Fascist paramilitary youth models shaped most Arab political movements including the left

Evidence

The Kata’ib were founded in 1936 as a paramilitary youth movement. This was the age of political and militant “shirts,” when blue, green, gray, white, khaki and tan shirts were used to clothe youth movements and proclaim their ideologies in Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. Many of these paramilitary youth groups found their models in Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Francoist Spain, and some of their leaders were no doubt affected by the Fascist ideologies of those countries. In this they were by no means alone in the Arab world, and a large proportion of present-day Arab leaders and movements, including those of the left and extreme left, emerged from the same school. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1411