he British Government does not believe that delivering arms to Israel would be of service to the Jewish State, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anthony Nutting told Parliament today. He said that giving arms to Israel would lead to an arms race the end result of which would be that the Jewish State would find itself “surrounded by a lot of Arab neighbors armed to the teeth.”
Mr. Nutting thus reiterated a position which has been stated in one form or another for the last several months by Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden, Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd and himself. He insisted that as of now Israel is not surrounded by armed neighbors.
Responding to sharp questioning by Labor MP’s, Mr. Nutting insisted that the government was taking into account both the quality and the quantity of arms supplied by the Communist countries to Egypt in making its decisions in the light of its responsibilities under the Tripartite Declaration. When Alfred Robens, a Laborite who has consistently taken the lead in querying the government on its Middle East program, asked whether the government was planning to supply Israel with the means of defense against submarines being supplied Egypt, namely, submarine chasers, the Minister of State said that all arms deliveries to the Middle East were taken into account in drafting government policy.
At another point, Mr. Nutting rejected the imputation that the government’s policy was pro-Egyptian, because it would not ship Israel sufficient arms to offset the Communist shipments to Egypt. He insisted that Britain’s policy was “impartial.” In response to another question, he said that UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold’s mission to the Middle East had achieved “fruitful results” and hoped that “those results would be maintained.”
Clement Davies, leader of the Liberal Party in the House, Joined the Laborites in criticism of what he called the government’s “noncommittal attitude.” Mr. Davies alluded to the murder of four Israelis near the Jordan border Monday night and said that the Egyptians had been emboldened by the British Government’s attitude. To his demand that the government restore the Middle East arms balance under the terms of the Tripartite Declaration, Mr. Nutting replied that he did not believe that the government’s policy had encouraged either side to be aggressive.
A Conservative MP raised the question of the freezing of British assets in Israel and was told by Mr. Nutting that the matter had been discussed within recent months with Israel and that Israel had noted that it had always given sympathetic consideration to individuals who claimed hardship in support of requests for unblocking of their assets, but that in view of Israel’s limited currency reserves it could not agree to a general transfer of capital items.
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