Surprises for the First U.S. Secretary of State To Visit the Mideast

By Donald Neff

It was 40 years ago this month that the first tour of the Middle East by a U. S. secretary of state was completed. The secretary was John Foster Dulles. His 20-day trip was such a novelty that national radio and television gave him time on June 1, 1953, to address the American people with a long, travelogue-like recounting of his singular journey.

Dulles' major conclusion was perhaps as much a surprise to the strongly anti-communist secretary as it was to his audience: The Arabs, he reported, were "more fearful of Zionism than communism." What makes Dulles' speech memorable today is its reminder of how much U.S. policy has shifted toward Israel during the past four decades—and how the problems of the region have worsened.

The election of Dwight D. Eisenhower had brought to office in 1953 an administration that was determined to be evenhanded and fair. This was made clear in Dulles' speech when he declared the United States would continue to oppose any nation arming for an attack on its neighbors. He also declared that the United States opposed both Israeli and Arab claims to Jerusalem, preferring instead to see Jerusalem as an international city.

Excerpts of Dulles' Speech

During his journey, Dulles visited 12 nations and Jerusalem. He reported he found Jerusalem "divided into armed camps split between Israel and the Arab nation of Jordan. The atmosphere there is heavy with hate. As I gazed on the Mount of Olives, I felt anew that Jerusalem is, above all, the holy place of the Christian, Muslim and Jewish faiths. That's been repeatedly emphasized by the United Nations, and that fact does not necessarily exclude some political status in Jerusalem for Israel and Jordan. But the world religious community has claims in Jerusalem which take precedence over the political claims of any particular state."

Dulles also described the "bitter fate" of the Palestinian refugees: "Closely huddled around Israel are most of the over 800,000 Arab refugees who fled from Palestine as the Israelis took over. They mostly exist in makeshift camps, with few facilities either for health, work or recreation. Within these camps the inmates rot away, spiritually and physically. Even the Grim Reaper offers no solution, for as the older die, infants are born to inherit their parents' bitter fate. Some of these refugees could be settled in the area presently controlled by Israel. Most, however, could more readily be integrated into the lives of the neighboring Arab countries. This, however, awaits on irrigation projects, which will permit more soil to be cultivated. Throughout the area the cry is for water for irrigation .... Irrigation needs became most vivid as we motored from Jerusalem to Amman, the capital of Jordan. The road goes through the Dead Sea area, a scene of desolation with no sign of life other than the tens of thousands of refugees who survive precariously on the parched land largely by aid of U.N. doles."

Dulles' Conclusions

Secretary Dulles' conclusions from his trip make bittersweet reading today. Had the U.S. followed along the lines proposed, the Middle East would be a safer place for all of its inhabitants today, and the U.S. might have regained the widespread trust and respect it had so abruptly lost in 1947 and 1948. Dulles observed:

"The United States should seek to allay the deep resentment against it that has resulted from the creation of Israel. In the past we had good relations with the Arab peoples. American educational institutions there had built up a feeling of goodwill, and also American businessmen had won a good reputation in this area. There was mutual confidence to mutual advantage.

"Today the Arab peoples are afraid that the United States will back the new state of Israel in aggressive expansion. They are more fearful of Zionism than of communism, and they fear the United States, lest we become the backer of expansionist Zionism. On the other hand, the Israelis fear that ultimately the Arabs may try to push them into the sea."

In an effort to calm these contradictory fears the United States joined with France and Britain in a declaration of May 25, 1950 which stated that "the three governments, should they find that any of these states of the Near East was preparing to violate frontiers or armistice lines, would ... immediately take action ... to prevent such violations ... It must be made clear that the present United States administration stands fully behind that declaration. We cannot afford to be distrusted by millions who should be sturdy friends of freedom .... And the leaders of Israel themselves agreed with us that United States policies should be impartial so as to win not only the respect and regard of the Israeli but also of the Arab peoples. We shall seek such policies."

Changes Since Ike

Both the key policies enunciated by Dulles—arms control and support of the internationalization of Jerusalem—have since been abandoned by Washington. Official policy now is to guarantee Israel's qualitative superiority over all of its Arab neighbors, a commitment made formal by President Reagan on Feb. 22, 1982, just months before Israel's unprovoked invasion of Lebanon.² (The commitment was repeated in the Republican Party national platform adopted on Aug. 21, 1984.¹) Reagan adopted the pro-Israel policy despite the fact of Israel's proven military superiority as demonstrated by its unilateral launching of wars in 1956 and 1967, and its steady expansion of its frontiers onto Arab lands.

Equally important, Washington no longer insists that neither side should control Jerusalem. President Johnson changed that after Israel captured all of Jerusalem in 1967 by decreeing that the city's final status should be determined by the parties themselves. This weakening of Washington's traditional policy was revealed by U.S. Ambassador Arthur J. Goldberg on July 14, 1967, when he told the United Nations that the city's future must be settled through negotiations "of all problems arising out of the recent conflict."⁴ The change was made despite the fact that Israel since its founding has defied world opinion, and U.S. policy, by claiming Jerusalem as its capital.

After Johnson's change, U.S. policy nonetheless remained that Arab East Jerusalem was occupied territory, the same as other territories Israel had occupied during the 1967 war. This designation was enshrined in a number of United Nations Security Council resolutions supported by various administrations between 1971 and 1991.

However, even that position has now been diluted by the Clinton administration. It opposes the description of Arab Jerusalem as occupied territory, apparently as a result of a secret promise Clinton made to Jewish American leaders during his presidential campaign.⁵ Although the Clinton administration has yet to declare openly just what its policy toward Arab Jerusalem is, it appears that it has accepted the Israeli position that the area is "disputed" territory. The implication of such wording is that if Arab Jerusalem is disputed then Israel has as much right to it as Palestinians.

Recommended Reading:

Cattan, Henry, Jerusalem, New York, St. Martin's Press, 1981.

Gerson, Louis L., John Foster Dulles, New York, Cooper Square Publishers Inc., 1967.

Hoopes, Townsend, The Devil and John Foster Dulles, London, Andre Deutsch, 1974.

Neff, Donald, Warriors at Suez: Eisenhower Takes America into the Middle East, Brattleboro, VT, Amana Books, 1988.

Rubenberg, Cheryl A., Israel and the American National Interest: A Critical Examination, Chicago, University of Illinois Press, 1986.

Notes:

'The Text of Dulles' report is in The New York Times, June 2, 1953, and U.S. Department of State, American Foreign Policy, 1950-1955 (1957), 2,368-75.

'Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, Feb. 22, 1982, p. 177.

'The text is in The New York Times, Aug. 22, 1984. 4 Cattan, Jerusalem, p. 112. Also see Bernard Gwertzman, The New York Times, March 13, 19,80.

5john M. Goshko, The Washington Post, March 14, 1994.

Donald Neff is author of the Warriors trilogy on U.S. -Middle East relations and of the unpublished Middle East Handbook, a chronological data bank of significant events affecting U. S. policy and the Middle East on which this article is based. His books are available through the AET Book Club