110
CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
tering page of Arabian Nights adventure to my experiences.
But I had a girl back home; and the multiple dangers implicit
in such an arrangement made me cautious, especially when I
learned that some of the guests were to be British and Arab
agents. All would be curious about the "American who is
seeing everybody."
Instead, I concentrated on Saleh Harb Pasha, former minister of defense, and now director of Shuban el Mnslimin, the
Young Moslem Association.1 He was an intimate of Hassan
el Banna. Although the Shuban was not officially sending
volunteers to fight the Jews, it was a center of agitation frequented by Green Shirt, Ikhwan, and Mufti henchmen.
While minister of defense during the war, Harb Pasha had
been removed from office, arrested and interned.
Harb Pasha said to me in English: "If Rommel had won
we would be independent now. If the Nazis and Fascists had
won [those were his words, not "Germany and Italy"] they
would have been friends to the whole Arab world. And," he
mused, "there would have been no Zionist problem because
there would have been no Zionist Jews ... or any Jews at
all left."
He was a large, brusque man—strong-tempered, volatile,
with protruding eyes and rocklike jaw of a boxer. He had
served in the Turkish army in World War I against the Allies
and later joined the Egyptian army.
"The English are making a cat's-paw out of you Americans," he went on. "We say in Egypt that the Americans are
first in science and industry, but children in diplomacy. The
French say: Cherchez la femme. I say to you that whenever
there is intrigue in the Arab world, search for the English
hand. For sixty-six years we have been her slave. We hate
Communism because we are Moslems, but a counsel of despair will carry the day when Britain asks for our help next
1
It claimed 20,000 members in Cairo, 300 branches in Egypt, and
250,000 members throughout the world. My references are to the Egyptian
organization only, and have no bearing on any group with the same or similar
name outside Cairo.