First Stage

ISRAEL WILL GET OUT, cried the headlines, as Israel's Premier David Ben-Gurion promised to order his tough little army home by phased withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the western shores of the Gulf of Aqaba. By rights the news should have prompted a moment of rest for tireless Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. He had spent the week arguing, reasoning, cajoling, and proposing--both with foreign diplomats and congressional critics, e.g., Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson. He tried to make it clear to Israel (without prejudicing the Arab nations) that Egypt would risk the ire of the U.S. and the U.N. if Nasser tried again to blockade Israel's commerce or go back to raiding Israel (as Israel had raided Egypt) across the border. The U.N.'s equally tireless Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold sent word to the U.N.'s ten-nation Emergency Force in the desert to arrange the take-over of Gaza and Aqaba "as a matter of the utmost urgency."

But no sooner had the Israel situation jelled than it seemed to unjell. Israel's Ben-Gurion called his Cabinet into Sabbath sessions and hinted strongly at a belated balk, temporarily embarrassing his own Foreign Minister Golda Meir and his Ambassador to the U.S. Abba Eban, who had negotiated the agreement (see FOREIGN NEWS). Israel was thus exploring the limits at which one nation of 1,900,000 could block the will and progress of 72 U.N. member nations who had voted for immediate Israeli withdrawal.

Israel was also delaying the day when the U.S. and U.N. tackle the next step of the policy in which the U.S. would find out whether Egypt's President Nasser intended to 1) continue to stall the clearing of the Suez Canal and 2) permit Israeli ships the same right of free passage through the canal as other ships. So Ben-Gurion's balk was setting back the search for stability out of which Israel and the Arabs alike would ultimately benefit.

Catching wind of such trial-and-error diplomacy, President Eisenhower shot off to Ben-Gurion at week's end a pointed, thanks-for-being-so-reasonable cable that could not be misread, misinterpreted or misunderstood. "I was indeed deeply gratified at the decision of your Government to withdraw promptly and fully. I venture to express the hope that the carrying out of these withdrawals will go forward with the utmost speed." Then Ike added: "It has always been the view of this Government that after the withdrawal there should be a united effort by all of the nations to bring about conditions in the area more stable, more tranquil and more conducive to the general welfare than those which existed heretofore."

This week, after long rounds of cabinet consultations, Ben-Gurion ordered his Army Chief of Staff to meet the United Nations commander and arrange the withdrawal of Israeli forces.

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