Road to Damascus

After seven years of armistice, Israel and its Arab neighbors are standing once again on the brink of full-scale war. While Western eyes have been turned toward other world problems in recent months, the situation in the festering Middle East has steadily deteriorated. Daily clashes between Israeli and Egyptian troops in the tense border areas have now virtually obliterated the already obscure line between uneasy peace and open hostilities.

If any single international problem deserves the adjective "insoluble," the Arab-Israeli conflict would seem to be the leading contender for that dubious honor. For seven years, the pressure of hatred has been rising across both sides of Israel's four hundred mile frontiers. The leaders of neighboring Arab countries are apparently no more reconciled to the existence of Israel today than they were in 1948, when their armies invaded Palestine in an effort to drive the citizens of the new state into the Mediterranean. Only last month Cairo Radio compared Israel to "a hopeless prisoner doomed to be hanged." The years of tension, climaxed by Egypt's recent purchase of sizeable quantities of tanks, jets, and artillery from the Soviet bloc, have driven many Israelis to corresponding extremism.

Speculation on a final settlement or a permanent peace under such conditions has an air of unreality about it. Even if the immediate military crisis subsides, the prospect for real peace between Israel and the Arab states will also ebb a little farther, as it has done after each successive outbreak of border violence. At best, a long period of continued friction and undiminished enmity between Israel and her neighbors lies ahead. But however illusory are the hopes for an end to Israel-Arab discord, the United States and the other great powers have an inescapable obligation to prevent the disaster of another Middle Eastern war.

Unfortunately, the great powers have already lost much of their power to direct events in the Middle East. Both Israelis and Arabs have become so inflamed as a result of the recent fighting that they will be ready to defy diplomatic appeals and the pressure of world opinion. And the obvious intention of the Soviet Union to challenge the West for Arab support through economic and military aid has deprived the United States and its allies of most of the diplomatic leverage they could formerly exert on the Arab states.

Despite this loss of diplomatic advantage, there are several courses of action which the United States can follow in an effort to restore a measure of stability to the Middle East. Our representatives at the United Nations should make it clear that we will support a Security Council investigation of the situation, if the present fighting continues. This country should be ready to institute possible economic sanctions as well as diplomatic pressure, against either side, or both, to halt open warfare between Israel and the Arabs. Once the fighting is stopped, we should also move to implement the UN Truce Commission's recent proposals for the creation of an effective demilitarized zone between Israel and her neighbors. Barbed wire and 1000 yards of open space, if adequately patrolled by UN inspectors can at least make border raids more difficult to undertake than they are at present.

The United States can also take certain positive steps outside the United Nations. The State Department should make the strongest possible representations to the Soviet Union over its announced intentions to furnish more arms to the Arab states. In the conduct of their European policy, the Russians can always make the claim that their legitimate security interests are involved. In the Middle East, their policy should be branded for what it is--a brazen and irresponsible effort to make an unhappy situation worse.

In its own arms policy, the United States must uphold its determination to avert a ruinous armaments race in the area. The U.S. should certainly refrain from attempting to outdo the Soviets in winning Arab friendship, even if arms shipments are the only way to Arab hearts. Whatever Mr. Dulles' cherished plans for a Middle Eastern defense arrangement directed against the Soviet Union, he should remember that in Arab eyes, enemy number one is not Russia, but Israel.

In the long run, America's best hope for eventual Middle Eastern security lies in promoting the economic and political stability of both Israel and the Arab states. If necessary, the U.S. must be willing to make substantial loans to the Israelis to help them keep their heads above the waters of economic bankruptcy and to the Arabs to aid in the resettlement of Palestinian refugees. The United States can offer Middle Eastern nations a volume and variety of technical assistance which the Soviet Union cannot come close to matching. And the U.S. can use good offices whenever possible, in such projects as the development of the Jordan River valley. These are programs for the future and may some day help to erect a framework for a lasting Arab-Israeli settlement. For the present, this country's task is to do its part in dispersing the war clouds over the Middle East. The United States must not shirk that responsibility.