Word: egyptianized
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Like most classic campaigns, Dayan's Sinai triumph rested heavily on surprise. "Nasser disposed his troops very well," said an Israeli colonel. "Egyptian preparations were quite logical. Our plans were not." But more than anything else, the Israelis, inferior to the Egyptians in number and equipment, relied on the kind of dashing, hard-driving tactics with which George Patton confounded the Germans in his 1944 armored dash across Europe. Israeli units which outran their supply continued to push forward as long as they had ammunition, and at least one battalion fought for two days without food...
Into Hellfire. Demoralized by these tactics-"Our best weapon," said one Israeli, "was sheer effrontery"-the bulk of the Egyptian army in Sinai collapsed like a pricked balloon. "The first night of operations," Ben-Gurion told the Knesset, "we took Kuntilla after twenty minutes of resistance, Ras el Naqb near Elath after a brief engagement and Quseima after forty-five minutes . . ." Only once, at the crucial road junction of Abu Aweigila on the Jerusalem-Ismailia highway, did Egyptian armor and artillery succeed in stalling the Israeli advance (TIME, Nov. 12). Tough Moshe Dayan, dashing about Sinai in a command...
...chewed up about one-fourth of Nasser's army: two infantry divisions, one armored brigade and many smaller units, including several independent tank companies. At an acknowledged cost of less than 800 casualties, including 150 dead, the Israelis claimed to have killed 3,000 Egyptians, captured 7,000 more and destroyed twelve Egyptian jets. What impressed them most of all, however, was the booty they collected: more than 100 tanks (many of them heavy Soviet T-34s). nearly 200 artillery pieces, small arms by the thousands, and enough gasoline to supply Israel's civilian needs for a year...
...celebrations ended abruptly in Israel, and released reservists were called back. Army units worked full speed to get battle-worn tanks, guns and other equipment back into shape. At week's end Foreign Minister Golda Meir told a party meeting that the Gaza Strip, the Egyptian-held corner of the old Palestine mandate overrun in the Sinai blitz, "is an integral part of Israel...
...this unresolved note, the Cabinet adjourned. In the House of Commons, the Opposition hammered at the government on the difference between what Eden said and what he did. Eden had said Britain was protecting the canal; but the British broadcasts from Cyprus were telling Egyptians: "You have committed a sin, that is, you placed your confidence in Nasser and his lies." Said Labor's Nye Bevan: "Here you have not a military action to separate Israeli and Egyptian troops. Here you have a declaration of war against the Egyptian government in the most terrible terms...