American Friends of the Middle East 1959-1962: American-Arab Relations: A New Phase?

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233 : IJtf. r AMERICAN-ARAB RELATIONS: A NEW PHASE? Summary of an address delivered by Dr. Fayez A. Sayegh at Carnegie Endowment Center,New York, under the auspices of the American Friends of the Middle East, on October 20, 1959 The question before us today is whether or not we now stand at the threshold of a new era in American-Arab relations -- an era in which some of the irritants of the past may be eliminated, much of the suspicion and distrust of recent years may be mitigated and perhaps replaced by mutual trust and cooperation, and the process of American-Arab alienation (which had reached an ominous climax a little over a year ago) may begin to be reversed. - I - On the surface, there have been some recent indications suggestion that this might be the case. The absence of any major crisis in American-Arab relations since the end of the summer of 1958; the relative mildness of the tone of Cairo broadcasts regarding the United States; the release of some frozen funds of the United Arab Republic in the United States; the resumption, on a limited scale, of Point Four aid and other types of American assistance - all these phenomena indicate some measure of improvement in the relations between the United Arab Republic and the United States, Similar improvement in the relations between the United Arab Republic and the United Kingdom, not the least notable manifestation of which has been the de-sequestration of British property in the United Arab Republic, has also been registered in the past months. A gradual, slow, ever so limited, yet nevertheless real and steady improvement in the relations between the United Arab Republic and the West has been taking place.