Egypt’s Premier Intensifies Propaganda Campaign Against Israel

Egypt’s Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser, at a public meeting in Cairo, yesterday attacked Israel, and charged that the burning of the United States Information Service libraries in Cairo and Alexandria had been committed by “a Zionist group acting under instructions from Israel.”

This is the second time within three days that the Egyptian Premier attacked Israel publicly. The same anti-Israel charges were voiced by him last Thursday, in a press interview in which he stated that many “Zionist terrorists” have been arrested recently in Egypt under charges of burning the American libraries, and of placing bombs in six American-owned moving picture houses.

Addressing about 2,000 leaders of the Liberation Rally, the ruling Army junta’s own political organization, Col. Nasser said that Israel has been trying to obstruct the negotiations between Britain and Egypt over the withdrawal of the British troops from the Suez Canal zone, and to create dissension between the United States and Egypt in order to prevent the American Government from sending arms to Egypt. He emphasized that Egypt would not enter into any mutual defense pacts with the United States or Britain.

(The New York Times, in a cable from Cairo, reported that Col. Nasser said “there was no possibility of any change in Egypt’s attitude toward Israel until she implements the United Nations resolutions on refugees and partition.” The Times correspondent emphasized in his cable that the Egyptian Premier “carefully distinguished between the Zionist organization in Egypt and the non-Zionist Jewish community of about 85,000 persons, when he discussed the terrorist actions.”)