Formal independence from Britain masked continued imperial control of Arab states
Evidence
During the post–World War II era, a new generation of radical anti-colonial secular nationalists took the place of their predecessors. The previous generation had failed to end colonization, and colonial conditions had become unbearable for the vast majority. Even though by 1945 many Middle Eastern and North African countries had been granted formal independence, in reality they were not free. The League of Arab States, formed in 1945, consisted of the supposedly independent countries of Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, Transjordan, and Saudi Arabia, but all of these countries were in fact under the thumb of the British. … The loss of Palestine in 1948, and the failure of the Arab states to stop the formation of the state of Israel, exacerbated matters. The result was that popular discontent, combined with leftward pressure exerted by various Communist parties in the region, pushed the nationalist movements in a more radical direction. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 309
Categorization
- XREF: Connects Palestine 1948 to the reader’s guiding question about the Palestine-anchored causal chain; links to Iftikhar’s critique of Israel-as-refuge narrative. — connects to: Egypt’s informal British occupation contrasted with its formal 1821 colonial rule over the Sudan; Imperial expansion persists but is relabeled as commitments and foreign aid; British imperial power installed and maintained the Pahlavi Shahs in Iran — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 217