A Distant Peace

In the aftermath of their Khartoum summit meeting, some Arab nations finally began to patch up their quarrels with one another. They also began to deal more rationally with the West. Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Libya dropped their oil embargo against the U.S. and Britain and reaffirmed their promise to subsidize Egypt and Jordan to the tune of $392 million a year as long as "traces of Israeli aggression" persist. Egypt and Sudan restored landing rights to Britain's BOAC, and Egypt was on the verge of allowing T.W.A. back into Cairo. Even those two archenemies among the Arabs--Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser and Saudi Arabia's King Feisal--were talking to each other. After agreeing to end their five-year war in Yemen, Nasser unfroze more than $100 million worth of Saudi assets in Egypt, and Feisal denationalized two Egyptian-owned banks that he had taken over earlier this year.

Such actions may have impressed Arabs--but not their Israeli conquerors, to whom true peace seems as distant as ever. Jordanian and Egyptian troops fired on Israeli border positions five times last week. During one skirmish at the mouth of the Suez Canal, the irritated Israelis finally wheeled up tanks and mortars and bombarded the Egyptian resort town of Port Tewfic, killing 44 and wounding 170 others. Two days later, Israeli Premier Levi Eshkol flew to the Suez battlefront and told his troops that "we must be on our guard and hold the positions and frontiers that our forces have reached." Said Eshkol bluntly, "There is no better border than this canal."

Advice to the U.N. Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban called a press conference in Jerusalem and once more spelled out his country's position. "We have looked in vain for any sign of moderation in the official attitude of the Arab states," he said. "There are no such signs at all. The Khartoum conference decided on three principles: no recognition of Israel, no negotiation with Israel, no peace with Israel. These resolutions cannot be described as moderate decisions."

Yugoslavia's President Josip Tito, Eban explained, was only wasting his time trying to peddle his peace formula. "Let us imagine that I were to go to Washington, Mexico, Caracas and Dar es Salaam in order to discuss Yugoslavia's relations with her neighbors. Wouldn't somebody say, 'Now what is Abba Eban up to? What business is it of his?'" Then Eban posed much the same question for the United Nations General Assembly, which reconvenes later this month to discuss the Arab-Israeli war. What business is it of the U.N.'s? he asked. "Our advice to the General Assembly will be not to attempt what is beyond its power and responsibility. The main responsibility for working out a solution of this conflict rests in the area itself. It is for Israel and the Arab states together to formulate and determine the conditions of their coexistence. A solution cannot arise externally."

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