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December 19, 1917

Nahwa Suriya (Towards Syria)

From the 1880s to 1914, about half a million Ottoman citizens from Bilad al-Sham (present-day Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine/Israel) emigrated, principally for economic reasons. A majority were Christians. Most hailed from what after World War I became Lebanon and Syria; some were from Palestine. While some travelled to Africa—a story analyzed in Andrew Arsan’s Interlopers of Empire: The Lebanese Diaspora in Colonial French West Africa (2014)—a large majority headed to the Americas, where they worked mostly in lower-class professions, soon launched newspapers, and founded numerous local but interlinked migrant societies. Although only few returned permanently, equally few renounced their Ottoman citizenship. Moreover, a good number of emigrants stayed in touch with their place of origin: socially, e.g. through letter exchanges, marriages, and the occasional visit; economically and financially, e.g. through remittances; and politically.

As Stacy Fahrenthold has shown in Between the Ottomans and the Entente: The First World War in the Syrian and Lebanese Diaspora, 1908-1925, political involvement grew after the 1908 Young Turk Revolution in the Ottoman Empire. For one thing, Ottoman freedom of expression improved for a few years; for another, the Young Turk regime hoped to politically recruit migrants for the Ottoman cause, though had little success. Migrants’ own political involvement increased in World War I. A clear majority turned against the Ottoman Empire. This was reflected also in numerous South- and North-American-Syrian journals.

One was the New York-based al-Fatat, whose founder in 1916, Shukri al-Bakhkhash, wrote the below text; he was born in 1889 in Zahle, present-day Lebanon, and arrived in the United States in the early 1910s. Moreover, thousands sought to, and did, join the war as volunteers on the Allied side, organized by Syrian American recruiters across the Western hemisphere. From 1914-17, migrants enlisted in the French and British armed forces and from 1917 also in the US military, fighting in Europe and the Middle East. (Al-Bakhkhash himself enlisted in the US army in 1918.) This was a political act that they and their communities hoped would further Syria’s liberation from Ottoman rule and give Syrians a voice in the postwar world, though they did not quite agree how post-Ottoman Syria would or should look like and whether a (and if yes, which) foreign country—principally, France or the United States—should play a role in it.

July 26, 1985

Message to Secretary Shultz (Draft)

This draft message to Secretary of State Schultz from a Japanese government official summarizes a series of trips to countries in the Middle East and appeals to the United States to assist in obtaining peace in the Middle East.

June 28, 1965

Minutes of Conversation between Zhou Enlai and Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization Ahmad Shukeiri

Zhou and Shukeiri discuss Chinese aid to the PLO and the situation of Palestinian refugees.

March 1978

Notes on Yasser Arafat's Visit to Moscow in March [1978]

Notes on a meeting in Moscow from March 6-10 between Yasser Arafat & the PLO Delegation and the Soviet government. Arafat was met by Brezhnev, Boris Ponomarev and Andrei Gromyko. Among the issues discussed were the situation in the Middle East, the Soviets desire for Palestine to counter Egypt's "capitulation" to Israel and the U.S. (which Arafat affirmed), tensions in Southern Lebanon and the PLO's increasing desire to further cooperation with Syria and non-Christian Lebanese groups.

October 27, 1983

GDR Ministry for State Security, 'Information about The Escalation of Conflicts within the PLO'

The report evaluates the internal situation of the PLO, which lost its bases in southern Lebanon and is exposed to increased pressure by Arab governments. The report describes the conflict between Arafat and the Syrian branch of the PLO and notes the increase in Syrian influence following a violent incident in Tripoli, in which Arafat and the Muslim Brothers were supposedly involved. Regardless of Syria's strength, the report states that Arafat has shown no inclination to work with the Syrian government. It concludes that a split seems likely, especially since Arafat has oriented himself towards the reactionary Arab forces.

August 1, 1983

Letter from Erich Honecker to Hafez al-Assad

Honecker shows his concern about the growing tensions within the PLO and between the PLO and the Syrian leadership. He appeals to Assad to continue his cooperation with Arafat.

June 25, 1982

Message of L.I. Brezhnev to Syrian President Hafez Assad

Brezhnev appeals to Assad to continue his support for the PLO. He blames the passivity of the other Arab states for the critical military situation in Lebanon.

July 12, 1983

Summary of a Meeting of Comrade Hermann Axen with the Representative of the PLO, Salah Khalaf (Abu Iyad), on 12 July 1983

Abu Iyad provides information on recent developments in the Middle East and within the PLO. He reports about Fatah splinter groups which are supported by the SAR and the evolving conflict between the Syrian Arab Republic and the PLO. He inserts a brief analysis of the development of Syria since 1976 and the influence of the USA and Israel. Axen gives his assessment of the situation and the conflict and points out the negative effects of the conflicts within the Fatah and between the PLO and Syria. He emphasizes the Syrian role in the alliance against imperialism and advises the PLO to again ameliorate the relations between the PLO and Syria.