Of course, I am kidding my dear comrades and friends at Jadaliyyah. These are people I love and I tease them, and Jadaliyya has emerged deservedly as the top site for Middle East issues and analysis. They may disagree with me on occasions and I may disagree with them on occasions, but we remain united in our appreciation of Indian food. I regret that I criticized them the other day about posting a silly tribute to Shukri Quwatli: I should not have done so publicly. We exchange views privately as we are in the same trench. But I am told that Bassam Haddad decided to post the item on Quwatli under the heavy influence of Indian food--it does that to him, and to me occasionally. People asked me for the specific reference to Shukri Quwatli in Musa Alami's memoir, here it is. I always tell this story. It is so symptomatic. "...and Musa Alami, having sized up the local situation, set off in February 1948 on a tour of the Arab capitals in order to discover how much help the brethren were really likely to give...His first stop, in Damascus, gave him a foretaste of what he was to find everywhere. 'I am happy to tell you', the Syrian president assured him, "that our Army and its equipment are of the highest order and well able to deal with a few Jews; and I can tell you in confidence that we even have an atomic bomb'; and seeing Musa's expression of incredulity, he went on, 'Yes, it was made locally; we fortunately found a very clever fellow, a tinsmith...." (Sir Geoffrey Furlonge, Palestine is My Country: The Story of Musa Alami, (NY: Praeger, 1969), p. 152.
PS The story continues: Elsewhere he found equal complacency, and ignorance which was was little less crass. In Iraq, he was told by the Prime Minister that all that was needed was a 'few brooms' to drive the Jews into the sea; by confidants of Ibn Saud in Cairo, that 'once we get the green light from the British we can easily throw out the Jews". (p. 152).
PPS By the way, Quwatli was an early "client" for Ibn Saud, on top of being a buffoon.
PPS By the way, Quwatli was an early "client" for Ibn Saud, on top of being a buffoon.
