General Yitzhak Rabin, Israel’s Chief of Staff, said today that the Israeli Army was ready for the test if the Arabs carried out their threats to oppose by force the Israeli Negev irrigation program which will indirectly tap the Jordan River.
He reiterated that it was Israeli Army preparedness which maintained the gap between the Arabs’ desire to attack Israel and the possibility of carrying out such an attack.
Deputy Defense Minister Shimon Peres, meanwhile, emphasized the need for alertness and increased effort on the part of Israel to prevent war in the Middle East. In an address to the Tel Aviv Press Club, Mr. Peres stressed that Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser was determined to increase his country’s military strength. He said that the only ways Israel could prevent war in the region were by maintaining a deterrent power, increasing its friendship with various countries, settlement of the Negev and Galilee, and intensifying its scientific and technical potential.
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