Syria worked up a diplomatic and journalistic sweat today over the seizure of the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Paris yesterday by five persons identified as Arabs. Not so, commented Al Baath, the official mouth-piece of Syria’s ruling Baath Socialist Party. The operation was actually carried out by hold on–now–“Israel and imperialist intelligence services.” The reason for this caper, Al Baath tells its readers, was to disrupt and embarrass the conference of non-aligned nations in Algiers.
The timing couldn’t have been worse, the paper observed, taking place as it did at a time “when the eyes of the world” were focussed on the conference “where every effort is being made by Arab and other world leaders to condemn Israel.” Obviously, Al Baath continued, “this sabotage operation was planned precisely to disrupt this summit conference and to distract world opinion away from it.”
It seems ironic, to say the least, that “Israel and imperialist intelligence service” would demand and then proceed to fly out of Paris with six hostages to–of all places–Cairo.
If Syria was concerned about the incident in Paris it remained discreetly silent about the discovery of missile launchers in Ostia which had been set up to blow El Al airliners out of the sky. This apparently didn’t interfere with the summit conference in Algiers. Or was this, too, carried out by “Israel and imperialist intelligence service?” The logic of the Al Baath ruling party boggles the mind.
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