TALE OF A CITY 152 As a result, the US Near East Air Transport Co., was re-registered in Sharjah under a different name: Middle East-Sharjah Airways.7 Mr Bernard of the Office of the Civil Air Attaché, Baghdad, expressed his concerns in a letter to the Ministry of Civil Aviation in London dated 6 December 1950. He wrote: 3. Apart from purely civil aviation aspects involved, I feel that the Ministry would be well advised to consult the Foreign Office without delay concerning the use of Sharjah (or other Persian Gulf airfields) by Near East for the following reasons. This airline, which specialises in transporting displaced persons to Israel appears to be engaged in carrying Soviet Jewish refugees from Hong Kong to Israel flying non-stop from Sharjah to Lydda. It seems difficult to imagine that the back door of the Soviet Union should remain open sufficiently long to enable this very large stream of refugees to forsake paradise for the rigours of the outside world, especially with the blessing of the Chinese Communists, whose territory would almost certainly have been crossed. Sir Desmond Morton mentioned that a cursory examination of passengers identification documents revealed that where as some of them had none at all other appeared to have too many. These refugees might well prove to be trained agents of the Soviet Union, but I imagine that the Foreign Office will have more complete information on this point. 4. Far more important is the fact that if these refugees are Jews, or travelling as Jews, their presence at Sharjah or in any other Arab territory in the Persian Gulf is not likely to be condoned by the native population. Although as yet unable to give positive information, I am rather concerned that certain Iraq. immigration officials dealing with the exodus of Jewish refugees from Iraq and thus in close contact with Near East Transport, seem to suspect that Near East are landing at Sharjah or at any rate somewhere in the Persian Gulf with Jews on board. In view of the strong antiJewish feeling in Iraq, I fear that we shall in time be faced with a difficult situation at Sharjah as on to the extent of an attack by armed tribesmen onNear East aircraft and passengers and probably on the airfield and fort. Under the best of circumstances we should find the situation embarrassing. 7 Ibid., CAA/72/23, GA58/2.
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