Britain And France Deny Collusion With Israel

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28132, 22 November 1956, Page 15

Britain And France Deny Collusion With Israel

(Rec. 9.20 p.m.) LONDON, Nov. 20. In Paris today, a Foreign Ministry •pokesmsm told a press conference that there was no foundation for a dispatch in the “Manchester Guardian” which said that the Israeli interventions of Egypt had been planned with the complicity of Britain and France. The British Foreign Office spokesman in London today declined to add anything to previous official statements denying collusion between the British and French governments and Israel over the British and French landings at Suez. At his press conference today, ne evaded a barrage of questions about press reports that firm evidence of collusion had reached the United States State Department. The spokesman said Britain had Dot been informed of the alleged use of units of the French Air Force by Israel in the Sinai campaign, a* the “Manchester Guardian” reported today. Britain, he said, had received no evidence of the presence of French volunteers with the Israeli forces.

The Secretary for War, Mr John Hare, told the House of Commons that the British war office received no advance information of Israel’s attack on Egypt. A Labour member, Mr Leslie Hale, had asked when his department first received information of the intended Israeli attack on Egypt and what action was taken.

Mr Hare replied: “My department received no advance information o. the Israeli attack.” Questions Asked in Britain

The special correspondent of the New Zealand Press Association »n London says that the publication in the “Manchester Guardian” of a report by its Tel Aviv correspondent that French aircraft flown by Frencn pilots took part in the Israeli offensive in Sinai from the beginning have given further point to American reports in the “New York Times.” the Washington “Post” an<. the news magazine “Time” that the United States State Department had information of joint British. French, and Israeli military planning before the Israeli invasion of Egypt. There had been suggestions earlier of British. French and Israeli collusion but they died down in London after a statement in the House oi Commons by the Foreign Secretary, Mr Selwyn Lloyd, that: “It is quite wrong to state that Israel was incited to this action by the Government.

There was no prior agreement between us about it." A categorical denial was also made in Paris. Now with further allegations of collusion, questions are once more being asked in the British press, and it is being suggested that perhap' even if there was not collusion among Britain, France and Israel, there might have been collusion between France and Israel. Critics in London admit that much of the evidence seems circumstantial or coincidental, but because of this uncertainty they are urging the British Government to make a further statement to clarify the situation which, according to messages front America, has done irreparable dam,age to Western relations. The Washington correspondent ol the “New York Times” quotes Americans on “diplomatic level” as saying that early efforts to ascertain what was happening about Suez met with ‘deliberately misleading information” in London and Pans. He says that Washington has pieced together strong suspicions of collusion of which it may never be disabused. and says that the allegations are being made that the attack o.i Egypt had been planned for weeks as a joint operation, that the Israel offensive in Sinai P e ™nsula wa.' known about well ahead of time both Sir Anthony Eden and Mr Mollet, and that a decision to us ? this attack as a trigger for then own action was arrived at on a mutua. basis.