JFK’s history with Arabs and Palestine

On the sixtieth anniversary of his death (22 Nov 1963), Al Majalla revisits the understudied history of Kennedy's relations with the Arab World.

No peace, no war

Unlike Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, he didn't produce any regional peace deals. At the same time, he didn't produce a regional war. In fact, Kennedy was the first president since Harry Truman – and would be the last until Gerald Ford – whose term did not witness a major Arab-Israeli War.

(Truman had the Palestine War of 1948, Dwight Eisenhower had the Suez War of 1956, Lyndon Johnson lived through the Six-Day War of 1967, and Richard Nixon was in the Oval Office when the October War of 1973 broke out.)

When Kennedy entered the White House on 20 January 1961, many Arab leaders were optimistic that the young man would bring positive change to the Middle East.

He had twice visited Palestine, after all, once as far back as 1931, and had gone on the record in his criticism of French colonialism in Algeria.

His administration was packed with officials who believed in positive engagement with the Arabs, such as Secretary of State Dean Rusk, National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy, and America's ambassador to Cairo, John Badeau.

During his previous career in the US Senate, Kennedy had proposed a UN and World Bank-administered Middle East Resource Fund to help developing Arab countries and shield them from communist infiltration.

Simultaneously, he strove to maintain already friendly relations with long-time US allies like Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

Sticking with old friends

King Saud of Saudi Arabia was under increasing pressure from Arab hardliners to take a tougher stance against the US, prompting him to announce that he would not renew the Dhahran airfield agreement with Washington, once it expired in April 1962.

Kennedy digested the unexpected blow, offering civilian assistance instead to run the airfield while approving an arms deal with Riyadh that included howitzers, assorted tanks, and eleven F-86 jets for a total value of $17 million.

In November 1961, King Saud flew to Boston for medical treatment, and after hospital discharge, had his first meeting with Kennedy, six months after Kennedy met with Gurion.

As expected, it went smoothly. The two sides would go on to honour all agreements in bilateral relations, which were made under the founder of Saudi Arabia, King Abdul-Aziz al-Saud.

The second most reliable ally was the young king of Jordan, Hussein Ibn Talal.

In a May 1962 memo from the State Department, Hussein was described as "the key to the precarious stability in the Middle East."

The Kennedy Administration continued to provide him with money and in 1962, an unprecedented $60mn was allocated for Jordanian aid. The most Jordan had received from Kennedy's predecessors was $45mn.

Making new friends

The real challenge, however, was President Gamal Abdul Nasser of Egypt, who had been inching towards the Eastern Bloc ever since the World Bank had withdrawn financing of the High Dam Project back in July 1956.

Kennedy would have loved to pull him towards the US orbit, but he knew that Israel would never hear of it. The most he could wish for was to position him in neutral territory of Cold War politics.

Despite his troubled history with the US, Nasser wouldn't refuse aid from the Kennedy Administration, so long as it did not jeopardise his standing as the "godfather" of Arab nationalism.

But there were many roadblocks along the way, starting with the history of US-Israeli relations onto the ongoing civil war in Congo, in which Nasser and Kennedy were supporting rival factions.

The White House was backing army general Joseph Mobutu, while Nasser supported the regime of Antoine Gizenga in the country's northeast, which the US viewed as "communist."

US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Philips Talbot advised Kennedy to brush off the Congo dispute and pursue a more nuanced approach towards Nasser.

He stated: "We have no illusions that any broad understanding with Nasser is possible. We do feel, however, that modest assistance is useful to help the United Arab Republic (UAR) meet its massive challenge of industrialisation and over-population and to make clear that there is a continuing alternative to full reliance on communist bloc assistance."

(The UAR is how Egypt was referred to back in mid-1961, when it was part of a short-lived union with Syria created in 1958.)

Talbot advised the president to invite Nasser to Washington DC and provide him with 200,000 tons of wheat and flour to compensate for an exceptionally bad harvest.

With approximately 35% of Egyptian gone, losses had exceeded $100mn.

The 1961 coup in Syria

But before the US administration finalised touches on its reconciliation with Nasser, a military coup was staged in Damascus, bringing down the UAR on 28 September 1961.

Syria's new leaders sent out letters to world capitals, saying that they had enough of Nasser's police state and socialist policies, and seeking re-admission to the United Nations as an independent state.

Kennedy was planning to visit the American Sixth Fleet in Lebanon that September but had to cancel the trip, so as not to appear too close to Syria at the time of the coup for fear of it being seen as pro-American.

Relations between Washington and Cairo became troubled when Kennedy recognised the new government in Damascus on 10 October 1961, headed by a French-trained lawyer named Mamoun al-Kuzbari.

The Syrian premier entered immediate talks with the US for the purchase of wheat, flour and rice to relieve drought-stricken areas in his country. Kennedy appointed an ambassador to Damascus, Ridgway B Knight, who urged the State Department to grant $15mn in immediate loans to the Kuzbari government.

Syria reciprocated by sending one of its most accomplished diplomats to Washington, the celebrated poet Omar Abu Risheh, who was appointed ambassador. He was well-received at the White House and would establish a warm relationship with Kennedy, who reportedly admired his prose and excellent command of English.

But even the talented Abu Risheh failed to secure the assistance needed from Washington, and his government had to eventually turn to West Germany for help.

The Germans offered to provide $25mn worth of aid; Syria responded that it needed no less than $40mn. Another $5mn would come from the Bank of America, borrowed to repair the damage done to the Syrian economy by Nasser's socialist policies, such as the nationalisation of banks and factories issued in July 1961.

Palestinian refugees

The crux of all problems in the Middle East was – and remains – the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The Kennedy Administration never went as far as proposing a peace agreement to the Arabs, but it did give serious consideration to solving the issue of Palestinian refugees.

When Kennedy came to office, there were nearly 1.5 million refugees scattered across the region. Kennedy was under the impression that if he managed to resettle them, this would bring stability to the region.

On 13 July 1961, Dean Rusk wrote to the president: "While recognising that a permanent overall Arab-Israel settlement is remote, progress on the refugee problem might well be the key to an Arab-Israeli modus vivendi."

Kennedy handpicked Joseph E Johnson, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in August 1961, dispatching him to the Middle East to study the refugee problem and report back to him by no later than 15 October 1961.

Some at the State Department suggested that Syria resettle 200,000 refugees, building upon an offer made back in 1949 by Syria's first military president Husni al-Za'im.

Johnson proposed giving Palestinian refugees a choice, either to be resettled in their host countries with compensation or resettle in Palestine.

Even with gradual resettlement and repatriation, however, he argued that the refugee problem would not die out immediately and would last for another generation, if not more. Israel debunked the idea, rejecting the notion of "free choice" for the Palestinians.

Complicating matters was a proposal made by Arab envoys to the UN, that all refugees who lived in territories originally designated as part of the Arab state in the UN Partition Plan of 1947 should be automatically repatriated in historic Palestine.

The Israeli Knesset responded with a clear veto to the Johnson Plan on 6 November 1961, which prompted the Arabs to come back with a counteroffer.

They suggested that the UN take custody of Arab holdings inside Israel to protect Palestinian property from being usurped by the Israelis. However, after a UN vote, this did not pass.

Kennedy would send Johnson back to the Middle East for another visit in the spring of 1962. This time he came up with a far less ambitious plan, to discuss refugee issues in every specific camp, and when that failed, he announced the end and failure of his mission on 3 January 1963.

Iraq relations

Then came the issue of Iraq.

Relations were strained with the new rulers of Baghdad, who had come to power through a blood-soaked coup on 14 July 1958.

Months into the Kennedy administration, Prime Minister Abdul Karim Qassim mobilised forces, intending to invade and annex Kuwait, which had just gained its independence from Great Britain.

The British responded by sending 5,000 troops to the Arab Gulf, while Kennedy sent a US Navy task force to Bahrain, hoping to deter Qassim's expansionist policies. At the end of the day, no war broke out and Qassim backed down on his territorial claims.

A 4,000-man Arab force was sent to Kuwait, headed by Saudi Arabia, which was only withdrawn after Qassim was overthrown and killed in February 1963. Before that, Kennedy had given serious consideration to staging a coup to bring down the Iraqi general, sometime in April 1962.

He was thrilled to see the end of him, and quickly approved a $55mn arms deal with his successors.