Palestine: Embroiled in Oil

Ever since the United States decided to support the partition of Palestine, Arab leaders in the Middle East have wracked their brains for a way to neutralize American policy. Last week the best they could do was rage and turn an impotent purple. Then the Arab League began to squeeze American oil companies operating in member stated. Syria refused to ratify a giant pipeline deal with the Arabian-American Oil Co., and Lebanon truculently announced that it would spike every concession until the U.S. injected a more neutral flavor into its Palestine policy. Oil men hastily marshalled their lobbies and actively joined the howling chorus against partition. In a few days Representative Austin announced to the U.N. that the United States would not support partition by force. However important the economic and strategic motives for this complete about face may seem to American statesmen, they do not, in any way, justify such a complete subjugation of morals to expediency.

If economic security and military bases were the only considerations in the Palestine issue, the United States would have a business-like argument for failing to back an effective partition. Arabia and the desert countries of the Middle East have always been of vital concern to an oil-conscious U. S. Although American oil reserves are immense, comprising thirty percent of the known supplies, the U. S. refines over sixty percent of the world's petroleum and cannot maintain this uneven balance indefinitely. With fewer new fields coming in each year, the oil market will shift away from the United States in two decades unless the on companies are permitted to exploit undeveloped fields in Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia.

The oil companies argue that Ibn Saud and the lesser sheiks must be placated at all costs if America is to maintain its dominant position in the petroleum industry and they their profits. They add that any Yankeephobia among the nomads would invite Russian expansion into this American preserve.

Such arguments rationalizing a weak Palestine policy are cold and narrow. Motivated by a desire for profits and hysterical over the possibility of Soviet infiltration, the oil interests failed to consider the effect of a U.S. reversal on the Jews and its subsequent repercussions in the U.N. According to the current rules of the game, it will be perfectly all right for Arabs to slaughter Jewish settlers as long as they stay within reasonable bounds and do not constitute a threat to the peace. The concessionaires are quite willing to swap a human life for a tankful of gas.

Since the commercial interests are so concerned with practicalities, they might well calculate the damage a Palestine debacle would do to the United Nations. A speedy, well-policed partition would enhance its prestige immeasurably, while a week policy will turn the U.N. into little more than a watery organization for completely sovereign nations. The United Nations is on the block today, but the statesmen still refuse to enforce partition. They pray for a last minute reconciliation between Jews and Arabs. Reconciliation is hopeless.