Washington Report, December 2005, pages 22-23

In Memoriam

25 Years After His Death, Dr. Fayez Sayegh’s Towering Legacy Lives On

By Andrew I. Killgore

	Dr. Fayez Sayegh circa 1958 (Photo courtesy Arlene Sayegh).

“I DON'T know whether Fayez succeeded in achieving the inner peace he sought all his life,” pondered fellow Palestinian Dr. Hisham Sharabi in a December 1980 eulogy for Fayez Abdallah Sayegh delivered at a Georgetown University memorial service. Sharabi fondly recalled that Dr. Sayegh had taken him to his home at Tiberias by the Sea of Galilee in 1947 just before they both departed for the United States to complete their studies, he at the University of Chicago and Fayez to Georgetown University in Washington, DC, where he would pursue his Ph.D. degree.

I met Dr. Sayegh in 1963 at the University of Minnesota, where I was giving a speech on the Middle East, particularly on the Arab-Israeli dispute. At that time the American media had been making much of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s imaginary program to build rockets to fire at Israel. Egypt was being assisted by German scientists, according to the American press.

The moment I finished my remarks, a young man leapt to his feet to ask furiously, “Mr. Killgore, when will the United States make Nasser get rid of his Nazi scientists?”

Immediately another man in the back of the room was on his feet to say, “Mr. Killgore, let me answer that question. Nasser will get rid of his Nazi scientists when the U.S. gets rid of its Nazi scientists.” (The reference, of course, was to Werner von Braun and other German rocket scientists whom Washington had brought to the U.S. from Germany at the end of World War II to help with our space program.)

Applause greeted the short and insightful observation, and no more was heard of so-called Nazi scientists. The man who so helpfully answered the surprise questioner was the distinguished professor Dr. Fayez Sayegh, who was teaching that year at Macalester College in nearby St. Paul. I accepted his invitation to speak to some of his classes at Macalester, delaying my return to Washington and the State Department by a day, and spent that delightful extra day in Minnesota with a brilliant man. I was struck not only by his intellectual prowess, but by his personal warmth, humor and humility. Although I never saw him again, I followed his career via press reports and through his writings.

Born in 1922 in Kharaba, Syria, where his father was a Presbyterian minister, Fayez received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the American University of Beirut (AUB). In 1949 he earned his Ph.D. in philosophy, with a minor in political science, from Georgetown.

Dr. Sayegh then worked for the Lebanese Embassy in Washington, DC and as a research officer and adviser to the Lebanese delegation to the United Nations. He subsequently served as counselor to the Yemeni delegation to the U.N. and chief of the Arab States delegation to the U.N. His impressive résumé also included positions as program officer (Middle East) to the U.N. Radio Division and social affairs officer at the United Nations Division of Human Rights.

Above all, however, Dr. Sayegh was a teacher and educator. He taught at Yale, Stanford, the American University of Beirut, Oxford and, as mentioned, at Macalester College. In 1965 he founded and became the director-general of the Palestine Research Center in Beirut. Dr. Sayegh was decorated by the president of Lebanon with the Cedar’s Medal, Rank of Commander, the highest civilian medal awarded by Lebanon.

Dr. Sayegh’s works in English include Arab Unity and The Dynamics of Neutralism in the Arab World, along with such monographs as The Arab-Israel Conflict, The Palestine Refugees and The Record of Israel at the United Nations. He wrote chapters for seven symposia published in the United States and Britain, and several books in Arabic that were translated into English, French, Spanish, German and Russian.

A Brilliant Mind at Work

One can apprehend some sense of Dr. Sayegh’s towering legacy from a review of his works presented to the University of Utah at Ogden by his widow, Mrs. Arlene Briem Sayegh. Four to five hundred written works, several hundred tape recordings and films of his speeches and interviews, and a personal library of four to five thousand volumes, including collections on theology (Islam, Christianity and Judaism), international law, U.S. foreign policy, world history and philosophy. His early death 25 years ago at the age of 58 was an appalling loss not only to Palestine, but to the intellectual world as a whole.

That Dr. Sayegh was a masterful debater is evidenced by reading an account of his Dec. 3, 1967 exchange with the sharp, Zionist TV host David Suskind (see box). Fayez’s encyclopedic knowledge of the Middle East, his marvelous facility in English and his passionate honesty left the cocksure Suskind at a loss for words. For years after that show, no Zionist or pro-Israel debater would appear with Fayez publicly.

My mind keeps going back to the late Hisham Sharabi’s provocative question of whether Dr. Sayegh was able to achieve inner peace. Remember that Palestine was his great passion and that he studied at the Presbyterian-linked American University of Beirut, which advocated and practiced a secular ideal of America where students of every religion and no religion could learn together. These were the halcyon days for the brilliant young Palestinian professor and student at AUB. At that time there seemed a real chance to stop the Zionist juggernaut and save Palestine for the Palestinians, its real owners.

Instead, a philosopher and political scientist who always saw philosophy and logic as “the vehicle to realize justice and freedom” saw the America that he had experienced at AUB turn against its best ideals and against those who loved Palestine.

He had the love of his wife, Arlene, and his daughter, Reema, but he saw an America that time after time betrayed the principles it had espoused to push instead a backward-looking Israeli agenda while ignoring the consequences for Palestinians. Also betrayed was his belief in the value of philosophy and logic. Was his profound disappointment at that betrayal the root of his search for inner peace?

Andrew I. Killgore, a retired former service officer and former U.S. ambassador to Qatar, is publisher of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

SIDEBAR

Dr. Fayez Sayegh vs. David Suskind

Excerpts from Dr. Sayegh’s appearance on the “David Suskind Show” of Dec. 3, 1967 (taped Nov. 20, 1967)

David Suskind: What effective role can the U.N. play, finally, in the Arab-Israeli issue?

Fayez Sayegh: Well, let’s not forget that it was the role of the United Nations, to begin with, that created the present troubles in the Middle East, by recommending the establishment of a Jewish state on what was Arab Palestine—or, on a portion of what was Arab Palestine. So we feel that if the United Nations can be effective for ill, it certainly should be able to be effective for good.…

DS: How do you think you’ve fared so far, compared to the Israeli presentation at the U.N. [regarding the Six-Day War]?…

FS: The United Nations system represents a progressive concept of world order which, until 22 years ago, was still a dream in the minds of many people. Under this system, no state can take arms against another state, invade its territory, occupy its land, and retain that land. Therefore, under this system, which is the only hope of mankind today, what the Arabs are demanding, that Israel withdraw unconditionally from Arab territory occupied by force, is, far from being an irrational demand, the only rational demand, and the only demand consistent with a system of law and order, which can give this world any peace, and any hope of peace.

DS: Is it your contention that Israel commenced war against the Arab countries?

FS: It is not even the contention of Israel that it did not, sir. Israel certainly sent its Air Force across the demarcation lines and the borders, into Arab air bases, and at a time when Arabs were being told by the United States, by France, and by the Soviet Union, “As long as you do not invade Israel, don’t worry about Israel invading you.” And the Arabs were assuring these great powers that we shall not invade first.…

DS: Dr. Sayegh, why will the Arab countries refuse to sit down, at this point, with Israel to negotiate peace?…

FS: For the simple reason that, when Israel asks for negotiation, it says it wants to negotiate with the Arab states. It so happens that the party primarily responsible for discussing the fate of that area is the people of Palestine. We, in Kuwait, Syria, the UAR, Iraq, all the Arab states, have no right to dispose of a portion of Palestinian territory. It is up to the Palestinians to decide what they agree to and what they do not agree to, by way of ultimate disposition of their land. Israel wants to negotiate with non-parties, rather than with the party to the problem.

Secondly, by saying, “let us negotiate directly,” Israel is saying—in a whisper—“keep the United Nations out of the picture.” This is the virtual implication of the demand for direct negotiations: the ouster of the United Nations, the blockage of the way of the United Nations to intervene.

Now, let me remind you, the United Nations has been responsible for the creation of every stage in the evolution of the Palestine problem, from 1947 until today. Israel cannot, having benefited from a partial implementation of U.N. recommendations in the past, having benefited from U.N. actions, and from U.N. inaction, Israel cannot now say, “Let the U.N. stand out of the picture; I want to deal directly with the Arab states.” It cannot at one time say, “The whole problem should be decided upon by the U.N.,” and then, at another stage, say, “The U.N. has no say in the matter.”…

Now, you say we refuse to recognize Israel. Yes, we refuse to recognize Israel because the Israel you are speaking about is an act of usurpation of an Arab territory, and Arab land; an act of ouster of an Arab population. Every Israeli who is in Israel today is living in the home of an Arab who has not been compensated for his property. Every Israeli who is in Israel today is there because an Arab has been ousted. Israel is, because Palestine has been made not to be. The being of Israel is the non-being of Palestine. We do not endorse the non-being of an Arab country called Palestine. We will not recognize Israel as long as that means non-recognition of Arab Palestine. …

DS: If she’s a usurper state, and inhabiting your land, the only successful conclusion, from your point of view, would be her final demise, or defeat?

FS: Not necessarily.

DS: What else would accommodate your ambition?

FS: I—what would accommodate my ambition will be—my hope—and I say this now in the utmost earnestness, whether you like to believe me or not—my hope [is] that the human conscience will still wake up among the Zionists living in Israel, and will make them realize that they have usurped someone else’s land, and will make them accept to live as human beings in a democratic Palestine, where they and the rightful inhabitants have a place, rather than to live in an exclusively Zionist state, at the expense of the rightful inhabitants of Palestine.

DS: Give up statehood?

FS: Give up statehood, but not give up existence.

DS: Well, that’s charming. Don’t die, but go away.

FS: Well, sir, you have done that—Israel has done that to the Arabs of Palestine. And I believe that human beings are human beings everywhere. I believe that the human conscience of many people in Israel will still awaken to the tragedy that they have been instrumental in inflicting upon another people that was never guilty of their suffering, that was never guilty of their persecution in Christian Europe.…

DS: Turn over the state to an Arab country, is that it? The state of Israel?

FS: While they’re there, it will not be an exclusively Arab country. Any Jew who has no place else to go will be able to stay in Palestine; the rightful inhabitants of Palestine must be allowed to come back to their country; and you will have a binational state of Christians, Muslims, Jews, Druse, Baha’i, atheists; all in Palestine, as Palestinians, leading a Palestinian life.