HUSNI
ZA'IM
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him. There were a number of episodes in Za'im's career prior to 1949 whichlend credence to this unflattering view of him, notably his embezzlement ofa large sum of money given to him by the Vichy administration in 1941 toorganize guerrilla operations against the Free French and the British forces.For this offense he was convicted, served a two-year prison sentence, andwas exiled to Lebanon. On his return to Syria in 1946, he was appointedinspector general of the police and, in May 1948, chief of the general staffof the army. Nobody doubted Za'im's courage and his war record wasimpressive, but after the war he became implicated once more in acorruption scandal. According to one theory he staged his coup not to savethe country from the politicians but to save his own skin.' Whether true ornot, Za'im does not stand out as a shining example of integrity or altruism,nor was he above exploiting public positions to line his own pockets.Yet, despite all Za'im's defects of character and shortcomings, he doesappear to have been motivated by a genuine desire to sweep away the oldorder and lay the foundations for a more just, egalitarian, enlightened, andabove all a more prosperous society. Modeling himself on Mustafa KemalAtatiirk, the father of modern Turkey, Za'im aspired to separate religionand state and to introduce far-reaching social and political reforms. Duringhis brief tenure, he introduced one reform-the enfranchisement ofwomen-which represented a clear departure from Islamic tradition. Topave the way for agrarian reform, he abolished the private administration offamily waqfs (religious
endowment^).^
The offer to settle 300,000 Palestin-ian refugees in Syria, if enough outside economic assistance could beprovided, must be viewed in the context of this general drive to develop andmodernize the country. It was the desire for foreign capital to generatenationwide economic development, rather than purely humanitarian con-cern to alleviate the suffering of the refugees, that constituted his primaryconsideration.
Of
all the Arab states, Syria had, potentially, the greatestabsorptive capacity. The Jazirah region in northern Syria, with its sparsepopulation and fertile land, provided ideal conditions for large-scaleresettlement. Za'im reasoned that apart from helping to solve the refugeeproblem, an externally-financed project on this scale would also carrymanifold advantages forsyria, such as building infrastructure, extendingthe land area under cultivation, modernizing agricultural production, andraising the living standards of the inhabitants of the Jazirah. It may well be,as his first foreign minister, 'Adil Arslan, later hinted, that some of themoney Za'im hoped to obtain from the Americans was intended for hisprivate pocket.3 But this kind of corruption did not make Za'im unique
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