Joining the Crowd

"Citizens! Britain was always sly with Egypt."

The voice was subdued, grim, with none of the usual flamboyant confidence. From his little office in ex-King Farouk's boathouse on the Nile, Gamal Abdel Nasser appealed to 22 1/2 million Egyptians. His words carried also to an enormous Arab audience from the Atlantic to the Persian Gulf, from Casablanca to Basra.

"Today we face British cunning with a single, united stand," said Nasser.

"We shall fight a bitter battle. We shall fight from village to village, from house to house, from place to place, because each one of you, my fellow countrymen, is a soldier. We shall not surrender. I promise you, my brethren, that I shall fight with you to the last drop of my blood."

The Pipelines. In these defiant words, with their faded Churchillian echoes, Egypt's strongman prepared his people for guerrilla war--and did not add what his words implied: that his army and air force had been badly mauled. The same day, the chief priests of Cairo's famed El Azhar Mosque proclaimed a jihad, or holy war, against Britain and France.

Before British bombers knocked Egypt's Voice of the Arabs off the air, the International Federation of Arab Workers broadcast an appeal to Arab field hands to blow up Western oil installations--"even if it means blowing up all the pipelines in the Arab world!" Promptly, workers in tiny Bahrein set fire to a British oil company office. Three big explosions were reported along the Iraq Petroleum Co.'s 556-mile pipeline to the Mediterranean. Saboteurs may have acted on their own. At least, none of the oil-producing or oil-transmitting Arab nations officially ordered the sabotaging of oil installations. They seemed well aware that they, as well as Nasser's enemies, would be hurt by such destruction.

Unhelpful Allies. For all of Nasser's vaunted Arab nationalism, the most remarkable feature of the Arab world's reaction to the invasion was, in fact, the failure of the dictator's allies to rush to his help with much besides talk. Morocco and Tunisia proclaimed themselves on Nasser's side. So did Saudi Arabia. Iraq's rulers denounced Britain's "aggression." But this Baghdad Pact partner of the British was racked by conflicting emotions --secret satisfaction at seeing its chief Arab rival in trouble, open hatred for Israel. Syria--presumably Nasser's stoutest friend--broke off diplomatic relations with France and Britain, but Jordan broke only with France. The Jordanian Kingdom of 20-year-old King Hussein was paralyzed by fear and foreboding.

At week's end Syrian forces in brigade strength moved over the border into eastern Jordan, and Baghdad announced that Iraqi armored elements were also on their way into Jordan. The presumption was that they were there to help Jordan defend itself against an Israeli invasion, although their presence might also give Israel the pretext for invading Jordan. By expanding eastward to the Jordan River, Israel could, at Jordan's expense, straighten out its borders (at one point only seven miles wide). That would leave Jordan with a wide stretch of desert, and not much to live on. One of the fears agitating Jordan was that the friends who came to help might stay on to batten on the pieces.

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