The Arab Lands in the Modern World
suffered further fragmentation. In Syria it concentrated its force against the policy of Turkification and, after the imposition of the mandate, against French imperialism. Similarly in Palestine hostility to the British mandate and its adjunct Zionism resulted in a local type of national feeling. Lebanon, which was first favourably disposed toward the mandate, ended by renouncing it vehemently and achieving full nationhood. The last mandatory vestiges were obliterated in Lebanon and Syria in 1943 to 1945. In the eastern horn of the Arab Crescent an Iraqi nationhood developed in the 1920s largely as a reaction against British imperialism. Tiny Transjordan, never an independent entity before, was amputated by the British in 1921 from South Syria and created a new state under the amir Abdullah.
Thus did these Arab component parts of the Ottoman Empire fall apart between the two world wars and develop into nations or quasi-nations. But the second World War and the threat of Zionism, which was viewed by Arabs everywhere as an intrusive movement, served to bring those parts once more closer together. The urge of common interest and the rising feeling of solidarity culminated in the Arab League, whose pact was signed in Cairo, March 1945. The original membership of the League, consisting of Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yaman, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan has been augmented by Libya, Tunisia, Morocco and Sudan. Of these Jordan and Libya are today constitutional monarchies with elective parliaments. Lebanon and Iraq are republics. In 1952 Egypt abolished its monarchy and later declared itself a republic. In 1958 it formed with Syria the United Arab Republic. All these states are now members of the United Nations and the majority have diplomatic representatives in London, Washington and Paris.
Originators of the third monotheistic religion, beneficiaries religiously and culturally of the other two, co-sharers with the West of the Greco-Roman tradition, holders aloft
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