Izzat Darwaza - Biography - Promoting Unity With Syria

Promoting Unity With Syria

During World War I, Darwaza served as Postal Directorate-General of Beirut and retained this post until 1918. In 1916, while serving with the Ottoman army in the Sinai Peninsula, he joined the underground al-Fatat organization through Ahmad Qadri, a high-ranking member from Damascus. The aim of al-Fatat was to liberate and unite the Arab lands under Ottoman rule. In the wake of the Arab Revolt of 1916, Darwaza left the Ottoman civil service to serve in King Faisal's provisional government in Damascus. Ideologically, Darwaza became an Arab nationalist endorsing the concept of a single Greater Syrian Arab State.

Following the World War I Armistice, Darwaza held several important political posts including Secretary-General of al-Fatat from May 1919 to March 1920, Secretary of the Nablus Muslim-Christian Association, and Secretary of the First Palestinian Arab Congress in Jerusalem in 1919. During the spring and summer of 1919, a vigorous political campaign was waged by the Arab politicians in Palestine who were divided into "Younger Politicians" and "Older Politicians". The campaign was centered on the political future of Palestine and Darwaza, a Younger Politician, played a central role. The Younger Politicians consisted of Arab nationalists who sought to unite Palestine with King Faisal's Syria while the Older Politicians consisted of Palestinian nationalists who preferred that Palestine be an independent entity.

Darwaza and Hafiz Kanaan—another leading al-Fatat member from Nablus—lobbied Arab groups in Jerusalem to advocate Syro-Palestinian unity before the arrival of the King-Crane Commission on 10 June 1919. They first met with Mohammad Amin al-Husayni and Kamil al-Husayni of al-Nadi al-Arabi party and they immediately expressed their support. They also suggested that Darwaza meet Raghib al-Nashashibi, Hussam ad-Din Jarallah, and Aref al-Dajani, supporters of independence. Darwaza convinced Nashashibi to gather some of the Older Politicians of Jerusalem to a meeting at his house. When it was made clear that Musa al-Husayni, a leader of the Older Politicians, was now in favor of unity, all of the other Older Politicians followed suit. When the commission arrived in Jaffa, it concluded on 27 June that it was in favor of Syro-Palestinian unity under a British Mandate.

In the first week of July 1919, the Syrian National Congress held its first meeting in Damascus and Darwaza was its secretary. The GSC called for the immediate independence of Syria as a sovereign state under a constitutional monarchy and underlined its opposition to the establishment of Zionism in southern Syria (Palestine). Along with Mohammad Amin al-Husayni and Aref al-Aref, Darwaza founded and became an officer of the Palestinian Society in Damascus. The organization urged all societies and clubs in Palestine to cooperate and condemn the San Remo Conference's decision to grant Great Britain a mandate over Palestine and Transjordan.

Darwaza's and the Younger Politicians' hopes for unity with Syria were curtailed when it became known that King Faisal was aligning himself with the leaders of the Zionist movement because "they were helping us in the conference." Darwaza now believed King Faisal was someone who did not give Palestine the attention he thought it deserved. Faisal was deposed by the French in July 1920. An event that further deteriorated Darwaza's ambitions of Arab unity was the confirmation of the British Mandate over Palestine at the San Remo Conference on 24 April 1920. His experience in Damascus revealed to him that the universalism of Arab nationalism was not as concrete as its advocates had thought, and the military might of the colonial powers—France and Great Britain—were an overwhelming force to contend with.