PrintNovember 8, 2009
A new (and old) plan for Mideast peace
One could be forgiven for taking the two men posing together in the photo below, in obvious friendship, on a sunny Arabian day in 1918, to be Arabs, but in fact, only of them is. The regal-looking gentleman, in traditional Arab dress, on the right side of this famous photo, is Emir Faisal ibn Hussein, a/k/a Faisal I, third son of Hussein bin Ali, King of Hejaz, Sharif and Emir of Mecca.But the man on his right, wearing a Western suit, an Arab kaffiyeh and a bemused smile, is a Jew, and not just any Jew, anonymous and destined to be forgotten by history. He is, in fact, Chaim Weizmann, President of the World Zionist Organization on June 4, 1918, when the photo was taken, but destined, two decades later, to be the first president of a reborn Israel,The place: Aqaba, a part of Arabia so remote as to be accessible by boat and camel, by which Weizmann had traveled to meet Faisal and the man who arranged the meeting and would act as translator: T.E. Lawrence, the...(Read Full Article)
