Anti-Egyptian feelings continued to mount here today among members of Congress following the statement made last week at a public meeting in Port Said by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser that the United States "can jump in the lake." This insulting statement was coupled with a rejection by Egyptian Deputy Premier Mahmoud Fawzi of an American protest by U.S. Ambassador Lucius Battle pertaining to the shooting down of an American civilian plane.
Various Jewish and non-Jewish organizations have in the meantime urged the State Department to withhold its aid to Egypt until assured by Nasser that he will not use this aid for military adventures. In his anti-American speech, Nasser said that he is sending arms to Congo and will continue to send arms to the Congolese rebels, despite President Johnson’s appeal to him not to do so. He also made aggressive remarks against Israel and referred to Iran as "an American colony subjected to American and Zionist influences."
A State Department spokesman said today that the Department did not anticipate an immediate response to Nasser’s denunciation of the United States. The bulk of American aid to Egypt is in the form of surplus food shipments under a three-year agreement signed in 1962 that extends through next fall. Nasser said in his abusive speech that he has already received from the United States $115,000,000 in such aid. He insists on getting an extra $35,000,000.
(The New York Times said in an editorial that the insults to the United States voiced by Nasser in his speech "are less important than his blatant assertion to resolve to help equip forces of pillage, murder and dissension in their effort to overthrow the legal government of the Congo." The editorial pointed out that "the Nasser declaration makes it impossible for the United States to escape a recognition that the millions of dollars in surplus food this country sends to Egypt operates–by freeing Egyptian funds–as an indirect subsidy in helping it carry out its policy of international disruption."
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
