Middle East: Crumbling Deterrent

The most important difference between the time just before the Arab-Israeli war of 1967 and today is the widely held conviction that the Arabs would get licked in any new adventure. In other ways, the similarities between the two periods are proving quite remarkable. Last week United Nations Secretary-General U Thant warned both sides that U.N. observers cannot "continue indefinitely" to be exposed to artillery fire across the Suez Canal. Egypt's President Gamal Abdel Nasser, in a May Day speech that was his most belligerent since the war, declared: "We are planning for attack. Our forces are prepared to...

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