Bevan Urges Arab- Western Friendship

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28950, 18 July 1959, Page 13

Bevan Urges ArabWestern Friendship

HAMBURG, July 16. The British Labour Party’s foreign affairs spokesman (Mr Aneurin Bevan) said in Hamburg today that the West could only ensure Middle East oil supplies by friendship with the Arab peoples.

Mr Bevan, who was speaking in a Middle East debate at the conference of the Socialist International, said: "Our prime concern is ensuring the smooth supply of oi] to the West. The Middle East needs to sell the oil to us and we need to have the oil.”

Nothing was more absurd than for Britain and France at Suez to think that they could ensure the oil by planes, soldiers and gunboats, he said, pointing out that “all we succeeded in doing was stopping it” Mr Bevan urged friendship with the peoples of producing countries and asked: “Is it going to be possible for France to develop the resources of the Sahara, with an unfriendly Algeria in the immediate background? I think not.” He said the Algerian people knew that the Sahara could not be developed without French knowledge and assistance, but they wanted the Sahara developed. In this very fact lay the basis for co-operation. "I hope our French friends do not mind my talking like this because we do not mind them talking frankly about the residual remains of the British Empire.”' he said Mr Bevan said the British were no longer able to exploit colonial peoples as they had in the nineteenth century by sending the products of cheap labour to Europe. If they did this, they would undermine their own industries, he said. “The capitalist world finds itself in a dilemma,” he said. “The fact that some remnants of colonialism continue to exist in the world is an offence against the technique of modern economic life.” Mr Bevan said he regarded the Bagdad Pact as a profound blunder and hoped it would be wound up. Communism would not spread in the Middle fest if a decent living standard was provided and it would not be resisted by the oil companies or by defensive pacts. The West should try to provide funds for oil development in countries which were unable to do so out of their own incomes

Mr Bevan said he realised one of the Middle East’s difficulties was the hostility between Israel and the Arab States. There would be no peace while thousands of

Arabs were in refugee camps on the borders of Jordan and Israel —what was needed was a great Socialist offensive. Other main points from Jiis speech were:— He regarded the exclusion of Communist China from the United Nations as a profound tragedy for the whole of mankind. He “got so tired” when people spoke about the free world—“I cannot recognise a free world that includes Portugal and Spain.” He said he could not recognise the fight against communism that poured arms into Pakistan and thereby frightened India into spending far more money than she could afford on defence.

The former Israeli Prime Minister (Mr Moshe Shayett), who spoke after Mr Bevan, said that some Arab leaders looked on the cold war as a useful opportunity for playing one side off against the other. It was a hazardous strategy that might well overreach itself, he said. Mr Sharett also urged an active consensus of opinion in favour of a freely negotiated peace between Israel and the Arab States