Threats & Pressures

Sitting cross-legged in their stocking feet in Cairo's vast, thousand-year-old El Azhar Mosque, Islam's two most important military chiefs, Egypt's General Mohammed Naguib and Syria's Colonel Adib Shishekly, heard an ancient, chilling summons. "A jihad (holy war) for the right and defense of the freedoms of people," demanded the sheik in his sermon. The jihad was designed to support "our brothers in North Africa in their struggle against imperialism" and to teach France an "eloquent lesson."

A thousand years ago, some earlier Moslem version of a Naguib and a Shishekly might have responded by rattling their damascene blades, leaping to Arab steeds and smiting the infidel to the cry of Allah il Allah! But now they rattled only their tongues. At a state dinner in his honor, eminent visitor Shishekly said: "We are prepared to strike back if necessary." Naguib echoed: "Ten blows for each "one in attack against us."

Actually, there would be no jihad. The Koranic doctrine--which once spelled unremitting, no-quarter battle between the Abode of Islam1 and the Abode of War until Islam triumphed--has softened to a practical acceptance of co-existence of Moslem and infidel. As the Moslem world grew weaker, fanatics called louder & louder for jihad, but met less & less response. When the degenerate Turkish Sultan-Caliph proclaimed a jihad against the Allies in 1914, it was cynically dubbed the "Holy War Made in Berlin." It was the last real jihad and an utter failure.

Lost Ground. But as an indication of popular indignation, the jihad call last week deserved to be taken seriously, for it symbolized an upsurge of anti-Western feeling among the Arabs that threatens to lose what Arab friendship has been expensively gained in the past year.

Sources of Arab contention:

P: Endorsement by Britain, France and the U.S. of the Israeli-supported U.N. resolution for direct Arab-Israeli talks. The Arabs argued that the U.N. should stick instead to its previous insistence that 1) Jerusalem be internationalized (the Jews are now trying to make it their capital), and 2) the 880,000 Arab refugees be allowed to return to their Palestine homes. Aided by Soviet and Latin American votes, the Arab bloc defeated the Israeli motion.

P:West Germany's agreement to pay Israel some $800 million for Hitler's crimes against the Jews, a payment which the Arabs say is the result of U.S. pressure on Bonn.

P: Lack of real U.S. help for Naguib despite a spate of kind words.

But most infuriating of all to the Arabs was the fact that, when chips were down in the U.N., the U.S. and Britain sided with France and against the North African nationalists. Emboldened by its victory, Paris locked up the remaining nationalist leaders in Tunis and Morocco, then put the squeeze on the reluctant Bey of Tunis.

Ungrateful Stooge. The French have no patience with the nationalist pretensions of 71-year-old Sidi Mohammed el-Amin. Unlike the Sultan of Morocco, who is a genuine descendant of the Prophet, the Bey is a semiliterate ex-Turkish functionary whom the French in 1943 hand-picked as their stooge. For him now to oppose proffered French "reforms" as insufficient they regard as rank ingratitude. Last week, no longer finicky about U.N. reaction, France's Cabinet dispatched a "stern and clear" ultimatum to the Bey: capitulate or suffer unspecified consequences, possibly deposition from his million-dollar job. Within 48 hours, the Bey capitulated.

Prospects are that the strong repression measures of the French may restore order, but not peace. Talk of jihad may be too strong, but the restlessness in the Islamic world is only too real.

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