A bomb in the luggage rack The economy of Israel
is not going to be brought to its knees by the interruption of a part of its international air freight ser- vice, and most of the Arab guerrilla organ- isations (let alone the t.rab governments) are rightly alarmed about the sympathy they forfeit through the casual murder of citizens of third countries who were in no way irfvolved in their struggle with Israel. Nevertheless, with last week-end's murder- ous sabotage of a Swiss airliner, the guerrillas have once more attracted world- wide publicity to their cause and have induced the airlines to take action which can only embarrass the Israelis. Moreover, any sympathy they may have forfeited will no doubt soon be made good by a recip- rocal alienation of sympathy from the other side caused by Israeli acts of retalia- tion.
So the vicious circle continues. Israel attacks an Egyptian metal factory. Seventy Egyptian civilians are killed. The United States holds up deliveries of Phantoms and Skyhawks: the Russians promise to give the Egyptians more sophisticated military aircraft. The guerrillas place a bomb in an Austrian Airlines passenger aircraft which happens to be carrying freight destined for Israel and successfully blow up a Swissair flight to Tel Aviv. Forty civilians of mixed nationalities are killed. The sale of Phan- toms and Skyhawks is brought forward once more, and no doubt the Russians re- mind their Arab clients of the need to keep the guerrillas under control (as if they needed reminding). And now the Israelis, well aware that if they wait for the four powers or the United Nations to get a grip on acts of sabotage in the air they will wait till the cows come home, will doubtless choose their own revenge.
As this issue of the SPECTATOR goes to press. BOAC staff are operating an unofficial boycott of Arab airlines while the inter- national airline officials meet to discuss their next move. The decision already taken by BOAC and others to hold up air freight to Israel for twenty-four hours is an act of common sense. But a technique which has been used successfully against parcels can be applied equally to passengers destined for Israel, and to Jews travelling anywhere. Concessions to violence invite more violence. Hence it is important that freight services to Israel should be resumed as soon as possible: and although all possible precautions will clearly need to be taken, an additional element of risk may have to be accepted by the airlines and their passengers. After all, some element of risk is inseparable from air travel, and Arab sabotage activities would have to increase substantially before flying would become as dangerous as driving a car in many in- dustrialised countries.
This is, certainly, a profoundly depress- ing prospect. But three important con- siderations tend to be overlooked. The first is that, as we have emphasised before in these columns. the scale of bloodshed in the Middle East conflict is being magnified out of all proportion to reality. It is brought home to us with particular force because it is no longer confined to the geo- graphical area of the disputed territories. Any one of us may fall victim to aerial sabotage at any time. But this is a threat to our peace of mind. not to world peace. Neither the Americans nor the Russians show any inclination whatsoever to be drawn into direct involvement.
The second is that we have to accept the fact that the condition of discipline in international relations imposed by the great powers in the nineteenth century was a temporary and unnatural phenomenon. and is now irrevocably a thing of the past. Having discovered the ultimate means of mass destruction, the great powers have, paradoxically, lost the ability to impose their will around the globe. For the risks of trying to do so are too great. In eastern Europe or Latin America the freedom of action of Russia and the United States is complete. Elsewhere they have very little.
The third consideration may perhaps be more reassuring. At present the real com- batants in the Middle East are frustrated by an inability to get at each other's throats. The threat to Israel's existence comes, not from the Arab countries them- selves, which might indeed be prepared to settle for a Jewish state within the 1947 ceasefire boundaries, but from the guer- rillas who operate from Arab territory. Israel cannot attack the guerrillas directly, so she is forced instead to attack their in- voluntary hosts. Equally the guerrillas lack the means to take on the armed might of Israel. They. therefore, have to try both to badger Russia and America (forlorn though the hope may be) into forcing Israel to surrender the occupied territories so that they can resume their direct attacks on the Israeli heartland, and to blackmail the Arab governments into fighting their pitched battles for them, by keeping up the tempo and the temperature with skilfully executed acts of sabotage and arson and the Israeli reprisals which such acts induce.
If, however, the guerrillas were to seize power in one of the Arab states—presum- ably, in the first instance, Jordan—the whole situation would be different. Guer- rillas and Israelis would be able to fight their battles on the ground in the Middle East (and no doubt the Israelis would win most of them) instead of in the air space of the world. The need for the Arab guer- rillas to rely on acts of piracy would dis- appear. We should even be spared the transparent hypocrisy of appeals to a United Nations resolution which made the laughable assumption that the present Arab governments could enforce a cease- fire even if they signed one, and Mr George Brown would have to find another subject for his tantrums (and if Mr Wilson pur- sues his current tactics towards Europe that should not be difficult).
Israel has often been criticised in the past for attacking King Husscin's Jordan. She has been told that the King was anxious for a settlement (which is no doubt true) and that attacks on Jordan simply weakened his position and increased the possibility of a guerrilla takeover. She has appeared to listen to this advice: in recent months her firepower has been concen- trated against Egypt, a country which is relatively free of guerrilla activity. Yet it can now be seen that this advice was prob- ably misguided. Israel would have much to gain and little to lose from a direct con- frontation with her tormentors. And the rest of the world, too, could then feel more confident of the safety of the sidelines.
But, meanwhile, the watching nations of the world must try and preserve a sense of proportion. Neither Britain, nor the four powers, nor the United Nations can impose a settlement in the Middle East. We cannot even hope to arrive at an embargo on the sale of arms. Condemnations, of one side or the other, may be good for our morale, but they serve no other purpose. One day, perhaps, after they have won their battle against the Arab establishment and assumed the responsibilities of govern- ment, the Palestinian guerrillas will come to accept that the state of Israel has both the will and the means to survive. But that day is some way off, and until it comes the Middle East is likely to occupy our attention to an extent which outweighs its true importance.
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