British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan today conferred for more than an hour with Israel Ambassador Eliahu Elath on Israel’s stand toward the situation in Jordan and the Anglo-American attempts to bolster the present regime there.
The conference took place at the request of the Israel Ambassador, while in the British press and in some political circles criticism was voiced of Israel’s insistence that Britain end flights over Israel by supply planes en route to Jordan. It is understood that the explanations given by Mr. Elath to the British Prime Minister were along the following lines:
1. Israel considers that Jordan has been virtually lost to the West and, therefore, sees no point in helping Britain maintain the Hussein regime for a very short duration. Israel does not dare to risk having British arms fall into the hands of an Arab army which is still at war with Israel. It cannot, therefore, permit further British overflights over her territory. Israel would, however, reconsider its decision in the event of an emergency.
2. Israel does not “at present” contemplate any military move against Jordan’s western bank (the Palestine territory occupied by Jordan in 1948) nor against any other strategic Jordan territory. Israel, however, reserves all its rights in the event of a partition of Jordan by the Arab States or a takeover of the country by President Nasser’s United Arab Republic.
3. Israel urgently requires arms to bolster her security and wants to purchase British arms “on a purely commercial basis” to enable her to withstand the pressure of an anticipated encirclement by the Nasser forces.
The Macmillan-Elath meeting today was backgrounded by mounting political excitement and a spate of rumors in the press and in Whitehall circles. An alleged Israeli “operational plan” to march to the west bank of the Jordan and occupy for mer Palestine territory is being widely rumored. The London Daily Mail reported that Israel Premier Ben Gurion “has urged British Ambassador Sir Francis Rundell to agree to a partition plan for Jordan as a minimum solution for the present severe crisis.”
Anthony Nutting, former British Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, called for a “get tough policy towards Israel. He urged that Britain, with the strongest American backing, should inform Ben Gurion that unless Israel grants clearance for British withdrawal and for the evacuation of King Hussein, Britain will send aircraft with fighter protection across Israeli territory and any interference by Israelis would be considered an act of war.”
A can of beer symbolized for many Britishers today the political and logistic isolation of Britain in the Middle East. The report here that beer has been rationed to one can a day for each of the 3, 000 paratroopers in Jordan has brought home to the British public, as no other single factor could have done, the difficult position in which the British find themselves in the Middle East now.
While Labor Party spokesmen called for a “complete reappraisal” of British policy and the Laborite London Daily Mirror editorially advised the Government today to come to terms with Egyptian President Gamel Abdel Nasser who is “the dominating Arab figure, “and rule out armed intervention in the Middle East, Tory backbenchers called for a “tough” policy to compel Israel to provide transit facilities for supplies for the British Forces in Jordan.
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