The Atlantic Report on the World Today: The Middle East

THE cool reception accorded the three-power declaration on arms for the Middle East, issued after the May meetings of the foreign ministers of the United States, Britain, and France, illustrates the prevailing anti-Western mood in the Arab states and the political wariness of Israel.

In Western eyes the declaration was a step toward coördination of security and stabilization measures in an area heretofore disturbed by Western rivalries. In the interest of peace, and of furthering conditions under which essential economic development might take place, the three powers, in effect, guaranteed that present armistice lines between Israel and her neighbors would not be broken by force, and that Arab neighbors would not move against one another.

Each Middle East government was consulted and asked for assurances of its peaceful intentions before the arms offer was made. However grudgingly such assurances may have been given, they were given, and together (hoy add up to a considerable advance toward internal tranquillity. The Arabs need no longer dwell fearfully on the imminence of further Israeli expansion. The Israelis can relax about a “second round.”

The public, however, has not been so reassured. Cairo papers immediately voiced suspicions that the real purpose of the declaration was to force peace with Israel on Israel’s terms and to lure the Arabs into an Arab-Israeli front against Russia. Stressing the currently popular theme that Zionism is a greater menace than Communism, the xenophobic sections of the press suggested that the West must choose between Arab and Israeli friendship. Further east, in Beirut much the same suspicions continue to be voiced, ranging from accusations that the declaration meant the return of a “triple mandate,” down to reminders that previous to World War II some European frontiers were also guaranteed — without effect.

Recognition of Arab welfare

Behind all these professions of alarm and imagined threats to self-determination it is clear that there exist a persistent suspicion of Western intentions and a deep skepticism that the fate of small nations counts little among powers mainly intent on checking the Soviet threat around the world. This skepticism has found most responsible and eloquent expression in the speeches of Dr. Charles Malik, Lebanese Minister to Washington.

As a representative of Lebanon at the UN and one of the chief architects of the Economic and Social Council’s program, Dr. Malik has only recently warned that Communism does threaten the Middle East, and he has suggested that the role of the Western powers in the Palestine dispute has made resistance to Communism more difficult. As he put it, “To inflict a deep wound on people politically, and at the same time do little or nothing for them economically or socially, is an ideal preparation for the advent of Communism,”

As countermeasures he has called for recognition of Arab welfare as an end in itself, apart from strategic considerations; harmonization of Western policies; international guarantees against aggression; respect for UN decisions regarding Palestine; a more just attitude on the part of the United States toward conflicting Arab and Zionist claims; and encouragement of progressive forces in the Middle East.

It is just such stipulations that the three-power declaration was designed to answer. Implicit in the offer of military support is the recognition that an arms race has diverted attention from vital economic undertakings; that both sides have everything to gain from stabilization of the armistice; and that final peace treaties are far off.

But what the Arabs and Israelis alike have seized on is the suggestion that one purpose of giving them arms is to “permit them to play their part in the defense of the area as a whole.” The immediate reaction in Middle East coffeehouses has been to ask; What part ?

The Middle EAST remains skeptical

It is this suggestion that the Western powers have plans for the participation of Arabs and Israelis in regional defense strategy which has touched off fresh controversy in Cairo, Damascus, and Tel Aviv. In Cairo particularly the repercussions are unfortunate. Negotiations are now going on between the new Wafd Government and Britain over the defense of Suez and a revision of the 1936 treaty. Anti-British elements point to the latest arms offer as part of a plan to make the Middle East a sphere of Western influence, thus heightening the tension aroused by an already hypernationalistic press.

In the Levant, where the idea of neutrality continues to be popular, the protests against involvement in the East-West struggle have been characteristically violent. In Syria particularly, where one cabinet minister (since replaced) rose to fame overnight recently for saying in an unguarded moment that the Arabs preferred being communized to being Zionized, the West is reproached anew for neglecting Arab psychology and dignity.

In Israel, while the declaration was welcomed by moderates as a step toward equalizing the strength of Israel and the Arab states, it was promptly reviled by extremists as an act of imperialist provocation against “peaceful Russia.” At this point the government had pointedly to reiterate its determination not to take sides in either a cold or a hot war.

While much of this reaction can be attributed in the case of the Arabs to their state of post-war frustration, and in Israel to a real sense of isolation, it is significant that this policy of neutrality is the one point on which Israel and the Arabs do agree. In common with most leading opinion in India and Pakistan, the leaders of these states see nothing but disaster ahead for them in any East-West war.

In Israel’s case there are particular reasons for this determination to remain neutral. She must remain on good terms with Soviet-ruled countries while bargaining for the lives of the Jews remaining behind the iron curtain, and for the arms with which to build up her defenses. On the other hand her great financial dependence on United States bounty for her mere existence makes American friendship imperative.

Britain’s willingness to defend

Britain’s position on the arms question has a far more direct bearing on Middle East security. For Britain remains the one power willing to commit defense forces to this area. At the same time, in recognition of the political changes which have followed the war, Britain is ready to come to new agreements with Egypt and Iraq, as she has with Jordan, on common rather than unilateral defense strategy. Hence the continuing supply of British arms, military advisers, and training facilities to Egyptians, Iraqis, Jordanians, and Saudi Arabs. Hence also Britain’s prompt de jure recognition of the annexation of Arab Palestine by Jordan and her consistent refusal to sell arms to Israel.

Britain must, as far as possible, assure a continuing strategic toehold along the back roads from Suez to Basra. She therefore cannot, at this stage of latent hostility against Israel, afford to alienate the owners of those roads by appeasing Israel in the matter of arms.

American policy, still in the making since the improvisation of the Truman Doctrine for Greece and Turkey three years ago, remains less fixed. It rests on the officially asserted premise that an unfriendly power in possession of bases in the Mediterranean or Persian Gulf area would threaten South Asia and Africa and isolate Greece, Turkey, and Iran. It is on the basis of this premise that military and technical aid is now being rushed to Iran; that Afghanistan’s calls for assistance in economic development are getting attention; and that Voice of America efforts in the entire Middle East are being stepped up.

The urgency of an early and successful start on the program to put able-bodied refugees to work where they are can scarcely be exaggerated. Three quarters of a million Arabs continue to subsist on $2 a month rations in idleness and bitterness. Among responsible leaders in the host countries there is agreement with the findings of the United Nations Economic Survey Mission for the Middle East, headed by Gordon R. Clapp.

In particular there is appreciation of the principle that the refugee problem is only part of the problem of general poverty in the area. Major General Howard Kennedy, director of the newly constituted United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (PRA), has therefore been cordially received in Beirut and in Amman. PRA expects to initiate almost at once the first of the projects recommended in the Clapp Report.

Water for the Middle East

The essence of that report is that water, rather than oil, is the lifeblood of Middle Eastern economies. Thus the four pilot projects suggested as the first steps to be taken in Middle East development all involve efficient utilization of rivers in Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. This emphasis makes sense to Middle East people whose entire lives are governed by the presence or lack of water.

The first PRA projects are to be those involving terracing, afforestation, road and dam building in the Wadi Zerqa region of Jordan. The development of this minor watershed as a unit will double the cultivable land. It is the great merit of the Clapp recommendations that they have pointed out the rich possibilities in even limited undertakings, such as this in Jordan.

For larger developments, such as that of the Litani River in Lebanon, the report urges thorough research into the ultimate uses to which the new power and land resources will be put before tackling the job. It is encouraging to note that Lebanon has already accepted the idea of a systematic use of the whole river by restricting withdrawals from the Litani for individual enterprises.

Given prospective successes in specific constructive developments in Jordan and Lebanon, there still remain such human and political hurdles as Gaza, where 210,000 refugees press on 50,000 native residents; Hebron, where Arabs who were allowed by the Israeli authorities to cross armistice lines to sow crops on their former holdings were run off recently when they returned for the harvest; the political complications surrounding Arab Palestine’s annexation by Jordan; and the Jerusalem stalemate.