ISRAEL AND JORDAN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 768, 9 April 1954, Page 15

ISRAEL AND JORDAN

Extracts from a recent commentary on the international news, broadcast from the Main National Stations of the NZBS

HE frontier between Israel and Jordan determined by ™ the armistice between the two countries of April, 1949, is as great a source of danger as a trail of gunpowder, . . The line of demarcation, which was the result of agreement between Israel and Jordan, brought about by the efforts of the United Nations Mediator, Dr. Ralph Bunche, pays no heed to economic and social conditions in the area. Villages on the Jordanian side are separated from their water supplies, their orchards and their fields. Not even the local inhabitants know for certain where Jordan ends and Israel begins. There is, in a once fertile narrow stretch, a sort’ of no-man’s land, but its boundaries are ill-defined. Hence, the shepherd grazing his flocks and the traveller who strays across the invisible line are in danger of being shot on sight... In such circumstances, it is small wonder that incidents occur — incidents which, in themselves, might be unimportant but which can easily fan the smouldering flames of war. For remember that there has been no peace settlement between Israel and the Arab States. There is only an uneasy armistice now nearly five years old. I must not belittle the efforts of the United Nations Commission headed first by the gallant Count Bernadotte and _ subsequently by Dr. Bunche. It had a difficult task and it may well be that the Commission was pleased that any sort of compromise was reached. But, in my opinion, it is high time that the United Nations made another attempt to settle this thorny problem .. . for if ever there was a threat to peace of which the United Nations is charged by its Charter to take cognisance, this is it. But what are the possible terms of settlement and what is the alternative to a settlement? To begin with, the frontier line should be adjusted so as to secure a less arbitrary and less uneconomic division of fields and orchards than that agreed on in 1949. Again, a free zone should be assured to Jordan at Haifa. Compensation for their losses should be paid to the Arabs: this would require a large sum and it would have to be paid, or at least subsidised, by the States at present subsidising the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, whose chief task at the moment is the feeding and sheltering of refugeés. But to ensure acceptance of these terms, the Arab States must be satisfied that the United Nations, and particularly the Western Powers really mean business, | and that they would compel Israel to make some concessions. Arab mistrust of the Western Powers is largely the result of the failure cf those Powers to show the moral courage required to irrpose upon Israel any resolution passed by the United Nations. | The problem of Jerusalem is more difficult. Internationalisation is favoured by neither side and so determined are the Jews to resist internationalisation that they have moved their seat of government out of Tel Aviv into Jerusalem. Jordan would probably be unwilling to give up its monopoly of the Christian tourist traffic. Perhaps the only solution could be the creation in Jerusalem of a small State, somewhat similar to the Vatican City, vested in and controlled

by some international organisation-a new form of government, but worth a trial.

But supposing the United Nations and, in particular, the Western Powers, refuse to grasp the nettle and impose a solution? What then? For one thing, refugee relief would have to go on, and for this the Western Powers are already paying for results which are pitifully small; 12,000 people settled in three years against a natural increase in refugee population of 25,000 every year. Again, the Western Powers will have to continue to put up with frontier incidents of an explosive nature. Further, they will have to continue to subsidise on either side of the border. Unless there is peace, neither can, by itself, have the means of subsistence. Again, they will continue to bear the blame, in Arab eyes, for the Arabian mismanagement of the Palestine war. And, finally, without peace the relations of the Western Powers with the Arab States will be unfriendly, putting it at its lowest.

McCARTHYISM

O do full justice to this unhappy business [McCarthyism] which is tending to divide-and thus to weaken -the United States, one should produce al] the evidence. and it is voluminous. Here it must suffice to say that in the Communist menace-I don’t think menace is too strong a word-the United

States has a real problem. There is no question but

that Communist activity in the United States is widespread. Such an acute observer as Sir Hartley Shawcross, who has recently returned from a visit to that country, has reported that Communists betraying their duty to the State have been found in very high places. "It is,’ he has said, "as if someone very high up in the British Foreign Office and someone else in the Treasury, perhaps a Governor of the Bank of England, was a Communist who had been betraying our secrets." ... If the United States is to retain its high place among the democracies, such persons and many lesser ones must be weeded out. But are the tactics indulged in by Senator McCarthy the right way of doing it? Is

Senator McCarthy really concerned to extirpate Communism in the United States or are his activities merely evidence of a lust for power? I cannot help feeling that the Senator is more concerned with his own future than with the future of his country, and that he, one only of the elected senatoral representatives of one State, is seeking to rival in power the elected head of the whole country, President Eisenhower. If he succeeds-I do not think he will, even if he continues with his efforts to that end-he will split not only the Republican Party but the whole country. And that paradox-a_ disunited United States-must have a greatly decreased influence in world affairs...

PROFESSOR

A. G.

DAVIS

March 20, 1954.