THE Egyptian leader Gamal Abdul Nasser was known for his tremendous inter- est in history and, therefore it is quite possible that when he described the Israeli Prime Minister David Ben Guiorin's peace offer as ‘a smoke screen' he was recalling the closing paragraph of the Proclamation of the state of Israel which had formulated and read out by David Ben Gurion: “We offer all to our neigh- bour states and its peoples the hand to the peace and good neighbourhood and call to co-operation and mutual assistance with the independent Jewish people in his homeland. The State of Israel is ready to make its contribution with common efforts around the progress entire of the Near East." This is, in fact, the oldest trick in Zionism's book. It was Ben-Gurion who invented it: Offer the Arabs something you know they can't accept and then blame them when they don't. The Arab media thus met Ben Gurion's statement with the harshest criticism. The Egyptian Gazette of November 4, 1955 carried an editorial headlined: Ben Gurion's Olive Branch. It said: “Israel's new Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion, has only been back in power two days and within that short time has succeeded in setting the border with Egypt alight. While he was telling his parliament of his readiness to meet Premier Gamal Abdul Nasser and other Arab leaders for peace talks, his soldiers were stealthily poised for a treacherous night attack against an Egyptian position south-west of the demilitarised zone of El-Auga. The Egyptian reply was swift and effective and it only took four hours to expel the brutal aggressors after they had sustained appreciable losses. “There can be no shadow of a doubt that the Israeli attack was premeditated. Almost as serious was the interference with the United Nations Observers who were prevented on the hypothetical grounds of ‘concern for their safety' from getting to the scene of the clash, while their radio wavelength was constantly jammed. The only possible interpretation that can be given to the Israeli Prime Minister's ‘olive branch'-which subsequently proved to be a stick of dynamite- is that it was nothing more than a propaganda move to impress the West and an attempt to divert the Arab leaders' attention from his real intentions. “In any case, Ben Gurion must have been aware that the offer to meet the Arab leaders for peace talks was doomed to failure from the very beginning. It follows the familiar lines of the many approaches made by Israel during the past five years to try and inveigle the Arab leaders into direct contacts. All of them have remained without response and already yesterday morning even before the news of the Israeli attack were known, leading articles in the Arabic press bluntly told the Israeli Prime Minister that his offer was just as spurious as all the others. “It was rightly pointed out that the very wording of his speech in parliament was enough to damn his proposal. It made no mention of the United Nations res- olutions concerning the partitioning of Palestine, the repatriation of refugees and restoration of their property, or the internationalisation of Jerusalem. He also gave no indication that he was ready to implement any resolutions on Palestine, or give up once and for all the oft-repeated Israeli claims to other parts of Arab territory. “It is surprising that a newspaper of the standing of the London Daily Telegraph should have fallen for the Israeli Prime Minister's glib words. It advo- cated that Mr. Ben Gurion's offer should be taken seriously not only by the Arabs but also by the Western Powers which have a clear duty to see that talking does not give place to large-scale fighting. It added that the government which turned down this attempt at negotiations would be regarded as the aggressor ‘whatever the rights and wrongs of past conflict'. This type of comment shows a distinct lack of understanding of the situation, and it will be interesting to see whether the same writer has the good grace to make a complete ‘volte face' in his appraisal of the latest turn of events. “Ben Gurion has been known for many years to favour tough tactics in deal- ing with the Arabs. He has always expressed his keenness to meet their leaders without any interference from the United Nations, but at the same time, he has spared no pains to try and prove to them the power of the military force backing him. “Reaction throughout the Arab world to the Israeli aggression has been notable for its lack of hysteria. As for the Western powers, they have been thrown completely off balance and their experts yesterday spent hours in conversations trying to fathom the present situation. In that respect, it is doubtful whether they will come to any conclusion other than that offered to the world by Prime Minister Gamal Abdul Nasser that Ben Gurion peace offer is but a smoke screen to cover yet another Israeli aggression." [email protected]
