Middle East Centre for Arab Studies

The Middle East Centre for Arab Studies (MECAS) was an Arabic language college created by the British Army during World War II in Jerusalem, and relocated afterwards as a civilian institution to Lebanon near Beirut where it functioned between 1947–1978.[1]

History

The Middle East Centre for Arab Studies was established by the British Army during World War II in Jerusalem. Between 1944-1946 it functioned in the requisitioned Austrian Hospice (Österreichisches Hospiz zur Heiligen Familie), where it was headed by the English Arabist Bertram Thomas. Its purpose was to teach officers Arabic language and culture. After a short post-war intermezzo in the town of Zarqa in Transjordan, in 1947 it moved to its final location in Shemlan, in the Mount Lebanon Governorate of Lebanon.[2]

In Lebanon the college was reopened by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the British Government. The college gained notoriety as a "spy school" after it was publicly denounced as such by Kamal Jumblatt speaking in the Lebanese Parliament. Although the charge has stuck, and the label is still commonly used, there is little evidence to support this beyond infamous British/Soviet double agent George Blake, who was a student at the school and who was taken from there to Heathrow, where he was formally arrested on espionage charges.

The Civil War made the situation increasingly difficult, and in 1976, MECAS was temporarily evacuated before closing altogether in 1978.

The property was sold in 1995 and the buildings repurposed for the Shemlan Social Institution, which accommodates "special needs beneficiaries with mental and learning disabilities".[3]

Cultural references
  • The name of the village and the story of the college was used by British author Alexander McNabb for a 2013 book, the third of his Middle East cycle: Shemlan - A Deadly Tragedy, the story of a dying retired British diplomat who was taught at Shemlan, who returns to look for an old love.
gollark: More like micromanagement by someone who believes that they have the right to control fansites too.
gollark: (this is now up on the forums).
gollark: ```Unfortunately, it is unavailable, possibly forever, because (according to an email):Thank you for your request to access the Dragon Cave API from host dc.osmarks.tk. At this time, your request could not be granted, for the following reason: You have, through your own admission on the forums, done the exact thing that got EATW banned from the API.This may be a non-permanent issue; feel free to re-submit your request after correcting any issue(s) listed above.Thanks, T.J. Land presumably due to this my server and computer (yes, I should use a VPS, whatever) can no longer access DC. Whether this is sickness checking, scraping, or using EATW's approximation for optimal view count I know not, but oh well. Due to going against the unwritten rules of DC (yes, this is why I was complaining about ridiculous T&C issues) this hatchery is now nonfunctional. Service may be restored if I actually get some notification about what exactly the problem is and undoing it will not make the whole thing pointless. The text at the bottom is quite funny, though.```
gollark: I could add a T&C stating that it is the hatchery's automatic systems' prerogative to take stuff which is sick out of rotation, but none would care.
gollark: They effectively give helping permission by submitting it to a hatchery, but that's irrelevant.

References
  1. Craig, James (1998). Shemlan: A History of the Middle East Centre for Arab Studies. Oxford: Macmillan Press. ISBN 978-0333689677.
  2. Desplat, Juliette. "A British 'spy school' in the Middle East?". The National Archives. Retrieved 30 May 2020.
  3. "Shemlan Social Institution". The Social Welfare Institutions – Dar al Aytam al Islamiya. Retrieved 30 May 2020.


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