File 756/1917 Pt 2-3 ‘ARAB BULLETIN Nos 66-114’ [‎62r] (132/834)

Neo-Turanian propagandists. First, that the Ottomans, the least
Turki of Turks, will continue to control the new Turki Nation
if they shall have succeeded in promoting it. Second, that
Germany, whether through the Ottomans or otherwise, is certain
to have that Nation’s sympathies, and to direct its policy against
Great Britain.
D. G. H.
JEMAL AND THE ARABS.
Ahmed Jemal Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. has been figuring of late in the old role
of the pro-Arab Turk, which, despite all Syrian and Arab blood
on his hands, he still regards as his to play. On the last day of
November he was in Beirut making a speech at a municipal
banquet, held in his honour; and, with the help of that
champion of Syrian liberties, Sheikh Asad Shuqeir, to render
into the speech of his beloved Beirutis the rude, but honest,
Turkish of their Friend, he delivered an apologia, which is not
without interest. It was the morrow of the loss of Jaffa and the
eve of the loss of Jerusalem 5 but the last event he assuied Ins
hearers would never come to pass any more than could the fall of
Medina. If anyone was saying Turkey was about to collapse, it
could only be one of the miserable few whom he had hesitated,
from misplaced kindness, to exile at the first. He had always
spoken in the warmest terms of the Syrians : they were his
brothers whose interest was his own. He stood for them and
they for him, even if he had, to his regret, hanged a good many
of them at one time or another. Was not Fever really moie
responsible for this ? And when all was said and done he, denial,
was bound by Moslem Law under which hanging is normal At
least he had done his best to produce one mind among Moslems,
even if he had failed in the capital object with which he came to
Syria, the delivery of Egypt from the British ; and to illustrate his
zeal in the past for unity in Islam and the Arab race, if not his
success, he detailed at' some length his correspondence with
leading Arabs since the opening of the war, notably with Sherit
Husein and his sons. His overtures, he admitted, were never
met quite in the spirit wfth which they were offered. Sherit
Feisal, after being sent by his father to Damascus at Jemals
request, and forwarded by the latter to Constantinople, swore at
Jerusalem, when he had heard all the lurks had to say, to Je
“ a martvr for his country”, and then disappeared for six months
leaving no address : Sherif Ali brought 4,000 men to Medina as
requested, but had the bad manners to demand the control of the
city as the price of co-operation on the Canal, to accede to
such importunity, however, would have been too clear a proof of
weakness. However Jemal does not bear malice, and having