MIDDLE EAST (BRITISH ARMS SUPPLIES) (Hansard, 1 March 1948)

§ Mr. Warbey (Luton)
I desire to raise a question which, but for an unfortunate family illness, would have been raised, I understand, by my hon. Friend the Member for Central Newcastle-upon-Tyne 169 (Mr. Wilkes), namely, the question of the export of arms to the Middle East and of the British Military Missions to Middle Eastern countries. I am sure that all hon. Members would agree that, in the present explosive and highly dangerous position in the Middle East it is important that the British Government should do all in their power to hold the balance fairly between the contending factions, and, above all, that they should do nothing to assist any parties or groups or States which may have threatened, or which may seek to flout, the authority of the United Nations.
In the name of impartiality the British Government have, as is well known, placed an embargo on the supply of arms to either Jews or Arabs in Palestine. They have refused to recognise Haganah as the official Jewish militia, although requested to do so by the Palestine Commission. Further, in the name of impartiality they have intercepted illegal Jewish immigrants, sending them to Cyprus. Yet, at the same time, we have the remarkable fact that the British Government are actually helping, and have helped during the past few years, to create and to equip the armies of the neighbouring Arab States in the Middle East.
It is a little difficult to obtain information about these matters, but some information is available in replies which have been given, somewhat grudgingly, to Questions in this House. It has been a little difficult, I repeat, to extract full information on this subject, but this information is available. Between May, 1945, and June, 1947, the British Military Mission to Egypt supervised delivery of 40 military aircraft, 38 scout cars, and 298 carriers, in addition to small arms. The British Military Mission to Saudi Arabia consists of nine and 36 other ranks. The Transjordan Arab Legion is maintained by the British taxpayers for the sum of £2,000,000 a year, and it has 40 British officers, mostly in leading positions. To Iraq there is a British Military Mission consisting of 18 officers and 10 other ranks, with two officers and nine other ranks in the Iraqi Air Force. In addition, under these arrangements, officers or potential officers of these Arab Forces are being trained in this country. There are, for example, I understand, 25 Transjordanian officers being trained at the moment at Sandhurst.
170 It will be said that these are part of the long-standing arrangements that have been going on for some time. The fact is that they are still going on, and that they have gone on even after the Arab States have declared open and, as I shall show, violent opposition to the decision of the United Nations in regard to Palestine. On 18th February, the Minister of Defence replied to a Question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Levy) who asked: What arms and munitions have been supplied or promised by this country to Arabs inside or outside Palestine since the United Nations' decision in favour of partition. I would invite the attention of my right hon. Friend the Minister of State—if I may have his ear for a moment—to the reply which the Minister of Defence gave. The Minister of Defence stated in his reply: As I stated in reply to the hon. Member for South Portsmouth (Sir J. Lucas) on 4th February, the export of military material from this country to any part of the Middle East is strictly confined to what is required to honour long-standing Treaty obligations to certain Arab Governments"— I stress the words "Treaty obligations" because that, I imagine, is a matter with which my right hon. Friend will be somewhat concerned— which have been accustomed for many y ears to rely on us for the equipment of their forces. These involve many categories of material, many of them of a very minor nature; some are provided from local resources. I attach below a broad indication of the major items which are being supplied. Then there are details of the arms being supplied to Iraq, Egypt and Transjordan—all, I emphasise, since the United Nations' decision on Palestine. The Minister further stated in this reply: No additional promises of military material have been made to Arab countries, and our present commitments would be reconsidered if it should appear that those arms were being diverted to Palestine."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th February, 1948; Vol. 447, c. 223.] In reply the Minister of State may say that there is no evidence that these arms are being diverted to Palestine. That may well be the case. But if arms are going from Arab countries to Palestine, and if we are sending arms which partly replace the arms which are going on to Palestine, the distinction seems to me to be very small indeed. In fact, Arab representatives have boasted that they are seeking to get arms into Palestine.
171 The Secretary of the Arab League—which, I would remind hon Members, is the official collective organisation of the Arab States—Mr. Azzam Pasha stated, according to "The Times" Cairo correspondent on 24th February of this year: The Arabs"— That is the Arabs in Palestine— defending their rights were ill-organised and ill-armed, but the League would give them every chance to defend themselves, though they were still desperately short of arms and ammunition. Arab morale, however, was high, and once they received sufficient arms there could be no doubt of the result. In other words, it is quite clear from that statement that the Arab League, and therefore the State members of the Arab League, are seeking to get arms into Palestine.
But that is not all. In addition, these Arab States have openly declared that they are preparing for the use of violence against the decision of the United Nations; and even, in certain circumstances, for the use of violence against a United Nations' armed force. A number of statements have been made from time to time, and here, because of the shortness of time, I will refer to one or two. According to the Iraqi paper "Al Azram" of 24th September last year, the Iraqi premier told the Iraqi Press: I have requested you to prepare the Iraqi people, especially the youth, for the actions and sacrifices necessitated by the situation. If that statement is too vague for my right hon. Friend, I will give him one from the Syrian Prime Minister Jamil Madam Bey, who, according to a Press report from Damascus on 12th January of this year, declared to the youth in Damascus: President Shuki Al Quwatly approves of the movement of Arab youth and of the readiness for a Jihad"— a holy war— in defence of the Arabs in Palestine.

§ Mr. Stokes (Ipswich)
Is the hon. Member suggesting that this is some new thing?

§ Mr. Warbey
No.

§ Mr. Stokes
Is he not aware that the Arabs have been saying this for years and years?

§ Mr. Warbey
Yes.

§ Mr. Stokes
The tragedy is that nobody paid the slightest attention to it.

§ Mr. Warbey
I thank my hon. Friend for his assistance and endorsement of the statement which I am making. There is really not much need to quote further statements, because they are of a similar character, made by the responsible leaders of these Arab States.

§ Mr. Stokes
Quite right, too.

§ Mr. Warbey
I would also refer to a statement made by Azzam Pasha, the secretary of the Arab League, on the same occasion, in which he said that much of the conference was devoted to the Palestine situation, which he described as a civil war in which the regular armies of the Arab States would not intervene unless other foreign Powers first sent troops to enforce partition. The meaning of that statement is perfectly clear. It means, first of all, that the Arab States will encourage volunteer forces to arm and, if possible, to penetrate into Palestine, as they have done already. The Palestine Government has reported to the Palestine Commission that already large Arab forces running into several hundreds have penetrated the frontier and are at this moment inside Palestine. It means, further, that volunteer forces would continue to be raised under the official encouragement and toleration of the Arab Governments during the intervening period, and that, finally, if the United Nations should decide that it is necessary to send a United Nations armed force to Palestine, the Arab States would use their official armed forces to make war against the United Nations Force.

§ Mr. Warbey
I have not time to give way. The hon. Gentleman may have a chance in a moment. I will finally refer to the statement of the Egyptian Government delegate at the Security Council meeting on 25th February this year, when he said that the arrival of a non-Palestinian force in Palestine would arouse resentment and fury among the Arabs in Palestine and that the Arab States would feel bound to go to their aid. There we have the clearest possible threat that the Arab States would be prepared not merely to resist by force the implementation of the Palestine decision but to use force even against an international force provided by the United Nations. Yet under these conditions we are continuing to give military assistance to these same Arab States.
173 It will be said that this is in order to honour our treaty obligations. However, I submit that there is not only a moral but also a legal obligation on us to place our obligations to the United Nations above our obligations to individual states. It is clearly laid down in Article 103 of the Charter that we should do so. We have the most obvious moral obligation in that the British Government has accepted the United Nations' decision in regard to Palestine, and, moreover, has accepted it, in the words of Members of the Government, as the judgment of the international court of opinion. Having accepted that judgment, we have the clearest moral and legal obligations to uphold it and to refrain from giving aid and comfort to those who have threatened by force to upset it.

§ Mr. Stokes
May I ask——

§ Mr. Warbey
There is not time for me to give way. I ask my right hon. Friend to say whether or not we intend forthwith to suspend this supply of arms and this military assistance to the Arab States, to uphold the Charter of the United Nations and to set an example to the world of the faith that this country has in the authority and prestige of the United Nations. If we fail to do that, we let down the United Nations in much the same way as the League of Nations was let down by previous British Governments in regard to Manchuria and Abyssinia. I do not want to see the present Government doing that, I do not want to see the United Nations fall as the League of Nations fell, and I therefore hope that we shall uphold the United Nations.

§ Mr. Stokes
Before my hon. Friend sits down, may I ask whether he really considers it a moral obligation to support a policy which is known to have been fraudulently perpetrated and to be a political swindle?

§ Mr. Warbey
I want to give my right hon. Friend full time to reply, but the attitude of the British Government on this question is perfectly clear. It has accepted this decision of the United Nations as a valid decision, as a judgment and, as the Foreign Secretary has said, as something placed upon the statute book of the great world organisation.

The Minister of State (Mr. McNeil)
My hon. Friend places me in some difficulty, as I assume he knows. He has made several deductions from answers by the Minister of Defence and has put several questions which ought properly to be put to the Minister of Defence, and of course I cannot attempt to answer for my right hon. Friend. However, in passing I would say that I imagine my hon. Friend knows that there is no military mission in Egypt.

§ Mr. Warbey
Not any longer.

Mr. McNeil
There is no military mission in Egypt. The point is not the troops; the troops do not supply the arms; the point is the military mission. I do not for a second doubt the sincerity of my hon. Friend and the arguments he advances, but I find his reasoning a bit tortuous. His whole case is based upon one section of the United Nations' Charter, on Article 103. Having made an unwarranted assumption, he then snatches the Article out of its context altogether. That Article states, as he said, that where there is a conflict between Treaty obligations and Charter obligations, the Charter obligations shall prevail, but he first must establish that there is any conflict.
My hon. Friend is asking that before the Security Council has come to any decision upon the need for Armed Forces in Palestine, or before the Security Council has even agreed upon the Tired or upon the possibility, legal or physical, of providing security Forces for Palestine, Great Britain should unilaterally, without consulting any of the parties affected, without consulting any organ of the United Nations, unilaterally and arbitrarily promote sanctions against cert2in Middle East States. That is the blunt fact, let us wrap it up as we like, let us be moral and righteous, but there is the blunt fact.

§ Mr. Janner (Leicester, West)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the United Nations Organisation Assembly has set itself on a certain course and that, in deliberate defiance of that course, these arms which are being smuggled by us to certain of the Arab States are being utilised, either directly or indirectly, hr the purpose of arming people who are going into Palestine to kill people there 175 and also to defy the United Nations Organisation?

Mr. McNeil
As I shall attempt to show, the conflict, even as submitted by my hon. Friend the Member for Luton does not arise as simply as that. Moreover, neither my hon. Friend nor anyone in this House has offered the faintest shred of evidence about this passage of arms into Palestine, not the faintest shred.

§ Mr. Janner
What, are they going in by themselves?

Mr. McNeil
No one has offered to the House or to any Minister or to any organ of the United Nations any acceptable evidence about the passage into Palestine of the arms we are talking about. The hon. Member has assumed a conflict between our Treaty obligations and our Charter obligations, and he has assumed that that, in fact, is the only conflict that could arise. I do not complain that this has been raised on the Adjournment, but it is such a huge question that it is difficult either to illustrate the cause made or to reply to the case in such a short time.
If I had time, I might try to show, from the fact that there are III Articles in the Charter, that other conflicts might be possible. Apart from these assumptions, let me try to offer the House facts. The hon. Gentleman has said that the Arab Governments, through the Arab League, have said that they will oppose by force the decision of the General Assembly on Palestine. That, of course, is scarcely the truth. First of all the Arab Governments, as far as I know, despite the newspaper quotations offered us tonight, have not spoken of this. It is, however, true that the Secretary-General of the Arab League has made not one statement but many statements, and in the latest he did say this quite clearly, and I think my hon. Friend did quote him clearly, though he went on to quote him most unfairly. He said that should armed forces be used to oppose the Resolution of the Assembly then the Member States of the Arab League would intervene with their Regular forces.
My hon. Friend made inferences for which he did not offer again one tittle of evidence of what the words "Regular forces" meant. The main point, how- 176 ever, is that the Security Council have not yet agreed that an International Force is to be used for this purpose. As the House is aware Senator Austin recently stated on behalf of the United States Government and made it plain that in their view there is no legal, much less any moral, basis on which forces could be used for that purpose—I mean forces authorised by the Security Council. The position which we are asked to examine, therefore, is completely hypothetical. The situation has not arisen before the Security Council. The Arab Governments, as Governments, have not committed themselves on the subject, and therefore it is fantastic beyond justification on such a basis to argue that there is a conflict between the course of action under our Treaty obligations and our Charter obligations on the subject.

§ Mr. Janner
What steps have the Arab Governments taken to stop these people coming in with arms?

Mr. McNeil
I am asked to examine the case offered by my hon. Friend the Member for Luton. I am attempting to do that. He bases his case on a statement from the Secretary-General of the Arab League and some newspaper cuttings. I do not want to deal with this subject harshly and I am not going to pretend we have not been worried about it; but I do object to this gross over-simplification, and these gross charges launched against His Majesty's Government without any justification.

§ Mr. Warbey
Will the right hon. Gentleman——

Mr. McNeil
No, I will not. Let me go further. There is as yet no legal conflict between our obligations and our previous undertakings. The Government have acted throughout this piece most responsibly and most carefully, and, so far as has lain in our power, we have taken all steps to prevent military supplies reaching either Jews or Arabs so that if there were a conflict that conflict might be, as far as we could make certain, reduced to a minimum and might, be localised. Arms and munitions stored in Palestine, which are of value, have been a great worry to us and have been removed or have been destroyed in the course of our withdrawal. Further, military supplies entering from abroad are prohibited by embargo which the Palestine Government 177 are enforcing to the limit of their ability. Still further, we have maintained and will continue to maintain the strictest control over the sale of all British military supplies to the Middle East, including the total prohibition—the total prohibition—of the supply of material of military value to all private purchasers.
We have limited such supplies as we have given to these Governments, whom we are by treaty bound to supply. These treaty obligations, as my hon. Friend said clearly and carefully, affect only three countries, Transjordan, Iraq and Egypt. With each of them we have a treaty of alliance which provides for close co-operation in mutual defence. As one means of making this defence effective, we are bound to provide equipment to the Allies of His Majesty's Government. I will not attempt to deal with the passages of the treaty in detail, but they are of a quite simple and plain type. The Government of Iraq, for example, relies upon British supplies for the maintenance of her Armed Forces in a condition of readiness to meet any threat which may develop to the internal security of Iraq and, if necessary, to protect her frontiers. That is a very serious international obligation, and we have comparable obligations to the other two Powers. The obligations of this country towards any Power for providing for its defence may not be rigid; but they are serious, they are well-defined, and this above all times would not be the time to decry them.
I should make another point. It has already been said in this House, and it has already been conveyed to our missions in the Middle East—and I would make the point again—that if at any time we find the equipment and supplies that we are sending to any of the three Arab Governments under the terms of the treaty obligation are being diverted to improper use in Palestine, we shall at once reconsider our Treaty commitments in the light of that evidence. But I am certain the House will not ask me, as my hon. 178 Friend has asked me, lightly to abrogate a Treaty of this kind, by unilateral action, exclusively on the ground that there is conjecture or suspicion by others as to the possible future intentions of those contracting parties. There is nothing but conjecture, and the hon. Member who has had his opportunity, has offered us no evidence at all. The Government will continue to watch for such evidence.
I have confessed that we have been anxious about this subject, and have instructed our people on the spot that the three Governments with whom we are in Treaty relations are in no doubt as to our intentions if there should be such improper use. It has been suggested that we should follow the example of the United States Government and have a total embargo. There is no parallel here. They have no obligations in this vitally strategic area, and I do not pretend that we are uninterested in this vitally strategic area. My hon. Friend is always interested in peace, and he cannot deny that we have a similar obligation as a member of the United Nations to discharge our contract and to try to maintain stability in that area. If, as I hope they will not, the Arab Governments act in such a way as to create a conflict, the kind of conflict to which my hon. Friend referred, a conflict between our responsibility to hem and to the United Nations, we would have to think again. For the present we shall, and must, continue to honour our Treaties. On behalf of His Majesty's Government I say, as my right hon. Friend has already said, that if there are any facts brought forward, we will reconsider the position. But we cannot act on suspicion.