MORDECHAI GAZIT
367
The Ame rican attitude towa rd Israel in the fifties gave ri se to
much conce rn . Sec re ta ry of Sta te Dulles decla red in 1955 that it was
regre tta ble tha t in the Ara b-Israeli conflic t even te rritory tha t was
ba rren had acquired a se n timental signifi cance. No one mi sunde r–
stood him . H e was obviously alluding not to Arab a ttachment to
their vas t dese rts, but to Israe l's Negev . H e was awa re tha t Pres ident
Nasse r was dema ndin g tha t Israel cede portions of the Negev to
create te rritoria l continuity be tween Egypt a nd J orda n. The
Americans began to examine the poss iblity o f a n Israel i concess ion
to enable the crea ti on of th a t uninte rrupted link .
The almost studi ed indiffe rence o f the United Sta tes to Israel's
very grave security p roblems became obvious when , des pite
intensive Israel i effo rts in 1954 a nd 1955, the E isenhowe r administra–
tion refused to ente r into a ny kind of defe nse agreemen t with Israel.
T hroughout that fi rs t decade, the United Sta tes was unfa ilingly
restra ined in the ma kin g of public sta teme nts about a n Ame ri can
resolve to a id Israel in the event of a n a ttack . Thi s was a t a time
when the United Sta tes had defe nse treati es with countries a ll over
the globe . It was delibe ra te poli cy tha t Israel was included in nothin g
more spec ific tha n a vague Ame rican commitme nt to the te rritoria l
integrity a nd political independence o f "all states" in the Middl e
East. This, o f course, cau sed much fo reboding a nd di sappo in tment
in Israel.
The a rms is ue was, if a nything, more se ri ou s. After the la rge–
scale Egyptia n a rms deal with the Eas tern bloc in 1955, Israel had
asked the U .S . gove rnment in vain (at the Dulles-Sha re tt mee ting in
Geneva) to conse nt to the sale o f a rms to redress the milita ry imbal–
ance between itse lf a nd Egyp t. It took, howeve r , a year of fru stra ting
efforts in W as hington befo re the admini strat ion came up with the
ingeni ous idea tha t the a rms would come, not from American , but
from Canadi a n a nd French a rse na ls. Abba Eba n , then Israeli
ambassado r to the Uni ted Sta tes, notes: "From my point of view ,
thi s was be tte r tha n nothing a t all , but I could well understa nd the
resen tme nt in Pa ri s a nd O ttawa which bred a sponta neous res is–
tance to Dulles's importunities. I also thou ght that the re was some–
thing rathe r childi sh in the exe rcise." As expec ted, the Canadia n
gove rnme n t stipula ted tha t the U nited Sta tes let it be known
publicly tha t its dec i ion to a utho rize the sales was made with
American a pproval. T his conditi on was not put to the tes t because in
the meantime Pa ri s had come through. The French res ponded
pos iti vely to the Israeli reques t because of their Al ge ri a n dil emma,
not because o f a ny Ame ri can encouragement. Eba n sums up hi s
