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British Labor Party Leaders Ask East-west Guarantees for Israel

October 21, 1957
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Israel’s frontiers must be safeguarded against Arab aggression through a great power agreement which should include the Soviet Union as well as the United States and Britain, the British public was warned last night by two of the country’s outstanding Labor Party leaders.

Hugh Gaitskell, head of the Labor Party, told a meeting at Bristol that the “first step” toward a solution of Middle East tensions should be “a guarantee by the Great Powers, including the United States and Russia, of the existing frontiers between Israel and the neighboring Arab states. The Arab states need to be assured that Israel will not be allowed to expand at their expense; but, equally, Israel is entitled to a guarantee of protection against attacks by her Arab neighbors.”

Aneurin Bevan, the Opposition party’s “shadow Foreign Secretary,” writing in the weekly “News of the World,” declared Russia should be allowed to join the Western Powers in a “guarantee to Israel against any aggression from her neighbors, while those neighbors should be guaranteed against aggression by Israel. If this could be done, one of the chief causes of trouble in the world would be removed.”

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