Restraint Running Out?

When the first shells whistled in, off-guard Israeli troops were playing a Sabbath soccer game. Within moments along the 70-mile Suez front, Egyptian gunners had opened up with everything from long-range artillery to Russian-made Katyusha rockets. In all, 15 Israeli soldiers were killed and 34 wounded, mostly in the first rounds. The Israelis fired back, accounting for five Egyptian dead and nine wounded. It was the second artillery ambush by the Egyptians in seven weeks, and the first in which the Israelis emerged second best.

The barrage signaled yet another notch of military escalation by the Egyptians, who are now more belligerent than at any other time since last year's Six-Day War. All week, Cairo had feted a group of MIG fighter pilots who claimed to have recently shot down three Israeli planes (the Israelis dryly commented that "all of our planes returned safely to base"). Now Egypt's War Minister and Commander in Chief, Lieut. General Muhammad Fawzi, visited the Suez front, liberally passing out medals and praise.

Good for Morale. Just why Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser should fan his people's warlike mood and risk Israeli retaliation could only be a matter of speculation. Certainly the duel improved home-front morale and Nasser's political position. It also provided training. Under cover of the Suez barrage, about 70 soldiers crossed the canal and staged an ambush, killing two Israeli soldiers. But the most intricate theory had it that Nasser had been put up to it by his Russian advisers as a warm-up for an attempt to clear the Suez by force. No country has felt the pinch of the Suez shutdown more than Russia, which must send its ships around Africa to Asia in order to keep Hanoi supplied, among other things. The Russians have a dredge in the Mediterranean, and could send it into the canal with a destroyer escort, daring the Israelis to shoot.

The Israelis have already come close to a direct clash with the Russians. During September's artillery exchange, they refrained from hitting the Suez oil refinery--rebuilt since Israeli artillery destroyed it last year--for fear of hitting Russian technicians. This time, the Israelis aimed their guns at the refinery anyway, setting fire to three oil storage tanks.

Helping the Hawks. Even so, Israel's response was unusually restrained. Israelis have increasingly been goaded by raiding commandos based in Jordan and Egypt and encouraged by the extremist government of Syria. The new attack could only undermine Israel's doves, at a time when Foreign Minister Abba Eban was in Jerusalem for a Cabinet decision on how far to go toward peace with Egypt and Jordan. Eban's hawkish opponents argue that Jordan's King Hussein is not strong enough to make a peace agreement stick, given the adamant opposition of Jordan-based commandos and Nasser's mood.

For the moment, Israel and Jordan seemed willing to go on talking indirectly through the U.N.'s go-between, Gunnar Jarring. But it is questionable how much longer the slim restraints of Jarring's mission can keep the Israelis from resorting to a major retaliation against the newly bellicose Arabs.

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