262A.84A41/11–1252: Telegram
No. 515
The Ambassador in Egypt (Caffery) to the Department of State1
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1182. Naguib asked to see me this morning to tell me that Arab League Polit Comite mtg last evening decided to delegate him to endeavor to persuade me to recommend to State Dept that US Govt counsel Bonn Govt not to ratify Israeli Agrmt. I told Naguib that I would report what he said to Wash but that I must tell him frankly that State Dept cld not so counsel Bonn Govt. He went on to say that feeling is very high indeed in Arab States as they are extremely unhappy about effect nearly a billion dols wld have on Israel econ. Israel they fear wld become a menace to very existence of Arab States. He said again that most Arab dels believe that Bonn made agrmt only because of US insistence. He observed that he has prevented local press from overexploiting this.
He emphasized that in his opinion all this Israel business is extremely unfortunate just when he felt that Egypt and US were [Page 1053] growing closer and closer and even a settlement of the difficulties with Great Brit seemed to be in sight. He said he could not predict just what effect this controversy would have on our future relations. He gave me to understand that he had talked other Arab States out of breaking off commercial relations with Ger at this time. Altho the final test of the League’s note to Gers has not yet been agreed upon it will possibly include a declaration that commercial relations between Arab States and Ger will be interrupted if and when Bundestag ratifies Agrmt with Israel.
- Repeated to Bonn, London, Paris (for Reinhardt), Rome (for Unger), Tel Aviv, Ankara, and the Arab capitals.↩