1946 Islam Says No to Jewish Homeland and State of Israel

Azzam Pasha, Secretary of the League of Arab States, early in 1946 before the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry:

Our brother has gone to Europe and to the West and come back something else.  He has come back with a totally different conception of things, West and not Eastern.  That doesn’t mean that we are necessarily quarreling with anyone who comes from the West.  But the Jew, our old cousin, coming back with imperialistic ideas, with materialistic ideas, with reactionary or revolutionary ideas and trying to implement them first by British pressure and then by American pressure, and then by terrorism on his own part – he is not the old cousin and we do not extend to him a very good welcome.  The Zionist, the new Jew, wants to dominate and he pretends that he has got a particular civilizing mission with which he returns to a backward, degenerate race in order to put the elements of progress into an area which wants no progress.  Well, that has been the pretension of every power that wanted to colonize and aimed at domination.  The excuse has always been that the people are backward and that he has got a human mission to put them forward. THE ARABS SIMPLY STAND AND SAY NO. We are not reactionary and we are not backward. Even if we are ignorant, the difference between ignorance and knowledge is ten years in school. We are a living, vitally strong nation, we are in our renaissance; we are producing as many children as any nation in the world. We still have our brains. We have a heritage of civilization and of spiritual life. We are not going to allow ourselves to be controlled either by great nations or small nations or dispersed nations.

The following comments typify Arab reaction to the plan.

Mr. Mahmoud Fawzi, the Egyptian representative at the United Nations:

We do not choose to comply with the General Assembly’s resolutions on Palestine.  The Charter and the United Nations will not fall apart if one more of the General Assembly’s resolutions is not put into effect.

Mr. Adil Arslan of Syria:

My country will never recognize such a decision.

Dr. Fadhil Jamali, Foreign Minister of Iraq:

Iraq does not recognize the validity of this decision and will reserve freedom of action towards its implementation.

Source: 27, p. 45-7.