Gen. Mohammed Naguib, the “strong man of Egypt” last night expressed his views on Israel in an interview granted in Cairo to C. L. Sulzberger, chief correspondent of the New York Times. Premier Naguib criticized the Western powers for having supported the new Israeli state and said that “in order to create a nation of 1,000,000 you have spoiled relationships with 50, 000, 000 Arabs who own, among other things, great quantities of oil.”
He said Egypt did not trust Israel’s intentions, that Israel had violated every United Nations decision and that the expulsion of almost 1,000,000 Arab refugees had left a “bad stain.” He added that Israel must accept the refugees’ return before she could be considered “trustworthy.”
He also explained that the Israeli-West German agreement for the payment of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of German goods in restitution for Nazi brutality and the dispossession of Jews was vigorously opposed here because it was designed to strengthen Israel militarily. The United States, he said, could have prevented this agreement had it wished to do so.
A Cairo broadcast said today that an “informed source “reports that Premier Naguib will be invited to visit the United States as a guest of the Government when President Dwight Eisenhower takes over at the White House.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
