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Swallowing Pride. Eshkol thus sought to strengthen his own position and to bring to his government some of the unity that seemed to be hogged by the Arabs all week. His move came after a surprising and ominous truce had been reached by Egypt's President Gamal Abdel Nasser and Jordan's King Hussein, who only a few days earlier had seemed dedicated foes. Hussein, whose country has the longest border with Israel (325 miles), flew into Cairo at the controls of his own royal Caravelle jet, spent 21 hours talking with Nasser. They then signed a five-year defense pact that would put an Egyptian general in charge of the Jordanian army if war comes.
In return, Nasser called off his propaganda barrage against the King, sent a special emissary to persuade the revolution-minded regime in Syria that Hussein, for the time being at least, should be upgraded from "Hashemite harlot" to hero. Hussein doubtless felt that he had to take the move to save his throne from being overthrown by Jordan's heavy population of Palestinian exiles, who complain that he has not taken a strong enough stand against Israel. Nonetheless, he had to swallow a lot of pride; he once more welcomed to Jordan's soil, for example, Ahmed Shukairy, head of the fanatic Palestinian Liberation Organization and a constant slanderer of Hussein, whom the King had banned from his kingdom.
There were also indications that a truce was imminent between Nasser and Saudi Arabia's King Feisal, leader of the anti-Nasser bloc of Arab nations by virtue of his opposition to Egyptian designs in Yemen. Though Nasser's bombers last week conducted another gas-bomb attack on Royalist Yemeni towns, Feisal, now ending a month-long visit to Europe, flew off to Cairo to see the Egyptian leader on his way home. (Cairo's semiofficial newspaper, Al Ahram, reported that Nasser has started withdrawing some of his 50,000 troops from Yemen.)
Other Arabs gathered round like Bedouins in the same tent. Kuwait Air ways canceled a dozen flights to airlift a Kuwaiti infantry brigade into Egypt, and Iraqi forces moved into the Sinai Desert to back up Egypt. At desert staging areas in Algeria, troop detachments prepared to depart for the Israeli frontier. From far-off Morocco, where young King Hassan II leans heavily on the support of wealthy Moroccan Jews, came a pledge of troops and a call for an Arab summit meeting. Libya's ancient King Idris emerged from his countinghouse long enough to dispatch soldiers to Egypt. The Sudan's new Prime Minister, Mohammed Mahgoub, ordered full mobilization and an airlift of troops to Sinai. Even Tunisia's President Habib Bourguiba, who has been considered a renegade Arab ever since he suggested peace talks with Israel two years ago, reluctantly volunteered a detachment of Tunisian troops.
Um Kalthoum, Egypt's top pop singer, captured the sudden fervor that seemed to seize the usually squabbling Arabs as their armies stared across the borders into Israel and their generals flew out in all directions to confer with each other. Sung in her smoky contralto, the martial song quickly climbed to the top of the Arab hit parade:
We are going back by force of arms.
We are going back like morning after the dark night.
Army of Arabism, may God be with you.
Oh, how great, splendid and brave you are.