Heads Together

Among the red tarbooshes in Cairo's Shepheard's Hotel last week bobbed many other varieties of Arab headgear--flowing khafiya of desert men from Saudi Arabia and Yemen, top-heavy sedarah from Iraq, the occasional spiked helmet of a Trans-Jordan Arab Legionnaire. The delegates of the seven Arab League states were getting their heads together to discuss tactics of the Arab fight against Zionism.

Solid Friendship. Arab leaders, united in opposition to Zionism, were not uniformly zealous in planning war. Iraq, Syria and Lebanon were for all-out war by League members and economic pressure on backers of the U.N. partition plan. But Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Trans-Jordan advised caution. In his desert fortress-capital at Riyadh, King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia said that reports that he would cancel U.S. oil concessions were "untrue and irresponsible." "Our friendship with the U.S. is solid and well established,'' said Ibn Saud. "We believe [the U.S.] made a mistake in the U.N. Palestine decision, but we hope [the U.S.] will correct it."

Least enthusiastic for all-out war against Zionists and the backers of partition was Trans-Jordan. Its little King Abdullah sees a chance to enlarge his dominion by adding to it the part of Palestine allotted by U.N. to the Arabs. Half of his 16,000-strong Arab Legion, trained, subsidized and led by the British, is already in Palestine. The British last week were dickering with him to take over the policing of the Arab zones of Palestine when the British withdraw. Some of his Arab neighbors (especially Syria, which resents Abdullah's aspirations to rule a Greater Syria) suspected that, once installed, Abdullah's Legionnaires would stay in Palestine. Abdullah's delegate to the League, Prime Minister Samir Rifai, chain-smoked nervously through last week's meetings.

Cooler Counsels. By week's end the Arab League states had decided not to use their national armies in a war against Zionists. But they would support a volunteer "People's Army" with recruits, supplies and arms. Britain considered banning arms shipments (as the U.S. did last fortnight) to either Jews or Arabs in Palestine. Arab League Secretary-General Azzam Pasha, who had to stay in bed with a cold during the League meetings last week, was confident that the Arabs would find arms. From his sickbed, his lank form swathed in white-&-orange striped flannel pajamas, Azzam Pasha told a TIME correspondent: "When you are living among rogues and they are going to cut your throat, you will find a revolver somewhere. You'll buy it or steal it, but you'll get one."

The 54-year-old League secretary is known for his broader outlook and cooler counsels among Arab hotheads. A member of the Azzazimah tribes which are scattered throughout the Arab world, Azzam Pasha has made a lifelong career of Arab nationalism. "In the Middle East," said one fellow Egyptian last week, "where everyone is someone's vassal, Azzam has no master."

Speaking Swords. Haj Amin el Husseini, ex-Mufti of Jerusalem, in Cairo last week to keep an eye on League proceedings, said: "When the sword speaks, everything else must be silent." In Palestine his Arab organization was busy recruiting volunteers. At Lifta, a village near Jerusalem, Arab leader Sheilah Hasan Abou Saud exhorted Arab volunteers to fight Zionists. Beside him sat Kemal Ureikat, leader of the military organization Futu-wah (Youth).

But, for the moment, Jewish guns and bombs were speaking more loudly than the Arabs'. Last week Haganah militiamen, in steel helmets and khaki uniforms, began systematic retaliation against Arabs. In communal fights, Palestine's death toll swelled to 242.

Then the fighting took an ominous turn. Soldiers of the Trans-Jordan Arab Legion, who have been expected to keep peace in Arab districts, fought with a convoy of Jewish vehicles which passed their camp. Fourteen more Jews died. Palestine was being in effect partitioned, in a way not planned by U.N., as armed forces on both sides dug in at fortified positions.

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