World Events in a Month

The Suez Canal between Cairo and London

The events of the month of September were marked by a series of international and Arab meetings to find a just solution to the problem of the Suez Canal. Following the first London Conference came the five-member Menzies mission to Cairo, which negotiated with President Gamal Abdel Nasser over the plan of the twelve powers to establish an international administration to supervise navigation in the Canal. But the committee returned to London, after ten days of talks with the Egyptian side, without any result. In truth, it carried back with it to the British capital nothing but bitter disappointment for the three Western powers, which hastened to convene a second conference in the British capital. Its fortune was no better than its predecessor's, for differences of viewpoint appeared, and the solutions grew so tangled that the French minister Pineau was moved to voice reservations toward every plan approved by the conference powers that did not satisfy the interests of the French government.

And over what was the disagreement at the second London Conference? The answer to this question lies ready in the new plan put forward by the American Secretary of State, Mr. Dulles, concerning the establishment of a cooperative association of Suez Canal users. Then the American Secretary himself soon turned to deviating from it a little, which opened the way for Pakistan and other Asian and European states sympathetic to the Egyptian cause to wage an opposition of a new kind that turned the situation upside down and, in effect, steered Spain, Iran, Turkey, and others toward a new direction: they now demanded, along with approval of the plan, that the Suez question be referred to the United Nations or to the International Security Council. And thus the conference was condemned to failure; whereupon Britain and France submitted a request to the International Security Council to hold an emergency session at which the problem of problems would be considered: the Suez Canal.

Observers of the United States' Position on the Suez Question

Observers of the United States' position on the Suez question — and they are trustworthy — ask: will the Security Council succeed in finding a reasonable settlement that satisfies Egypt on the one hand and her Western adversaries on the other? Over the answer to this question there hovers the word "veto," which has begun preparing to take up its post on the lips of the Soviet Union's delegate to the International Security Council. And these observers add: the United States, it would appear, is not in earnest about settling the dispute over the Suez Canal. Had she wished to clear the air and dispel the indifference arising from the statements of her responsible leaders, she would have answered, with at least some hint, the threat of Russia, People's China, and the states friendly to the Communists to intervene militarily on Egypt's behalf. On the whole, diplomatic observers in America, Britain, and France believe that the United States will do nothing decisive before the coming presidential elections in November 1956. In any case, America's position after that will be nothing more than courtesy toward her allies in the West, and an overture, tinged with self-interest, toward the states of the Middle East.

The Suez Canal in the Arab Sphere

After consultations and contacts among the Arab governments, the Political Committee of the League of Arab States held a meeting in Cairo following the last London Conference, in which it affirmed the position of the Arabs, governments and peoples alike, in supporting Egypt in her struggle for her sovereignty and her dignity in the face of the Suez Canal problem. Immediately upon the close of its meetings it also issued a communiqué with explicit resolutions declaring the solidarity of the Arab states with sister Egypt to the very end. Nor did matters stop at the meeting of the Political Committee of the Arab League and the broadcasting of its resolutions. For President Chamoun

had paid a visit to Amman, where he met with His Majesty King Hussein and deliberated with him on the present Arab situation and the common interests of the two countries in the light of current international events. Following this visit came a surprise meeting between Their Majesties Faisal and Hussein at Habbaniya, in Iraq; then another meeting, also a surprise, between Their Majesties Saud and Faisal; then a third, hastily arranged, between King Saud and Presidents Shukri al-Quwatli and Gamal Abdel Nasser — all of this took place in the wake of the visit of Lebanon's chief President to Amman and the presentation of the joint Lebanese-Syrian memorandum to the Security Council, in protest against the massing of French and British armies in Cyprus.

And so the Arab circle went on in consultations and contacts, whose happy results were confirmed by the joint communiqués broadcast in succession in Beirut, Amman, Baghdad, Damascus, Riyadh, and Cairo; and all of these, as appeared from the round of visits inaugurated by President Chamoun, aim at establishing a wise Arab diplomatic leadership that knows where the interests of the Arabs lie, and safeguards them, and where the dangers that threaten them lie, and does not fear them, but forestalls them with prudence and reason, before resorting to the sickle and the hammer.

And here we leave the gracious reader to cast a glance at the problems I have touched upon in this survey of the world's events in a month; perhaps he will find, in the arrival of Pandit Nehru at Riyadh and his meeting with King Saud, some of what he longs to learn by way of his own personal test... and God knows best...

On the evening of Monday, September 24, Pandit Nehru, Prime Minister of India, arrived at Riyadh on an official visit to His Majesty King Saud. By a strange coincidence, Pandit Nehru was unable to meet with Presidents Quwatli and Abdel Nasser, who had left Riyadh that very day for Damascus and Cairo.

On the night of Tuesday, September 25, some five thousand Israeli soldiers launched a surprise attack on the positions of the Jordanian Arab Army in the two villages of Fukin and Hadsan. The National Guard, the police, and the army joined battle with them in bitter fighting, in which all manner of weapons were employed on both sides, and which finally developed into the use of cold steel and hand-to-hand combat. Despite the Zionists' superiority in equipment and numbers, they suffered grievous losses in lives, amounting to some 100 dead, while 38 soldiers of the Jordanian forces fell as martyrs. The Security Council was informed of the events. His Majesty King Hussein likewise summoned the members of the Arab diplomatic corps and acquainted them with the situation in Jordan, while the Jordanian Foreign Minister summoned the heads of the foreign diplomatic missions, especially those of the Tripartite Declaration powers, and informed them of the results of the Zionist aggression and of the consequences it might entail.