THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT
AFTER a week of hope tempered by uncertainty, the prospects of a settlement in the Middle 'East deteriorated to a point at which negotiation could break down at any moment. Encouraged by the overwhelming support his cause has received at the UN and in world opinion, Colonel Nasser has been trying to insist on terms which the French and British Governments could not, without total humiliation, accept. And ironically, the Government hardly had time to congratulate itself on its remarkable support in the country, shown in the majority it received in the News Chronicle Gallup Poll, before it was sharply criticised by some of its own supporters, on the grounds explained by Mr. Angus Maude in this issue: that the British and French Govern- ments, once they had committed themselves to the assault on Egypt, ought to have gone through with it to the point where the Canal was wrested from Nasser's hands. By stopping half- way, they may have made the worst of both worlds. The fact is that when morally unjustified decisions are taken, they may set off a train of events which cannot be stopped by decisions which are morally justified. For example, although Soviet action in Hungary was not due to our intervention in the Canal Zone, the crisis in the Middle East distracted attention from this act of brutality, and made it more difficult for the free World to react effectively.
Initial satisfaction, too, at the idea that Anglo-French forces should be replaced by UN contingents was soon diminished by the realisation that the conditions for replacement were not at all clear. Mr. Ben-Gurion has been conciliatory over the withdrawal of Israeli troops from occupied Egyptian territory; but practically every other question raised by the application of the cease-fife and the acceptance of a UN police force remains unanswered. The answers will have to be found quickly; and the immediate need is for an agreed policy.
UN activity has to achieve at least three vital and reasonable objectives. First : a clearance of the Canal, which must not be held up by Egyptian objections to the employment of British salvage technicians—that would seriously delay the re- opening. Secondly : free passage through the Canal for all countries, including Israel, which would simply be the itriplementation of the Security Council's 1950 resolution to this effect. Thirdly : a general settlement between Israel and her Arab neighbours. Another uneasy truce will merely lead to fresh plagues from Egypt.
All these demands will have to be met to ensure a peaceful settlement in the Middle East. But it must be realised that we are in a bad bargaining position to secure them. As the British and French Governments did not complete their occupation of the Suez area, the work of clearing the Canal cannot now be undertaken without the consent—or the defeat—of the Egyptians who control half of it. If Colonel Nasser refuses to admit Western salvage teams; or if, as has been reported, he objects to the stationing of the UN force along the Canal, and reverts to his blockade of Israel, it will now be very hard to put pressure on him. The choice before Britain and France might then be either to resume military action to occupy the whole Canal Zone, with all the grave risks that that entails; or to withdraw their troops and endeavour to persuade the UN to act. But no UN majority is now likely to be found for coercing Egypt.
The unpalatable fact must be faced that the actions taken in the last three weeks by the British and French Govern- ments have created a situation in which our bargaining power is weak. Colonel Nasser's prestige has been enhanced by a successful defiance of Britain and France, whereas it might have been destroyed by a defeat inflicted on Egypt by Israel. Israel feels hardly used; and in the world's eyes, the stock of Britain and France remains low.
This is largely owing to earlier unrealistic policies. In the past an alliance with Israel was persistently rejected on the grounds that it might harm our position in the Arab world. On February 17 this year the Spectator wrote : 'We cannot prevent Soviet arms going to Egypt . . . but we can guarantee the Israeli frontiers and give Israel such arms as she needs to defend herself. This would remove the present danger of an Israeli preventive war as well as the long-term danger of an Arab attack.' But instead of an alliance with Israel, which would have been a stabilising factor in the Middle East, we waited for armed conflict to break out, and then stopped the Israelis in the moment of victory by intervention in defiance of the UN and world opinion. The maximum offence has been given to Arab nationalism, and the maximum opportunity for both Colonel Nasser and the Soviet Union to extend their influence throughout the Middle East. Anxiety not to offend Arab opinion by closer ties with Israel helped to promote armed conflict with an Arab State; the position of the British Govern- ment has been that of a man timidly refusing to have a poisoned. finger lanced, and then taking credit for his courage in consenting to amputation of the entire arm.
* * *
Government supporters ask, What other policy could have been tried once the Israelis had attacked? Was not Anglo- French intervention inevitable and desirable once fighting had broken out? Without regarding the UN as the universal panacea which the Labour Party would like to think it, a downright violation of the spirit of its Charter could surely have been avoided. To that extent world opinion could have been propitiated. Certainly the unjust condemnation of Israel contained in the first American resolution should have been vetoed; but then, a neutral proposal could have been put for- ward combining a desire to end the fighting with an offer of Anglo-French troops (the only ones immediately available) as a police force. If this had been rejected (and it is probable that neither Egypt nor the USSR would have accepted it), then one of two courses could have been adopted. Either Israel could have been left to complete her victory over Egypt (which might well have brought about the downfall of Colonel Nasser) or else Britain and France could have intervened in the spirit of the Charter and with the justification of a clear demonstra- tion of the impotence of the UN behind them. Either of these alternatives would have been better than the one actually chosen, and the West would have been left with more freedom to cope with Soviet threats.
All this is past history. But it is necessary to recognise where British Governments have gone wrong in order to decide how they can begin to go right. Some tasks have an obvious urgency : for instance, a closer alignment of British and American policy in the Middle East. To go it alone may be popular for the moment, but in the long run this is not a possible course for this country to adopt. Suez has clearly shown that Western interests in the Levant can only be main- tained with' difficulty without American support, while rumours of MiGs in Syria and Russian technicians jn Egypt should convince the State Department that America would be' the first to lose from an elimination of British influence in the area.
Then there is the Commonwealth: the damage done by unilateral British decisions over Suez must be made good by closer consultation in future, so that an association which is our chief foreign policy asset shall not be needlessly thrown away. In the Middle East itself the necessity for complete revaluation of policy is as great as ever. Israel is now more exposed than ever to an Arab revanche backed by the Soviet Union; nothing that has happened invalidates the arguments for an Anglo-Israeli alliance as the corner-stone of any stable Middle Eastern system. The Arab States must understand that no limited war against Israel is possible for them even when backed by Russia. Surely, after the events of the last months, no British statesman will think it possible or desirable to appease the Arabs at the expense of the West's only natural ally in the Middle East?
Whatever may be the outcome of the Suez crisis and the stirrings in Eastern Europe, they mark a turning-point in postwar international relations. Things that had been taken for constant factors in the present-day world are now dis- solving and changing shape. Peaceful co-existence has perished in the flames of Budapest, Relations between East and West have been strained to danger point. Whatever the rights or wrongs of British policy may have been in the past, the chief need now is speedy adaptation to the new conditions.
Previous page
