Israel Holds Britain Responsible for Arms Policy in Middle East

Commenting on the statement in Parliament by Foreign Under Secretary Davies on the British arms shipments to Egypt, an Israel Foreign Ministry spokesman today declared that Britain cannot evade its responsibility for a policy which threatensthe uneasy truce in the Middle East.

The spokesman insisted that large shipments of jet planes, tanks and warships can hardly be considered police weapons intended for internal or defensive use. There is nothing in the British treaties with the Arab states, he said, which forces the former to place offensive weapons in the hands of governments which recently conducted a war of aggression, which still refuse to make peace and which recently–at the Arab League meeting in Cairo–displayed evident truculence.