apable of perceiving the essence of the danger, which wa the
growth of the Soviet military position in Egypt and the change in
the regional balance of power. We had expended our prestige in
starting talks based on incompatible premises and in paying each
side for agreeing to negotiate about a peace that they needed
more urgently than did we the Israelis with airplanes and Nasser
with hints of support on the territorial question. That we
offered each side too little only compounded the tensions
In the event, new hostilities between Egypt and Israel were avoided in 1970, but not before American arms shipments to Israel increased and the Soviet military equipment presence in Egypt was established. Matters changed again after Israel won the 1973 war, started by Sadat, but the point is that the precariousness of the Middle East environment as a flashpoint for Cold War politics was to surface repeatedly until and after the mid 1980s.
American arms and diplomatic support for Israel con
...