What would a united Arab state look like?

It would like like Yugoslavia in 90s.
Or Syria and Iraq today.

Various Arab tribes and ethnic groups hate each other.
They have mutual hatred of Israel, and shared language that while technically the same in literary form, are barely mutually intelligible with each other in practice. But little beyond that.
 
When I said the economy of the greater Arab world in 1918 was essentially zero, what I mean was they had enough economy for local use, with some exports in the case of Egyptian cotton and a few other things. OTL after WWI, to the extent there was industrialization of infrastructure improvements these came from the foreign overlords - railroads, water systems, electricity etc. Yes, I know some of this had begun in Egypt before WWI but the UK had been running things there for a while. Assuming you have some large Arab entity emerging after WWI, where is the capital for these sorts of modernization going to come from? The French and the British are unlikely to loan money for this except at very high rates given the risk, OTL some of this was done for strategic rather than pure economic reasons - there are many other examples, port improvements is another. OTL some of the frankly commercial investment made by outsiders in the Arab world, such as oil exploration and development, was made when large chunks were under European control and thus these investments were seen as safer with a more stable political environment.

The above is an economic reality, that no amount of raw material export available between 1918 and WWII can overcome - cotton, wheat (for export outside the Arab world), potash, will only bring in so much hard currency. FWIW the entire Arab world OTL has, once you subtract oil and gas, a GDP equal to Finland (more or less). Sustaining some sort of pan-Arab state spanning a good chink of geography, multiple branches of Islam, multiple ethnicities, and some significant religious minorities with limited infrastructure and capital available for modernization is, IMHO, calling for Skippy & Co.

When things go wrong, who will they blame?? The Europeans, long gone, Israel (not there)? Introspection for societal difficulties is not a feature of most of the Arab world OTL.
 
It would like like Yugoslavia in 90s.
Or Syria and Iraq today.

Various Arab tribes and ethnic groups hate each other.
They have mutual hatred of Israel, and shared language that while technically the same in literary form, are barely mutually intelligible with each other in practice. But little beyond that.
Syrian and Iraqi dialects are easy to understand for both sides , egyptian is well known becuase of mass media but morrocan is the one that is barely intelligible, i can barely follow a simple sentence.
 
... plus the Gulf states with weird little things like Kuwaiti pearls.
From what I've read Kuwait was apparently quite metropolitan in the 1920s until the Great Depression and Japenese pearl farming, prompted by an expatriate British marine biologist in Australia, started cutting into their industry.


Saudi Arabia also leaned pretty heavily of income from taxing the hajj.
Even that wasn't enough, during the early 1930s the Saudis were in financial trouble so approached the British government for a loan alongside a proposal for Britain firms to prospect for and exploit any oil reserves in the kingdom. Unfortunately the civil servant dealing with things declined both requests, the Saudis entered into agreements with American companies, five years later they discovered commercial quantities with Dammam Well No. 7, and then a decade after that they hit the big-time with the Ghawar oil field. Whoops.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
In a world where the Triple Entente is defeated by the Central Powers as the result of a German victory at Verdun in 1916 and the Germans and Ottomans are able to briefly suppress the Arab Revolt, but the Arabs are able to overthrow the Ottoman Empire without outside help due to said empire's decaying power in the early-1920s, what would a Arab state stretching from Aleppo Syria, to Aden, Yemen look like?
If this Arab state also includes Iraq, it would probably be very wealthy due to its large amounts of oil revenue.

Also, if led by the Hashemites, this Arab state could promote a form of moderate Islam and aggressively work to counter the efforts of Islamic extremists in both the Middle East and the world in general.
 
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