwarded the “pillars of Arab solidarity,” which were nearly identical to the norms of international society and sovereignty:

First, to arrive at an agreed-on formula for peace. . . . Second, to define for ourselves an active role in the process of international detente. . . . Third, we should agree on a realistic meaning for Arab solidarity, which we will be committed to in order to reach an understanding and agreement of views on the principle and its practical applications in the Arab reality, regardless of any differences in views or in policies.

Fourth, we should be strictly committed to the principle of noninterference in the internal affairs of each other, because the people of each country knows [sic] better than others what realizes their own interests and are more capable of defining their path at the internal level. It is unfeasible that we be enthusiastic in proposing this principle in the sphere of international relations only to be incapable of honoring it and consolidating it in our narrower pan-Arab sphere in which there are common interests unavailable in the wider international circles.

Fifth, this is connected to . . . the basic fact . . . that governs the motion of history a great deal—that the many opinions and efforts are inevitable necessities that we cannot do without. The law of life calls for diversity. We cannot change this law.

Sixth, in the coming period we will have to direct a great deal of . . . attention to laying down agreed-on practical policies that may lead to more economic, cultural, and political cooperation . . . inside the Arab homeland. . . . [We must also consider] the question of . . . the relationships between the Arab groups . . . and the relationship between them and the Arab League. ₁₇₁

Egypt’s comeback speech urged the repair of inter-Arab relations by finding some common norms that rested on sovereignty. Such sovereignty was coupled with the understanding that these were separate Arab states that might have separate interests because “the people of each country know better.”

At the close of the 1980s the debate about the desired regional order still focused on the relationship between the Arab state and Arabism. But this debate departed sharply from the one that occurred only two decades before. Whereas Arab states once debated different versions of Arab unity, how to effect collective action on matters of Arab national interest, and how their sovereignty was circumscribed because of the norms of Arab nationalism, now they focused on how to contain their conflicts and openly debated whether they had any reason to orient their actions toward each other except strictly material grounds or for only the most immediate threats. As one Cairo newspaper observed, Egypt now believed that no single Arab country could shoulder the responsibility for the Arab nation and establish a “single center of power” and that Arab unity was based on coordination of common interests that were largely limited to economic ties. “The nature of the Arab objective is now different.” ₁₇₂

If the “Arab objective” was different, it was different because the structure of Arab politics had changed. Arabism no longer represented the defining source of the Arab states’ identity, shaped their interests and strategies, or moved them to act collectively. Arab states still presented themselves as “Arab,” but they also were acknowledging their separate and distinct personalities that had potentially separate and distinct interests. Arab states still talked about Arab national interests and debated a set of norms tied to their Arab identity, but these interests and norms almost exclusively revolved around the subject of Palestine; the other interests and norms discussed at the summits and in various protocols were identical to those of international society. Arab states still focused on the relationship between Arab nationalism and sovereignty, but whereas they once considered how to institutionalize sovereignty to circumscribe the transnational effects of Arabism, now they were looking to sovereignty to limit their conflicts and save some semblance of Arab nationalism and we-feeling. The debate about the desired regional order, the relationship between the Arab states’ identities, the norms that bound them together had shifted dramatically since the late 1960s because of the decline of Arabism and the rise of statism.

No single factor contributed to this outcome. Reductionism is to be avoided when searching for the ingredients of macrohistorical change. Geostrategic forces contributed to the decline of Arabism. The 1967 war was a cataclysmic event and certainly caused Arab states to recalculate their strategic policies and to become more self-reliant and less interested in multilateral posturing. Egypt, the most powerful Arab country, threw its weight behind the conservative agenda in part because it was intent on reclaiming Egyptian soil and Arab dignity. The emergence of petropolitics and the growing power of the Arab Gulf states, which had always been on the periphery of Arab nationalism, supported a more statist orientation. But strategic factors and systemic changes are a poor predictor of the foreign policies adopted by Arab states and why they moved from integration to fragmentation. It was not the distribution of power but their own interactions that led Arab states to move away from the radical agenda before 1967. Conceivably, Arab states could have responded to the 1967 war by tightening their alliance; other states at other moments have responded to a rise in an external threat by coming closer together. If Arab states responded to the defeat by deciding to move further apart, it was because of their collective interpretations of how their past strategic and symbolic interactions in the name of Arab unity had created their current plight. Many Arab leaders were noting that the same global and regional developments that seemed to be encouraging other areas to rush into regional cooperation in the late 1980s were not leaving a similar mark on the Arab states’ dispositions; indeed, they were taking such developments as a cue to distance themselves from one another even further.

Domestic changes in general and state formation in particular also contributed to a growing statism. Virtually all Arab states pledged their devotion to Arab nationalism while pursuing state-building projects intended to encourage their citizens to identify with the capital city and not transnational Arabism. State formation spurred a revolution in identities that encouraged Arab states to express new sets of interests; as Arab societies more closely identified with the territorial state, Arab leaders were less fearful of the symbolic sanctions unleashed by other Arab governments. Although evidence exists that state formation in the context of Arab politics is associated with a decline in the desire for transnational projects and inter-Arab cooperation in the l980s, Arab scholars and officials were noting that state formation per se was open ended with regard to international outcomes and transnational obligations as they claimed that hardening of the Arab state would provide a solid foundation for inter-Arab cooperation. After all, they frequently noted, the European states—states that were strong and legitimate on any scale—were integrating at an unprecedented rate. Systemic and domestic forces played a role in the growing territorialism and statism that increasingly defined the regional order, but the existence of both systemic and domestic factors does not directly point to integration or fragmentation.

How Arab leaders played the game of Arab politics led to the widely observed fragmentation. Years of symbolic competition and outright conflict had created growing differentiation between Arab states. Unceasing inter-Arab rivalry had encouraged citizens, and even partisans of Arab nationalism, to make their peace with the state. That inter-Arab interactions and conflicts encouraged differentiation was already evident from their unity experiments of the mid-1960s; each failed unity attempt had led Arab states to stress their separate personality in relationship to the Arab nation. The symbolic competition that immediately preceded the 1967 war, and then the collective interpretation of the causes of the failures of past Arab efforts, further institutionalized sovereignty and statism.

The Arab states’ debate over the peace process shaped the organization of Arab politics in general and led to a more centrist version of Arabism in particular. Khartoum was the first and most dramatic instance of this relationship. To reverse the outcome of the 1967 war Arab states concluded that they must construct a new regional order that would allow them to make peace with each other and war with Israel. Sadat’s post-1973 policies led to a narrowing of the meaning of Arab nationalism as it reduced the Arab states’ mutual accountability on a host of issues and legitimated their autonomy according to their special circumstances. The Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty represented a short-lived moment when the other Arab states overcame their differences of opinion over Sadat’s policies to agree that he had gone too far and was stretching the meaning of Arabism to the point where it was meaningless. Soon after they collectively delivered their guilty verdict on Sadat’s policies, the Arab states returned to their conflicts with renewed ferocity.

During the 1980s the Arab states proclaimed that they must tighten their ranks, all the while engaging in new forms of inter-Arab organization and conflict that were both a cause and a consequence of their growing fragmentation. Having lost their patience with pan-Arab forums, Arab states began to drift toward more localized associations that were interpreted as a challenge to Arab nationalism and based on more narrowly-defined state interests. More worrisome for those still longing for inter-Arab cooperation was the new pattern in inter-Arab conflict. At the 1989 summit King Hussein discursively linked the presence of severe bilateral differences to the emergence of a narrow pan-Arab path that focuses on the individual Arab state, nearly ignoring developments that occur in other Arab states. This record of conflict, King Hussein suggested, had left Arab states less committed to each other and more willing to evaluate policies on more narrow self-interested terms. If Arab states could not learn to cooperate after decades of attempts, and if conflict rather than cooperation was the sole legacy of such attempts, then perhaps Arabs states should go their own way.

Arabism had narrowed considerably as a consequence of the dialogue over the peace process, their longstanding bilateral disputes, and the near absence of awe-inspiring acts of inter-Arab cooperation. Simply stated, the very structure of Arab politics had altered considerably since 1967. Now Arab states were no longer as desirous of the social approval that they gained from participating in Arab activities and contributing to Arab causes, as interested in competing for symbolic capital because its value had depreciated considerably, as susceptible to symbolic sanctions because their societies were less easily mobilized except for the most dramatic and subversive actions, and less oriented toward each other. The changes in the very structure of Arab politics were there for all to see and for Arab leaders to fret publicly about at their summit meetings, evident in their new patterns of association and in their forms of conflict and cooperation.

By the late 1980s the Arab states were searching for rules of the game that would arrest their unbridled fragmentation and reinstate some political force behind their shared Arab identity. Years of rivalry and conflict had steadily relaxed the meaning of Arabism and made it more consistent with statism. Faced with a situation of their own making, Arab states now were seeking to contain their ever-present potential for conflict by establishing some rules of the game that were virtually synonymous with international society and premised on the recognition that, although Arab states were a single family, the members of the family had separate personalities. Unless Arab states were able to find some common ground, Arab scholars and officials warned, then they had to seriously question their future.

Endotes

Note 1: Quoted in Abdel Magid Farid, Nasser: The Final Years (Reading, England: Ithaca, 1994), p. 127. Back.

Note 2: Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991), p. 442. Back.

Note 3: Malcolm Kerr, The Arab Cold War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), p. 129. Back.

Note 4: Mohamed Heikal, The Sphinx and the Commissar (New York: Harper and Row, 1978), pp. 261–62. Back.

Note 5: Adeed Dawisha, “Jordan in the Middle East: The Art of Survival,” in P. Seale, ed., The Shaping of an Arab Statesman: Abd al-Hamid Sharaf and the Modern Arab World (New York: Quartet, 1983), p. 69. Back.

Note 6: A. Hourani, History of the Arab Peoples, p. 451; see the collection of essays in Giacomo Luciani, ed., The Arab State (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990). Back.

Note 7: TAP, “Bourghiba Calls for Arab Unity Based on Islam,” June 20, 1967, cited in Foreign Broadcast Information Service (hereafter FBIS), June 20, 1967, I22. Also see Amman Domestic Service, “Paper Says Immediate Summit Meeting Essential,” Al-Dustur, July 10, 1967, cited in FBIS, July 10, 1967, D4. Back.

Note 8: Middle East News Agency (hereafter MENA),“Haykal Article Discusses Proposed Arab Summit,” Cairo, July 13, 1967, cited in FBIS, July 14, 1967, B6–10. Back.

Note 9: MENA, “Iraq, Syria Submit Plans at Summit,” Baghdad, June 18, 1967, cited in FBIS, June 19, 1967, C1. Also see Baghdad Domestic Service, “Minister Says Holy War Depends on Unity,” reported by MENA, June 18, 1967, cited in FBIS, June 19, 1967, C2. Back.

Note 10: Derek Hopwood, Syria: 1945–86 (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1988). Back.

Note 11: MENA, “Haykal Article Supports Arab Summit,” Cairo, July 20, 1967, cited in FBIS, July 21, 1967, B8–9. See also Amman Domestic Service, “Haykal Article Reflects Positive Change,” July 17, 1967, cited in FBIS, July 18, 1967, D3. Back.

Note 12: Tahseen Bashir, interview by author, Washington, D.C., April 2, 1996. Back.

Note 13: Ibid. Back.

Note 14: Amman Domestic Service, “Newspaper [Al-Dustur] Views Call for Summit Conference,” June 19, 1967, cited in FBIS, June 19, 1967, D1–2. Back.

Note 15: 67, D1–2. 15. “Amman’s Al-Dustur on Heikal’s Change of Opinion,” July 17, 1967, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/2519/A/8, July 18, 1967. Back.

Note 16: Amman Domestic Service, “Al-Dustur Praises Nasir Call for Summit Talks,” July 25, 1967, cited in FBIS, July 25, 1967, D1. Back.

Note 17: MENA, “Obstacles to Arab Summit Discussed,” Damascus, June 29, 1967, cited in FBIS, June 30, 1967, F1. Back.

Note 18: Cairo Domestic Service, “Mahjub Opens First Meeting,” August 1, 1967, cited in FBIS, August 2, 1967, I11–12. Back.

Note 19: Beirut RNS, “Tunisian-PLO Differences,” August 3, 1967, cited in FBIS, August 4, 1967, I13. Back.

Note 20: MENA, “Al-Ahram Notes Achievements of Khartoum Talks,” Cairo, August 8, 1967, cited in FBIS, August 9, 1967, B6. Back.

Note 21: MENA, “Arab Ministers to Seek Settlements,” Cairo, August 4, 1967, cited in FBIS, August 7, I11. Back.

Note 22: George Corm, Fragmentation of the Middle East: The Last Thirty Years (London: Hutchinson, 1983), p. 53. Back.

Note 23: Beirut RNS, “Differences Remain After Baghdad Conference,” August 22, 1967, FBIS, August 23, 1967, C2. Back.

Note 24: “Military Unity Cannot Be Delayed,” Al-Arab, August 28, 1967; cited in FBIS, August 28, 1967, C1; Iraqi News Agency, “Economic Unity Should Precede Political Unity,” FBIS, August 24, 1967, C3. Back.

Note 25: Anonymous source, interview by author, Amman, Jordan, September 3, 1995. Back.

Note 26: Cairo Domestic Service, “Proceedings of Final Session of Arab Summit,” September 1, 1967, cited in FBIS, September 5, 1967, I12–15. Back.

Note 27: Anonymous source, interview by author, Amman, Jordan, September 3, 1995. Back.

Note 28: Amman Domestic Service, “King Husayn Interviewed on Arab Summit,” September 4, 1967, FBIS, September 5, 1967, D1. Back.

Note 29: Al-Dustur, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/2561/A/6, September 6, 1967. Also see the editorials in the Baghdadi Al-Fajr al-Jadid and the Egyptian Al-Akhbar al-Yawm, reprinted in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/2558/A/3, September 2, 1967, and ME/2559/A/4, September 4, 1967, respectively. See Fouad Ajami, The Arab Predicament: Arab Political Thought and Practice Since 1967 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981), for a more complete treatment of the symbolic significance of Khartoum. Back.

Note 30: MENA, “Ath-Thawrah Scores Arab Summit Resolutions,” Damascus, September 2, 1967, cited in FBIS, September 5, 1967, G1. Back.

Note 31: Baghdad Domestic Service, “Arif Holds Press Conference on Arab Summit,” September 3, 1967, cited in FBIS, September 5, 1967, C1. Back.

Note 32: A countermovement of radicalism was growing. See Ahmed Abdalla, The Student Movement and National Politics in Egypt (London: Al-Saqi Books, 1985). Back.

Note 33: Ajami, Arab Predicament, p. 71. Back.

Note 34: Mohamed Heikal, Secret Channels (London: HarperCollins, 1996), p. 133. Back.

Note 35: Nadav Safran, Saudi Arabia: The Ceaseless Quest for Security (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1988), pp. 141–42. Back.

Note 36: Farid, Nasser, p. 200; Heikal, Secret Channels, pp. 155–58. Back.

Note 37: Heikal, Secret Channels, p. 304. Back.

Note 38: Mark Tessler, A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), pp. 410–11. Back.

Note 39: Heikal, Secret Channels, p. 155. Back.

Note 40: Ajami, Arab Predicament, pp. 74–75. Back.

Note 41: Tunis Home Service, “Rabat Summit Proceedings of December 22,” December 22, 1969, quoted in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/3263/A/1, December 23, 1969. Back.

Note 42: Rabat Home Service, “King Hassan’s Press Conference Following the Rabat Summit,” December 24, 1969, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/3264/A/8, December 26, 1969. Back.

Note 43: Kamal Salibi, The Modern History of Jordan (London: I. B. Taurus. 1993), p. 236. Back.

Note 44: Amman Home Service,“Husayn’s Reply to Nasir’s Message of 19th September,” September 20, 1970, quoted in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/3488/A/11–15, September 21, 1970. Back.

Note 45: Amman Home Service, “King Husayn’s Telegrams to Arab Kings and Presidents,” September 20, 1970, quoted in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/3488/A/13–14, September 21, 1970. Back.

Note 46: Cairo Radio, text of “Commentary by Salah as-Suwayfi,” Voice of the Arabs, September 24, 1970, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/3492/A/4, September 25, 1970. Also see Hilmi al-Buluk, “Comment on the Jordan Situation,” Voice of the Arabs, September 17, 1970, quoted in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/3486/A/3, September 18, 1970. Back.

Note 47: Kerr, Arab Cold War, p. 151. Back.

Note 48: Libya’s Muammar al-Qaddafi declared that he would cut off financial aid to Jordan, funnel weapons to the fedayeen, and was prepared to act unilaterally and militarily if the fighting against the Palestinians did not cease immediately. Then for good measure he accused Iraq of betraying the cause because it failed to intervene militarily. Libyan Radio, “Lybian Statements and Comment on Jordan,” September 20, 1970, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/3489/A/3–4, September 21, 1970. Back.

Note 49: Quoted in Amatzia Baram, “No New Fertile Crescent: Iraqi-Jordanian Relations, 1968–92,” in J. Nevo and I. Pappe, eds., Jordan in the Middle East, 1948–88: The Making of a Pivotal State (London: Frank Cass, 1994), p. 120. Back.

Note 50: Damascus Home Service, “Statement by Syrian Information Minister, Hammud al-Qabbani,” September 21, 1970, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/3489/A/7–8, September 22, 1970. Back.

Note 51: Why Syria Goes to War: Thirty Years of Confrontation (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996), chap. 3. Fred Lawson links Syria’s limited intervention to domestic political and economic struggles. Back.

Note 52: Algiers Home Service, “Algerian Message to Yasir Arafat and King Husayn,” September 17, 1970, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/3486/A/8, September 18, 1970. Back.

Note 53: Farid, Nasser, p. 51; Dawisha, “Jordan in the Middle East,” p. 65. Back.

Note 54: Kerr, Arab Cold War, p. 137. Back.

Note 55: Heikal, Secret Channels, p. 299 Back.

Note 56: Statement by Tahseen Bashir at press conference, reported by Cairo Home Service, September 22, 1970, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/3490/A/2, September 23, 1970. Back.

Note 57: Cairo Home Service, “Numayri’s Cairo Press Conference on the 26th September,” September 26, 1970, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/3494/A/1, September 27, 1970. Also see Cairo Home Service, “Exchange of Telegrams Between Nasir and Husayn,” September 26, 1970, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/3493/A/7, September 27, 1970. Back.

Note 58: Amman Home Service, “Husayn’s Broadcast to Armed Forces and Fedayeen,” September 23, 1970, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/3490/A/7–8, September 24, 1970. Back.

Note 59: Salibi, Modern History of Jordan, p. 238. Back.

Note 60: Cairo Home Service, “Cairo Agreement on Jordan,” September 27, 1970, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/3494/A/15–16, September 28, 1970. Back.

Note 61: Dawisha, “Jordan in the Middle East,” p. 68. Back.

Note 62: Amman Home Service, “Cease-Fire Agreements in Jordan,” October 10, 1970, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/3498/A/8–10, October 11, 1970. Back.

Note 63: An ongoing issue in Jordan’s national identity was the place of Palestine in the national identity. Shirin Fathi, Jordan: An Invented Nation? (Hamburg: Deutsches Orient-Institut, 1994), pp. 210–11; Laurie Brand, “Palestinians and Jordanians: A Crisis of Identity,” Journal of Palestine Studies 24, no. 4 (1995): 46–61. From 1950 through 1967 the Jordanian government attempted to “Jordanize” the Palestinians. But the loss of the West Bank and the growing number and radicalization of the Palestinians launched another consideration of Jordan’s national identity. The events of 1970 further traumatized and stimulated that debate about the Jordanian national identity and the authority of the Jordanian state, as did the ongoing question of whether the PLO or King Hussein represented the Palestinians. Back.

Note 64: Corm, Fragmentation of the Middle East, p. 32. Back.

Note 65: Safran, Saudi Arabia, pp. 156–60. Back.

Note 66: Alisdair Drysdale and Raymond Hinnebusch, Syria and the Middle East Peace Process (New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1991), p. 108. Back.

Note 67: Corm, Fragmentation of the Middle East, p. 100. Egypt and Syria also undertook comparatively little coordination before the surprise attack, and such planning was thick with suspicion and mistrust. See Mohamed Abdel Ghani el-Gamasy, The October War: Memoirs of Field Marshal el-Gamasy of Egypt (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 1993), chap. 13; Saad el-Shazli, The Crossing of the Suez (San Francisco: American Middle East Research, 1980). Such suspicion led Egypt and Syria to not coordinate or fully disclose their military strategies and objectives. And their lack of coordination undermined the overall military campaign, most famous in the “pause” on the third day of the war after their initially impressive military advance. Gamasy, October War, chap. 24. Back.

Note 68: Abdel-Aziz Higazi, interview by author, June 10, 1987, Cairo, Egypt. Back.

Note 69: Saad Eddin Ibrahim, “Domestic Developments in Egypt,” in W. Quandt, ed., The Middle East: Ten Years After Camp David (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1988), pp. 19–62. Back.

Note 70: Ibid., p. 27. Back.

Note 71: Mohamed Heikal, Autumn of Fury: The Assassination of Sadat (New York: St. Martin’s, 1983), p. 111; Ibrahim, “Domestic Developments in Egypt,” p. 27. Back.

Note 72: Ghada Hashem Talhami, Palestine and Egyptian National Identity (New York: Praeger, 1992), chap. 6; Baghat Korany, “Egypt,” in R. Brynen, ed., Echoes of the Intifada (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1991), p. 200; Ibrahim, “Domestic Developments in Egypt”; Abdel Monem Said Aly, “Egypt: A Decade After Camp David,” in Quandt, Middle East, pp. 70–72; P. J. Vatikiotis, Arab and Regional Politics in the Middle East (New York: St. Martin’s, 1984), p. 163. Back.

Note 73: Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Egypt’s Road to Jerusalem: A Diplomat’s Story of the Struggle for Peace in the Middle East (New York: Random House, 1997). Back.

Note 74: Vatikiotis, Arab and Regional Politics, p. 128. Back.

Note 75: Safran, Saudi Arabia, pp. 175–76. Back.

Note 76: Baghat Korany, “Political Petrolism and Contemporary Arab Politics, 1967–83,” Journal of Asian and African Studies 21, no. 1/2 (1986): 68–80. Back.

Note 77: William Quandt, Saudi Arabia in the 1980s (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1984), p. 34; Bassam Tibi, Conflict and War in the Middle East, 1967–91 (New York: St. Martin’s, 1993), p. 89. Back.

Note 78: Drysdale and Hinnebusch, Syria and the Middle East Peace Process, chap. 3; Moshe Maoz, Syria and Israel: From War to Peacemaking (Oxford, England: Clarendon, 1995), chaps. 7 and 9. Back.

Note 79: For discussions of the PLO during this period see Helena Cobban, The Palestinian Liberation Organization: People, Power, and Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984); Moshe Shemesh, The Palestinian Entity, 1959–74: Arab Politics and the PLO (London: Frank Cass, 1988); Yezid Sayigh, Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949–93 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997). Back.

Note 80: Gabriel Ben-Dor, “Nationalism Without Sovereignty and Nationalism with Multiple Sovereignties: The Palestinians and Inter-Arab Relations,” in G. Ben-Dor, ed., Palestinians and the Middle East Conflict (Forest Grove, Ore.: Turtle Dove, 1979), pp. 148–49, 160. Back.

Note 81: Boutros-Ghali, Egypt’s Road to Jerusalem. Back.

Note 82: Ismael Fahmy, The Struggle for Peace in the Middle East (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983), pp. 108–109. Back.

Note 83: When the long-awaited Geneva peace conference opened on December 21, the only parties to the conflict that sent representatives were Israel, Egypt, and Jordan–the Syrian chair was empty. An international conference would not be held for another two decades. Back.

Note 84: Fahmy, Struggle for Peace, p. 83. Back.

Note 85: Safran, Saudi Arabia, p. 241. Back.

Note 86: Drysdale and Hinnebusch, Syria and the Middle East Peace Process, p. 110. Back.

Note 87: Fahmy, Struggle for Peace, pp. 96–97. Back.

Note 88: Safran, Saudi Arabia, p. 242. Back.

Note 89: Fahmy, Struggle for Peace, pp. 159–69. Back.

Note 90: Safran, Saudi Arabia, p. 244; Riyadh Home Service, “Saudi Reaction,” September 2, 1975, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/4998/A/5, September 4, 1975. Back.

Note 91: Riyadh Home Service, “Saudi Comment on Arab Communists and the Sinai Agreement,” September 22, 1975, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/5015/A/1, September 24, 1975. Back.

Note 92: Kuwait Home Service, “Kuwait Government Meeting–Sinai Disengagement,” September 7, 1975, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/5002/A/10, September 9, 1975. Back.

Note 93: Amman Home Service, “King Husayn on Middle East Peace Prospects,” November 24, 1975, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/5069/A/1–2, November 26, 1975. Back.

Note 94: Damascus Home Service, “Speech by Asad at October War Anniversary Celebration,” October 6, 1975, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/5027/A/3–8, October 8, 1975. Also see Cairo Home Service, “Egyptian Comment on Speech by Asad,” October 8, 1975, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/5027/A/3, October 10, 1975; Damascus Home Service, “Syrian Ba’ath Party Statement,” September 3, 1975, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/4999/A/7, September 5, 1975; Damascus Home Service, “Syrian People’s Assembly Statement on Sinai Agreement,” September 23, 1975, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/5016/A/1–3, September 25, 1975; Damascus Domestic Service, “Damascus Radio Assails As-Sadat Speech,” March 15, 1976, cited in FBIS, March 16, 1976, H5. Back.

Note 95: Damascus Home Service, “Syrian Condemnation of Sadat’s Statements on Sinai,” February 21, 1976, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/5141/A/2–3, February 23, 1976. Back.

Note 96: Drysdale and Hinnebusch, Syria and the Middle East Peace Process, p. 117. The war of words between Egypt and Syria included a debate about their respective activities during the October War, particularly which was responsible for the “premature” halting of the advance after the third day of the war, which was the first to seek a cease-fire and for what purposes, and which sacrificed more during the war for the Arab cause. “Sadat’s 15th September Speech at Meeting with ASU and TU Leaders,” September 15, 1975, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/5009/A/1, September 17, 1975; “Syrian Reports of Criticisms of Sadat’s 15th September Speech,” Ar-Ra’y al’Amm, Kuwait, September 17, 1975, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/5011/A/2, September 19, 1975; Damascus Home Service, “Speech by Asad at October War Anniversary Celebration,” October 6, 1975, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/5027/A/3–8, October 8, 1975. Back.

Note 97: “Iraqi Ba’ath Condemnation of Sinai Agreement,” Baghdad Voice of the Masses, September 4, 1975, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/5000/A/1, September 6, 1975; “Iraqi Paper on Egyptian-Israeli Interim Agreement,” Ath-thawrah, August 28, 1975, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/4994/A/2, August 30, 1975; “Iraqi Ba’ath Party Condemnation of Sinai Agreement,” September 8, 1975, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/5000/A/1–8, September 9, 1975; “Iraq Criticism of Syria over Sinai Agreement,” Al-Jumhuriyah, October 2, 1975, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/5023/A/5, October 3, 1975. Back.

Note 98: “Egyptian Comment,” Voice of the Arabs, Cairo, September 2, 1975, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/4998/A/2, September 4, 1975. Back.

Note 99: Cairo Home Service, “Sadat’s 4th September Speech at the Joint People’s Assembly–ASU Meeting,” September 4, 1975, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/5000/A/6–14, September 6, 1975. Back.

Note 100: “Sadat’s 15th September Speech at Meeting with ASU and TU Leaders,” September 15, 1975, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/5009/A/1, September 17, 1975. Back.

Note 101: Also see Cairo Home Service, “Ismail Fahmi’s Statement to People’s Assembly Committees,” January 5, 1975, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/5101/A/8–10, January 7, 1975. Back.

Note 102: “Interview with President Sadat,” Al-Ahram, February 3, 1976, cited in FBIS, February 3, 1976, D1–15. Back.

Note 103: In the war of words between Syria and Egypt, Egypt refused to be outdone. Cairo Radio broadcast that it was “difficult to believe that anyone would oppose” the agreement, “except, of course, a fool, an ignoramus, a cheap jacket, or an outbidder.” Although the Ba’athists are also working toward the same goals, the broadcast continued, they will act irresponsibly in order to attract attention and engage in one-upmanship. Cairo Home Service, “Egyptian Denunciation of Syrian Ba’athists’ ‘One-Upmanship,”’ November 24, 1975, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/5069/A/3–4, November 26, 1975. Other Egyptian commentaries accused Syria of voicing its objections as a method of extorting financial resources from other Arab states and accused Syria and Iraq of engaging in empty acts of “one-upmanships” that were designed to mask their empty gestures of Arabism. See “Egyptian Response to Criticism of the Sinai Agreement,” cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/5005/A/1–4, September 12, 1975. Back.

Note 104: See, respectively, Michael Barnett, Confronting the Costs of War: Military Power, State, and Society in Egypt and Israel (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992); Anwar Sadat, In Search of Identity (New York: HarperBooks, 1978); Heikal, Secret Channels; Fahmy, Struggle for Peace, chap. 14. Back.

Note 105: Cairo Domestic Service, “President As-Sadat Addresses People’s Assembly 26 November,” November 26, 1977, cited in FBIS, November 28, 1977, D1–15; Cairo Domestic Service, “Al-Ahram Comments on Outcome of As-Sadat’s Visit,” November 22, 1977, cited in FBIS, November 22, 1977, D8. Back.

Note 106: Cairo Domestic Service, “As-Sadat Addresses Egyptian, Arab Peoples,” September 18, 1978, cited in FBIS, September 19, 1978, D1. Also see MENA, “Ghali, Assembly Members Discuss Camp David Agreements,” Cairo, October 3, 1978, cited in FBIS, October 4, 1978, D1–2. Also see “Media Reports People’s Assembly Activities on Camp David,” FBIS, October 16, 1978, D1–5; MENA, “Egyptian Cabinet Statement on Camp David Results,” Egypt, September 19, 1978, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/5922/A/3–6, September 21, 1978; “Sadat’s 2nd October Speech in the People’s Assembly,” Cairo, October 2, 1978, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/5933/A/1–15, October 3, 1978. Back.

Note 107: Cairo Domestic Service, “Al-Ahram Comments on Rejectionist Forces,” September 22, 1978, cited in FBIS, September 22, 1978, D8; “Al-Ahram Editor Criticizes Opponents of Camp David Accords,” Al-Ahram, Cairo, September 29, 1978, pp. 1, 3, cited in FBIS, October 4, 1978, D3–5; “Al-Akhbar al-Yawm Rejects Attempts to Expel Egypt from Arab League,” Al-Akhbar al-Yawm, September 20, 1978, cited in FBIS, October 6, 1978, D7–8. Back.

Note 108: Cairo Domestic Home Service, “Sadat’s 2nd October Speech in the People’s Assembly,” October 2, 1978, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/5933/A/1–15, October 3, 1978. For a detailed discussion of Camp David see Cairo Domestic Service, “Al-Sadat Grants Interview to Cairo Television,” December 25, 1978, cited in FBIS, December 27, 1978, D1–24. In this interview he also linked Camp David to democracy in Egypt. Also see MENA, “Text of As-Sadat Interview with Kuwaiti Newspaper (As-Siyasah),” Cairo, November 9, 1978, cited in FBIS, November 13, 1978, D10–27. Back.

Note 109: MENA, “Paper Supports As-Sadat’s Jerusalem Visit,” November 19, 1977, cited in FBIS, November 21, 1977, C1; Cairo Domestic Service, “Sultan [of Oman] Supports As-Sadat’s Visit to Israel,” November 19, 1977, cited in FBIS, November 21, 1977, C1. Back.

Note 110: SNA, “Cabinet: Camp David not ‘Final, Acceptable Formula for Peace,”’ Riyadh, September 19, 1978, cited in FBIS, September 20. 1978, C3. Also see Iraq News Agency (hereafter INA), “Arab Foreign Minister Deliver Speeches at Conference,” Baghdad, October 31, 1978, cited in FBIS, October 31, 1978, A3. Back.

Note 111: Safran, Saudi Arabia, p. 259. Back.

Note 112: Qatar News Agency (hereafter QNA), “Qatar Cabinet Statement on Camp David,” and Gulf News Agency, “Bahrain Cabinet Statement on Camp David,” September 20, 1978, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/5923/A/1–2, September 22, 1978. Back.

Note 113: Amman Domestic Service, “Amman Radio Comments on As-Sadat’s Visit to Israel,” November 25, 1977, cited in FBIS, November 28, 1977, F1–3. Also see Amman Domestic Service, “King Husayn Addresses Nation On As-Sadat Initiative,” November 28, 1977, cited in FBIS, November 29, 1977, F1–3; Amman Television Service, “Jordan Reaction to Camp David Agreements,” September 19, 1978, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/5922/A/6–8, September 21, 1978; Amman Television Service, “King Husayn’s 10th October Speech,” October 10, 1978, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/5940/A/6–10, October 12, 1978. Back.

Note 114: Heikal, Secret Channels, p. 259. Back.

Note 115: Baghdad Domestic Service, “Baghdad Commentary Assails As-Sadat’s Speech,” November 26, 1977, cited in FBIS, November 28, 1977, E23. Back.

Note 116: For the text of the Tripoli Declaration, see Arab Report and Record (December 1977): 1011. Back.

Note 117: Amman Domestic Service, “Al-Dustur Comments on As-Sadat’s Visit to Israel,” November 18, 1977, cited in FBIS, November 18, 1977, F2; Damascus Domestic Service, “As-Sadat’s Trip to Israel Strongly Denounced,” November 17, 1977, cited in FBIS, November 18, 1977, H1; SNA, “Royal Court Surprised by As-Sadat Initiative,” Riyadh, November 18, 1977, cited in FBIS, November 21, 1977, C1–2; INA, “Al-Jumhuriyah Urges Overthrow,” Baghdad, November 21, 1977, cited in FBIS, November 21, 1977, E6; Algiers Domestic Service, “Council of Ministers Condemns As-Sadat Trip,” November 20, 1977, cited in FBIS, November 21, 1977, I1–2. Back.

Note 118: Damascus Domestic Service, “Ath-thawrah Outlines Secret Aims of Camp David Meeting,” September 8, 1978, cited in FBIS, September 8, 1978, H1; “Reaction to Outcome of Camp David Conference,” various news agencies, September 18, 1978, cited in FBIS, September 19, 1978, H1–2; Damascus Home Service, “Syrian Comment on Camp David Agreements,” September 18, 197, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/5921/A/15, September 20, 1978; INA, “PLO Statement on Camp David Accords,” and “Iraqi Statement on Camp David Accords,” September 19, 1978, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/5922/A/1–3, September 21, 1978. Back.

Note 119: INA, “Ath-Thawrah Questions Syrian Stand Toward As-Sadat,” Baghdad, November 23, 1977, cited in FBIS, November 23, 1977, E1. Also see “Iraqi Decisions in Response to Camp David,” Baghdad Voice of the Masses, October 1, 1978, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/5932/A/5–7, October 3, 1978. Back.

Note 120: “Steadfastness Front Conference Opens in Damascus,” FBIS, September 21, 1978, A1–3; SANA, “Final Statement, Proclamation,” Damascus, September 25, 1978, A4–12. At the Baghdad summit Jordan circulated a working paper that called for a unified military command and more resources to the frontline states. Amman Home Service, “The Jordanian Working Paper,” October 31, 1978, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/5958/A/9–10, November 2, 1978. See Joseph Meyer, “Introduction: The Steadfastness Group,” Middle East Review 27, no. 1 (Fall 1984): 3–4, for a brief review of the group. Back.

Note 121: INA, “Text of Speech by President Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr of Iraq,” Baghdad, November 2, 1978, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/5960/A/5–7, November 4, 1978. Back.

Note 122: Damascus Domestic Service, “Syrian Foreign Minister’s Speech,” October 30, 1978, cited in FBIS, October 31, 1978, A5; Damascus Domestic Service, “Syrian Draft Resolution,” ” October 31, 1978, cited in FBIS, November 1, 1978, A7–8. The “Arab People’s Court” in Tripoli found Sadat a traitor against the Arab people for signing the “Stable David” accords. (JANA, “Arab People’s Court Hears Case Against Sadat,” Tripoli, October 29, 1978, cited in FBIS, October 31, 1978, I1. Also see Damascus Home Service, “Statement at End of Arab People’s Conference,” November 27, 1978, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/5982/A/2, November 30, 1978. Those who advocated punishing Egypt, however, also stated that they did not want to punish the Egyptian people who remained part of the Arab nation and who were led by a government that did not reflect its preferences. See Damascus Domestic Service, “Damascus Radio Demands Expelling Egypt from Arab League,” October 14, 1978, cited in FBIS, October 17, 1978, H2–3; INA, “Saddam Husayn Press Conference on International Affairs,” Baghdad, October 19, 1978, cited in FBIS, October 20, 1978, E1. Back.

Note 123: Safran, Saudi Arabia, p. 261. Back.

Note 124: Riyadh Domestic Service, “Saudi Minister’s Speech,” October 31, 1978, cited in FBIS, November 1, 1978. A1–3. Also see Cairo Domestic Service, “Al-Akhbar Comments on Baghdad Summit,” October 30, 1978, cited in FBIS, October 20, 1978, D12; Riyadh Domestic Service, “Foreign Minister Comments on Baghdad Conference,” October 28, 1978, cited in FBIS, October 30, 1978, C1. Back.

Note 125: Kuwait Domestic Service, “Foreign Minister on Egypt’s Position, Baghdad Conference,” October 30, 1978, cited in FBIS, October 31, 1978, C1; Gulf News Agency, “The Kuwait Working Paper,” October 31, 1978, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/5958/A/10–11, November 2, 1978; Rabat Domestic Service, “Gulf States Oppose Action,” November 4, 1978, cited in FBIS, November 6, 1978, A5; “Anti-Egyptian Measures Disclosed,” Ar’Ra’y, Amman, November 6, 1978, p. 12, cited in FBIS, November 6, 1978, A19–20. Back.

Note 126: INA, “Arab Foreign Ministers Deliver Speeches at Conference,” Baghdad, October 31, 1978, cited in FBIS, October 31, 1978, A4; QNA, “Foreign Ministry Spokesman on Egyptian-Israeli Treaty,” Doha, March 27, 1979, cited in FBIS, March 28, 1979, C2. Back.

Note 127: Safran, Saudi Arabia, p. 262. On p. 309, Safran concludes that severing the connection with Egypt was palatable because its interests were already satisfied. Back.

Note 128: Anonymous source, interview by author, Amman, Jordan, September 5, 1996. Back.

Note 129: In the midst of this unrestrained acrimony was an unexpected stab at unification. Immediately before the Baghdad summit on October 26, 1978, Iraq and Syria announced that they had concluded a unity agreement. Declaring their intent to affirm a “qualitative change in their relations,” they portrayed this agreement as a reaction to Camp David and a long overdue fulfillment of the desire for unity between the two Ba’athist regimes. INA, “The Iraqi-Syrian Charter Signed on 26th October,” October 26, 1978, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/5954/A/1–3, October 28, 1978. A unity agreement, particularly one that had little prospect of success, was probably not the best antidote to Sadat’s actions, but Iraq and Syria reached back into the past and Ba’athist ideology and pulled out a unification agreement. Although Iraq and Syria claimed that Camp David drove them to it, more likely causes were domestic forces and the imperative of regime survival. Malik Mufti, Sovereign Creations: Pan-Arabism and Political Order in Syria and Iraq (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996), pp. 209–20; Eberhard Kienle, Ba’ath Versus Ba’ath: The Conflict Between Syria and Iraq, 1968–89 (London: I. B. Taurus, 1990), chap. 4. The unity agreement disappeared with the night, replaced by the tried-and-true hostility and rivalry. Few cheered its birth and even fewer lamented or noticed its predictable demise. Back.

Note 130: INA, “Communique on Arab Summit Conference in Baghdad,” Baghdad, November 5, 1978, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/5962/A/4–6, November 7, 1978. For Cairo’s response see Cairo Home Service, “10 November Cairo Press on Baghdad Summit Conference,” cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/5966/A/3–5, November 12, 1978; “Cairo Press Critical of Baghdad Summit,” FBIS, November 2, 1978, D1–5; Cairo Domestic Service, “Cairo Comments on Baghdad Summit Conference,” November 6, 1978, cited in FBIS, November 7, 1978, D1–3. Back.

Note 131: The Kuwaiti paper Ar-Ra’y al-’Amm struck a puzzled face when it wrote that Sadat’s flight to Jerusalem “is an odd situation. What is even more odd is that we are no longer afraid of causing an affront to the nation, violating its dignity and stabbing it in the heart with words and deeds and punishment for which until recently was execution and stoning.” “Paper Criticizes As-Sadat Peace Initiative,” Ar-Ra’y al-’Amm (Kuwait), November 12, 1977, p. 1, cited in FBIS, November 17, 1977, C1. Back.

Note 132: Also see Safran, Saudi Arabia, p. 311. Back.

Note 133: “Egyptian Anti-Arab Campaign: Pretext to Justify Separate Accords,” Ar-Ra’y al-’Amm November 16, 1978, pp. 1, 19, cited in FBIS, November 21, 1978, C1. Back.

Note 134: Kuwait Domestic Service, “Cabinet Issues Statement on Camp David Results,” September 20, 1978, cited from FBIS, September 20, 1978, C1; QNA, “Al-Arab Calls for Rejecting Camp David Results,” Doha, September 19, 1978, cited in FBIS, September 20, 1978, C2–3; Emirates News Agency, “UAE: Statement Issued Rejecting Camp David Agreements,” Abu Dhabi, September 21, 1978, cited in FBIS, September 22, 1978, C4. Back.

Note 135: Damascus Domestic Service, “Syrian Withdrawal,” March 28, 1979, cited in FBIS, March 29, 1979, A6; “Khaddam Calls for Overthrow of Sadat,” Ash-Sharq al-Awsat, London, March 24, 1979, cited in FBIS, March 27, 1979, H1–3; SANA, “Syrian Papers Call for Overthrow of Sadat,” Damascus, May 31, 1978, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/6131/A/1, June 2, 1979. Back.

Note 136: Safran, Saudi Arabia, p. 230. Back.

Note 137: INA, “Arab Ministers Baghdad Meeting Resolution,” Baghdad, March 31, 1979, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, April 2, 1979, ME/6802/A/6–12. Back.

Note 138: Ali Hillal Dessouki, “Egyptian Foreign Policy Since Camp David,” in Quandt, Middle East, p. 103; “Egyptian Reaction to Baghdad Meeting Resolutions,” Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/6083/A/1–3, April 3, 1979; MENA, “2nd April Egyptian Statement on Baghdad Resolutions,” Cairo, April 2, 1979, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/6084/A/4, April 4, 1979. Back.

Note 139: Cairo Radio, “Sadat’s 5th April Address to Egyptian People’s Assembly,” April 5, 1979, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/6087/A/1–22, April 7, 1979; Cairo Radio, “Sadat’s 11th April Address to the Nation,” April 11, 1979, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/6092/A/3–10, April 13, 1979. Sadat also looked to the ulemas (religious authorities) to approve this peace treaty between a Muslim and non-Muslim nation (MENA, “Egypt: Al-Azhar Islamic Authorities on the Peace Treaty,” May 9, 1979, cited in Summary of World Broadcasts, ME/6114/A/1–2, May 12, 1979). Back.

Note 140: Fahmy, Negotiating for Peace; Boutros-Ghali, Egypt’s Road to Jerusalem. Back.

Note 141: Heikal, Secret Channels, p. 349. Back.

Note 142: Anonymous source, interview by author in Amman, September 5, 1996. Also see Muhammad Salih Ata Zahra, “National Security and Joint Arab Activity,” Al-Mustqbal al-Arabi, no. 94 (December 1986): 16–35. Back.

Note 143: Heikal, Autumn of Fury, p. 72. Back.

Note 144: Isam Ni’man, “Peace Between the Arabs,” Al-Watan al-Arabi 7, no. 333 (July 1, 1983): 36–37 (in Arabic); Mohammed Anis Salim, “Arab Schisms in the 1980s: Old Story or New Order?” World Today 38, no. 5 (May 1982): 175–84, and “The Future of Inter-Arab Relations,” Al-Mustqbal al-Arabi 11, no. 115 (September 1988): pp. 126–54 (in Arabic); Muhammad Fadil al-Jamali, “Frank Words on the Crisis of Arab Unity Today,” Al-Mustqbal al-Arabi 10, no. 109 (1988): 114–17 (in Arabic). Back.

Note 145: Ghassan Salame, “Inter-Arab Politics: The Return to Geography,” in Quandt, Middle East, pp. 319–56; Ghassan Salame, “Integration in the Arab World: The Institutional Framework,” in G. Luciani and G. Salame, eds., The Politics of Arab Integration, pp. 256–79 (New York: Croom Helm, 1988); George Joffe, “Middle Eastern Views of the Gulf Conflict and Its Aftermath,” Review of International Studies 19 (April 1993): 177–99; Bassam Tibi, “The Simultaneity of the Unsimultaneous: Old Tribes and Imposed Nation-States in the Modern Middle East,” in P. Khoury and J. Kostiner, eds., Tribes and State Formation in the Middle East, pp. 127–52 (London: I. B. Taurus, 1991). Back.

Note 146: Indeed, Saddam Hussein, who became president of Iraq in July 1979, tried to capitalize on Iraq’s new leadership position by issuing in February 1980 an “Arab National Charter,” calling on other Arab states to join Iraq in a framework of security and economic cooperation. Although Hussein received a hearing from the other Arab states, they showed little interest in another pan-Arab security and economic institution. Back.

Note 147: Michael Barnett, “Identity and Alliances in the Middle East,” in P. Katzenstein, ed., The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics, pp. 400–47 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996). Back.

Note 148: “King Fahd on the GCC,” Ar-Ra’y al-’Amm, November 19, 1984, cited in FBIS, 234, December 4, 1984, C3. Back.

Note 149: Tawfiq Abu Bakr, “The Flourishing of Arab Regionalism: Between Truth and Exaggeration,” Al-Arabi, September 1984, pp. 61–63 (in Arabic). Back.

Note 150: Rabat Domestic Service, “King Hassan Announces Arab Summit for 7 August,” July 27, 1985, cited in FBIS, July 29, 1985, A6–7. Back.

Note 151: Cairo Domestic Service, “Abd al-Majid on Coordination,” May 22, 1989, cited in FBIS, May 23, 1989, p. 6. Also see Amman Domestic Service, “ ‘Text’ of King Husayn’s 24 May Summit Speech,” May 25, 1989, cited in FBIS, May 26, 1989, pp. 7–8. Back.

Note 152: Rabat Television Service, “King Hassan Speaks,” May 23, 1989, cited in FBIS, May 24, 1989, p. 10–11. Back.

Note 153: Amman Domestic Service, “Foreign Ministers Conference,” November 20, 1980, cited in FBIS, November 21, 1980, A3–4. Back.

Note 154: Amman Domestic Service, “Text of King Husayn’s Opening Address to Arab Summit,” November 25, 1980, cited in FBIS, November 26, 1980, A1–8. The Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram added that “King Husayn’s portrayal of Arab disintegration inside the summit conference of Arab unity was clearer than any evidence.” Cairo Domestic Service, “Al-Ahram Says Arab Summit Ended in Failure,” November 28, 1980, cited in FBIS, December 4, 1980, D17. Back.

Note 155: Damascus Domestic Service, “Khaddam Address,” November 21, 1980, cited in FBIS, November 24, 1980, A2. Also see Nihad al-Mashnuq, “Arab Wars Against Arabs,” Al-Nahar al-Arabi wal-Duwali, March 15, 1982, pp. 6–7 (in Arabic). Back.

Note 156: Damascus Domestic Service, “King Husayn Speech, Summit Results Attacked,” November 27, 1980, cited in FBIS, November 28, 1980, H1; Jerusalem Radio, “Syrian-Jordanian Relations,” December 2, 1980, cited in FBIS, December 3, 1980, I1; Damascus Domestic Service, “Press Expresses Hope Jordan Has Learned ‘Lesson,”’ December 5, 1980, cited in FBIS, December 5, 1980, H1; Damascus Domestic Service, “Al-Asad Interviewed by Kuwaiti Newspaper,” December 6, 1980, cited in FBIS, December 8, 1980, H1–4. Back.

Note 157: “Ghali Calls Amman Summit ‘Camouflage’ for Disarray,” Le Figaro, Paris, November 26, 1980, p. 3, cited in FBIS, December 1, 1980, D1. Back.

Note 158: SPA, “Saudi Source on Postponement,” Riyadh, November 26, 1981, cited in FBIS, November 27, 1981, A7; Amman Domestic Service, “Papers Regret Postponement of Arab Summit,” November 26, 1981, cited in FBIS, November 27, 1981, F1–3; Damascus Domestic Service, “Radio Comments on Summit’s Polarizing Impact,” November 25, 1981, cited in FBIS, November 27, 1981, H1–2; MENA, “Mubarak October Interview on Fes, Arab Unity,” Cairo, December 5, 1981, cited in FBIS, December 7, 1981, D1–2; Agence France-Presse, “Ghali: Summit Collapse Shows Arab Policy Fails,” Paris, November 26, 1981, cited in FBIS, November 27, 1981, D1. Also see “Summit Failure Due to Conflicting Fronts,” Al-Ahram, November 30, 1981, cited in FBIS, December 3, 1981, D1–2. Back.

Note 159: On the influence of Lebanon see Nadir Farjani, “On the Threshold of a New Era for Arab Ideological Activity,” Al-Mustqbal al-Arabi 5, no. 48 (February 1983): 120–24 (in Arabic); Corm, Fragmentation of the Middle East, p. 204; Dessouki, “Egyptian Foreign Policy Since Camp David,” p. 9. Back.

Note 160: Rabat Domestic Service, “King Hassan Announces Arab Summit for 7 August,” July 27, 1985, cited in FBIS, July 29, 1985, A1. Back.

Note 161: Rabat Domestic Service,“King Hassan’s Opening Address,” August 7, 1985, FBIS, August 8, 1985, A1–2. Back.

Note 162: Amman Domestic Service, “Jordan King Husayn’s Speech,” August 7, 1985, cited in FBIS, August 8, 1985, A5. Also see Atif al-Ghamri, “The Extraordinary Summit Preferred Not to Confront Provocative Problems,” Cairo Domestic Service, August 10, 1985, cited in FBIS, August 13, 1985, D2. Back.

Note 163: Malik Mufti, “A Brave New Subsystem: Inter-Arab Conflict and the End of the Cold War,” unpublished 1997 manuscript, Tufts University, Boston. Back.

Note 164: Ibid., p. 28 Back.

Note 165: See, for instance, INA, “Iraq’s Ramadan Addresses Summit,” Baghdad, August 9, 1985, cited in FBIS, August 12, 1985, A3. Back.

Note 166: Taher al-Masri, interview by author, Amman, September 2, 1995. Back.

Note 167: Also see Gabriel Ben-Dor, “Jordan and Inter-Arab Relations,” in Nevo and Pappe, Jordan in the Middle East p. 200. Back.

Note 168: Masri interview. Back.

Note 169: Amman Domestic Service, “Text of King Husayn’s 24 May Summit Speech,” May 25, 1989, cited in FBIS, May 26, 1989, pp. 7–10. Back.

Note 170: Ibid. Back.

Note 171: Rabat Television Network, “Mubarak Addresses Meeting,” May 23, 1989, cited in FBIS, May 24, 1989, p. 11. Back.

Note 172: Makrom Muhammad Ahmad, “Chief Editor Views Egypt’s Arab Role,” Al-Musawwar, Cairo, May 19, 1989, pp. 4–6, cited in FBIS, May 24, 1989, pp. 20–23. Back.