British Government Evades Answer on Concluding Pact with Israel

The British Government fully supports the efforts of Gen. E. L. M. Burns, United Nations truce chief in Palestine, to reduce tension along the Israel-Egyptian border, a spokesman for the government declared in Commons today. However, he avoided a direct answer to a plea that the government. together with the United States, consider an agreement with Israel.

The question concerning a pact with Israel was put by Laborite Barnett Janner, who noted that it was useless to blame Israel for retaliatory raids when the Tripartite Declaration had proved no deterrent to cross-border marauding. He said that an Anglo-Israel agreement would make the Arabs understand that “we are determined that they should not cross the border with impunity.”

R. H. Turton, Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs, said that Gen. Burns proposals were framed to prevent marauding and that carrying out the UN truce chief’s recommendations would ease tension. In reply to a statement by Emanuel Shinwell, former member of the Labor Government, blaming Egypt for the difficulties, Mr. Turton reiterated that adoption of various of Gen. Burn’s proposals would ease the situation.

Replying to R. F. Crouch, Conservative, Mr. Turton said that the government appreciates the danger of the continuation of tension between Israel and the Arabs, but that Gen. Burns was doing a “magnificent job.”

At several points during the debate, under questioning from both sides of the House, Mr. Turton asked the MP’s to refrain from commenting on the situation as long as the Security Council was trying to settle it. He made this reply to a suggestion by Mr. Crouch that Britain get “thorough” with both the Israelis and the Arabs to get them to sign a pact, to a suggestion that Israel was justified in retaliating as long as Egypt barred her from the Suez Canal, and to a suggestion for an international police force to keep the peace in Palestine.