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by
Raouf El Gammal and
Paul Kroll
E
GYPTIAN
President Sadat has strong–
-' ly 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 apocalyp-
tic announcements take on excruciating
importance.
It may be only so much rhetoric -
but sucb statements put another Arab in
a política! 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 so1ution by January
1972.
One re–
cent nationwide television and radio
speech by Sadat employed the following
Old Testament-like decrees:
"When I say, an eye for an eye, a
tooth for a tooth, death for death and
napalm strike for napalm strike, I mean
Israel Pross ond
Photo
A9"n<Y
what I say. 1 am prepared to sacrifice
one million martyrs. But Israel should
know that it too will have to sacrióce
one million."
All reports in the Arab press stroogly
magnify the seriousness of such state–
ments. Mohammed Hassanen Heikal, a
most influential journalist in the Arab
World, has said over and over agaio,
that the Middle East conflict will
be
solved either through peace or war by
the end of
1971.
Ooly once has Sadat subdued his
melancholy statements. He told the
closing session of tbe Egyptian Con–
gress: "l am not saying that our way to
victory must be fully covered this year.
But I say that this year must and will
witness our practica! movement towards