ABSTRACT
Hikmat Sulayman's administration included personages, and representatives of circles, who were not identified with pan-Arabism; who, indeed, feared its effects on both Iraqi unity and their own interests. The most conspicuous organized group among the government supporters was that of al-Ahali, basically composed of people with liberal or socialist views. Hikmat Sulayman's attitude towards the Palestine question and Zionism contrasted vividly with that of all previous and subsequent governments of Iraq. The visit to Iraq was arranged in the wake of a meeting in Cairo between Sharett and Weizmann and Dawud al-Haydari, an Iraqi politician of Kurdish descent and a close ally of Sulayman. Sulayman, himself interested in diminishing Iraqi involvement in Palestine, hoped for some sort of arrangement between Jews and Arabs. The constant pan-Arab pressure led Sulayman to repeated attempts to demonstrate the supposedly pan-Arabist orientation of his government. Sulayman's desperate efforts to conciliate the pan-Arab circles and obtain their support were to no avail.
