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Airlift for Allah: the United States and the 1952 Hajj I- 1 Airlift for Allah: the United States and the 1952 Hajj I C,onnections and Ruptures: America and the Middle East Proceedings of the Third International Conference Sponsored by The Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud Center for American Studies and Research at the American University of Beirut Robert Myers Editor Nancy Batakji Sanyoura Associate Editor Gabriel Magro, Eman EI Ahmar, Jennifer Moganam, and Maria Makarem Editorial Assistants 1.\1uslim and Interfaith Charities in Central >~C\\' York: the Politics of Diffcren::e t- 40. S~art Hall, "The Local and the Global: Globalization and Ethniciry," in Cftlture~ Globalization all~ the w.0rfJ.sys~cm: Contemporary Conditions for the Representation of kJentity, 1Airlift for Allah: The United States cd. Anthony D. King {Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997),32. 41 Lila Abu-Lughod, "Do Muslim Women Reali)" Need Saving? Anthropological Reflc:oionson and the 1952 Hajj Cultural Relativism and Its Others," American Anthropologist, Volume 104, Number 3, (2002) and Mamdani, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim (2004). 42 Steven Salaita, "Ethnic Identity and Imperative Patriotism: Arab Americans Before aid After Sean Foley 9/11," College Literature, Volume 32, Number 2, Spring (2005): 151-152 Middle Tennessee State University 43 Melani MeAlisrer, A Cultural History of the War without End, The Journal of AlIerica" History, Volume 89, lssue 2 (2002): 439-455. 'I 44 \Vendy Brown, Regulating Aversions Tolerance in the Age of Identity and Empire (Pcnceton: In 1952 the US Air Force flew approximately 4,000 Muslims from Princeton University Press, 2006), 46. Lebanon to Saudi Arabia in just four days. Virtually unknown today, the 45Ibid,95. "Airlift for Allah" symbolizes both a key shift in U.S. policy toward the 46 Hall, "The Local and rhe Global," 28. Middle East and the ability of American leaders to think quickly in response to an emergency request for assistance from the governments of Lebanon and 47 Taylor, "The Politics of Recognition," 70. Saudi Arabia. Ironically, nine years earlier the State Department had rejected 48 Susan E. Babbitt, "Objectivity and the Role of Bias ." In Engendering Rationalities, cd Nancy a plan by U.S. diplomats and intelligence officers in North Africa for a similar Tuana and Sandra Morgen (Albany, SUNY Press, 2001), 298. airlift. At that time, U.S. officials argued that air travel was inconsistent with 49 Ibid, 302. Muslim ideals of suffering while on the hajj and that Saudi Arabia was within 50 Interview with Sanaa, October 13 2008. Great Britain's sphere of influence. They also worried that some Saudis would view a hajj airlift as a threat to their national sovereignty and would use it as 51 Interview with Larifah, October 16 2008. an excuse to limit future U.S. access to Saudi Arabia's oil reserves. 52 Lisa Suhair Maja], "New Directions: Arab American Writing Today" in ATobA1IJ('ri(os: Literary Entanglements of the American Hemisphere and the A",b World, eds. Ottrnar lne and The stark difference between the reactions of American officials in 1943 Friederike Panncwick [Frankfurt: Vervuer, 2006), 325. and 1952. in response to a req uesr to assist Muslim pilgrims provides an S3 Interview with Sanaa, October 13 2008. important window into the evolution of U.S. polices in the Middle East during the early Cold Wac. The hajj airlift also shows us that U.S.'s historical ties 54 http://www.irs.govlcharitiesicharitablelarticlelO ••id=163395.OO.htmI with Saudi Arabia include important aspects that are not tied to petroleum 55 All of Interfaith Organizarion's meetings are noted and available to download on the group's or to militant Islam. The hajj aiclift is an important historical event that-like web sire. the more famous Berlin Airlift-helps us better understand American foreign 56 Salaira, "Curricular Activism and Academic Freedom," 2008. policy at a critical juncture in the nation'S history. 57 Hayan Charara ed, "Introduction" in Inclined to Speak: an Antho/ogy.of Contemporary Arab American Poetry (Fayetteville: The University of Arkansas Press, 2008), xxix, In late August 1952, Edward Debbas, the head of Lebanon'sinternational airport and the interim head of the country's airline authority, faced a daunting challenge. He had to figure out how to transport thousands of hajj pilgrims camped at the still unfinished international airport in Beirut to Mecca only a week before the start of the hajj.' These individuals were among the tens of thousands of additional pilgrims who had decided to go on the haj] in 1952 when Saudi Arabia eliminated pilgrimage dues. Tuckey's government allowed I 382 383 ,!Ill , Airlift for Allah: The United States and the 1952 Hajj I- 1 Airlift for Allah: The United States and the 1952 Hajj I- its citizens- to make the pilgrimage for the first time since the 1920s, and With days left before the start of the hajj, Debbas suggested to the Lebanese international health officials confirmed that the plague would not threaten Foreign Affairs Ministry rhar ir ask the u.s. government for assistance. visitors 'to Mecca and Medina.! Significantly, government officials, airlines, After the Saudi government approved Debbas' idea, the Lebanese foreign and transport companies had made no provisions for the additional pilgrims, minister asked the U.S. minister to Lebanon, Harold Minor, for immediate since it was widely assumed that the announcement of the reduction in fees help." Debbas himself also asked Minor directly for help, and his request had been made public far too late for anyone to benefit from it during the may have been decisive. Not only was Debbas a graduate of the American 1952 hajj. Indeed, in May 1952 when Saudi Arabia publicly announced University of Beirut, he had also spent several years in the United States on the elimination of the hajj fees, U.S. diplomats reponed that "most of the a u.s. Department of State scholarship program that was a precursor to the Moslem countries or countries containing Moslems had long since decided on Fulbright program." While in the United States, Debbas earned graduate their pilgrimage quotas and had completed transportation arrangements. "3 degrees in aeronautical engineering at Lehigh University and at Harvard University and worked in a parking meter manufacturing plant in southern As the sea and land routes to Mecca became overwhelmed with pilgrims, Illinois." Many in the U.S. community in Lebanon in 1952 knew Debbas thousands went to Beirut, which had air service to ]eddah, the traditional ' personally, and one observed in a letter home that Debbas spoke English gateway to Mecca. Few ofthe pilgrims had the resources to stay in Beirut for, with "an American accent" and "had the American enthusiasm for doing longer than a couple of days, and as few as 20 percent of them knew Arabic." , challenging things quickly and well." 12 Among Debbas' American friends was Even fewer knew Lebanon's other major language, French.' Among the many Minor, whom he regularly visited at his home in Beirut. dignitaries at Beirut's airport was Ayatollah Sayyed Abdul Ghasem Kashani, the Speaker of the Iranian parliament and a fierce critic of U.S. policy in the', As Minor contemplated the request for U.S. assistance, he certainly Middle East. King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia personally promised Kashani remembered that it was not the first time that Washington had lent assistance that he would travel to jeddah by a special plane from Beirut, and so the to Saudi Arabia's hajj, nor was it the first time that the U.S. government had Ayatollah, along with all of the other pilgrims, arrived at the airport with contemplated using airplanes to ferry pilgrims to Jeddah. ticket in hand." When Minor worked in the Division of Middle Eastern Affairs in the Initially, the ten daily DC-3 flighrs flown by Air Liban, Middle East State Department during World War 11,13 there had been several proposals Airlines, and Saudi Arabian Airlines could handle the travelers wishing to -. for the United States to facilitate the hajj, most prominently in 1943. At that go to Jeddah. But as thousands of pilgrims arrived at the airport, it becaml time, Archibald Roosevelt, who was an intelligence officer in North Africa, clear what had happened: the airlines had oversold tickets, in parr because': proposed-with the blessing of the U.S. legation in Tangier-that a U.S. plane of a dispute between Lebanese and Saudi airlines over how to the divide' fly prominent North African Muslims to Jeddah for the hajj.14 Roosevelt, profits and fly pilgrims to Saudi Arabia. Neither Britain nor France were in ~" the grandson of Theodore Roosevelt and the cousin of Franklin Delano position to extend state support-even though they had transported stranded', Roosevelt, thought this project would be a goodwill gesture that would also hajj pilgrims in Lebanon in the past and had received considerable praise fof' counteract a Free French airlift of notable African Muslim pilgrims. J5 He had their assistance in the Muslim world.' American and European airlines refused": built dose ties to nationalists in North Africa and had already begun to think Debbas' urgent appeals for aid, insisting "that all their planes were required for, of a post-war period in which the United States would compete with France existing commitments, that longer notice would have been needed, and besides, and other powers for influence in Africa and the Arab world." In addition, i ferrying pilgrims did not offer much commercial incentive."! As the deadline! Prince Faysal and his father, King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia, lobbied U.S. for the hajj loomed, pilgrims began to fear that they would never make it and officials in Washington and Saudi Arabia for U.S. financial assistance and I 17 r I asked increasingly angry questions about when they could go to Jeddah.
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