cussed American arms shipments to Egypt, Iraq and other Arab countries and the impending British withdrawal from the Suez Canal.
A preventive Israeli attack was expected any day. But something quite different-almost fantastic-happened.
* * *
During all this time, curiously, no provocation at all had come from Egypt. Certainly, the propaganda machine cranked as usual, and Arab refugees from the Gaza Strip crossed into Israel to steal from their former lands. But the Egyptian regime was busy getting rid of the British.
One could even say that throughout this period, the Egyptian attitude toward Israel mellowed. On June 19, General Mahmoud Riad of the Egyptian Foreign Office (who was later to become foreign minister) announced that the Arabs were prepared to accept international control over the waters of the Jordan River. This would have been, for the first time, a kind of actual collaboration between the Arabs and the State of Israel. Indeed, on June 26, President Eisenhower's roving ambassador, Eric Johnston, reached an agreement with Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon about the distribution of the Jordan waters. According to the London papers this meant, in fact, the end of the Arab boycott of Israel. However, Radio Cairo announced that same day that Israel was opposed to the agreement. Actually it was Lavon and Dayan who were against it. (This point was later obscured when the Arab states turned against the Johnston plan, giving Israel another great propaganda victory.)
Behind the scenes important things were happening. Several people believed that Abd-el-Nasser was ready, finally, for a peace settlement with Israel. The Indian Ambassador in Cairo, the historian K. M. Panikar, a man who exerted great influence at the time because of the close relations between Jawarhalal Nehru and Abd-el-Nasser, became an intermediary. Panikar was also a good