Peace in the Middle East is dependent on economic development and the feud between the Arabs and Israel would disappear, given the possibility of economic development, Aneuran Bevan, Labor Party spokesman on foreign affairs, told the House of Commons today.
Speaking for the opposition in the first foreign affairs debate since Parliament reconvened, Mr. Bevan asserted that “there is no reason why we cannot reconcile all the movements in the Middle East.”
The “shadow cabinet” foreign secretary indirectly welcomed construction of the Aswan Dam in Egypt with Soviet financial assistance and declared that the West should give the Arabs “every kind of encouragement we can.”
Emanuel Shinwell, former Secretary for War, sharply challenged the government on its Middle East policy and said that “anyone who regarded prospects in the Middle East in an optimistic vein was “greatly mistaken.” He said he saw no prospect whatever at the present time for a speedy disappearance of Middle East tension.
He said the arming by Britain of Iraq and Jordan while it had declined to provide arms to Israel “except on a very modified scale,” was, “to a substantial extent, the cause of the tension in the past few years.”
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