The Alexandria Protocol (7 October 1944)

Summary

The protocol signed at Alexandria on 7 October 1944 by the Egyptian, Syrian, Trans-Jordanian, Iraqi and Lebanese delegations of the Preliminary Committee of the General Arab Conference: a League of Arab States is to be formed with a Council on which participating states sit on an equal footing, with cooperation in economic, cultural, social and other matters, a special resolution respecting Lebanon’s independence and sovereignty in its present frontiers, and a special resolution on Palestine declaring Palestine an important part of the Arab World, the British pledges on cessation of Jewish immigration, preservation of Arab lands and Palestinian independence to be permanent Arab rights whose prompt implementation is demanded, support for the cause of the Arabs of Palestine, and referral of the Arab National Fund proposal to the financial and economic committee (The Alexandria Protocol (7 October 1944), lines 85-99, 129-141).

What the file is

• The protocol as reproduced by the Avalon Project, downloaded from the URL above (access basis: government, as supplied). The original delivered is the HTML page; the supplied text copy (about 1,431 words, 198 lines as counted in the text copy) strips the HTML, so locators are line numbers. Avalon navigation and footer matter occupy lines 1-25 and 157-197.
• Provenance as printed in the file: footnote (1) (line 145) states the text is a translation of the official communique of the Pan-Arab Preliminary Conference made by the American Legation, Cairo, collated with the Arabic text published in al-Ahram (Cairo), Oct. 8, 1944, p. 3; the source given (lines 147-155) is the Department of State Bulletin, Vol. XVI, No. 411, May 18, 1947, Government Printing Office. The heading carries a see-also to the Pact of the League of Arab States, March 22, 1945 (line 29), which is not part of this file.
• The text copy carries many typographic slips, held as printed in the reading notes and not corrected, among them “the tied bind” and “tare” (line 79), “Stare” and “It win have a con” (line 87), “negation” for a communications item (line 107), “firmed” and “diner subcommittees” (line 119), and the names “Tawliq Abu al-Huda” (line 49), “Tahein al-‘Askari” (line 61) and “Muhammad Sabri Aub-‘Alam” (line 75).

Section by section

• Signatories and meeting (lines 31-83): five delegations. Mustafa al-Nahhas Pasha, Egyptian Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, is President of the Preliminary Committee and head of the Egyptian delegation (line 35). Syria: Sa’dallah al-Jabiri (Prime Minister, head), Jamil Mardam Bey, Dr. Nagib al-Armanazi, M. Sabri al-‘Asali (lines 39-45). Trans-Jordan: Tawliq Abu al-Huda Pasha (as printed; Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, head) and Sulayman al-Sukkar Bey (lines 49-51). Iraq: Hamdi al-Bahjaji (as printed; Prime Minister, head), Arshad al-‘Umari, Nuri al-Said (former Prime Minister) and Tahein al-‘Askari (as printed) (lines 55-61). Lebanon: Riyad al-Sulh Bey (Prime Minister, head), Salim Taqla Bey and Musa Mubarak (lines 65-69). Further Egyptian members: Nagib al-Hilali Pasha, Muhammad Sabri Aub-‘Alam Pasha (as printed) and Muhammad Salah-al-din Bey (lines 73-77). The delegations, anxious to strengthen the ties binding all Arab countries and in response to Arab public opinion, met at Alexandria from September 25, 1944 to October 7, 1944 (Shawwal 8 to Shawwal 20, 1363) as a Preliminary Committee of the General Arab Conference (lines 79-83). No Palestinian delegation is listed.
• Section 1, League of Arab States (lines 85-99): a League will be formed of the independent Arab States which consent to join, with a Council of the League of Arab States on which all participating states are represented on an equal footing. Its object is to control execution of agreements among the states, hold periodic meetings, coordinate political plans to insure cooperation and protect independence and sovereignty against every aggression, and supervise in a general way the affairs and interests of the Arab countries. Council decisions are binding on those who have accepted them, and binding where a dispute between two member states is referred to the Council. “In no case will resort to force to settle a dispute between any two member states of the League be allowed”, though special agreements not contradicting the protocol remain free; no member may adopt a foreign policy prejudicial to the League’s policy or an individual member state; the Council will intervene in any dispute that may lead to war between a member state and another member state or a power, to reconcile them. A subcommittee will draft the Council’s statutes and examine political questions for agreement among Arab States.
• Section 2, cooperation (lines 101-121): close cooperation in economic and financial matters (commercial exchange, customs, currency, agriculture, industry), communications (railways, roads, aviation, navigation as “negation” as printed, posts and telegraphs), cultural matters, nationality, passports, visas, execution of judgments and extradition, social questions and public health; an expert subcommittee for each subject prepares draft regulations, a coordination and editing committee controls and coordinates their work, and the Preliminary Committee will examine the completed work as a step toward the General Arab Conference.
• Section 3, consolidation (lines 123-125): satisfaction at the step taken, and hope that Arab States can consolidate it by further steps, especially if post-war world events produce institutions binding various Powers more closely together.
• Section 4, special resolution on Lebanon (lines 127-129): the Arab States represented emphasize their respect for “the independence and sovereignty of Lebanon in its present frontiers”, already recognised following Lebanon’s independent policy announced in its Government’s programme of October 7, 1943, unanimously approved by the Lebanese Chamber of Deputies.
• Section 5, special resolution on Palestine (lines 131-141): Palestine “constitutes an important part of the Arab World and that the rights of the Arabs in Palestine cannot be touched without prejudice to peace and stability in the Arab World” (line 133). The pledges binding the British Government providing for cessation of Jewish immigration, preservation of Arab lands and achievement of independence for Palestine are declared permanent Arab rights whose prompt implementation would be a step toward the desired goal and toward stabilising peace and security (line 135). The Committee declares support for the cause of the Arabs of Palestine and willingness to work for their legitimate aims and just rights (line 137). It declares itself second to none in regretting the woes inflicted on the Jews of Europe by European dictatorial states, but holds that question should not be confused with Zionism, “for there can be no greater injustice and aggression than solving the problem of the Jews of Europe by another injustice, i.e., by inflicting injustice on the Arabs of Palestine of various religions and denominations” (line 139). The proposal for participation of Arab Governments and peoples in the “Arab National Fund” to safeguard the lands of the Arabs of Palestine is referred to the committee of financial and economic affairs for examination and report to the Preliminary Committee’s next meeting (line 141).
• Signature (line 143): signed at Faruq I University at Alexandria on Saturday, Shawwal 20, 1363 (October 7, 1944).

Key passages

• “Palestine constitutes an important part of the Arab World and that the rights of the Arabs in Palestine cannot be touched without prejudice to peace and stability in the Arab World” (line 133)
• “there can be no greater injustice and aggression than solving the problem of the Jews of Europe by another injustice, i.e., by inflicting injustice on the Arabs of Palestine of various religions and denominations” (line 139)
• “In no case will resort to force to settle a dispute between any two member states of the League be allowed” (line 93)
• “the independence and sovereignty of Lebanon in its present frontiers” (line 129)

Evidence the work relies on

• The file is the protocol itself, in the American Legation translation collated with the Arabic text in al-Ahram as described in its footnote (line 145). For its Palestine resolution it relies on, without naming or dating, “the pledges binding the British Government” on immigration, land and independence (line 135); for Lebanon it relies on the Lebanese Government’s programme of October 7, 1943 (line 129). It cites no other documents.

Analysis

• Form: a preliminary committee’s agreed protocol, not the League’s final pact — the Council’s statutes are still to be drafted by a subcommittee, and the file itself points forward to the Pact of the League of Arab States of March 22, 1945 (line 29). Decision rules are consent-based: Council decisions bind those who accepted them, with compulsory binding effect only for referred inter-member disputes.
• Palestine enters as one of two special resolutions, framed as an Arab-World matter: the resolution asserts rights and demands implementation of British pledges, declares support, and assigns the one concrete instrument named — the Arab National Fund for safeguarding Arab lands — to a committee for further examination rather than adopting it. No Palestinian delegation is among the signatories listed in the file.

People, organizations, places and events

Alexandria Protocol, Arab League, Arab National Fund, Mustafa al-Nahhas, Sa’dallah al-Jabiri, Tawfiq Abu al-Huda, Hamdi al-Bahjaji, Riyad al-Sulh, Nuri al-Said, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan

Concepts

Jewish National Home

How it relates to other sources

• The Palestine resolution’s “pledges binding the British Government” correspond in content to the three heads of the 1939 statement of policy — cessation of Jewish immigration after the five-year period without Arab acquiescence, preservation of Arab lands through transfer powers, and independence within 10 years (Palestine: Statement of Policy (British White Paper of 1939), lines 61, 105, 113) — though the protocol does not name that statement or any other British document.
• It is the earliest ingested instrument in which the Arab states act collectively on Palestine: where the 1938 statement had Britain inviting representatives of the Palestinian Arabs and of neighbouring States to London (Palestine: Statement by His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom (1938), PDF p.2), the protocol has five Arab governments, meeting on their own initiative at Alexandria, declaring Palestine part of the Arab World and its Arabs’ cause their own.
• For the Arab League page’s existing accounts: the protocol supplies the League’s originating design (a council of equal states, consent-based decisions, no force between members) as agreed in October 1944, before the March 1945 Pact the file points to; Awad and Bean’s Conclusion note, that the very formation of the Arab League was encouraged by the British as a safety valve on Arab nationalist aspirations, is a separate, later account and is not addressed by this file.

Open questions

• The British pledges invoked at line 135 are not identified by document or date in the file; whether they are the 1939 statement of policy alone, or include other assurances, cannot be settled from this file.
• Names as printed conflict with forms used elsewhere in the wiki: “Hamdi al-Bahjaji” (line 55), “Tawliq Abu al-Huda” (line 49), “Tahein al-‘Askari” (line 61) and “Muhammad Sabri Aub-‘Alam” (line 75) are held as printed in this reproduction; the file gives no alternative spellings.
• No Palestinian delegation is listed among the signatories (lines 31-77); whether Palestinian representatives participated in the Preliminary Committee in any other capacity is not stated in the file.
• The Arab National Fund proposal is referred for examination (line 141); the file does not record the committee’s report or whether the Fund was established.

Coverage

lines 1-198 of 198, read in full