Middle East: Incident at Samu

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What Eshkol left unsaid was his certainty that, so-called Arab unity being what it is, Jordan would find itself with far less Arab support than Syria, which is much closer to Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser. And sure enough, Jordan's Arab partners waited until the Israelis had withdrawn before coming forth with their indignant vows of support. Hussein's only real vote of confidence, in fact, came in a special session of the United Nations Security Council, where Russia joined the U.S., France and Great Britain in rare agreement and condemned the Israeli attack. U.S. Ambassador Arthur Goldberg termed the raid "inexcusable" and pushed for a formal U.N. resolution censuring Israel.

More Shooting Than Talking. The fear haunting the U.N., of course, was that continued terrorism against Israel might trigger an even bloodier reprisal next time, and possibly even a full-scale Middle East war. For his part, Egypt's Nasser, the key to any Arab war against Israel, hopes to head off a major conflict—at least, right now. With 40,000 of his 200,000 troops committed in Yemen, Nasser is in no position for another big campaign. So he is trying to soften up the Syrians and persuade them to lay off the terrorism. Fortnight ago, Nasser signed a mutual defense pact with Syria's Premier Youssef Zayyen, putting both armed forces under a joint command and giving Egypt a strong say in Syrian military matters.

Within 24 hours after the Israeli raid, Nasser sent a special "military mission" to Damascus to talk further about terrorism and the Middle East's sharpening tensions. As the Egyptian negotiators began the discussions, the Syrians made conversation in other ways. For four days straight, Syrian hill positions ten miles north of the Sea of Galilee traded shots with Israeli patrols across the border.