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Nasser Calls for Arab Unity in ‘final Struggle’ to Defeat Israel

April 16, 1968
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President Nasser of Egypt urged Arab states today to bury differences and join forces for a struggle to achieve final victory over Israel, according to Cairo reports. Nasser told the Arab Workers Federation central bureau that “the question for the entire Arab world now is: to be or not to be.”

Arab disunity was blamed for the defeat last June and the failure of King Hussein to regain lost territory. Nasser said it was necessary more than ever for all Arab nations to mobilize at the government. Popular and military levels as well as in the “arab popular armies.” The reference to “popular armies” was interpreted as a call for wider guerrilla warfare.

Nasser spoke to the workers group shortly after President Abdel Rashid Ali Shermerke of Somalia, warned that Israel’s refusal to withdraw “may well lead to another world war which may cause the annihilation of mankind.”

It was also reported from Cairo today that two modern Soviet destroyers had joined the seven Russian naval vessels already at Alexandria.

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