Word: syria
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Tall, dignified Shukri el-Kuwatly had been called the George Washington of his country, but as Syria's first elected President, ailing, aging (58) El Kuwatly acted more like a traditional, feckless Arab politician. He failed to stamp out corruption, stood indolently by while food prices soared. When he sent his army out to fight the Jews, the army was ignominiously beaten. For months Damascus bazaars had buzzed with rumors that the army would revolt. One night last week...
...short, stumpy Brigadier Husni Zaim, who had fought against Lawrence of Arabia in World War I and with the Vichy French in 1941. Though Zaim was a veteran of many losing causes, he rose steadily, first to chief of Syria's police, and finally to army chief of staff. First rumors were that Zaim was an ardent nationalist, who would break off truce negotiations with Israel, cancel the Trans-Arabian Pipeline Co.'s rights to build a pipeline through Syria (TIME, Sept. 15, 1947), and throw in his lot with Trans-jordan's King Abdullah, whose avowed...
...week's end even some of Zaim's followers were wondering what the domestic implications were. For a militant putschist, Zaim was getting off to a slow start. First he tried to get Faris el-Khouri, former Premier and Syria's delegate to the United Nations, to form a cabinet. When El Khouri refused, Zaim dissolved parliament and appointed himself temporary Premier at the head of a cabinet of "technicians." Most Syrians, sipping coffee in the bazaars and smoking their hubble-bubble pipes, took hardly any notice of the change in government. In their 4,000-year...
...thorny questions of Jerusalem's status and the disposition of 500,000 Arab refugees* still had to be settled. Israel's other Arab neighbors, Syria, Lebanon and Transjordan, must be satisfied, and Syria, in particular, was showing signs of unabated bitterness. But the confident Israeli were not expecting trouble from anyone. A quip going the rounds of Tel Aviv last week: "Armistice applications accepted only during business hours...
...first, the audience in Pittsburgh's Syria Mosque was stunned by De Sabata's strange choreography on the podium-he seemed to be dancing everything from a tarantella to a sabre dance. But by the time he had driven Berlioz' old warhorse around the course, whipping it for all it was worth, the audience couldn't get to its feet fast enough. The passion and power he found in César Franck's over-explored symphony won him another wild ovation before intermission. And by the time his program was over, Victor de Sabata...