A DIFFERENT WAR - II

 

 

The United Nations quickly passed a resolution calling for a cease-fire, and in a rare instance of Cold War alignment, both the United States and the Soviet Union pressured Great Britain, France and Israel to withdraw.

 The Soviet Union, which had supplied arms and money to Egypt, made ambiguous—and ominous—threats about using nuclear weapons to aid its ally, while the United States wielded its economic power.

The Defense Minister, Golda Meir made an impassioned speech: “They want us to tremble at the Russian threat, obey the UN, and withdraw from Sinai forthwith. Not a chance. We Zionists have built up and fought for and won this land, and that’s why Israel exists! When a great power befriends us, it’s to serve its own interest in the region, nothing more. For the British we were a buffer against the French, until the Arabs made it too hot for them to stay here. As for the Americans, they have been embargoing arms to us while Russia armed Egypt. If not for the French, whose interest is to throw out Nasser, he could be overrunning us now, instead of the other way around. Then would he withdraw?”

Furious at not being informed of the attack in advance and fearful of a wider war in the Middle East, President Dwight D. Eisenhower threatened its NATO allies and Israel with sanctions if they did not draw back their forces.

Ben Gurion had no choice but to utterly cave in to Eisenhower’s angry threats that, if Ben Gurion still persisted in his unrealistic intransigence, and the Soviet Union took military action against Israel, the US would not intervene!

After weeks of skillful delaying tactics by Abba Eban, Israeli’s ambassador to Washington - the Israeli government finally came forward with maps specifying possible stages of withdrawal from Sinai.

The Israeli cabinet had accepted the principle of total withdrawal from Sinai, as soon as arrangements with a UN peacekeeping force could be worked out; the same basis on which the French and British were exiting Suez, with their tails between their legs.

Tine Israel could not defy the two superpowers.

On November 8th Israel agreed to withdraw, upon the UN’s resolution to establish an emergency force in the area. Israel withdrew from all territories, except for the Gaza Strip and a coastal strip by the Straits of Tiran. Prior to the withdrawal, Israel demanded guarantees for future free navigation, and against an Egyptian attack. Following a prolonged negotiation and a severe crisis between the countries, an understanding was reached in February 1957.  

British and French troops departed Egypt in December 1956, and weeks later the British Prime Minister Anthony Eden resigned his office. Following Israel’s withdrawal in March 1957, Egypt reopened the canal to commercial shipping.

Against Israel’s expectations, the Gaza Strip was returned to Egyptian sovereignty and, shortly thereafter, the Fedayeen returned to invade Israeli territory. The freedom of navigation through the Straits of Tiran was maintained until May 1967, prior to the Six Day War.

Ten years later, Egypt shut down the canal again, following the Six Day War and Israel’s occupation of the Sinai peninsula. For the next eight years, the Suez Canal, which separates Sinai from the rest of Egypt, existed as the front line between the Egyptian and Israeli armies.

In 1975, Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat reopened the Suez Canal as a gesture of peace, after talks with Israel. Today, an average of 50 ships navigate the canal daily, carrying more than 300 million tons of goods a year.

The Suez Crisis made clear that the old colonial powers, Great Britain and France, had been supplanted as the world’s preeminent geopolitical forces - by the United States and Soviet Union.