Conflicting ends
wiNsrroN S. CHURCHILL
The Arabs and Israel Charles Douglas-Home (Bodley Head 15s) Israel's decisive victory over her Arab neigh- bours just one year ago has, in fact, decided little except to establish her as the major mili- tary power in the Middle East and to remove the possibility of her being 'pushed into the sea' by her neighbours.
It has not brought her recognition: it has not achieved a settlement nor even brought about a genuine truce. The Arab terrorism con- tinues: the Israeli reprisal raids ensue. Although the pressure on Israel from without has been greatly relieved, she finds herself faced with the problem of an enormously in- creased Arab population within her borders.
Mr Douglas-Home, in his very competent book, traces the causes of strife in the Middle East from the time of Britain's abandonment of the Palestine Mandate and the declaration of the state of Israel in 1948 up to the present - day. Only when he launches himself into the realm of speculation do I take my leave of him. On the question of the sharing of the Jordan waters, he suggests that had Israel been more conciliatory it might have brought her 'less water, but possibly more tolerance from the Arabs,' and argues that faced with Arab terrorism the Israelis could have made 'some political gesture in the hope that it would assuage Arab dissatisfaction enough for them to discontinue the attacks.'
While these are possibilities, I feel that the author gives too much weight to the actual points of dispute and too little to the root cause of all these problems, namely, the establishment on Arab soil of a Zionist state whose very existence is hateful and unaccept- able to the great majority of Arabs. There is therefore little likelihood that minor con- cessions and a more tolerant attitude on the part of the Israelis would, in fact, have made much difference.
As for the events immediately leading up to Israel's decision to strike on 5 June 1967 —the closing of the Tiran Straits, the aban- donment by the UN of their posts, the establish- ment of an Egyptian army of 100,000 men in the Sinai Desert opposite her southern borders, the presence of large concentrations of Jor- danian troops on the west bank of Jordan under Egyptian command reinforced by the vanguard of an Iraqi division, coupled with the hostile menaces of the Syrians—the author feels that the alteration they represented in Israel's situa- tion was 'only psychological.'
Having been in Israel at the same time as Mr Douglas-Home, in the weeks immediately preceding the outbreak of war, I must admit that I formed a different view of the situation. He contends that the Israelis, to have em- barked on the course they did, must have been very confident of their ability to achieve a military victory and that therefore they could perfectly well have waited to see what the Arabs would do next. This would be to forget that the only way Israel- could be reasonably sure of achieving a swift and decisive victory with the minimum loss of life to her own people was to get in the first blow. The Israelis could never afford to let their own territory become the battleground.
While it is perfectly possible that the Arabs might have retreated from the brink and the sivation might have 'defused itself,' as Mr Douglas-Home believes, it is equally possible that with the situation in the Arab camp 'out of control' Israel would have been forced to fight in circumstances which would have made an Israeli victory less certain and would un- doubtedly have resulted in large-scale civilian and military casualties for Israel. In such cir- cumstances—irrespective of the rights or wrongs of the situation—I cannot say I find it unreasonable for a government to take decisive action.
Having examined the problems, Mr Douglas- Home proposes a solution. In his view, the worst possible solution would be one in which Israel returns the west bank to Jordan in return for recognition, as he believes this would solve none of the underlying issues. He would like to see Israel change from the westernised European country it is today to something more closely approximating a Middle Eastern coun- try, and from a Zionist state to a bi- national one of Arabs and Jews. He believes that both these may come about through natural evolution. However, though she may modify and moderate the exclusive nature of her society, it is difficult to see Israel aban- doning her Jewishness and ceasing to be a Zionist state; or, for that matter, to imagine Arab nationalism, as it is at present consti- tuted, abandoning its hostility to Israel, no matter how far she may go in conciliating the Arabs within her borders.
Israel, although a shining example of western democracy and European enterprise in the Middle East, constitutes a massive liability to the West in its dealings with the Arab world. This competent and instructive work deals, above all, with the principals in the case rather than the backers. But the situation in the Middle East must be seen not only as a clash between Zionism and Arab nationalism, but in terms of the conflict of interests between the Soviet Union and the West.
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