On October 29, 1956, Israel, France, and the UK invaded Egypt in an attempt to regain control of the Suez Canal in the wake of Egypt’s nationalization of it. By November 7, Israel’s position was strengthened; it gained the freedom to navigate the Straits of Tiran and occupied the Sinai peninsula until March of 1957, but Egypt retained the Suez Canal, and Britain and France suffered losses to their geopolitical clout. While President Eisenhower believed the nationalization of the Suez was outrageous, he was absolutely against the use of military force (advocating a UN-sanctioned ceasefire from the beginning), he employed financial leverage against the invaders, eventually persuading them to leave. In doing so, Eisenhower managed to claim the moral high ground over the Soviets, who had been violently putting down an uprising in Hungary that began on October 23.
For the new state of Israel, the Suez Crisis was prompted primarily by regional conflicts. From its inception, Israel faced a decidedly unfriendly relationship with Egypt, as its President, Gamal Abdel Nasser was opposed to the foundation of a Jewish state anywhere in the Middle East, and beginning in 1950, barred Israeli commercial vessels from passing through the Straits of Tiran, constraining Israel’s ability to bolster its nascent economy. As a result, Israeli Prime Minister Ben-Gurion felt he had no choice but to force Nasser to open the straits. Furthermore, with Britain being forced to relinquish its colonial holdings, which it could no longer afford in the wake of World War 2, Prime Minister Anthony Eden yearned for an opportunity to demonstrate that Britain was still a great power. Lastly, French Prime Minister Guy Mollet abhorred Egyptian support for Algerian rebels seeking to drive out the French. Therefore, when the totality of the circumstances are considered, Israel, France, and Britain all had an interest in curtailing Egyptian power.
For the Eisenhower administration, cold war calculus dictated its handling of the Suez Crisis. The United States instantly recognized Israel after its founding in 1948, seeking to undermine the USSR which had been initially supportive of Zionism in Palestine prior to the partition. As Israel had begun to align itself with the United States, Khruschev agreed to sell Egypt arms in 1955 after the United States had refused to do so. In response, Eisenhower and his Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, forged a proposal to Nasser that offered $200 million to build a dam on the Nile River at Aswan. However, implicit in the offer was a Western expectation that Egypt would distance itself from the Soviets, scale back anti-Israeli rhetoric, and engage in peace negotiations with Israel. Suffice to say, Nasser refused to make any concessions to the West, and with both Republicans and Democrats decrying Nasser as “Hitler on the Nile”, the unpopularity of the plan at home forced the US to rescind its offer of financial support on July 19, 1956. Nasser responded by nationalizing the Suez Canal on July 26.
The American press portrayed the actions of the US to resolve the conflict in Egypt in a positive light, portraying the US as both the moral and actual winner (relative to the Soviet Union), as well as implying that the United States had helped create the possibility for peace, and had done so in a pragmatic manner. In a November 7, 1956 article in the New York Times titled “Cease-Fire in Egypt”, the author first notes that Britain and France’s adherence to the cease-fire was contingent upon the deployment of UN peacekeepers to enforce the cease-fire, but unconditional between Egypt and Israel. After outlining the terms of the agreement, the author notes that “The cease-fire, which should hamper Soviet efforts to intervene in the Middle East… once the fighting is stopped there should be no insuperable stumbling blocks to peace”. This statement communicated two ideas to readers. First, it reinforced to the American public that the US had the upper hand in the global struggle for primacy with the Soviet Union. Second, it buttressed Washington’s talking point that the US had the moral high ground over the Soviets, who had been violently suppressing Hungarian popular uprisings at the same time the Suez Crisis was occurring. In another New York Times article (published on the same day), the author described the massive costs the British were enduring as a result of the conflict (it was experiencing high inflation), but noted that “With the restoration of peace in the Middle East and some prospect of a permanent settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict, sterling almost unquestionably will gain in strength”. This assertion showed support for American actions in the Suez Crisis, as it emphasized the negative effects of being drawn into regional disputes (which the U.S. had avoided, in this case) and implied that the United States had served as a catalyst for peace in the Middle East.
Works Cited
“Cease-Fire in Egypt.” New York Times Nov 07, 1956. 36
Craig, Campbell, and Fredrik Logevall. America’s Cold War: The Politics of Insecurity. Cambridge, Massachusetts ; London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2020.
Little, Douglas, “The Cold War in the Middle East: Suez Crisis to Camp David Accords.” In
The Cambridge History of the Cold War, edited by Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010: 305-26d
Suez crisis. (n.d.). Retrieved February 15, 2021, from https://www.britannica.com/event/Suez-Crisis