Gen. Yigal Allon, a hero of Israel’s War of Liberation in 1948 and Minister of Labor in the Israel Government, called today for the “rapid consolidation and fortification of Israel’s present borders” to counter the stand taken by President Nasser of Egypt in his bellicose speech to the Egyptian National Assembly last week.
Gen. Allon said that the Nasser speech was “an aggressive attempt to cover up a pathetic situation,” but he warned that “we cannot ignore his threats.” Israel’s cease-fire borders are more secure today, he said, but new settlements should be established in strategic areas.
(In London, the Israel Chief of Staff, Gen. Itzhak Rabin, told British newsmen, that Israel was “ready for any eventuality.” He said it was “a bad thing that Nasser wants war, but it is a good thing for people to realize that he does.” He said that “we hope for peace, but we are prepared for war.”)
(Gen. Rabin reported that some of the war materiel which Egypt had received from the Soviet Union since the June war was superior to the equipment the Egyptian Army had used before the hostilities.)
(In New York, Ambassador Avraham Harman told the convention of the National Committee for Labor Israel that the Nasser speech was “a commitment, not for peace, but for war.” He stressed Israel’s need “to be able at all times to dispose of an adequate defensive capacity to avert renewal of the conflict” and urged that “international influences be brought to bear on the Arab states to confirm to their obligations under the United Nations Charter and their duties under the Security Council’s resolution to negotiate peace with Israel.”)
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