British Prime Minister Denies Threatening Israel Leaves for U.S.

British Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden, a few hours before his departure for the United States to confer with President Eisenhower on the Middle East situation, denied in the House of Commons that he wanted to squeeze from Israel territorial adjustments under pressure. He voiced the denial in the course of a parliamentary debate on the White Paper issued by the government on the sending of arms to the Middle East.

Sir Walter Monckton, British Defense, Minister, told Commons that the tanks and gun carriages supplied to Israel and Egypt through the reshipment of British surplus war materiel were of little military value, even if equipment which had been demilitarized were reconditioned for military use. He led off for the government in the debate forced on it by the Laborites and a great public clamor resulting from British press reports of tanks going to Egypt via Belgium. Prime Minister Eden and Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd were present in the House during the debate.

Trying to explain away the value of an estimated 150 Valentine tanks that had been reconditioned in Belgium, where they arrived from Britain, and shipped to Egypt, Sir Walter insisted that they were not tanks at all but heavy self-propelled guns used mainly as anti-tank guns. These had had their breeches blocked and firing mechanisms removed and would not add to Egyptian military strength, even if demilitarized, he insisted.

He also called useless an estimated 50 to 100 Sherman tank bodies shipped to France, from where they were resold to Israel. He had no doubt, he continued, that they were used as agricultural machinery and had no more military value than other heavy farm machinery. He refused to reply to queries about supplies of Centurion (heavy) tanks to Iraq or jet planes to Jordan, noting that this dealt with government-to-government sales about which he would say nothing.

Hugh Gaitskell, Labor Party chairman, who indicated before the debate began that his party would attempt to expand the debate into one on Britain’s Middle East policy in general, agreed that the surplus weapons were not comparable in value and importance with new weapons, but stressed that what Britain considered obsolete might be of greater value to other countries. He hit the government for its “slipshod, lax administration” and its failure to tighten export restrictions as soon as it became aware of the “leak” of surplus, war goods.

Czech supplies to Egypt have tilted the military balance heavily in favor of the Arabs, Mr. Gaitskell continued. This air and ground superiority would result in two grave dangers, he said; Firstly, the Arabs would be encouraged to start their war of revenge in the hope of wiping out the State of Israel, secondly, the Israelis, realizing that the balance was being tilted against them, might attempt to initiate “preventive action” while the situation was not too bad.

In addition he went on, Prime Minister Eden’s Guildhall speech had created the impression that Britain was putting pressure on Israel and, at the same time, weakening its stand in support of the Tripartite Declaration of 1950. It was one thing, he said, for Israel to offer voluntary territorial adjustments as part of a general settlement, and quite another for such territorial adjustments to be squeezed out of Israel under threat that it would not otherwise receive the arms needs to balance the Czech shipments. At this point Sir Anthony broke in to assert that he had “never said anything like it at any time.”