British Liberals on the Mideast Crisis
ARNOLD, G. L.
Their solution 'has all the persuasive power of a damp rag applied to a forest fire' British Liberals on the Mideast Crisis By G. L. Arnold London A week which witnessed the further shrinkage...
...But the characteristic Liberal inability to come to grips with the more squalid aspects of reality sticks out all over the place...
...Incidentally, the authors, true to their addiction to Liberal metaphysics, show not the slightest awareness that the Zionist movement was linked to the general Eastern European upheaval of the past seventy or eighty years...
...For this reason, Middle East Crisis (published by Penguin) may be worth considering...
...they have nut the faintest notion of what is involved in upheavals among backward countries, though the vocabulary of modern politics—nationalism, Communism, colonialism, etc.—is constantly on their lips...
...17) "The Arab struggle against the West expressed itself during the Twenties and Thirties in periodical collisions in Egypt, and in growing restiveness in all the other countries except Jordan, whose political life was slow to develop...
...What the authors thought they were doing remains a mystery...
...But there is a widespread consciousness that what happened last winter was more than the political and personal collapse of one man or one government...
...But it is worth trying, if only because "Arabs and Jews cannot be kept from springing at one another unless their lands are overshadowed by a bombing fleet...
...But first a word about the post-Suez reaction in general...
...19) "Colonel Nasser has an affinity with Oliver Cromwell...
...The two events are not as loosely connected as may appear at first sight, for the gradual elimination of Liberalism as a political force in postwar Britain is in some measure due to the intellectual flabbiness displayed by Liberal publicists...
...It was unfortunate [sic] that he allowed some of his German advisers—ex-Nazis—to be conspicuous, and that some of the symbols and insignia of the revolution looked like those of the Nazis...
...122), "the Great Powers must be resolved to keep the peace and must make clear how they propose to act if frontiers are violated...
...It causes a vacuum...
...The "under-35s ' are not easily fooled...
...The eminent authors of Middle East Crisis give the impression of having been disturbed in the midst of an argument over the technical advantages of the European Common Market...
...The whole is apparently intended for the instruction of school children, for it explains at great length a number of facts known to most newspaper readers...
...Instead of a realistic analysis of the Suez catastrophe (which would inevitably have to include some brutal home-truths about the interaction of Western imperialism and Eastern nationalism), the patient reader is treated to a gentle flow of well-meaning twaddle about empires, treaties, bases, national homes, international law, religious minorities, governmental responsibilities...
...At least it gets one away from the obsessive theme of "the Arabs" and "the Jews" waiting to spring at one another's throats...
...43) "As they became more caught up in international affairs, the officers lost their earlier zest for social justice, and reform began to take second place...
...Instead they duly repeat the standard cliches about Zionism, as though it were something that had suddenly dropped from the skies...
...It no longer relates to anything in particular, unless it be an appeal to reasonableness...
...So we gradually surrendered, through many other pretentiousnesses, to the besetting vice of the insecure — an aggressive assertion that we were greater than ever before...
...When one has got over the surprise of finding this kind of stuff between the covers of a work intended as a vademecum for the aspiring politician, one gradually realizes that for all its insipidity Middle East Crisis does have a theme: It is dedicated to the proposition that, since the Middle East is a very dangerous region, and since "peace depends on the Americans and the Russians" (p...
...Once this obsession is dropped, there is of course no need for a policeman in the shape of "an international air force to be stationed in Cyprus" (of all places...
...If it does not tell one much about the Middle East, it does at any rate say something (albeit obliquely and involuntarily) about the prospects of a Liberal revival...
...Thev know all about dealings appropriate to civilized nations...
...The same is true of an area...
...In short, they are being typically and recognizably Liberal—which is why the more wide-awake among their fellow-citizens have wisely decided to ignore them...
...Not all of them go so far as the author of a significant article headlined "The Crack-Up" in the current number of a London monthly, who bluntly writes finis to the Churchill-ian era and denounces the entire postwar obsession with "greatness" (including the Coronation) as an unconscious admission of failure...
...Whether they are Conservatives or Socialists, supporters or critics of Eden's last desperate throw, they are unanimous in sensing that Suez was a turning-point...
...Why don't these disillusioned young people—who include some of Britain's ablest up-and-coming writers, journalists and critics—turn to the small but distinguished group of elderly and middle-aged celebrities who make up what is left of the Liberal party...
...In some ways, this is perhaps unfair, for Middle East Crisis contains a certain amount of enlightened comment on men and affairs, as well as some good maps of the area...
...The scheme may be a bit premature, but it shows a realistic grasp of at least one aspect of the situation: the fact that Israel is a- Mediterranean as well as a Middle Eastern country...
...They are aware that their elders have in some sense let them down, and they draw little distinction between the two great parties...
...The significant thing about this pamphlet is its thoroughly representative character...
...Such an appeal, addressed to the British public, is not really necessary...
...The Arab world today is rather like Germany a hundred years ago, at least superficially...
...It is this constant search for a policeman (stationed in what is technically British territory) which in the end relates Middle East Crisis, for all its vagaries, to the perennial philosophy of British Liberalism...
...His experiments ended with a bogus constitution and a popular assembly, with controlled elections, so that he was eventually elected as President with a majority of 97 per cent—a figure which recalled the elections in Nazi Germany...
...What they have in fact accomplished is plain enough: They have demonstrated that British Liberalism is not merely politically moribund, but intellectually extinct as well...
...Russia was probably sincerely alarmed when the Baghdad alliance was made: though it was a defensive alliance, the Russian Government resents all combinations on its borders...
...48— this is my favorite...
...The fact is that Liberalism—in England, anyhow—has been reduced to the status of an attitude...
...It is divided into a number of sovereign states, some greater, some less...
...The oddest of these is an assumption that nobody can really do anything radical about the problems of the area...
...and all the rest of the standard vocabulary of political journalism...
...but so, unfortunately, are its less admirable features...
...For an answer one need go no further than Middle East Crisis, which distills the collective wisdom of British Liberalism into 140 pages of limp prose...
...Compare this with the simple and striking proposal made in the same week by Jules Moch (a former Defense Minister and veteran French delegate to various international bodies) that Israel should be invited to become the seventh member of Euratom—the European atomic-energy organization...
...It is difficult to convey the peculiar flavor of this remarkable little work...
...addressed to Middle Eastern dictators on the rampage, it has all the persuasive power of a damp rag applied to a forest fire...
...a few examples will have to suffice: "The fall of a great empire, however fervently desired at the time, is often the start of troubles...
...60) And, finally, "There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in making money...
...Their solution 'has all the persuasive power of a damp rag applied to a forest fire' British Liberals on the Mideast Crisis By G. L. Arnold London A week which witnessed the further shrinkage of Liberal Parliamentary strength from six seats to five was rendered notable by the publication of a bulky pamphlet on the Middle Eastern crisis by two distinguished Liberals: Guy Wint, a veteran editorial writer on the Manchester Guardian, and Peter Calvo-coressi, of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (better known as Chatham House...
...Its reasonable tone, its appeal to the United States to step into the breach and save what is left of the Western position, its candid admission that Britain can no longer police the Middle East, are in tune with what is vaguely known as enlightened public opinion...
...ibid...
...This is a new mood, and one that could become dangerous, though at the moment it is responsible for some very refreshing candor on the part of this generation's intellectual spokesmen...
...Now that the after-effects of that imperial spree are wearing off, it is becoming clear that at least some among the younger generation are facing the unpalatable truth in a more realistic spirit than their elders...
...It is admitted that "the scheme may not be acceptable to Russia despite the advantages to Russia of a deal which would minimize the American threat...
Vol. 40 • March 1957 • No. 12
