Many enlightened Arabs sought to affect a genuine progress for their people. A most exemplary figure of this mindset was the Emir Faisal Ibn Hussein, King of Hejaz, who was considered by Arabs to be a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad and who was the most recognized and respected leader of the Arab world in his time. Prince Faisal was the formally recognized head of the Arab delegation at the Paris Peace Conference held in 1919 at the end of World War I. The Paris conference, which drew up the Treaty of Versailles thus ending the long and bloody European War, would also define the post war world by setting precedence in international law and custom and by establishing the League of Nations.
Emir Faisal, as the accredited head of the Arab delegation to the conference, sought recognition by the European powers of the national and political rights of the 22 emerging Arab nations. In exchange for this recognition, he formally recognized Palestine as a Jewish State in a signed agreement that carries the weight of international law but one that is rarely, if ever, discussed today.
Emir Faisal signed a formal agreement in London, 1919, with Chaim Weizmann, the recognized head of the Zionist delegation to the Paris Peace Conference. Additionally, in a correspondence with Harvard Professor Felix Frankfurter, Faisal refers to Jewish claims in Palestine as "modest and proper" and offers the Jewish people "a hearty welcome home."
Emir Faisal, like many Arab leaders of his era, believed that the newly emerging Arab nations would benefit from the economic know-how and modern European knowledge of a Jewish Palestine. He wanted his people to become full and sovereign partners in the modern world and he felt that a relationship with Jewish Palestine would be of great benefit in achieving this goal. In retrospect, It's hard to believe that after all the subsequent conflict and violence between the Jews of Israel and the Arabs that such an enlightened figure held sway in
the Arab world at one time. The Grand Mufti el-Husseini would largely eclipse Emir Faisal ibn Hussein as the penultimate Arab leader.
http://www.shalomjerusalem.com/mohammedism/mohammedism21.htmlThis is fascinating. History might have been very different.
Topic: Emir Faisal