Foreign Ministry circles indicated today that intensified anti-Israel boycott activity by the United Arab Republic, and United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjolds failure to work out any solution of the Suez Canal issue, will force Israel to appeal to the Security Council.
The Government has hinted several times in recent months that it might take such action but it refrained from doing so, it was asserted today, in deference to advice from the Western Powers to give Mr. Hammarskjold a chance to work something out by “quiet diplomacy.”
Recent developments, climaxed by the seizure at the Suez Canal of mail directed to Israel, have established, in the Israeli view, that, even if Mr. Hammarskjold tried, he failed completely to secure any modification of the UAR position. Israelis stressed Mr. Hammarskjold’s failure to secure action on even such a relatively minor question as the release of the Danish freighter Inge Toft. That vessel, with its cargo from Israel for Far Eastern ports, has been held by the UAR at Port Said since May 21.
Under the conditions of a tightened blockade and the increasing violence of Arab threats against Israel, the Israel Government, it was emphasized here today, may find it impossible to continue any longer a policy of silence, without the danger of a grave loss of face with the Arab world and with the Israeli public which goes to the polls for the national election of a new Parliament in November.
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