The Heat on Israel

The U.S., hoping to build up the reasonable, oil-bearing Arab elements as a decisive factor for anti-Communist stability in the Middle East, found itself in a cruel predicament last week. The one way to promote reasonableness among Arabs is to keep them from getting worked up about Israel, and to that end it was necessary to get the Israelis to clear out of Egypt and stop defying the U.N. As an inducement to the Israelis to cooperate, John Foster Dulles made them what seemed a good offer. As soon as Israel pulled back its troops, he told Ambassador Abba Eban, the U.S. would 1) itself underwrite Israel's right to free passage in the Gulf of Aqaba, and 2) support U.N. action to ensure that the Gaza Strip would not again be used as a base for guerrilla raids on Israel.

Predictably, a Nasser spokesman in Cairo denounced the Dulles proposals as "obvious favoritism for Israel" and "a way to give Israel a political victory as a result of armed attack." But while waiting for Israel's answer, the Asian-Arab bloc at the U.N. withheld their resolution to impose sanctions against Israel.

Innocent Passage. When word of the U.S. offer flashed through Israel, citizens who had just paraded in defiant anticipation of sanctions could hardly conceal their satisfaction. "We have forced on the State Department a transformation in its thinking," said one. But in Jerusalem, old (70) Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion was being stubborn. Looking drawn and thin from his three weeks' struggle against pneumonia, he brooded for three days before calling a Cabinet meeting to draft a reply. The U.S. offered nothing new on Gaza. But Dulles' implied willingness to back Israel's Aqaba rights by sending a U.S. ship through the gulf to establish the international right of "innocent passage" raised the possibility at last of opening Israel's southern port of Elath, blockaded by Egypt since 1949, to the potentialities of Asian trade. The catch was that Israel had first to withdraw, before the U.S. would pledge its help.

Next day Ben-Gurion's government submitted a "formulation" accepting the U.S. proposal on Aqaba in principle but asking U.S. pledges that 1) U.N. troops will occupy the old Egyptian gun positions commanding the entrance to the gulf, and 2) Egyptian troops will not be allowed back in Gaza. This reply, said Dulles, was "not responsive."

Counter-Pressure. Any more concessions to Israel at this point would estrange the moderate Arab opinion that the new U.S. Middle East policy is trying to foster. Nasser was already systematically slowing down the work of clearing the Suez Canal. Last week, after U.N. salvage vessels finally raised and towed the cement-filled hulk Akka out of the main channel, the Egyptians continued to dawdle about removing explosives from the wrecked tug Edgar Bonnet, and thus effectively kept the ditch plugged. The U.S., however, was concerned less about Nasser's blackmail than about other Arab opinion.

Apparently surprised by the unyielding U.S. attitude, Israel's Ambassador Eban tried to negotiate with Secretary Dulles, but showed no willingness to make any significant concessions. Result: the disappointed U.S. promptly published its documents in the case and in effect, handed it back to the U.N. Until the U.N. got around to taking action, however, there was still time for Jerusalem to back down. The heat was on Israel.

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