Feints Here, Clouts There

Chewing a fat cigar and bundled up against a chill wind at Sharm el Sheikh, near the tip of the Sinai Peninsula, Israeli Chief of Staff General Haim Bar-Lev talked to newsmen last week about Israel's military plans. "I regard all Egypt," he said, "as ground for attack." Said another officer: "If they continue to make trouble for us, we will continue to make trouble for them."

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 and helicoptered home with it. The raid not only demonstrated Egypt's impotence, but also left the Egyptian naval bases at Hurghada and Safaga wide open to attack until the radar is replaced.

As usual, Israelis and Arabs differed on casualty claims (see PRESS). Egypt said that 50 Israelis had been killed or wounded on Shadwan. The Israelis said that they had lost three killed and six wounded, while killing 19 Egyptians and taking 62 prisoners; they added that two Egyptian torpedo boats--which normally carry 20 men each--had been sunk without a trace of survivors. In the 20-hour attack on the Jordanian badlands the Israelis reported killing five Al-Fatah commandos without suffering any casualties. In Amman, however, estimates of Israeli deaths ranged from twelve to 30.

The week of Israeli military successes ended in tragedy. At the Red Sea port of Eilat, an ammunition truck exploded, killing 18 and injuring 42. Though Al-Fatah claimed credit for the explosion, Israeli officials said that it was an accident, not sabotage.

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