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The great military lesson that was reinforced by the Suez War was the extent that the desert favoured highly fluid, mobile operations and the power of aerial interdiction.[239] French aircraft destroyed Egyptian forces threatening paratroopers at Raswa and Israeli air power saved the IDF several days’ worth of time.[239] To operate in the open desert without air supremacy proved to be suicidal for the Egyptian forces in the Sinai.[239] The Royal Marine helicopter assault at Port Said "showed promise as a technique for transporting troops into small landing zones".[239] Strategic bombing proved ineffective.[319] Revise Phase II failed to achieve its aim of breaking Egyptian morale while at the same time, those civilian deaths that did occur helped to turn world opinion against the invasion and especially hurt support for the war in Britain.[319] Egyptian urban warfare tactics at Port Said proved to be effective at slowing down the Allied advance.[319] Finally, the war showed the importance of diplomacy.[319] Anglo-French operations against Egypt were militarily successful, but proved to be counterproductive as opinion in both in the home front in Britain and France and the world abroad, especially in the United States, was against the operation.[319] Europe In West Germany, the Chancellor Konrad Adenauer was shocked by the Soviet threat of nuclear strikes against Britain and France, and even more by the apparent quiescent American response to the Soviet threat of nuclear annihilation against two of NATO's key members.[279] The Bulganin letters showcased Europe's dependence upon the United States for security against Soviet nuclear threats while at the same time seeming to show that the American nuclear umbrella was not as reliable as had been advertised.[279] As a result, the French became determined to acquire their own atomic force rather than rely upon the American nuclear umbrella while both the Germans had additional interest in the idea of an European "Third Force" in the Cold War.[320] This helped to lead to the formation of the European Economic Community in 1957, which was intended to be the foundation stone of the European "Third Force".[321] The European Economic Community was the precursor to the European Union. Egypt Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries Yemenites go to Aden.jpg Main articles One Million Plan Operation Magic Carpet Operation Ezra and Nehemiah Operation Yachin History by country Morocco • Algeria • Tunisia Libya • Egypt • Iraq Syria • Lebanon • Yemen Iran • Turkey Advocacy WOJAC • JIMENA • JJAC The David Project Resettlement Immigrant camps • Ma'abarot Aliyah • Law of Return Development towns North African Jewry in France Related topics Jewish diaspora Mizrahi Jews • Maghrebi Jews Musta'arabi Jews v t e Main article: 1956-57 exodus and expulsions from Egypt Egypt ended as the winner, with the UK and French troops being withdrawn soon, and Israeli troops to withdraw later on, while keeping control over the Suez Canal.[17] In October 1956, when the Suez Crisis erupted, Nasser brought in a set of sweeping regulations abolishing civil liberties and allowing the state to stage mass arrests without charge and strip away Egyptian citizenship from any group it desired; these measures were mostly directed against the Jews of Egypt.[322] As part of its new policy, 1000 Jews were arrested and 500 Jewish businesses were seized by the government.[323] A statement branding the Jews as "Zionists and enemies of the state" was read out in the mosques of Cairo and Alexandria. Jewish bank accounts were confiscated and many Jews lost their jobs.[324] Lawyers, engineers, doctors and teachers were not allowed to work in their professions.[324] Thousands of Jews were ordered to leave the country.[324] They were allowed to take only one suitcase and a small sum of cash, and forced to sign declarations “donating“ their property to the Egyptian government.[325] Some 25,000 Jews, almost half of the Jewish community left, mainly for Israel, Europe, the United States and South America, after being forced to sign declarations that they were leaving voluntarily and agreed with the confiscation of their assets. Similar measures were enacted against British and French nationals in retaliation for the invasion. By 1957 the Jewish population of Egypt had fallen to 15,000.[325] The British historian D. R. Thorpe wrote that the imposed ending to the Crisis gave Nasser "...an inflated view of his own power".[326] In his mind, he had defeated the combined forces of the United Kingdom, France and Israel, whereas in fact the military operation had been "defeated" by pressure from the United States.[326][327] Despite the Egyptian defeat, Nasser emerged as an enhanced hero in the Arab world.[327] The American historian Derek Varble commented "Although Egyptian forces fought with mediocre skill during the conflict, many Arabs saw Nasser as the conqueror of European colonialism and Zionism, simply because Britain, France and Israel left the Sinai and the northern Canal Zone".[327] The Greek-American historian P. J. Vatikiotis wrote that Nasser in his speeches both in 1956 and after provided for "superficial explanations of Egypt's military collapse in Sinai, based on some extraordinary strategy..." and that "Simplistic children's tales about the Egyptian air force's prowess in 1956 were linked in the myth of orderly withdrawal from Sinai. All this was necessary to construct yet another myth, that of Port Said. Inflating and magnifying odd and sporadic resistance into a Stalingrad-like tenacious defense, Port Said became the spirit of Egyptian independence and dignity...".[328] During the Nasser era, the fighting at Port Said become a huge symbol of the victory that Egypt was said to have won, which in turn was linked to as part and parcel of a wider anti-colonial struggle throughout the entire world.[329] Thorpe wrote about Nasser's post Suez hubris that "The Six Day War against Israel in 1967 was when reality kicked in—a war that would never have taken place if the Suez crisis had had a different resolution".[326] Summarizing the arguments of the Egyptian writer Tawfiq al-Hakim about the links between the 1956 and 1967 wars Vatikiotis wrote that: "Were bluffing and histrionics in the nature of Nasser? It was bluffing that led to the crushing of Egypt in 1967, because of the mass self-deception exercised by leaders and followers alike ever since the non-existent "Stalingrad which was Port Said" in 1956." [330] Britain The political and psychological impact of the crisis had a fundamental impact on British politics. Anthony Eden was accused of misleading parliament and resigned from office on 9 January 1957. Eden had barely been prime minister for two years by the time of his resignation, and his unsuccessful handling of the Suez Crisis eclipsed the successes he had achieved in various government and opposition roles over the previous 30 years.[331] Eden's successor, Harold Macmillan, greatly accelerated the process of decolonisation and sought to recapture the benevolence of the United States.[332] He enjoyed a close friendship with Eisenhower, dating from the North African campaign in the Second World War, where General Eisenhower commanded allied invasion forces and Macmillan provided political liaison with Winston Churchill.[333] Benefiting from his personal popularity and a good economy, Macmillan's government increased its Parliamentary majority in the 1959 general election. The Suez crisis, though a blow to British power in the Near East, did not mark its end. Britain intervened successfully in Jordan to put down riots that threatened the rule of King Hussein in 1958 and in 1961 deployed troops to Kuwait to successfully deter an Iraqi invasion; the latter deployment had a response to the threats of the Iraqi dictator General Abd al-Karim Qasim that he would invade and annex Kuwait.[334] However, at the same time, though British influence continued in the Middle East, Suez was a blow to British prestige in the Near East that Britain never recovered from.[334] Increasingly, British foreign policy thinking turned away from acting as a great imperial power. During the 1960s there was much speculation that Prime Minister Harold Wilson's continual refusals to send any British troops to Vietnam, even as a token force, despite President Lyndon B. Johnson's persistent requests, was partially due to the Americans failing to support Britain during the Suez Crisis. Edward Heath was dismayed by the US opposition to Britain during the Suez Crisis; as Prime Minister in October 1973 he refused the US permission to use any of the UK's air bases to resupply during the Yom Kippur War,[335] or to allow the Americans to gather intelligence from British bases in Cyprus.[336] Despite the lack of US co-operation, and although British domestic politics suffered, the British relationship with the United States did not suffer lasting consequences from the crisis. "The Anglo-American 'special relationship' was revitalised immediately after the Suez Crisis."[337] "The two governments ... engaged in almost ritualistic reassurances that their 'special relationship' would be restored quickly" - in particular Britain's first Hydrogen bomb test Operation Grapple which led to the 1958 US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement.[338] Eisenhower himself later stated privately that he regretted his opposition to the combined British, French and Israeli response to the Crisis.[339] France Franco-American ties never recovered from the Suez crisis.[340] There were various reasons for this. "Prior to the Suez Crisis, there had already been strains in the Franco-American relationship triggered by what Paris considered U.S. betrayal of the French war effort in Indochina at Dien Bien Phu in 1954.[340] The incident demonstrated the weakness of the NATO alliance in its lack of planning and co-operation beyond the European stage. Mollet believed Eden should have delayed calling the Cabinet together until 7 November, taking the whole Canal in the meantime, and then veto with the French any UN resolution on sanctions. From the point of view of General de Gaulle, the Suez events demonstrated to France that it could not rely on its allies; the British had initiated a ceasefire in the midst of the battle without consulting the French, while the Americans had opposed Paris politically. The damage to the ties between Paris and Washington D.C. "culminated in President de Gaulle's 1966 decision to withdraw from the military integration of NATO."[341] The Suez war had an immense impact on French domestic politics. Much of the French Army officer corps felt that they been "betrayed" by what they considered to be the spineless politicians in Paris when they were on the verge of victory just as they believed they had been "betrayed" in Vietnam in 1954, and accordingly become more determined to win the war in Algeria, even if it meant overthrowing the Fourth Republic to do so.[342] The Suez crisis thus help to set the stage for the military disillusionment with the Fourth Republic, which was to lead to the collapse of the republic in 1958.[342] According to the protocol of Sèvres agreements, France secretly transmitted parts of its own atomic technology to Israel, including a detonator.[343] Israel An Israeli soldier stands next to an Egyptian gun that had blocked the Tiran Straits. The Israel Defense Forces gained confidence from the campaign. The war demonstrated that Israel was capable of executing large scale military maneuvers in addition to small night-time raids and counter insurgency operations. David Ben-Gurion, reading on 16 November that 90,000 British and French troops had been involved in the Suez affair, wrote in his diary, 'If they had only appointed a commander of ours over this force, Nasser would have been destroyed in two days.'[344] The war also had tangible benefits for Israel. The Straits of Tiran, closed by Egypt since 1951 was re-opened. Israeli shipping could henceforth move freely through the Straits of Tiran to and from Africa and Asia. The Israelis also secured the presence of UN Peacekeepers in Sinai. Operation Kadesh bought Israel an eleven-year lull on its southern border with Egypt.[345] Israel escaped the political humiliation that befell Britain and France following their swift, forced withdrawal. In addition, its stubborn refusal to withdraw without guarantees, even in defiance of the United States and United Nations, ended all Western efforts, mainly American and British ones, to impose a political settlement in the Middle East without taking Israel's security needs into consideration.[346] In October 1965 Eisenhower told Jewish fundraiser and Republican party supporter Max M. Fisher that he greatly regretted forcing Israel to withdraw from the Sinai peninsula; Vice-President Nixon recalled that Eisenhower expressed the same view to him on several occasions.[346] Other parties Lester B. Pearson, who would later become the Prime Minister of Canada, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957 for his efforts in creating a mandate for a United Nations Peacekeeping Force, and he is considered the father of the modern concept of peacekeeping.[citation needed] The Suez Crisis contributed to the adoption of a new national flag of Canada in 1965. The flag adopted in 1965 is currently the Canadian flag. The Egyptian government had objected to Canadian peacekeeping troops on the grounds that their flag at that time included a British ensign.[citation needed] As Prime Minister, Pearson would advocate the simple Maple Leaf that was eventually adopted. After Suez, Cyprus, Aden and Iraq became the main bases for the British in the region while the French concentrated their forces at Bizerte and Beirut. UNEF was placed in the Sinai (on Egyptian territory only) with the express purpose of maintaining the cease-fire. While effective in preventing the small-scale warfare that prevailed before 1956 and after 1967, budgetary cutbacks and changing needs had seen the force shrink to 3,378 by 1967. The Soviet Union, after long peering through the keyhole of a closed door on what it considered a Western sphere of influence, now found itself invited over the threshold as a friend of the Arabs. Shortly after it reopened, the canal was traversed by the first Soviet warships since World War I. The Soviets' burgeoning influence in the Middle East, although it was not to last, included acquiring Mediterranean bases, introducing multipurpose projects, supporting the budding Palestinian liberation movement and penetrating the Arab countries.[347] |
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