Nasser and the Dream of Arab Unity

Pan-Arabism held that Arabic-speaking peoples from Morocco to Iraq form one nation that should be politically united. It drew on the Arab revival, resentment of colonial borders and, after 1948, defeat in the war over Palestine. The Ba'ath Party, founded in Damascus in 1947 by Michel Aflaq and Salah al-Din al-Bitar, promoted 'unity, freedom, socialism'. Pan-Arabism's most famous leader was Gamal Abdel Nasser, an army officer who helped overthrow Egypt's monarchy in 1952.

His nationalization of the Suez Canal in July 1956 and his political survival after the British, French and Israeli attack that followed made him a hero to many Arabs, and his speeches reached millions by radio. In 1958 Egypt and Syria merged as the United Arab Republic, but Syria withdrew in 1961, resenting Egyptian dominance. Arab defeat in the 1967 war badly damaged Pan-Arabism, and its decline shows the strength of individual state identities and the difficulty of uniting nations with different interests.