MIDDLE EAST: The Army of Peace

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Thirteen months ago, a hastily assembled body of some 6,000 men of ten different nationalities was rushed into place between the armies of Egypt and Israel. Thirteen months later, the United Nations Emergency Force, the world's first international police force, was still there, and almost forgotten by the outside world. It was forgotten because it had done its job: UNEF had kept the peace. Last week, U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold flew out to inspect the force he created.

Spouting Snow. Among the dunes and date palms of the Gaza Strip, he called on Brazilian and Indian units deployed along the Israeli border, inspected a hospital staffed by Canadians and Norwegians. At their encampment, the Swedes built a big bonfire in his honor near the beach and tried to celebrate his arrival with the traditional Swedish long dance (they had to abandon it because of the sandy footing). At dinner the Indians (to whom Christmas is not a religious holiday) provided a group of bagpipers for entertainment. At Khan Yunis, the Colombians rigged up cardboard boxes that spouted artificial snow. Then Hammarskjold attended midnight Mass in an army tent, as buglers and drummers beside the altar played solemn rolls and flourishes at the elevation of the Host. In the morning, he went to services in the New England-style Lutheran chapel the Swedes had built at Gaza. On the Sinai border, the Yugoslavs, encamped in an oasis of palms and eucalyptus trees, had carefully arranged golden dates to form the United Nations emblem.

From the Gaza Strip in the north to Taba in the south, there has scarcely been a single incident of importance since UNEF troops moved into position. Discreetly, Hammarskjold did not go to Sharm el Sheikh, where Egyptian guns for more than six years barred entry of Israeli ships to the Gulf of Aqaba. Today UNEF soldiers watch as some six vessels a month push up the gulf to unload in the small Israeli port of Elath. But neither the Israelis (who are grateful) nor the Arabs (who do nothing to prevent the traffic) are anxious to call attention to the situation.

Gifts for Arabs. Across the Strait of Tiran, the Saudi Arabians have dug gun emplacements but show no evidence of using them. Back in Cairo, Colonel Nasser accepts the presence of UNEF as a reason for not interfering with Israeli vessels in the Gulf of Aqaba and thereby inviting another encounter with the Israeli army. Israel, at present, does not recognize the 1949 armistice agreement with Egypt, and still refuses to permit UNEF troops on its side of the border. But Israeli kibbutzim fraternize with the polyglot army, and Israel's government station broadcasts regularly in Swedish, Portuguese and Spanish for the benefit of UNEF troops. Nobody says so out loud, but everyone is content to have UNEF stay where it is. Last November the U.N. Assembly voted to maintain UNEF for another year.