The Middle East Situation

The repercussions of the Achille Lauro affair and the US interception of the Egyptian airliner continue to be acutely felt, and to overshadow all other developments in the region. Perhaps most importantly, a definite rift has appeared in US-Egyptian relations, paralleled by a closer-than-ever association between the US and Israel. The Israelis have been able to seize on the affair to tar the PLO as a whole with the brush of terrorism, and to try to draw Jordan into...