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MIDDLE EAST: More Ayes In Gaza?

1 minute read
TIME

Rumor getting serious attention currently in the Middle East: that Gamal Abdel Nasser, driving for his Arab union, will next arrange for the Egyptian-run Gaza Strip to announce its independence as a nation. The strip’s 300.000 Palestinians, mostly refugees from Israeli-held territory, would then vote themselves into his United Arab Republic. Such a “state” might be expected to attract the disruptive loyalty of the more than 500,000 other Palestinian refugees living in Jordan. Already the newly created Gaza local government council calls itself the Palestine Legislative Assembly, and the map of “Arab Palestine” behind the speaker’s dais shows its borders including all of their onetime homeland—Israel.

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