(EDITORIAL) Behind the Arab Conference scheduled to meet at Cairo, strange factors are at play to raise the suspicions of the Muslim world. Both Iraq and Egypt which had sponsored the scheme of an Arab Federation comprising Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon, Trans-Jordan and Iraq have found it necessary to disclaim any idea of personal prestige as the guiding motive...

Palestine will always remain the touchstone of Allied policy and an Arab Conference that side-tracks the Palestine issue must be doomed to failure. Nahas Pasha has, indeed, revealed the solidarity of the Muslim world against the Zionist machinations when he protested to the U.S. Government against their anti-Arab policy. Between America and Britain there has been patched up an agreement to exploit the resources of the Middle East ... Imperialism has shown little regard for the rights of the Arabs in relation to Oil or Zionism and any talks of an Arab Federation under such auspices must be anathema to the Arabs. There has been secrecy surrounding the conference between military and political officials of the Near and Middle East with British Ministers of State which met last year and if the present Arab Conference is expected to endorse the Allied claims, the Arab States may yet upset the Allied apple-cart. — Dawn Delhi

Published in Dawn, August 22nd, 2019