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Jordan and Iraq to Merge Today; Israel’s Policy is “to Reserve Action”

February 13, 1958
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Jordan and Iraq will merge into a united country under one flag within 24 hours, a Jordan Government spokesman announced tonight in Amman. He said that the signing of the proclamation will take place tomorrow.

(In Washington, it was reported today that Israel has not yet informed the State Department of its thinking on the proposed union of Jordan and Iraq. This question, it was thought, will emerge when Israel Ambassador Abba Eban meets this week with Acting Secretary of State Christian A. Herter. In Israel, a government spokesman, when asked about the government’s reaction to an Iraqi-Jordan merger, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that it is Israel’s declared policy “to reserve action in the case of a change in the status quo.”)

Radio Cairo, in one of its propaganda broadcasts, beamed at Israel in Hebrew, today “invited” Israel to join the United Arab Republic which is composed of Egypt and Syria. The broadcast promised that Israel, if it joined, could “preserve its freedom of action externally and internally.” Such an act, the broadcast declared, would put an end to the Israel-Arab dispute and would be the “ideal solution” for the Palestine problem. (In Israel, a government spokesman described the Cairo Hebrew broadcast as “pure propaganda in the category of psychological warfare.”)

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