Short Shrift in Egypt

Though the shooting war has ended, the nations that invaded Egypt were still mad at Nasser. Israeli Foreign Minister Golda Meir accused the Egyptian government of planning the wholesale expulsion of 30,000 Jews from Egypt. Two days later, Britain and France protested to the U.N. that large numbers of the nearly 20,000 French and British nationals in Egypt were being forced out of the country in a manner "reminiscent of the barbarous methods of mass deportation . . . which have been practiced in other countries."

In Cairo Nasser told TIME a different story. "At the beginning," said he, "British and French citizens were completely free. Then came Port Said. We got news that French and British civilians were shooting people in the streets from windows and doors. We kept this out of the Egyptian press by censorship, for fear it would provoke popular acts against British and French citizens. We decided to tell British and French citizens they could not leave their homes . . . About 2,000 of these people have asked for exit visas, and about 1,000 of them have gone." As for the Jews, only "about 30 out of 45,000 Egyptian Jews have been arrested."

Despite Nasser's protestations, there was considerable evidence that Britons, Frenchmen and Jews resident in Egypt were indeed being given short shrift. In Marseille, Jewish refugees from Port Said tearfully insisted that a few days prior to the Anglo-French attack, the Egyptian police seized one hostage from each Jewish family in the city. In London, Englishmen newly expelled from Egypt reported that their homes and other possessions had been auctioned off by the Egyptian government, and all their funds over $28 confiscated.

The Egyptian government proclaimed its determination to speedily "Egyptianize" the administration of all the vast British and French holdings in Egypt, including banks, buildings, oil companies, schools. About the only deterrent that might keep Egypt from grabbing all the Anglo-French investments in Egypt (estimated from $200 million to $500 million) is the knowledge that Britain has nearly $300 million of frozen Egyptian assets.

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