Muddle East

• •"Middle East Crisis", by Guy Wint and Peter Calvocorcsi, Penguin, 1957.
• •"The Suez War", by Paul Johnson, McGibbon & Kee. 1957.
• •"The Record on Suez", "Manchester Guardian" pamphlet, Nov., 1956.
• •"The Truth About Suez", British labour Party pamphlet, Dec., 1957.
• •"Secrets of Suez", by Merry and Serge Bromberger, Pan Books, 1957.
• •Articles in "Tribune", "New Statesman". "Monthly Review", etc.

"The Middle Fast and oil are indivisible." said Kefauver in the U.S. Senate last March. "Intelligent discussion of the one cannot possibly proceed without an understanding of the other." Perhaps Harvey O'Connor's "Empire of Oil" and Benjamin Shwadian's "Middle East Oil and the Great Powers" are essential background reading to a comprehension of the tangled politics of the area, and especially the crisis which began last October and still continues.

Wint and Calvocoresi's Penguin has an oil-derrick on the front cover, and the shadow of it lies darkly across the story they tell. It is a very fair, almost dispassionate account of the [unclear: esesntial] tacts—less tendentious and therefore perhaps less gripping than the Labour Party pamphlet or the book by Johnson assistant: editor of "New Statesman") and more coherent than the sketchy chronology and collection of editorials that make up the "Guardian" contribution.

The most sensational of these books is the "Brombergcrs"—the French book which documents the charge of prior collusion between Eden, Mollet, and Ben-Gurion, and the use put to the whole debacle by Dulles and his Middle East Economic Council to replace the Anglo-French vacuum by an extension American influence in the area.

Israel's position is difficult to analyse. Born from the Balfour Declaration (in studied contradiction of promises made through I awtence to the Arabs), the [unclear: igiedly] depleted and hounded people of the ghettoes of Europe were drawn into the power game of this area to complete a divide-and-rule situation An Indian writer in "Monthly Review" comments that though Israel's democracy and "humming modernity" would inspire Indian support in contrast to the social and political backwardness of the adjacent Arab stales, the Israelis have contributed to the hate [unclear: arg] them by appearing to have planted a colony of Euro-Americanism on the edge of Asia, with unreal living standard (supported by foreign loans) on area occupied at Arab expense.

The [unclear: tote] of Israeli politicians in the Suez allair strengthens this attitude the rulers of adjacent sheikdoms, feudal kingdoms, and miltary dictatorships are only too glad to have this irritant at hand to divert the anger of their subjects, and the constant terrorism on Israel's borders must have provoked retaliation in the end. But all the border trouble talk this time last year was with Jordan—until Britain came down loudly on Jordan's side. And then out of the blue (or, rather, alter Ben-Gurion's secret visit to France) came the Sinai invasion, and Eden and Mollet had their long-awaited excuse to bombard Port Said and occupy Suez."

The upshot, with America leaping self-righteously to the banner of U.N., has been a greatly increased foothold for America in the Middle East Senator Kefauver's speech quoted above (repunted "International Affairs". June. 1957) documents the fact that the Eisenhower Doctrine" was inspired by and could only operate on behalf of gigantic American oil monopolies in the area, to the detriment of, everyone else, including the American people.

On the question of Russian influence, the fact becomes [unclear: celar] that the Baathi [unclear: ineutralist] middle-class Arab nationalist movement) is probably the best guarantee of the independence of the area. But United States interests are as little interested in the Middle East having indepedence as the Russians are—witness events in Jordan early this year. Saudi Arabia last year, and Iran in 1953 Syria's present orientation is evidently the reaction of her middle-class politicians to the behaviour of the West.

The problem that remains when those [unclear: emaiiatme] directly from Great Power interference are settled, is the Arab[unclear: Israch] one. Freed from the meshes of Great Power politics, even this will be [unclear: siei] to solve. There are forces in the Arab world more interested in reform of their own lands than in being [unclear: sooled] on to Israel; and there is the powerful Ieft in Israel which abstained from voting on the Sinai war.

Students can help shape an enlightened public opinion to help force a civilized policy for the Middle Fast, aiming to help rather than [unclear: tunder] the solution of these problems, which seem to hold the key to the future of international peace.

—C.B.