Cock of the Walk

Egypt bathed in jubilation over Premier Nasser's arms deal with the Communists. "So now we will be meeting Mysteres with MIGs," said Nasser, matching his deal with Czechoslovakia against Israel's purchase of Mystere IV jets from France. Nasser insisted that the Czech trade was strictly "a one-shot deal," and no Communist technicians would accompany the arms. The Westerners were only partly reassured; the British tartly reminded Nasser that the 1954 Anglo-Egyptian pact calls for the reactivation by Britain of Suez Canal air bases in the event of an attack on Turkey, i.e., on NATO. Said a British diplomat: "We don't want to find MIGs on those airfields."

The deal elevated Nasser to a role he has coveted for some time, cock of the walk with the Arab world. Saudi Arabia urged all the Arab governments to follow Nasser's example. Said Saudi Arabia's Premier-Crown Prince Feisal: "The purchase of arms means the purchase of steel, not the purchase of ideologies." Even in Lebanon, the Arab country most closely oriented toward the U.S., the Chamber of Deputies passed a resolution unanimously supporting Egypt. Though it will be some time before the arms deal has the desired effect, Nasser felt strong enough to shout his plans to maintain "the blockade and boycott of Israel," and his right to "control the shipping in the Gulf of Aqaba." Nasser added cautiously: "No Arab says now that we must destroy Israel. The Arabs are asking only that refugees from Palestine receive their natural right to life and their lost property."

Israel felt otherwise. In the U.N., Israeli Ambassador Abba Eban assailed the Communists for providing arms "to governments whose primary international objective is to destroy a neighboring state with which they refuse to establish peace," and his government asked the U.S. to restore the "balance of power" by selling arms to Israel. Cried Eban: "Can Israel wait like a rabbit for the snake to get big enough to devour her?"

But, alarmed as they were at the artful Communist penetration into the precarious affairs of the Middle East, Western diplomats did not see how piling arms upon arms would help matters. Back from Cairo after two "fairly full" but apparently unsatisfying talks with Nasser, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State George V. Allen suggested that the best solution is for Egypt and Israel to stop talking about war. Said Allen: "The thing to do is to get things going the other way. A trend in the other direction might possibly be started by agreement on the division of the waters of the Jordan River." By nice coincidence, President Eisenhower's special envoy Eric Johnston arrived in Cairo at week's end for showdown talks with Arab leaders on the U.S.-sponsored Jordan Valley development plan, which would provide irrigable land for the resettlement of up to 200,000 refugee Arabs.

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