ABSTRACT
The deliveries of Soviet arms to the Arab countries, which had been speeded up in recent months and which General Bethouart had commented on in this newspaper, heralded the storm that had indeed been feared by British observers. The rulers of the Soviet Union, for whom it is materially impossible to intervene actively in Vietnam, in all probability consider that, by going on bombing North Vietnam, the Americans are violating the unwritten rules of 'peaceful coexistence'. At the same time one can see the limits of what one was ready to call the rapprochement between Russia and America. Perhaps this rapprochement would have been strengthened but for the war in Vietnam. In such circumstances, any commentary risks being overtaken by events before it has even appeared. Israel will not accept the closing of the Gulf of Aqaba, and, on this point, the United States and Great Britain support the government in Jerusalem unreservedly.
