presented, in the name of the Arab-Asian-African bloc, to the United Nations, demanding that sanctions be imposed on Israel for refusing to comply with the evacuation of Gaza and the Gulf of Aqaba without being internationally guaranteed freedom of navigation and the non-return of Gaza to Egypt.
At this point, the political observer would do well to look at the Western position on this score:
Britain: holds that the solution of the Gaza and Aqaba problem must come together with something else, following directly upon that solution — namely, the entry of the Emergency Forces into Gaza and the declaration of the Gulf of Aqaba an international waterway.
France: endorses the British thesis of the necessity of Israeli withdrawal from these two zones.
The United States: appears more zealous than France and Britain. President Eisenhower has repeatedly threatened Ben-Gurion, the Prime Minister of Israel, with sanctions of every kind — military, economic, and diplomatic — until these threats of his nearly provoked a split among the members of the two houses of Congress. Israel's reaction was to recall her ambassador in Washington and furnish him with new instructions that were considered something of a retreat from Israel's previous position, so that the Israeli ambassador's meetings with the American Secretary Dulles on the evening of February 25 pointed to the existence of hope for untying this knot.
A communiqué was issued on the talks of Saud, Hussein, Quwatli, and Abdel Nasser in Cairo, embodying the four states' point of view on positive neutrality between East and West, on continuing to support the causes of Algeria and the Arab refugees, and on demanding the withdrawal of the Israeli forces
from Egyptian territory without restriction or condition.
Nor have the efforts of the Arabs at the United Nations been confined to treating the questions of Palestine and Israel's withdrawal from Gaza and Aqaba; they have gone beyond them to other international matters, such as the Algerian question, on which the General Assembly unanimously resolved, after two weeks of debate, to call upon France and Algeria to negotiate for a peaceful settlement of the existing dispute, leading to a cessation of the fighting. The views and statements delivered by the delegates of the Arab-Asian-African bloc found a far-reaching echo in the various international circles represented at the United Nations.
At the dinner party given by the Association of University Women Graduates at the Bristol on the evening of February 27, there was a gracious gesture when the First Lady of Lebanon, Mrs. Chamoun, pinned the gilded Order of Merit on the breast of the association's president, Dr. Edma Abouchdid, in recognition and appreciation of her services to the Lebanese woman in the fields of medicine and society.
To our dear friend Edma, warmest congratulations..
On Thursday, February 28 last, the charming Miss Violette Rebeiz was wedded to the young engineer Fawzi Nakhle Zureik in a family celebration that gathered kinsfolk and friends. After the crowning
And so, if we set aside from the international field President Eisenhower's plan for the Middle East; the opposing Soviet plan, announced in the Supreme Soviet by the Minister Shepilov before his removal from office; the recent British-American-French plan for a temporary administration of the Suez Canal; and the Cyprus dilemma, which the United Nations has recommended be resolved peacefully along the lines of what was done in the Algerian question — then we can say: the important questions branching out from the Suez problem still form the principal axis on which international politics turns, and for which it musters its efforts and resources, in search of a solution.
ceremony the bridal pair set off for Europe to spend their honeymoon. To them both, our warmest congratulations and good wishes.
This year there was founded in Beirut the Prison Improvement Committee, bringing together a goodly company of ladies and gentlemen who have already enrolled in the field of social services.
On February 22 last this body gave a tea party at the home of its president, Mrs. Adlette Richani, and there the guests heard a statement of the body's works and of the program it intends to carry out to raise the standard of the prisons in Lebanon. God bless the hands that labor for good alone!
