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Belligerent State. Egypt has not yet decided whether to allow Israeli ships to pass through the canal. In the past Egypt has barred Israeli ships from the canal—and from the Gulf of Aqaba—on grounds of Egypt's continued "state of belligerency" against Israel. Back in 1951 the U.N. Security Council ruled out this claim as incompatible with the 1949 Egyptian-Israeli armistice.
Nasser last week promised a group of student visitors from Gaza "to win back all Palestine." Diplomats in Cairo believe that Nasser may accept indefinite stationing of U.N. Emergency Force troops to keep peace along the border, but will insist on control over Gaza and the Gulf of Aqaba. Last week John Foster Dulles made plain that the U.S. will not be disposed to release the $50 million in blocked Egyptian funds so long as Nasser shows himself intractable.
Nasser now wants the U.N. to do for him what he cannot do for himself: repel invaders, reopen the canal. But he has yet to indicate that he feels any obligation to the rest of the world. At the same time he complains that the U.S. is trying to isolate him. The isolation, which may increase, is his own doing.