MIDDLE EAST - Year-End Tensions Mount - Raouf el-Gammal & Paul W Kroll - November 1971

Raouf el-Gammal & Paul W Kroll

Egyptian President Sadat has strongly indicated that Israel must be driven out of occupied territory BEFORE the end of 1971. In a three-and-a-half-hour marathon speech last July, Sadat put it bluntly: "The year 1971 is the decisive year in our battle and the occupation must end, one way or the other. We have to make the decision but must all bear the responsibility and the consequences… We have to organize ourselves so that our blow to the enemy would be doubled." With approximately two months left before January, 1972, Sadat's apocalyptic announcements take on excruciating importance. It may be only so much rhetoric- but such statements put another Arab in a political vise in 1967. The Arab was Nasser and the year was the year of the Six Day War. Sadat's blistering ultimatum could force him to trigger another round of Middle East War. He is whipping up the Egyptian populace to war fever – a fever which may not be healed if there is no solution by January 1972. One recent nationwide television and radio speech by Sadat employed the following Old Testament-like decrees: - Information Supplied By: Herbert W Armstrong Library