More Trouble for Sadat

Cairo was shaken last week by the kind of street battle between police and students that has often been an ominous indicator of the national mood. After a five-day sit-in at Cairo University, called to protest the arrest of anti-regime student leaders, 3,000 students decided to march on the capital's central square. At the university bridge over the Nile, they were halted and turned back to their campus by riot police equipped with helmets, shields, batons and tear gas. There were later protests across the city at Ain Shams University, but at week's end the government neatly nipped both demonstrations by ending the current semester ten days ahead of schedule and dispatching riot police to enforce the sudden holiday.

The principal student complaint was the country's present political impasse. In the two years since Anwar Sadat became president, Egypt has seen neither the increase in internal freedoms that he promised nor a solution to the no-war, no-peace stalemate that grips the Middle East. The students, moreover, are only one of many groups who are unhappy with the situation. The army is so restless that Sadat last October relieved his outspoken War Minister, General Mohammed Sadek; no reason was ever stated but anti-Sadat army grumbling was at the root of it. Afterward there were rumors in Cairo of abortive military coups. Egyptian journalists openly agitate against censorship. In a recent incident in Alexandria, 7,000 dock workers stormed a police station to free fellow laborers who had been arrested for participating in a wildcat strike. The situation is so perilous that Sadat, in the glow that followed his expulsion of Soviet military advisors (TIME, July 31), quietly introduced stiff new laws to punish acts that "threaten national unity."

The root of Sadat's problems is the impasse with Israel. Egypt basically wants peace, but will not make any more conciliatory moves unless and until the U.S. pressures Israel into concessions. Meanwhile, Sadat is trying to cover his inactivity with warlike words. In Cairo, "battle committees" composed of political and military leaders have been organized, ostensibly to mobilize Egypt for imminent fighting.

Scant Help. In his efforts to pacify the Egyptians, Sadat has so far received scant help from his Arab friends. Muammar Gaddafi, leader of neighboring Libya, last week marked the eighth anniversary of the Palestinian guerrilla movement with a speech in which he called for a united Arab front to annihilate Israel. It was hard to tell whether the pronouncement should be taken seriously. Gaddafi often improvises Libyan foreign policy as he speaks, and his erratic, impassioned rhetoric is largely discounted, even by his allies. Not so the actions of Syria, Sadat's other partner in the embryonic three-nation Federation of Arab Republics. Damascus and Jerusalem continue a running border war against each other, which on Syria's part, at least, is an attempt to draw Egypt back into the battle. Last week Syrian artillery once again pounded Israeli positions on the occupied Golan Heights, including the new settlement of Benei Yehuda. Israeli Phantoms scrambled to hit back at the Syrian guns and to tangle with the MIG-21s that climbed to meet them.

The aerial skirmishing was unlikely to lead to escalation of war on the ground. On the other hand, it was equally unlikely to contribute to any increase in diplomatic activity. Far from pressuring either side, the U.S. State Department, at the orders of the White House, is merely offering itself as a potential Middle East go-between should Israel or the Arabs really want to talk. One State Department official who favors more pressure from Washington last week gloomily characterized peace prospects as "moribund."

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