Israel Minister of Defense Moshe Dayan conferred today with Lt. Gen. Odd Bull, the United Nations Secretary-General’s representative in the Middle East, on implementation of the agreement for the stationing of United Nations observers along the Suez Canal to supervise the Egyptian-Israeli cease-fire. It was understood that a general agreement on procedures was reached and Gen. Bull was to proceed to Cairo today to work out similar arrangements with the Egyptian authorities.
(Gen. Bull notified Secretary-General U Thant today that an advance party of seven observers would be ready to take up observation positions along the canal as soon as clearances are arranged.
(Mr. Thant made public today the text of the Israeli and Egyptian letters of agreement to the observer arrangement. It was noted that the Egyptian reply specifically referred to the arrangement as “a temporary measure.”)
Although Israel has agreed to the stationing of observers along the canal, there are few illusions here as to the effectiveness of the U.N. measure. The conviction is strong here that Egypt has definitely embarked on an escalation policy and will seek to create crisis after crisis to show that the cease-fire arrangement is unworkable and that a renewed outbreak of fighting can be averted only by an Israeli pullback to the pre-June lines.
It is in this light that the Israelis see the military incidents of the last few days such as the dispatch of two Egyptian bombers over Israeli-held territory yesterday, the deployment of Egyptian torpedo boats in Israeli-controlled waters, which resulted in last night’s naval battle and the sinking of two Egyptian vessels and the Egyptian artillery fire this morning on two patrolling Israeli jeeps in the Ras el-Eish area.
The punishment which Egypt has taken in the many violations of the cease-fire it has initiated — and it has been severe — has not deterred the Egyptians. They apparently are prepared to pay a military price to achieve political and diplomatic ends.
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