such a blockade. If we back down now, every single Arab will believe that our military force is a bluff. If this belief spreads, there is nothing to hold back the Arabs from starting a guerrilla war along all our frontiers, cutting off the Jordan waters, and doing anything else they like. So we'd better fight now. Yet Nasser, who must have vaguely felt all this, could not back down either. Keeping the Straits open, now that the U.N. forces had disappeared, would have looked like downright cowardice. It would have lent credence to the argument of his enemies in the Arab world, who shrilly proclaimed him to be a secret collaborator of the Zionists. Nasser had to walk into the trap he had set for himself. On May 2 2, he announced that the Straits of Tiran would be closed to Israeli shipping.
I clearly recall the effect this had. We were having lunch at parliament when the radio announced the news. We were in the middle of a great debate on the situation. At the beginning of the debate some of us still voiced the fervent hope that peace could be preserved. After the radio announcement we all knew that war had become unavoidable.
A curious little incident throws light on the whole situation. The Egyptians declared at the same time that mines had been laid in the actual strait itself, a narrow passage between the Egyptian mainland and the little island of Tiran at the entrance of the Gulf of Akaba. Later, during the war, it was discovered the claim was entirely untrue: Not one single mine had in fact been laid. This being so, why did the Egyptians make such a claim, aggravating an already explosive situation? I later found out the reason, which now appears completely ridiculous, but which somehow symbolizes the dimension of misunderstanding. The Egyptians thought that by such a pronouncement they would for the time being deter Israeli ships from trying to force a passage, and relieve themselves of the necessity of shooting at the ships; thus the Egyptians hoped to avert the war. The result was, of course, the exact