"Terrible Risks"

Shortly after noon one day last week, a white DC-3 with U.N. markings carried the last members of Mediator Count Bernadotte's staff from Tel Aviv. A minute and a half later, Tel Aviv's air-raid siren shrilled as an Egyptian reconnaissance plane flew over. War had returned to Palestine.

Secret Weapon. At the last minute, Bernadotte and the Security Council tried to extend the truce before the still rickety war machines of Jews and Arabs could pick up momentum. Israel said it was willing to accept the extension. But the Arab League refused, claiming that the truce was "unworkable and one-sided." In Rhodes, where hard-working Bernadotte had found a little time for play (see cut), he warned both sides. After they had rejected his suggestions for a settlement, he said, "the losing party . . . can no longer hope to get so much . . . They take terrible risks in starting the war."

Both sides were confident enough to take those risks. The month of truce had given Israel time to organize its half-formed army more thoroughly. Fighting with their backs to the sea, the Jews were telling each other last week: "Our secret weapon is ein brera" [no alternative]. Some Arab statements were tempered with a new note of caution. "Of course we're confident," said the Arab League Secretary General, Abdul Rahman Azzam Pasha. "The trouble is that some people expect spectacular results right away, but it isn't that kind of a fight. It is a guerrilla war where there are no front lines and no decisive battles." Later, Azzam suggested setting up a small token Jewish state, like Vatican City, to serve as a symbol of unity for Jews. "Anything that is good for 500 million Catholics,"* said Azzam, "would be good enough for 12 million Jews."

Sole Winner. At week's end, the fighting was still scattered and sporadic. On the Arab side, Egyptians (in the southern desert) and Syrians and Iraqis (in Galilee) were most active. Abdullah's Arab Legion, the only force likely to cause Israel serious trouble, had done little but engage in an artillery and mortar duel with Jewish forces in Jerusalem. In a night attack the Jews won Lydda Airport, biggest in Palestine. Later they captured, after surprisingly feeble Arab resistance, the towns of Lydda and Ramleh, and threatened Arab positions blocking the lifeline road to Jerusalem. Abdullah's Arab Legion had not yet launched a major attack and feeling persisted in Palestine that he might be amenable to compromise.

The U.S. hinted that it might call on the U.N. Security Council for sanctions against the Arabs, and lift the embargo on arms to Israel. "The Arabs," declaimed Syria's Faris el Khoury in reply, "are ready to be killed by your atomic bombs." Khoury and everyone else knew that it would not come to that. But the U.S. and Britain (if it continued to arm Arab states) might easily drift into fighting each other by Jewish and Arab proxies: Or, if Britain joined the U.S. in sanctions against the Arabs, the last chance of winning Arab friendship for the Western powers might be lost. The sole winner, in either case, would be Russia.

* Actual number of Catholics: about 400 million.

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