World: MIDDLE EAST: THE WAR AND THE WOMAN

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to be Egyptian military vehicles. They were machine-gunned. Sentries were shot down before they could reach for their guns. Some men asleep in guard posts along the road died without waking when Israeli engineers leaped out of the half-tracks and slid satchel charges into the huts where they lay.

Farther down the road, the column clanked up to the small outpost at Ras Abu Dareg, leveled its guns on a radar installation and demolished it. In the village of Ras Zafarana, the tanks destroyed another radar, then radioed Tel Aviv for permission to attack a detachment of Egyptian armor parked farther south. Because the convoy had already been in Egypt for ten hours—suffering one man wounded during the whole time —headquarters ordered them home. Landing craft picked up the soldiers and ferried them back unopposed.

No reinforcements ever arrived to aid the outgunned Egyptians. Officials later maintained that they did not want to expose tanks and men to strafing Israeli jets. But two days later, smarting under an attack that they refused to admit had succeeded, the Egyptians scrambled jets to attack Israeli troops on the Sinai side of the Suez Canal. All told, Cairo claimed, 102 Egyptian planes were in the air. They were challenged by Israeli pilots, and a swirl of dogfights began. Before darkness ended the fighting, Israel claimed eleven Egyptian planes downed against only one of its own. The total was the biggest for a single day since the '67 war, and brought total Egyptian postwar losses to 51. Egypt maintained that it shot down six Israeli planes and lost two. Judging from the wreckage visible on the ground, the Israeli claim seemed more valid.

The Israelis felt that they had compelling reasons for the strike. Through the summer, the country's morale had sagged as casualty lists grew. Nasser had begun talking of "a battle of destiny." Mrs. Meir and her aides decided to remind Egypt's President not to get carried away by his own rhetoric and to demonstrate that the Arab armies were no match for the Israelis.

The last point was proved beyond the slightest doubt. On paper, at least, the Arab armies are stronger than the Israeli forces. In its most recent annual report, London's Institute for Strategic Studies estimates that, including reserves, the United Arab Republic, Jordan, Syria and Iraq have a total of 400,000 men under arms v. 290,000 for Israel. Together the Arab countries have 2,200 tanks compared with 1,000 for Israel and about 645 jet interceptors and fighter-bombers to 195 for the Israelis. In Egypt's case, the bulk of the equipment has been supplied by the Soviet Union since the 1967 war and includes MIG-21s, T-55 tanks and SA-2 surface-to-air missiles. None of it seemed to help. "It would be absolutely wrong," conceded Russia's Komsomolskaya Pravda last week, "to conceal the shortcomings in the Egyptian army." Morale is low. Once the Arab rallying cry was: "Push Israel into the sea!" Recently, reflecting the Arab feeling of futility, it has been: "Let Israel take all the land she wants, then choke on it."

One problem is that most Arab soldiers are far less motivated than their Israeli counterparts, who are sure that they are fighting for the survival of their nation. Arabs have fought bravely, but they do not have the feeling that the very survival of their