PROTECTION FOR ISRAEL

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27498, 4 November 1954, Page 13

PROTECTION FOR ISRAEL

Eden’s Assurance In Commons

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 9 p.m.) LONDON, November 2. The Foreign Secretary (Mr Eden) made it clear in the House of Commons tonight that Britain would aid Israel if she was attacked by an Arab State. He was replying to a debate on Middle Eastern affairs. Mr Hugh Dalton (Labour), who summed up the debate for the Opposition, had said there was deep concern about the risk of a “second round” war between Israel and some, if not all, the Arab States. He thought it was up to the Government “to take a firm, clear line in relation to the risks.”

Mr Eden said he had been asked whether the terms of the 1950 Declaration by Britain, the United States and France, safeguarding the present Middle East frontiers, bound Britain to go to the help of Israel if that country was attacked by an Arab State. The answer, he said, was; “Certainly.”

Mr Anthony Nutting, Minister of State at the Foreign Office, opening the debate, warned that there could be little hope of establishing conditions of peace and toleration in the Middle East so long as incidents continued between Israel and the Arab States.

“The problem of Arab-Israel relations overhangs a large part of the Middle East today. Of the problems still awaiting settlement, it is certainly among the most difficult. “I am far from despairing of a solution, but it is not the sort of problem which can be settled by a stroke of the pen, or by the simple act of sitting down at a conference table—even if it were possible to bring the parties to the table, which, for the moment, it is unhappily not,” he said. Problem of Refugees Mr Nutting said that on the IsraelJordan border there had been considerable improvement in the situation. Rut the problem of Arab refugees was increasing rather than de- ' creasing. Dealing with shipping in the Suez Canal—where the Egyptians have banned the passage of exports to Israel—Mr Nutting said it would not have been in anybody’s interest to allow this matter to delay the British settlement with Egypt. “We could not have hoped to do any good in Arab-Israel relations while our own relations with Egypt were so bad,” he said. “In actual fact traffic through the Suez Canal stands today at an ‘all-time high’ of more than 90,000,000 tons a year—nearly three times higher than the figure recorded in 1937.”

This figure included “a considerable volume” of ships destined for Israel. Only ships carrying strategic cargoes for Israel, and Israeli ships, were denied passage. Mr Nutting said that since the agreement with Egypt reports from the Middle East agreed that “British prestige had very considerably been raised.” “The conclusion of this agreement marks the first occasion upon which a post-war Egyptian Government has recognised that Egypt cannot be a neutral onlooker in a conflict involving Turkey,” he said. He claimed that there was nothing in the British agreement with Egypt which could fairly give cause for anxiety to Israel.