ABSTRACT
On the evening of 22 May, President Gamal Abdul Nasser, accompanied by Vice-President Abdel Hakim Amer, visited the Egyptian air force base at Bir Gafgafa in Sinai and addressed the pilots and officers. Nasser surveyed the events which had led to his decision to move Egypt’s army into Sinai and to evacuate the UNEF. He noted, among other things, that ‘Israeli commanders’ had proclaimed their intention of conquering Damascus and overthrowing the Syrian regime, and that Eshkol, too, had threatened Syria in the belief that Egypt would not intervene because it was bogged down in Sinai. The bombshell was contained in a single phrase in his long speech, namely: ‘Under no circumstances will we permit the Israeli flag to pass through the Bay of Aqaba.’1
