A Spectator's Notebook
WHEN I ARRIVED to have .tea with Mr. Sharett, whO has just resigned his post of Minister of Foreign Affairs, he was not like most foreign or other ministers—buried with secretaries and papers behind a succession of closed doors. He was looking Over his garden wall to see what was going on in the street. A fabulous linguist, he is as able and charming as he is modest. Israel must be rich in statesmen if she can well afford to see him go. Sharett has usually been identified with a moderate foreign policy, and Mr. Ben-Gurion, the Prime Minister, with an activist one. There is something in this, thotigh it is rather an over-simplification, but it seems that it is more differences of temperament than of policy that have caused the break. This explanation, too, has its difficulties, since, although in tempera- ment Ben-Gurion and Sharett are miles apart, they have worked together for years, and it is rather hard to see why they should not have continued to do so. Certainly if Ben-Gurion does pursue an activist policy the West will have only itself to blame, as it has done nothing to encourage a policy of moderation. The American refusal to supply Israel with arms, while announcing that she did not object to other countries doing so, was only the most contemptible episode in a pretty inglorious saga.
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