 Nasser argued in exchange for PL 480 food sales that he would not start a war with Israel, saying for that for all his fiery speeches he promised to keep the Arab-Israeli dispute "in the icebox".Rusk argued that to Kennedy and later Johnson that they should resist congressional pressure to end the PL 480 food sales to Egypt, stating that ending the PL 480 sales would only push Nasser closer to the Soviet Union and end the leverage that kept the peace between Egypt and Israel.When Nasser sent 70, 000 Egyptian troops into Yemen in September 1962 to support the republican government against the royalist guerrillas supported by Saudi Arabia, Rusk approved of increased arm sales to Saudi Arabia, which were an indirect way of supporting the Yemeni royalists.