Britain intends to dispute the right of Israel to move troops into the Akaba Gulf area, a British Foreign Office spokesman stated today.
Meanwhile, according to the Transjordan Military Attache in London, forces of the Arab Legion have crossed their frontier into Palestine and have occupied Umm Rash-rash and the Palestine sector of the Gulf of Akaba allocated to Israel by the United Nations General Assembly. British troops remain on the Transjordan side of the frontier and have not crossed into Israel with the Arab Legion, according to reports.
The real issue raised in the dispatches from Amman, it was learned from an authoritative government source, is the anxiety of King Abdullah of Transjordan that once the Israelis were established on the Gulf of Akaba they would stay there. This would block the plans for a corridor connecting Transjordan with the Mediterranean coast, running through the Southern Negev.
The Foreign Office spokesman today justified the Transjordan military action, and possible ultimate British intervention, by reference to the Nov. 4 resolution of the U.N. Security Council, which ordered the Israelis to remain north of their Oct. 14 positions. This resolution, he asserted, remains valid until the Security Council changes it. In the view of the British Government, it remains binding on Israel.
The Foreign Office does not accept the view that this United Nations resolution has been invalidated by the Israeli-Egyptian armistice agreement, which permits Israeli troops freedom of movement in the Eastern Negev. This agreement, although countersigned by Dr. Ralph J. Bunche, the U.N. acting mediator, has not been endorsed by the Security Council and therefore cannot, in the British view, take the place of a formal Security Council decision.
What is happening on the Gulf of Akaba is actually a decisive battle for Israeli frontiers on the one hand, and the future shape of the Greater Transjordan State on the other. Accordingly, the Foreign Office is adopting an attitude of grave concern without being unduly specific. The possibility of a direct British demarche to the Israeli Government, or to the Security Council, is understood to be under consideration.
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