Alla prova dell’unità araba: le retrovie maghrebine nella guerra del 1973

Abstract

The Maghrebi Rear in the 1973 War: A Litmus Test for Arab Unity

Despite their distance from the Egyptian and Syrian war fronts, Maghrebi countries took a stand in the Arab-Israeli war of October 1973 by deploying military forces (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia), exerting economic and diplomatic pressure, and mobilising public opinion. This contribution examines, from the Maghreb’s point of view, the crisis of October 1973 as a litmus test of pan-Arabism, revisiting the ad quem periodisation of Arab nationalism. The surge of solidarity and unity in the Maghreb during the war and previous undertakings for Maghrebi unification are compared, on the one hand, with state political agendas informed by pragmatism and reasons of state and, on the other, with the ideology of Third Worldism, which subsumed the Arab-Palestinian cause into its own discourse. The primary and secondary sources consulted – fragments of archives, contemporary press and literature, speeches at the United Nations, memoirs – allow us to follow the unfolding decline of Arab nationalism, showing the gap between the strength of sentiment and the viability of the political project.