Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit FRIDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1946. ARABS AND RUSSIA

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 67, Issue 48, 6 December 1946, Page 2

Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit FRIDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1946. ARABS AND RUSSIA

A cable message a short time ago making reference to a suggestion that the Palestine Arabs might find a good champion of their cause in Russia, and might even find substantial help from that direction does not appear to be based on fact. So far as can be ascertained no such appeal hasbeen directed by the Arabs to the Soviet, nor has the Soviet shown any great interest in the present turmoil in the Holy Land, as yet. Most of the Governments represented in the Arab League are pro-British, but the opposition to them ' includes not only proFascists but many genuine progressives who would really prefer to be friends with Britain, or so it might be inferred from statements attributed to them. Even though up to the present no actual advances have been made to the Soviet, it would not be surprising if such eventuated, for Russia has succeeded Germany in the Middle East as the shadowy Power to which all anti-British movements can look. According to an observer on the spot, this traditional Middle East logic explains the curious assortment of tendencies which have been lumped together as “Communist” by the Egyptian and other Arab Governments in their recent antiCommunist drive. The Wafd, the Egyptian Nationalist Party which has headed the list, contains as many rich financiers as the other Egyptian parties and, far from being Communist or Socialist, is not even popular or progressive, tfn the European sense of the word. The last Wafd Government/hoisted into office by popular discontent and British armed pressure during the war, became the most corrupt that Egypt haa ever known, and was finally ousted as the result of an unsavoury scandal. But the Wafd has for some time been regaining its lost prestige, and has decided that the Russian card is a good one to play in an attempted return to power. Hence it is dubbed “Communist'' by the Egyptian authorities. There is another feature of the situation, however, out of, which anything might come, and that is increasing dissatisfaction of the younger Arabs with the older generation, and they may be inclined to give allegiance to any Power which shows them a way out of their present frustration and lack of purpose. Russia’s apparent military strength may appear most attractive to this generation, and it is quite on the cards that the hand of the Soviet may yet appear in the Middle East generally. Should Russia do so, she will need to realise that in any positive approach to the Middle East she will have to take into account the virtual unanimity of Middle Eastern peoples on the issue of Zionism. It is not as Jews, but emigrants from Europe with a programme of establishing an alien State in the Middle East, that the Zionists are objected to.