MIDDLE-EAST POLICY
By EDWARD HODGKIN
0 N Thursday the heads of British missions from all the Middle East States, and other senior officials, such as the head of the Middle East Office in Cairo and the Resident in the Persian Gulf, assembled in London to provide Mr. Bevin with the second comprehensive survey of this area which he has made since he became Minister for Foreign Affairs.' It is generally assumed that they will be asked to formulate a new policy for Britain in the light of recent events—the acute economic crisis which afflicts most of the States concerned, the successful military challenge of Israel, and the threat of Communism. It would be easier to formulate a new policy if there were any certainty exactly what the old policy had been, but this has never been expressed except in the most general terms. We are understood to desire the prosperity and independence of the Arab world, which means that we wish it well but do not propose to interfere in its internal affairs. Unfor- tunately this vague benevolence has usually been interpreted by the peoples concerned as a hypocritical mask to cover constant inter- ference in their internal affairs to their own detriment. The main problem confronting the conference at the Foreign Office is there- fore to decide whether we can intervene more, and more effec- tively, or whether a policy of genuine non-interference can be made to smell sweeter, and thereby bring more real benefits in its train.
In point of fact the ideal of non-interference can be pressed too far. Since it is clearly impossible for Britain to stand as aloof from the internal affairs of the Middle East as she does, for example, from those of South America, there is little point in trying to claim an absolute disinterestedness which we cannot maintain. In Egypt, Cyrenaica, Jordan and Iraq there are British garrisons, and with these States, and possibly with others, we have, or hope to have, military alliances. However shocked our diplomats may be at the unscrupulous cunning which is universally attributed to them, and however eager they naturally arc to refute the charge that they raise rebellions, overthrow cabinets and poison politicians as part of the day's work, it would be a pity if they fell over backwards in their efforts to prove that the role of a British Minister to an Arab State was only that of a philosopher and friend, and never that of a guide.
The present is a particularly ill-chosen moment to stress the ideal of Britain's non-interference, since the question of the Arab refugees, which must surely take first place on Mr. &yin's agenda, is one that can only be settled through vigorous interference by this country—or rather by Britain and the United States acting together. The Conciliation Commission of the United Nations, which has been grappling not ineffectively with the problem since April, has just resumed its work in Lausanne after an 18-day adjournment, but any plan which it produces depends as much on the energy with which it is implemented by the Western Powers as on its acceptance by the Arab States and Israel. And until the refugee question is out of the way there is almost literally nothing that can be done to pro- vide the Middle East with the breathing-space and the fresh hope which it needs if it is to avoid slipping into chaos.
By the end of June the Lausanne negotiations had reached dead- lock. Israel refused to take back any refugees until frontiers had been settled, and the Arab States refused to discuss frontiers before Israel had made at least a gesture over refugees. The concession by which Israel would accept the relatives of some of the Arabs remain- ing within her borders may prove to be the necessary gesture; it is certainly no more than a gesture, since it would affect only about 20,000 persons. But what is wanted above all at the moment is for the first trickle to flow out of the refugee camps, and for those who remain to be thus encouraged to believe that their fate is not in- eluctable. The next stage would be for the United Nations to organise the resettlement of those refugees whose homes are not within the present frontiers of Israel. It is difficult to estimate how many this involves, but it is probably roughly correct to say that there arc about 9oo,000 Arabs now in receipt of relief, that of these about 800,00o arc refugees, of whom 600,000 come from within Israel and 200,000 from outside. These latter are mostly fugitives from the battle areas and border zones. It will be hard to persuade them
to return to thoir abandoned villages unless they receive a reasonable guarantee that the fighting will not start up again and that they will receive capital help in reorganising their old lives.
This is where the resources, financialland administrative, of the United Nations, and in particular of Britain and the United States, will be called on. The great majority of the refugees will, it is true, remain awaiting settlement, but some of the pressure will be re- lieved. If nothing at all is done, the present host countries—Jordan, Syria and the Lebanon and, to a lesser degree, Egypt and Iraq—may find that with the oncome of winter the refugees become actively desperate. There have already been riots in some or the camps ; they arc certain to be repeated on a greatly increased scale as hope dies, and to choose as their target the Governments and officials on hand.
From a long-term point of view the refugees provide the greatest opportunity for a constructive reshaping of British policy towards the Middle East. They represent a much greater problem than the Arab States themselves can cope with. If relief work is not a task for amateurs, still less is resettlement. In this respect the Arabs are necessarily amateurs, and almost bankrupt amateurs at that. Britain and the United States (aided of course by other suitably equipped and well-intentioned members of the United Nations) have the administrative experience and, in spite of their own economic difficulties, the economic resources with which to make their inter- vention as beneficial as it is necessary. There can be no question of simply handing over to the Arab States lump sums of cash or ex- tensive credits for refugee settlement; that would be pouring water on the sand. What is wanted is some large-scale development project which would at the same time provide the refugees with work, and the country concerned with a prospective increase in its real wealth. The project would require wide autonomous powers, which would involve receiving concessionary rights over local re- sources such as those enjoyed by the oil companies. It would, if successful, provide a concrete example of Western skill diverted to a benevolent end, and to the extent that it became integrated with the general economy of the Middle East it would have a stabilising influence on it.
There is always the hope—it cannot be more than a hope—that some generous and grandiose scheme of development of this sort would go part of the way to fill the vacuum of endeavour which the Palestine war has left as one of its legacies. Today most of the energy of the Arabs appears to be spent in dynastic squabbles, but it will be a pity if Mr. Bevin and his advisers devote too much of their time arguing over the time-worn controversy of the Hashemites against the rest. The present split In the Arab world, which leaves Iraq and Jordan on one side of the fence, and Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia on the other side, with Lebanon edging away from both groups on her own, must be accepted' as a fact. We can encourage old friends without taking part in their vendettas and a third party who takes sides in a quarrel can expect nothing better than two black eyes.
There are, however, two capitals in which a frown or a smilefrom the British representative is liable to be invested with unuvial significance, and these are Damascus and Tel Aviv. The new dictator of Syria, Field-Marshal Husni Zaim, has not yet exhausted the credit which he won for himself by the fact of his successful coup-dquu. He remains the man of the hour for the whole of the Middle East, and not for Syria alone. In his four months of power he has quite a respectable list of achievements to his credit but, even more impor- tant, he has accumulated a formidable body of legend round his name. He represents a New Deal of a sort ; a deal with the old pack, maybe, but with the trumps more evenly distributed. Now there is widespread wonder as to what the British think of this new phenomenon. What, in fact, do they think of him ? Is he the shape of things to come, or is he just another lucky army adventurer ? Or conceivably both ?
Our relations with Israel are the source of equally intense specula- tion. We have tended to assume that our influence in Tel Aviv was bound to be less than that of the United States inasmuch as it provides the dollars and the moral support whereas Britain, to most Zionists. is no more than a mythical ogre. But to those Jews who can
look more than twelve months into the past or, future it is plain that ultimately their new country is more 1.kely to reflect the ups and downs of Britain rather than those of the United States, and this because of the still predominantly British orientation of Middle East diplomacy. Whether in fact Israel can be fitted into any foreseeable overall pattern for the Middle East is one of the most awkward questions for which the Foreign Office conference will have to find an answer.
Previous page
