Nasser's words, (Speech, May 22, 1967)
"We awaited the proper day when we would be fully prepared and confident that we would take strong measures if we were to enter the battle with Israel. I say nothing aimlessly....Recently we have felt strong enough that if we were to enter a battle with Israel with God's help we could triumph. I said once that we could tell the United Nations Emergency force to leave within half an hour. Once we were fully prepared we could ask UNEF to leave. That is what has actually happened. Taking over Sharm-el-Sheikh means confrontation with Israel. Taking such action means that we are ready to enter war with Israel. It is not a separate operation. The battle will be a general one and our basic objective will be to destroy Israel....I know what we have here in Egypt and what Syria has. I also know that other states--Iraq for instance--have sent their troops to Syria. Algeria will send troops. Kuwait will also send troops. They will send armored infantry units. This is Arab power."
Abba Eban's words: (My People, 1968)
"Nobody who lived those days in Israel will ever forget the air of doom that hovered over our country. Hemmed in by hostile armies ready to strike, affronted and beset by a flagrant act of war, bombarded day and night by predicitions of her approaching extinction, forced into a total mobilization of her manpower, her economy and commerce beating with feeble pulse, her main supplies of vital fuel choked by a belligerent act, Israel faced the greatest peril to her existence that she had known since the hour of her birth. there was danger wherever she looked. and she faced it in deepening solitude. A crushing siege bore down upon us. Multitudes throughout the world trembled for Israel's fate. On the fateful morning of June 5 our country's choice was plain. The choice was to live or perish; to defend the national existence or to forfeit it for all time."
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