Shells Across Suez

MIDDLE EAST

The Egyptian artillerymen waited until the sun was low over the Suez Canal and shining in the eyes of Israeli gunners on the occupied east bank. Then, along the 70-mile front, they opened up with a sustained barrage, promptly answered in kind by the Israelis. At a time when a settlement in the Middle East is much on the minds of the leaders of the U.S., Russia and Western Europe, last week's sudden flare-up of violence seemed even more than usually to fit Clausewitz's definition of war as "continuation of diplomacy by other means." It was equally ominous that for four days Arabs and Israelis were once again doing battle in the heaviest exchange of artillery fire since their 1967 war.

Blackout in Cairo. The Egyptians have an estimated five divisions and 1,000 guns along the canal. The Israelis have roughly one division and crews to man perhaps a third as many guns, which they move frequently to deprive the Egyptians of fixed targets. An estimated 40,000 shells were lobbed across the canal. But despite a marked improvement in Egyptian gunnery since the last major exchange in October, casualties on both sides were relatively light. The Israelis put their own losses at five soldiers killed, 26 wounded, two vehicles destroyed, and a Piper Cub downed by a Soviet-made SA-2 missile. The Egyptians admitted to four soldiers killed, 39 wounded and 72 civilian casualties, as well as extensive damage to 14 oil tanks at the Suez and Nasr refineries.

By far the heaviest blow to Egypt, though, was the loss of its "golden soldier" and Chief of Staff, Lieut. General Abdel Monem Riad, the most highly regarded officer in any Arab country. Artilleryman Riad had flown to Ismailia for a firsthand look at the shelling, when he was struck by what the Israelis termed a "lucky" direct hit. Perhaps as a mark of soldierly respect, the guns along the Suez were silent for Riad's funeral next day. Egypt's President Gamal Abdel Nasser led a parade of more than 100,000 mourners through Cairo, who broke into chants of "Gamal, Gamal, to the canal!"

Fitting the militant mood, Cairo was a city preparing for war. The government is gradually extending a blackout of neon signs, house lights and auto headlights. Since blackouts are tactically obsolete in an age of electronic detection instruments, the objective seemed to be to bring home to Cairenes the possibility that they might be bombed. All Nile bridges, train stations, telegraph offices and key installations are protected by guards in sandbagged redoubts. Brick blast walls have been built in front of thousands of doorways. MIG-21s make practice scrambles over the city and on the ground are protected by concrete revetments against a surprise attack like the one that wiped out Egypt's air force at the start of the Six-Day War.

Barlev Line. "There is no enthusiasm for the preparations," reports TIME Correspondent Lee Griggs, "but rather resignation. Egyptians are sadly reconciled to another round, simply because it somehow seems inevitable, and even at the cost of another 'setback.' They say they cannot allow a status quo to become established that might cost them Sinai as the price of a permanent settlement." Declared a government spokesman: the Israelis "are arming our territory against us."

If last week's barrage was in part designed to slow down that arming, the Egyptians were too late. The Israelis are securely dug in along the canal, in what they call the "Barlev Line," named for Chief of Staff Haim Barlev. It consists of multistory bunkers equipped with electric lights and even television and roofed with a "secret" material (possibly a combination of timber, sand and steel rails ripped up from the trans-Sinai railway line), which the Israelis claim can withstand a direct hit from a 130-mm. shell--one reason why their casualties were so light. If the shelling continues, the Israelis warned last week, they have no intention of sitting tight forever in their bunkers. One obvious target for reprisal: Port Said, out of range of Israel's artillery but not its jets.

The warnings served chiefly to illustrate the fact that violence has a momentum of its own, though many suspected that the sudden flare-up had primarily a diplomatic purpose. Just before the exchanges, Nasser's personal representative, Mahmoud Fawzi, showed up in London and Paris, pressing the argument that unless Israel withdraws at least partially from the canal, the Arabs will consider themselves forced to fight another round. In the Israeli view, as Foreign Minister Abba Eban put it, Nasser simply staged the barrage "to cause panic on an international scale" at a time when the Nixon Administration is considering a big-power approach to a settlement.

On a visit to Washington last week, Eban argued eloquently against any settlement "imposed" by outside powers, and pressed that view in meetings with President Nixon and Secretary of State William Rogers. While not necessarily disagreeing with Eban, Rogers suggested that the U.S., Russia, Britain and France could provide "genuine assistance" to both sides in agreeing on a peace package.

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