Who Is For Peace?

Peace--and U.N. prestige--took a beating at a Security Council meeting last week. To thank Dag Hammarskjold for pulling Israel and the Arabs apart two months ago, and to maintain the momentum for peace built up by his Palestine mission, the British had cooked up a well intentioned resolution. To make it speak for East as well as West, Britain's Sir Pierson Dixon tossed in a phrase from a Russian Foreign Ministry Office pronouncement of last April expressing hope for a peaceful settlement "on a mutually acceptable basis." Obviously it was a line the Soviets thought well of, for the same words found their way into the Anglo-Russian communique put out after the London visit of B. & K.

But the Arabs read it and blew up. They insisted that the council must strike the whole paragraph out: such words might commit the four Arab states to more than a military truce with the Israelis. Syria's Delegate Ahmed el Shu-kairy said flatly that to satisfy the Arabs "the establishment of Israel, its membership in the U.N. . . will have to be revoked."

Russia's Arkady Sobolev, grasping quickly at a chance to score with the Arabs, announced that his government would disown its words and vote to strike them from the resolution. Sir Pierson Dixon, after stiffly refusing to take out "five little words which are really a glimpse of the obvious," received new orders from "a higher authority," namely Sir Anthony Eden. At the next meeting the British and the U.S. yielded "in the interests of unanimity." Dropping the paragraph the Arabs objected to, the council voted a watered-down resolution calling on the secretary-general to keep using his good offices towards full compliance with the armistice agreements.

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