Optimist's Journey

Last week a dove of peace shuttled hopefully between the Israeli and Arab capitals. It was a white Dakota plane, with red crosses painted on the wings and body. The wings also bore, in bold, black letters, the words "United Nations" in English and French. The plane's principal passenger was 53-year-old Count Folke Bernadotte of Sweden, president of the Swedish Red Cross and U.N. mediator for Palestine. His mission was to win Jewish and Arab acceptance of a cease-fire agreement.

Bernadotte had transmitted some of his courtly manners to the plane; when he left Athens, he told the Dutch crew to buzz the royal palace and dip the wings in salute to Queen Frederika. He had brought clothes for every occasion; in Cairo he wore a white tropical suit, in Tel Aviv a grey bemedaled uniform. He also brought considerable Red Cross experience as an intermediary between belligerents. In World War II he had arranged an exchange of disabled German and British prisoners of war, later persuaded the Nazis to send some 15,000 Norwegian and Danish hostages to Sweden.

Bernadotte would need all his diplomatic skill. Israel and the Arab governments said that they had "unconditionally" accepted the Security Council's call for a four-week truce. But there were conditions to the unconditional: the Israelis had attached "assumptions," the Arabs "explanations." One of the chief obstacles to agreement was the question of immigration. Jews insisted that the Security Council resolution allowed unlimited immigration, even of men of military age. The Arabs claimed that Jewish immigrants were potential soldiers and should be barred during the truce period. By week's end Bernadotte said that this quarrel was "alone obstructing agreement." He submitted a confidential truce proposal to Tel Aviv and the Arab capitals.

Both sides were still talking belligerently and boasting of famous victories-by-communique. The sober facts were that fighting so far had been on a small scale,* that (except for Arab raids into Galilee) all of it had taken place outside Israel's borders as fixed by U.N., that Syrian and Lebanese troops had been driven from northern Palestine, that the Egyptians were hard-pressed south of Tel Aviv, and that the Jews had not been able to open the road to Jerusalem. Mediator Bernadotte might be helped by the fact that both Jews and Arabs seemed reluctant to throw their full strength into the fight. "Being by nature an optimist," said Bernadotte, "I haven't become a pessimist."

* Outside Tel Aviv harbor last week, in the war's first naval engagement, an Israeli corvette and planes gave battle to an Egyptian corvette and some small transports. The Egyptian force withdrew.

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