Call to Action in the Near East

Abstract

T HE situation in the Near East is once again fluid, awaiting creative decision. This statement is likely to be repeated again and again in the future; but the present situation certainly exemplifies it. The basic elements are all clear. With the relative easing of tensions in the Far East and elsewhere in the world, and with the relative heightening of tension in the Near East, the attention of the Western world, and especially of the United States, has lately focused on conditions in our area. American public and private opinion has had our situation ac tively before it for months. There seems to be an even greater desire to do something about it than there was in I947 and I948. The feeling is that things cannot be allowed to drift much longer. The stakes are too high for statesmen to resort only to fumbling and muddling. Nor is it fated that one must be helpless before this situation despite its incredible complexity. True, more fac tors (strategy, cold war, oil, Israel, emotions, religions, internal American politics, vital British interests, French tribulations, practically everybody) are involved in the Near Eastern crisis than perhaps anywhere else, but no multiplicity of factors need defy high statesmanship resolved to be firm in the right. And the right is the stability of the Near East on the basis of real justice, the prosperity of its peoples, and the bringing to bear the best possible intelligence and will upon its manifold problems. The right is so to love the peoples of the Near East and so to under stand their difficulties as to make them know and choose their good; so to argue with them in all love and at all levels as to make them realize that with so many interests converging upon them from all sides, both in space and in time, they have special re sponsibilities not only to themselves but to the world. In these pages I propose to be very concise, touching only on fundamental matters. In the light of the fundamental all else can be understood and adjusted. It is necessary also to abstract our attention from persons and to focus on objective political, social and spiritual conditions. In international politics-and the politics of the Near East are essentially international-long range drifts and interests are paramount; persons and movements only express and illustrate these drifts. The statesmen, both in