Faisal’s 1919 pact with Weizmann was provisional on Arab independence demands never realized

Evidence

After the war, Faisal, who is said to have seen Zionism as a potentially important source of economic and political support for the Arab cause, acceded to the invocation of the political Semite. On 3 January 1919, he signed an agreement with Weizmann for the implementation of the Balfour Declaration and Zionist assistance for the economic development of the expected Arab state. The first line of the text pointed to the Semitic as the starting point for their collaboration. As representatives of the Arab kingdom of Hijaz and the Zionist organisation, they were, the document declared, ‘mindful of the racial kinship and ancient bonds existing between the Arabs and the Jewish people’. Faisal added, however, a handwritten note that made the pact entirely provisional on the implementation of his own demands for Arab independence in the peace settlement—demands that were not to be realised. — James Renton, Ben Gidley (eds.), Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe, 673

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to my reading on the construction of ‘Semitic’ racial kinship as a political tool in WWI-era diplomacy.