On October 29, 1956, the Israeli army invaded Egypt's Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip. Soon after, the forces of Great Britain and France launched air attacks against Egypt.
That crisis had its roots in two factors: friction at the armistice line, established after the 1948 war between Israel and Egypt, and control over the Suez Canal. Another factor was the withdrawal of the U.S. offer to help finance the High Aswan Dam in upper Egypt, a prized project of the country's new ruler and champion of Arab nationalism, Gamal
Abdel Nasser.
Eisenhower and Dulles did not trust Nasser because he tried to steer a neutral course between the United States and the Soviet Union, and they were especially displeased with his recognition of Communist China. The administration first tried to win Nasser over, but when that failed, it tried obsessively to undermine him and worse. The wish to
undermine Nasser was important in forging a U.S.-Israeli "strategic relationship." The offer to finance the dam and provide arms (with conditions Nasser could not accept) were the carrots dangled before the charismatic Egyptian.
When Nasser turned to the Soviets in September 1955 to purchase arms when he could not buy them from the United States without strings attached, his actions were seized on as proof that he was in the Soviet camp and thus an enemy of the United States. (The events in Iran were not lost on Nasser.)
The United States also had antagonized Nasser in 1955 when it set up the Baghdad Pact (later called the Central Treaty Organization, or CENTO), an alliance of northern tier nations, including Turkey, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq (the only Arab country in the alliance). Great Britain was also a member. The United States was not a formal member but was clearly a guiding force. Nasser saw the pact as an attempt to split the Arab world and interfere with the "positive neutralism" he sought for it. Iraq at the time was friendly to the West and not disposed to the Arab nationalism that Nasser aspired to create and lead. The Baghdad Pact was one of the things that had the ironic effect of bringing
the Arabs and Soviets closer.
In mid-1956 the United States abruptly withdrew its offer to help finance the High Aswan Dam, just as the Egyptians had decided to accept the administration's conditions. The American reversal brought cancellations of aid for the dam from Great Britain and the World Bank as well. A week after the U.S. decision, Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal
Company, which since 1869 had been owned by French nationals and the British government and operated under an Egyptian concession. The British and French governments reacted angrily; for the French, it was not irrelevant that Nasser was helping the Algerians, who were seeking independence. The U.S. reaction was calmer, as Eisenhower and Dulles distinguished between ownership and freedom of navigation. (Nevertheless, the New York Times denounced Nasser as "the Hitler on the Nile.") The U.S. administration warned Great Britain and France against responding precipitously and pressed for negotiations. A conference was convened, but Nasser refused to attend or accept its proposals. evertheless, international traffic on the canal continued normally under Egyptian administration. When Great Britain and France failed to get satisfaction from the United Nations, they began making plans for war.
Israel was not able to use the canal, but the Jewish state's aims regarding Egypt went beyond that grievance. Since the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, Palestinian refugees had often crossed into Israel seeking to regain property and possessions expropriated by the government and to reach relatives. Some engaged in violence. Israel began responding with
massive reprisal raids against entire villages in the Arab countries. Most significant was the attack on the town of Gaza in February 1955, when children as well as men were killed. That attack prompted Egypt to end direct peace talks with Israel and to turn to the Soviet Union for arms. It was only at that point that Egypt sponsored an anti-Israeli guerrilla organization whose members were known as the Fedayeen. In August Israel attacked the Gaza Strip village of Khan Yunis, killing 39 Egyptians. The attacks in the Gaza Strip, masterminded by officials loyal to Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, subverted Nasser's efforts to make peace with Israel. Ben-Gurion's successor, Moshe Sharett, responded
positively to Nasser's overtures, but Gen. Moshe Dayan and others undermined Sharett. During the winter of 1955, for example, Israeli warplanes flew over Cairo repeatedly to demonstrate Egyptian military impotence.
The Israeli government had earlier tried to prevent a warming of U.S.-Egyptian relations by having saboteurs bomb American offices in Cairo in 1954, an episode that became known as the Lavon Affair. When Egypt uncovered the operation, Israel accused Nasser of fabricating the plot. Two of the 13 men arrested were hanged, and their hangings
were used as a pretext for Israel's February 1955 attack on Gaza. Six years later, the Israeli government's complicity was confirmed.
Israel's bad relations with Egypt were also aggravated by the seizure of an Israeli ship, which was provocatively sent into the Suez Canal in September 1954. Both sides had seized each other's ships before, and this incident appears to have been provoked by Israel as a way to get Great Britain to compel Egypt to permit Israeli ships to use the waterway as part of a final agreement on the Suez Canal.
Despite repeated provocations, Egypt, according to documents later captured by Israel, had attempted to prevent infiltration by the Fedayeen because of its fear of attack. Nevertheless, in October 1956 Israel invaded Egypt, ignoring American pleas for forbearance. The United States took the matter to the UN Security Council, which called for a cease-fire and withdrawal. It also passed a resolution to create a 6,000-man UN emergency force to help restore the status quo ante.
Eisenhower's opposition to the conduct of Israel, Great Britain, and France--an anomaly in light of later U.S. policy-- is explained by his opposition to old-style colonialism. The administration wanted to win the friendship of the newly independent countries of Africa and Asia and to keep them out of the Soviet orbit. That could not be accomplished if
the United States were perceived to be on the side of Great Britain and France in so flagrant an act of imperialism as an attack on Egypt. Also important to the administration's calculus was its wish that London not challenge Washington's more subtle dominance in the Middle East. British and French irritation with American anti-colonialism was a source of problems among the leaders of the three nations.
When the UN call for a cease-fire failed to contain the conflict, the Soviet Union threatened to intervene, and Premier Nicolai Bulganin even proposed to Eisenhower that their two countries take joint military action to end the war. Eisenhower rejected the proposal and warned the Soviets not to get involved.
The fighting ended on November 7, when Britain and France bowed to the United Nations and agreed to withdraw. Israel, however, refused to withdraw from the Sinai until its conditions were met. Israel was especially adamant that Egypt not regain the Gaza Strip, which was to have been part of the Palestinian state under the UN partition. Eisenhower responded to Israel's position by threatening to cut off aid, although he apparently never did so. By March 1957 Israel had withdrawn from all the occupied areas, but not before the United States had given assurances that UN troops would be stationed on Egyptian territory to ensure free passage of Israeli and Israel-bound ships
through the Strait of Tiran and to prevent Fedayeen activity. The United States, in an aide-mÇmoire by John Foster Dulles, also acknowledged that the Gulf of Aqaba was international waters and "that no nation has the right to prevent free and innocent passage in the Gulf and through the Straits." The key to the final settlement was a French proposal that Israel be allowed to act in self-defense under the UN charter if its ships were attacked in the Gulf of Aqaba.
Thus, the United States again became directly involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict and made what would later be
construed as guarantees to Israel. Although Israel chafed under the frank rhetoric and surprising (in light of the U.S.
election season) evenhandedness of Eisenhower and Dulles, it got essentially what it wanted from the Suez
campaign.
