The foreign editor of the Financial Times, just returned from a visit to the Middle East, declared today that he found in Israel “many alarming signs of a popular contempt for the Arab world, an arrogance which could become dangerous and foolish as well as distasteful.”
According to J.D.F. Jones, “there is no adequate sign that the Arabs will be ready to enter into the sort of negotiations which the Israelis require” or that “the Israeli Government is worried by what appears to be a growing diplomatic isolation.” Mr. Jones believed that unless the U.N. envoy, Ambassador Gunnar Jarring, made some unmistakable diplomatic progress very soon, “Israeli businessmen, diplomats and politicians are going to have to look into the long-term implications of the occupation” of Arab territories.
With regard to one of those territories, Mr. Jones said that Israeli experts estimate the Sinai peninsula to contain sufficient oil to provide 40 million tons a year. In addition, Israeli and international teams which have been “furiously surveying” the Sinai since last June’s war, have found a profusion of minerals including manganese, lead and coal. All that remains, Mr. Jones wrote, is to determine whether these deposits can be profitably exploited.
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