War of the Communiqu

It was, 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.

Nothing of the sort, according to a military spokesman in Tel Aviv: "No Egyptian force stayed in our area for 24 hours. No Egyptian infiltrated any Israeli fortification, or stayed in one, or destroyed one." The Cairo claim, the Israelis added, was nothing but "a morale-boosting fantasy."

It was and it wasn't, according to United Nations observers. What really happened was that 30 Egyptians crossed the canal opposite a U.N. post at the north end of the Ballah Cut. As near as could be determined in the darkness, the Egyptians peeked over the embankment on the Israeli side, then crawled back and waited. At dawn they moved into holes on the embankment and stayed put while the Israelis called down artillery fire. As darkness fell again, the Egyptians planted a flag and withdrew to the west bank.

Hyperbole Showing. So it goes, day after day, in the Arab-Israeli war of the communiques. Generally, foreign correspondents cannot visit battlefronts to see firsthand what is happening. And U.N. observers are not always in a position to supply even a secondhand objective account. So the correspondents often find themselves reporting little more than a credibility conflict in which the chief casualty is truth.

Neither side is usually guilty of outright lies. But the Arab countries, especially Egypt, exaggerate constantly, while Israel leans toward suppression. It does not seem to matter to the Arabs when their hyperbole is clearly showing. For instance, the combined Arab forces claim to have shot down 249 Israeli aircraft during 1969. Yet, by the estimate of the Institute for Strategic Studies in London, Israel in mid-1969 had only 275 aircraft, including transports, trainers and spotters.

Nobody in Egypt, and obviously not Nasser, seems to believe such figures. When Nasser announced last spring that 60% of the Bar-Lev line had been destroyed, he carefully included the phrase, "General Fawzi tells me." A current joke in Cairo goes: "If it took us nine months to destroy 60% of the Bar-Lev line, how long will it take us to destroy the remaining 100%?"

Why bother to falsify reports? In Nasser's case, the aim is probably to convince the outside world, particularly other Arab nations, that Egypt is doing some damage to Israel. As for his own people, it matters little if they don't entirely believe everything they read about the battles, provided that the battles remain remote. "Very few Egyptians pay any attention to what is going on far from them," says a neutral military attache in Cairo. "If they did get excited about their country being at war, it would be the worst thing possible for Nasser. People would start asking what those 100,000 soldiers facing 10,000 Israelis on the canal were doing."

Word of Mouth. While Nasser may be able to get away with news distortion in Egypt, the Israeli government dares not deceive its citizens. A Western diplomat in Tel Aviv says: "Here the object is to keep everyone on edge all the time. These people have to be ready to pick up their guns and run for the front whenever the phone rings, day or night. The price the government pays is that it must present the facts." But sometimes it delays formal announcements, to the annoyance of the foreign press. Israel also censors the copy of foreign newsmen, although, unlike Egypt, it informs newsmen of cuts; occasionally it can be argued into restoring them.

In Israel's closely knit, family-oriented society, its people often stay abreast of the war by word of mouth. When the Israelis captured and carried off an entire Egyptian radar station on Dec. 26, half of Tel Aviv knew about it within 24 hours. "My wife heard about it at the hairdresser's," an Israeli officer recalls. "My daughter heard about it at her dancing school." But the government did not confirm the story to newsmen for more than a week, and has been similarly slow or suppressive with other information for foreigners.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.