1956 suez crisis

1956The Suez Canal Crisis

King Farouk

It was not only the King’s inability to remove British influence that outraged the Free Officers. His expensive appetite for pleasure and self-indulgence was well known. Scandal, corruption and, incompetence were commonplace in the government and bureaucracy. All three contributed to Egypt’s defeat by Israel in the 1948 war; money for arms and supplies was misapplied; soldiers were given obsolete or unserviceable weapons, and the military leaders wasted soldier’s lives through contradictory orders and impracticable objectives.

Not surprisingly, the Free Officers became convinced it was necessary to remove the monarchy as well as the British if Egypt’s honor was to be retrieved.

Kohler, J. and Taylor, J., Africa and the Middle East

Gamel Abdel Nasser

Israel Alienating the US and Britain• Israel diverts the River Jordan in the Syrian demilitarized zone• Israel massacres Arabs in Qibya• Israel bombs American and British offices in Cairo• Israel raids the Gaza strip, violating the ceasefire

BUT……

• Egypt was at a meeting with Chinese Communists • Egypt buys arms from Czechoslovakia (USSR)

It doesn’t matter what the world says about Israel. The only thing that matters is that we can exist here. Unless it is clear that there is a price to pay for Jewish lives, we will not be able to survive.

David Ben-Gurion

The Sevres Protocol

British Prime Minister Anthony Eden, French General Maurice Challe, and Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion

The Sevres ProtocolEden’s government – and later British governments – refused to admit that there had been a secret meeting, even though the French and Israeli governments later admitted that it had taken place. When officials documents relating to the Suez Crisis were declassified, not trace of the Sevres Protocol was found among Eden’s papers. It is assumed that he had destroyed it. The French government claimed that it had been lost. The only surviving copy was found among Ben Gurion’s papers and is in the Israeli state archives.

On the British side, Anthony Eden [then prime minister] bore the ultimate responsibility and received the most opprobrium [blame] for the collusion with France and Israel. Eden was desperate for a pretext to go to war in order to get rid of Nasser and the alliance with Israel was the price he reluctantly paid to procure such a pretext.

The elaborate plot embodied in the new protocol was so transparent that it is still difficult to understand how Eden could have believed that it would not be seen as such. What is clear is that having got embroiled in the war plot , Eden became desperate to hide the traces. His attempt to round and destroy all the copies of the Protocol of Sevres has to be seen in this light. He wanted to expunge the war plot, in which Britain had been a reluctant but a full and formal participant, from the historical record. What he embarked on was a massive attempt to deceive. This attempt ended in miserable failure.

-Shlaim, A. ‘The Protocol of Sevres’

For the French the ‘Suez Affair’ was a failure, nothing worse; their credibility in the Arab world had already been lost by arms shipments to Israel and oppression in Algeria. For the British, Suez was a catastrophe. Quite apart from the domestic repercussions and the damage to Anglo-American relations, it had soured moderate Arab opinion and discredited all the old and cherished pretensions to being friends to the Arabs…

Worst of all from a British point of view, Suez vindicated the construction placed on the policies of European powers by Nasser. Far from silencing him, it enhanced his reputation, exaggerated his revolutionary rhetoric, amplified his appeal. Already idolized, the president of Egypt was now idealized.

-Keay, J. Sowing the Wind: The Mismanagement of the Middle East

From PM Anthony Eden's 1977 obituary in The Times:

"Eden was the last prime minister to believe that Britain was a great power, and the first to confront a crisis that proved she wasn't."

Results of the Suez Crisis• UN – Condemned the attack, created UNEF (1st UN

peacekeeping force)

• ISRAEL - Proved its military superiority, gained access to the Straits of Tiran. Intervention would be a foundation of Israeli foreign policy to come

• ARAB NATIONS – Suspicion of Israel as a gateway for Western Imperialism in the Middle East. Pan-Arabism grew.

• USA – Angered at Israel, but soon would support them as Arab Nationalism grew.

• EGYPT – Controlled the canal, Nasser elevated

• PALESTINIANS – Fatah and PLO are formed

Rise of Nationalism in

Egypt

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Suez Crisis and Sinai War

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Outcomes of the Suez Crisis

Israel

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Egypt

Britain

France