Battle for Jordan

One evening last week the men of the Jordan border town of Kalkilya sat in cafes sipping coffee and playing backgammon. From Israel 400 yards to the west came the clatter of heavy vehicles and the flicker of headlights. A column of trucks lurched past the loungers. "Don't worry," an officer called out. "You won't get hurt. We're after the army." A moment later the street shook as the Israelis opened their attack on the big police fort on the other side of town. It was another Israeli reprisal raid, the fourth in a month. This one was in retaliation for two Israeli farm hands whom Jordanian guerrilla raiders killed in an orange grove across from Kalkilya, lopping off their victims' ears as trophies.

Unexpected Casualties. This time the Israeli attack did not go quite as planned. It took nearly two hours to capture and blow up the fort. Troops trying to take it by frontal assault across flat ground crisscrossed with barbed wire suffered un expected casualties. When the U.N. truce chief. Canada's Major General E.L.M. Burns, called for a ceasefire at midnight, the Israelis rejected it because, as a spokesman admitted later, "we weren't through yet." At that time, Israeli forces sent to block off reinforcements ran into a tough fight five miles east on the Samaritan road. For their first big thrust since 1949, the Arab Legion (rechristened the Jordanian army since King Hussein threw out Glubb

Pasha) sailed into action to help the beleaguered frontier guards. The Israeli ambushers killed 13 Jordanians in one truck. But they could not break off action until they brought up artillery, and heavy guns were firing over the border along a ten-mile front. Windows shook in Tel Aviv, 20 minutes away to the west. At Kalkilya shells rained both on the fort and the town, killing a nursing infant, his brother, an old woman. By 4:20 the Israelis finally pulled out. This time when they crossed the border they did not cheer or sing their mambo tunes.

A few hours after the fight was broken off, an Israeli army spokesman announced that Israel's forces had lost 18 dead and 12 wounded. U.N. observers counted 48 Jordanians known dead. "Poor arithmetic to suffer so many casualties to avenge so few," said a disgruntled Israeli.

Threats and Counterthreats. Since the latest raids so evidently failed to improve the security of Israel's border, other explanations needed to be found for the pattern of mounting Israeli attacks. One factor seems to be that Israelis believe that the state of Jordan is disintegrating politically, and that they must look to their flanks before the Egyptians or the Iraqis arrive there to fill the expected vacuum. Also, those Israeli who think a showdown with the Jordanians inevitable must be tempted to provoke the fight at a time when Jordan, its own forces considerably inferior to Israel, cannot count on the certain support of an Egypt preoccupied with the Suez problem. Lest Israel press too far, London formally warned the Israeli government that if Jordan is invaded, Britain will go to its aid as an ally. The U.S. let it be known that it would approve the transfer of Iraqi troops into Jordan to help avert possible government collapse and disorder. In the midst of all these military and diplomatic threats and counterthreats, Jordan itself entered the last week of an election campaign. In the refugee-jammed country, anti-West parties stood a good chance to win. Nasser sympathizers already hold key army commands, and young, British-educated King Hussein's throne may be in the balance. In any event the Middle East has another crisis abuilding that may not wait for Suez to be settled first.

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