Egyptian President Nasser’s warning to his Arab followers at home and throughout the Arab world to exercise patience so that a victory over Israel would be won “in the end” was believed today to reflect his apparent belief that his military forces were not ready for another war now and would not be ready for some time.
Mr. Nasser told King Hussein of Jordan that the Egyptian armed forces would not be completely rebuilt from their shattering defeat in the 1967 Six-Day War and ready for a new battle with Israel, according to a New York Times report from Cairo. The Times report cited “unconfirmed” information that when Mr. Nasser was in Moscow this month, Soviet leaders told him it would take as much as five years to prepare the Egyptian military machine for another war with Israel.
(The Nasser speech was described in Tel Aviv last night by Israel Defense Minister Moshe Dayan as having made it clear that Israel’s alternatives were not “territory or war” but “war or peace.” Gen. Dayan also told the meeting of army industrial workers that the Nasser speech, made to his Arab Socialist Union Party, constituted “the most extreme expression” of the severity of the Arab-Israel struggle.)
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