Middle East: Return of the Natives

MIDDLE EAST

Holding her baby with one hand and two boxes of paper diapers in the other, a young Arab woman walked across the temporary wooden floor of the wrecked Allenby Bridge last week, heading homeward into what is now Israeli territory. She was the first Arab refugee to be admitted back across the River Jordan under an agreement be tween Israel and Jordan. Behind her trailed only 353 others. The Israelis had expected as many as 1,000, but they had taken so long with their cautious security clearance that the list of approved refugees was sent to the Jordanian government too late for everyone to be rounded up in time for the first day’s crossing.

Until last week, there were serious doubts that the crossings would ever begin. The Jordanian and Israeli govern ments squabbled for nearly a month over technicalities. Then, once they agreed to terms, Jordan’s Amman ra dio began broadcasting instructions calling on the refugees to refuse to co operate with Jewish authorities once they got back to their homes. Such direct incitement so alarmed the Israeli government that it almost canceled the return entirely. As it was, the Israelis tightened their security restrictions to keep out all Arabs suspected of being potential Fifth Columnists; the trickle of refugees that crossed the Jordan last week consisted mainly of women, old men and small children.

Red Cross officials are confident that the flow of returning natives can be increased to 4,000 a day. But even at that rate, it would take at least until the middle of October to process all 170,000 Jordanians who have asked to return to the West Bank, and Israel has declared that it will close its bor ders on Aug. 31. Arab and Red Cross officials hope that Israel can be talked into extending the deadline for as long as necessary, but such an accommodation is far from certain. There have been increasing signs of civil disobedience among the West Bank Arabs of late—in the Nablus area last week, 1,000 schoolteachers unexpectedly refused to accept Israeli paychecks. Come the end of August, Tel Aviv may well decide that it has admitted too many Arabs already.