In Earshot of the Front

FLYING out of a brilliant morning sun, four Israeli jets marked with the unmistakable Star of David wheeled in at 1,000 ft. and began strafing an Egyptian army camp at Dahshur, barely 21 miles south of Cairo. Then, while thousands of Cairenes rushed to rooftops and windows to see what was going on, the jets wheeled to the north and attacked a second camp just one mile from Maadi, a fashionable suburb of diplomats, foreign oilmen and well-to-do Egyptians. Housewives ducked into basements, and the 300 students at Cairo's American College, three blocks from the besieged camp, were herded to the interior of their building as windows began shattering. For the first time since the 1967 war, antiaircraft fire boomed in central Cairo.

To the Doorstep. Increasingly, the Israelis are bringing their struggle with the Arab world to the very doorstep of its principal capital. Twelve times since Jan. 7, Israeli jets have struck at military installations in the delta region around Cairo (see map). Last week's raid, which according to Egyptian spokesmen claimed the lives of three civilians and wounded twelve others, was the closest yet.

The current war of attrition has been under way since last March, when Egypt launched a thunderous artillery barrage against Israeli troops occupying the Suez Canal's east bank. As the barrages continued and Israeli casualties mounted, Premier Golda Meir's government began responding by land, sea and air. Israeli commandos probed deeper and deeper into Egypt in sorties of ever-increasing boldness. In dogfights with less skillful Egyptian pilots, the Israelis scored a devastating 10-1 kill ratio. Assured of complete mastery of the skies, they carried the war ever closer to Cairo. Last week not a single Egyptian jet scrambled to challenge them.

The reaction of Egyptians has been one of apathy mixed with anger, curiosity mixed with fear. During a raid near Cairo International Airport three weeks ago, crowds in the terminal building stampeded to the basement shelter. Next time Israeli planes looped close to the airport, said one diplomat, "nobody took much notice. This time they went outside to have a look." Within minutes of last week's raid, Cairo's Kasr el-Nil Street was thronged with women shoppers, intersections were jammed with traffic, and sculls from the Gezira Sporting Club were gliding along the glistening Nile.

Weary of the War. "The front is now within earshot," a Western resident of Cairo told TIME Correspondent Gavin Scott last week, "but it is still divorced from public opinion." Doubt and disenchantment could soon change that. Cairo's upper classes are plainly weary of the war; each year 15,000 well-educated Egyptians emigrate, many to Canada, despite blocked funds and other difficulties. The lower classes, who account for much of the city's population of 5,000,000, still believe whatever the government radio tells them; the bureaucrats who owe their jobs to the regime at least pretend to do so. But even the fellahin and timid clerks must eventually begin to wonder at the insouciance with which Israeli pilots have begun to bomb around their capital.

Perhaps the only really angry men around are students and some army officers. After last week's air raid, knots of students gathered on street corners to chant "Strike, strike!" They were demanding that President Gamal Abdel Nasser attack Israel. As for the army officers, they remember all too well the humiliation of 1967 and are eager to strike back. War Minister Mohammed Fawzi has whetted the appetites of the army by calling 1970 "the year of liberation."

Certainly, Israeli strategists would be delighted if Nasser were to be toppled as a result of their war of nerves. Though no alternative to Nasser is in sight, proponents of the present strategy argue that in any case the strikes have delayed a new round of full-scale fighting by at least five years. Nasser has admitted that he is in no position to liberate the Sinai Peninsula at present. Israeli losses from shelling on the Suez have plummeted from a monthly peak of 30 killed and 76 wounded in July to 5 killed and 20 wounded last month. The Egyptian side of the canal, meanwhile, has been deserted by frightened Egyptians. At least 400,000 have fled or moved out at government order.

Many Israelis recognize, of course, that their attacks may improve rather than impair Egyptian morale. In response to the raids, slit trenches are being dug around Cairo's airport; public buildings and monuments in the capital are being sandbagged, and a nighttime brownout is in effect. In recent weeks, army vacations were canceled and extra guards positioned around military installations. When Nasser dropped out of sight for several days, rumors swept Cairo that he had flown to Moscow to demand offensive weapons. The rumors were denied.

Aside from a stiffening of Arab resistance, the raids involve another danger to the Israelis, as they learned with shattering results. Arab planes can reach Tel Aviv as quickly as Israeli planes can get to Cairo. A day after last week's raid on the Egyptian capital, a Syrian jet buzzed Haifa, breaking windows with its supersonic boom. Exacting the biblical ration of an eye for an eye--and then some--the Israelis buzzed five Syrian cities, including Damascus.

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