Defense Minister Moshe Dayan said yesterday that the Arabs might try to “heat up” the frontiers this summer but were not in a position to launch an all-out war. Gen. Dayan spoke in an Independence Day interview on the Army radio. He said the Arabs might try a surprise attack on Israeli airfields but added. “I do not think they will succeed.”
Gen. Dayan said the Four Power talks on the Mideast were undertaken on the assumption that the threat of renewed warfare was serious and observed that “it is not impossible that the Arabs, especially Egypt, are really trying to create such a picture.” But he thought Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser would not go beyond the talking stage of his March 27 threat to bomb and shell Israeli civilian centers. Gen. Dayan also disputed Col. Nasser’s contention that time was working for the Arabs. He said Israel’s security forces faced a four-fold task’ Day-to-day security, manning the cease-fire lines; fighting guerrillas, and administering occupied territories.
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