Word: suez
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Wits rated it with the Suez invasion as one of Britain's more disastrous Middle Eastern ventures. Prime Minister Harold Wilson hastened to disclaim responsibility for the entire affair. The Times of London spoke somberly "of hospitality blasted, of reputations uprooted and of good intentions snatched up and hurled hundreds of yards into limbo." Added the Times: "A deafening silence has descended over the Middle East. Only the occasional soft sounds of a tank battle serve to fill the echoing void that has been left by the return home of Mr. George Brown...
...Cairo, Brown lingered so long with the crewmen of the 14 ships trapped in the Great Bitter Lake by the closing of the Suez Canal that he stood up Arab Commando Leader Yasser Arafat and influential Editor Hassanein Heikal for lunch. During his talks with Nasser, he repeatedly addressed Nasser's adviser on foreign affairs, Dr. Mahmoud Fawzi, as "you wily old bugger...
...according to a military spokesman in Cairo, the biggest raid ever carried out on the east bank of the Suez Canal: 250 Egyptian commandos crossed at the south end of the Ballah Cut, stormed Israeli positions, forced the enemy to withdraw three miles, blew up all the abandoned equipment and fortifications, planted the flag of the United Arab Republic, held their ground against everything the Israelis could throw at them for 24 hours, and then returned to base...
Using their old trick of feinting here, then clouting there, the Israelis made considerable trouble last week. One day Bar-Lev and Defense Minister Moshe Dayan made a well-publicized visit to the Suez Canal front. The next day an Israeli armored force thundered off into Jordan in search of guerrillas who had attacked a vital chemical plant on the Dead Sea. Next day, while Israeli planes attacked ammunition dumps near Cairo, Dayan and Prime Minister Golda Meir were visiting the Jordan River valley (after the visit, Dayan fractured his ankle in a leap from a helicopter...
While everybody's attention was turned elsewhere, a team of Israeli paratroopers seized the Egyptian-held island of Shadwan at the entrance to the Gulf of Suez, just north of the Red Sea. An old British-made radar unit, used to monitor naval traffic, was on the island. It was not nearly so sophisticated as the seven-ton Soviet installation that was hauled back to Israel from Egypt in December. Even so, said an officer, "we will get around to unscrewing it and ferry it across the gulf." After a 32-hour occupation, the Israelis dismantled the unit...