Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1956-03-22
Witches Brew

The West, meaning particularly
France, Britain and the United States, is
confronted with witches brew of trouble
throughout a wide expanse of the Med
iterranean world. One of the danger
spots is Algeria. Another is Cyprus But
nowhere do the potentials of the situation
seem worse than in the Middle East,
where Arab-Israeli tensions continue to
mount despite every effort to abate them
AS he indicated at his news confer
ence yesterday, President Eisenhower
views these tensions with grave concern,
and UNDERSTANDABLE so. For there is
ample reason to believe, as he says, that
"any outbreak of major hoStilities in the
region would be a catastrophe to the
world" Such hostilities would imperil,
for one thing, Western Europe's vitality
needed supply of Middle Eastern OIL
Worse still, far worse, they could readily
expand into an about global war involv
ing the great powers as we'll as the Arab
states and Israel.
It is because of all this that our Gov
eminent has formally requested the
United Nations Security Council to meet
without delay to formulate program of
urgent and early action" designed to
avert an armed explosion in the Middle
East. AS first step to that end, the
United States would have U. NJ Secretary
General Dag Hammarskjold undertake a
special mediating mission to the area and
report back to the Council with a series
of recommendations. An effort might
also be made to strengthen the Palestine
truce machinery and to put in force other
measures-political, economic and per-
hapS even military-aimed at preserving
the armistice and promoting an Arab
Israeli peace settlement.
To be successful, of course, any such
program must have the unanimous sup
port of the Security Council And that
means, in turn, that RusSia'S leaders must
refrain from using their veto power and
be willing to cooperate intellectually
in whatever the Council agrees to do.
They might be required, for example, to
call halt to Communist arms shipments
to Egypt, and to join in other types of
action initiating against their apparent
desire to inf1ltrate the Middle East and
win dominant position there Quite
ObN1Uuo1y CllCI IcCOIQ W QdGe QlSCOuTdReS
the hope that they will offer cooperation
OF that kind, but they should be chal-
lenged to do so for the sake of peace and
as key test of the sincerity of their talk
about wanting peaceful and friendly CO.
existence with the West
1t need hardly be added that the men
OF the Kremlin, If they choose to exercise
their veto in this matter, will be able to
thwart the Security Council But con-
trariwise, If they give full support to the
Councils efforts, they can play an impor-
tant role in bringing about fundamental
and lasting improvement in the Arab
Israeli situation-and at the same time
they will be giving highly persuasive evil
dence Of genuinely good intentions.
In any event, the present somber
trend IN the Middle East is potentially
dangerous enough to Justify an extraor-
binary effort by the United Nations to
seek unanimous agreement on program
OF pacif1cation that could greatly mini
mize the threat of war So it must be
hoped that the Soviet veto will not be
put to work once again. If it is, then
the situation may deteriorate to point
where the Western Big Three may be
compelled to take stern measures of
their own