The Assembly is split into a number of blocs. There are the Afro-Asian bloc, the South American bloc and the Iron Curtain bloc, the members of which … - Frederick Lindemann, 1st Viscount Cherwell

I hate living in a fool's paradise, and though, like everyone else, I wish U.N.O. could work, I have come reluctantly to the view that in its present form it cannot. It is composed, of course, of men full of the best intentions, and its admirers are equally well-meaning. But I cannot help feeling that people tend to overestimate its power for good and to underrate its potentialities for evil. We know all too well nowadays how easy it is for people to fall victims to phrases, to be hypnotised by slogans, and I am afraid that that is what is happening in the case of U.N.O. "Send it to U.N.O." is becoming a sort of incantation. In many quarters it seems to be treated as a shibboleth. You have only to mouth the words and go through the ceremonial, and all will be well.

Perhaps the greatest outrage in the Middle East is the way the Israelis have been treated in comparison with the Egyptians. That this has been allowed to pass with so little protest must, it seems to me, be due to the anti-Semitism, conscious or unconscious, which, unhappily, exists in so many circles. I personally hold no particular brief for the Jews. There are good and bad Jews, just as there are good and bad Englishmen, or even good and bad Scots; and, for all I know, the percentage of bad may be greater in one case than in the other. But whatever the facts, I consider indiscriminate anti-Semitism altogether deplorable. There is not even a difference of colour to explain this violent prejudice which crops up so often in such unexpected places. Whatever the reason, nobody can deny that bias has been shown in the way the Israeli-Egyptian conflict has been handled by the United Nations.

The Egyptian claim that they were in a state of war with Israel was forgotten. The Israelis were vilified in the Press, and every conceivable form of pressure was brought to bear to force them to retire, not merely beyond their real legal frontier but right out of the Gaza Strip, to which the Egyptians had no claim whatsoever, except that they had occupied it in the war they unleashed against Israel in 1948 and which, according to their story, still persists. Only Egyptians, apparently, are allowed to break the conditions of the truce. Israelis must fulfil them to the last iota. I can understand a strong anti-Semite taking this line, but it is amazing to find so many honourable people adopting it without any explanation.