The first book to present an analysis of Arab response to fascism and Nazism from the perspectives of both individual countries and the Arab world at large, this collection problematizes and ultimately deconstructs the established narratives that assume most Arabs supported fascism and Nazism leading up to and during World War II. Using new source materials taken largely from Arab memoirs, archives, and print media, the articles reexamine Egyptian, Syrian, Lebanese, Palestinian, and Iraqi responses in the 1930s and throughout the war.
While acknowledging the individuals, forces, and organizations that did support and collaborate with Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, Arab Responses to Fascism and Nazism focuses on the many other Arab voices that identified with Britain and France and with the Allied cause during the war. The authors argue that many groups within Arab societies-elites and non-elites, governing forces, and civilians-rejected Nazism and fascism as totalitarian, racist, and, most important, as new, more oppressive forms of European imperialism. The essays in this volume argue that, in contrast to prevailing beliefs that Arabs were de facto supporters of Italy and Germany-since "the enemy of my enemy is my friend"-mainstream Arab forces and currents opposed the Axis powers and supported the Allies during the war. They played a significant role in the battles for control over the Middle East.

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Analysis of Arab Responses to Fascism and Nazism in Middle Eastern Studies

Israel Gershoni

Part I: Syria and Lebanon

1. A Challenge to the Local Order: Reactions to Nazism in the Syrian and Lebanese Press

Götz Nordbruch

2. Against the Tide: The Secret Alliance between the Syrian National Bloc Leaders and Great Britain, 1941–1942

Meir Zamir

3. Memoirs Do Not Deceive: Syrians Confront Fascism and Nazism--as Reflected in the Memoirs of Syrian Political Leaders and Intellectuals

Eyal Zisser

Part II: Palestine

4. More than the Mufti: Other Arab-Palestinian Voices on Nazi Germany, 1933–1945, and Their Postwar Narrations

René Wildangel

5. The Spanish Civil War as Reflected in Contemporary Palestinian Press

Mustafa Kabha

Part III: Iraq

6. Iraqi Shadows, Iraqi Lights: Anti-Fascist and Anti-Nazi Voices in Monarchic Iraq, 1932–1941

Orit Bashkin

Part IV: Egypt

7. The View from the Embassy: British Assessments of Egyptian Attitudes during World War II

James Jankowski

8. The Rise of Homemade Egyptian Communism: A Response to the Challenge Posed by Fascism and Nazism?

Rami Ginat

9. "The Crime of Nazism against Humanity": Ahmad Hasan al-Zayyat and the Outbreak of the World War II

Israel Gershoni

10. The War and the Holocaust in the Egyptian Public Discourse, 1945–1947

Esther Webman

Part V: Other Arab Voices

11. The Tiger and the Lion: Fascism and Ethiopia in Arab Eyes

Haggai Erlich

Notes

Selected Bibliography

About the Contributors

Index