- The United States threatens Britain and France
over their military support of Israel.
Could you imagine reading a headline like this today?
And yet, that's exactly what happened in the least known
of Israel's wars, The Sinai Campaign of 1956.
Why is this brief military engagement
with fighting lasting no more than a week and a half,
been called Israel's second War of Independence.
How did it transform the new State of Israel,
into a major player on the international scene?
And how did it shape the careers
of a future Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon,
and one of Israel's most famous military leaders,
General Moshe Dayan.
(upbeat music)
First of all, a little background.
Following World War I, the League of Nations,
that's the predecessor to the United Nations,
gave Britain and France authority over certain territories
in the Middle East which they deemed
not fully capable of self governance.
France, was entrusted with a mandate
of Syria and Lebanon, and the British were given a mandate
for Iraq and Palestine.
It is important to realize, that in each case,
the borders of these mandate territories
were determined by the European powers.
The United States objected to this mandate system,
arguing that it was really just a way
for the victorious European countries
to rearrange the world to suit their own interests
using international law to give their scheme
the appearance of legitimacy.
In 1921, the British lopped off half of Palestine
on the Eastern bank of the Jordan River,
and turned it into the Kingdom of Transjordan.
Later, in 1932, Iraq attained independence as well,
but the other regions only achieved self-rule
after World War II.
But, even after their achieving independence,
the former colonial powers who had governed the mandates
retained significant economic and political influence there.
This was the situation in the 1950's
when the secular nationalists movement,
known as Pan-Arabism, took root in the Arab world.
Pan-Arabism sought to unite the Arabs in the region
against the former colonial powers of Britain and France.
The central idea of Pan-Arabism is
that the Arabic speakers in the land
stretching from North Africa to the Persian Gulf,
constitute one people with a shared national consciousness.
But, if all Arabs are really just one cohesive group
then they only need one leader,
and that's a gap that Gamel Abdel Nasser
sought to fill.
Nasser came to power in Egypt in 1952,
when he led a coup that overthrew the monarchy of King Farouk.
Nasser saw the King Farouk as a British puppet,
a leftover from the colonial era.
Now in power, Nasser became the first leader
in the Arab world to make Pan-Arabism a state policy.
Nasser said that he wanted to bring about a new era,
one where all manifestation of colonialism
would be destroyed.
Israel, in his view, was just the latest expression
of Western colonialism.
A foreign project that the US and European powers had planted in the Middle East
to further their own goals.
It had no proper place in the region,
and therefore, had to to be destroyed.
Nasser's desire to eradicate Israel
was also likely rooted in antisemitism.
He frequently spoke of a "Jew conspiracy"
to control the world,
and he contributed to the popularization of the forgery
Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
With regards to the Holocaust, Nasser wrote
that quote, "No person, not even the most simple one,
"takes seriously the lie of the six million Jews
"that were murdered."
Nasser's government quickly overtook major reform,
such as seizing private property.
His rhetoric and policies especially
alarmed Great Britain, which had occupied Egypt
since 1882, and believed that it had
vital interests there which were now at risk.
In particular, Britain wanted to
maintain control over the Suez Canal,
a water passage linking
the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea,
which it owned jointly with the French.
Fun fact, back in the eighteen hundreds,
a French sculptor designed a huge statue
of an Egyptian woman holding up a torch
to stand at the mouth of the Suez Canal
welcoming visitors.
Look familiar?
France and Egypt then decided
it was too expensive a project
so they pitched it to the US, and the
New York City souvenir industry, was born.
So, the French, also had a stake
in the Suez Canal, as well as interests
in Egypt's neighbors, Algeria, Tunisia,
Morocco and others.
And, did I mention, that over two-thirds
of Europe's oil supply, passed through
the Suez Canal also?
Well, Nasser's Pan-Arabism threatened all of this.
So, where does Israel fit into all of this?
Well, what's a conflict in the Middle East
without the Jews, right?
In some ways, Pan-Arabism was the counterpart,
the Arab's antidote to Zionism.
An ideology which promised to unite
a people and secure their rights
to the land that they deemed their own.
But, it really owes its success to its emotional appeal.
If you were an Arab, living in the aftermath
of the Israeli War of Independence,
you were contending with the disaster
of displacement, flight and destruction
following the Israeli victory over the Arab armies
in 1948 and '49.
Later, the Arab's had called this event The Nakba,
or The Catastrophe.
Pan-Arabism seemed to be the answer
to the great humiliation they felt
and this helped to make Nasser immensely popular.
Israelis in the early 1950s were quite anxious
about their nation's security, and with good reason.
Not only had the Arabs rejected initiatives
to arrive at a peace settlement, but extreme violence
continued to hit the Jewish state.
Arab terrorists known as Fedayeen,
infiltrated Israel from Egyptian and Jordanian territories
and in the period from 1949 to 1956,
the period leading up to the war,
they had executed thousands of infiltrations
and attacked and killed hundreds of Israelis.
For Israelis, many of whom had survived
the horrors of the Holocaust,
as well as the traumatic War of Independence,
this level of violence could not be tolerated.
So, how did the Israeli government respond to this threat?
Well, in 1953 General Moshe Dayan
picked Major Arial Sharon to head
an elite commando outfit known as Unit 101,
which would launch retaliatory strikes
across Israel's borders in an effort
to deter Fedayeen attacks.
Unit 101 was very controversial
but it achieved its goal of suppressing terror attacks
against Israeli civilians.
To learn more about the topic
check out our video on the Fedayeen at the link below.
Okay, back to England and France.
So during all this, England, France and the US
had entered into an agreement to limit arms sales
to the Middle East, in order to maintain
a balance of power between the Arabs and the Israelis.
So, when Nasser wanted to boost his military power
and buy more weapons, he turned to the Soviet Union.
Now, this was during the height of the Cold War
so the Soviets were quite happy to build an alliance
with Egypt to counter the Western democracy's
influence in the region.
In September 1955, news of a massive weapons deal
between the soviets and Egypt was announced,
adding to the worries of the Americans, British
and French, and of course, the Israelis,
which would culminate, the next year in the Sinai War.
Okay, there's a lot going on here
so lets take a step back and look at the big picture.
Three separate conflicts were taking place in the region
in the mid 1950s.
The Cold War, between the Communist world
and the Western democracies,
the Arab National Independence Movement's struggles
against Britain and France,
and the Arab-Israeli conflict, which was now
focused on Israel and Egypt.
Hindsight is 20/20, but with so much tension
from so many different sides,
it may never have been a question,
of if war would break out, but only when.
Oh, and we haven't really mentioned
the role of that other country,
the one that sometimes makes waves.
What's it called?
Oh yeah, the United States, but we'll get there.
So, in 1956, when Nasser announced that Egypt
would nationalize, or take over the Suez Canal,
remember oil, Britain and France decided to act.
Israel also had issues with Nasser's decisions
since Egypt was now blocking Israeli goods
from passing through the canal and the Straits of Tiran.
This economic threat, combined with the arms
that Egypt was acquiring from the Soviet Union,
combined with the Fedayeen attacks from Egypt,
was seen as a real danger for Israel's existence.
But, what to do?
On October 22nd, Prime Minister of Israel David Ben-Gurion,
Minister of Defense, Shimon Peres,
and IDF Chief of Staff General Moshe Dayan,
secretly traveled to an isolated house in France
to meet their French and British counterparts.
The French suggested a plan:
First, Israel would attack the Egyptian army
in the Sinai and pose a threat to the Suez Canal.
Britain and France would pretend to be surprised
and would then invade Egypt, to separate the combatants.
In doing so, they would take over the canal
and, if things went well, topple Nasser
while they were at it.
This would enable the two European powers
to pretend that they were acting as neutral referees,
in a dispute to which they had no part.
The Israelis did not trust the British,
who had been their enemy less than a decade earlier,
but the French were not prepared
to act without their British allies.
So, the Israelis, French and British signed the Secret Pact.
On the afternoon of October 29, 1956, according to the plan,
Israeli troops moved into the Sinai desert,
Arial Sharon led his paratroopers to the Mitla Pass,
a key passageway to the Suez Canal.
By the next day, the paratroopers captured
three Egyptian military bases,
and were within 30 miles of the canal.
As arranged, Britain instructed Egypt and Israel
to withdraw all of their forces from the canal.
In essence, this meant telling Egypt to give up control.
Egypt predictably rejected Britain's demand.
Then, on October 31st, British and French planes
bombed Egyptian airfields and destroyed Nasser's Air Force.
The same day, Israeli forces pushed into the Gaza strip
to destroy the Fedayeen terrorist infrastructure there.
They then turned south, and advanced into the Sinai
until the town of Sharm el-Sheikh.
Within a week, Israel had routed the Egyptian military
and taken control of the Straits of Tiran,
and the eastern Sinai coast.
During the campaign, Sharon cemented his reputation
as a bit of a maverick.
He made some decisions to advance,
that were beyond the scope of his orders.
He directed an attack by his paratroopers
against dug-in Egyptian oppositions at Jebel Heitan
without authorization.
General Moshe Dayan later praised the move,
even as he criticized Sharon for causing
more Israeli casualties than necessary.
Since neither England nor France chose to land
either of their armies in the conflict zone
until a week after the combat began,
virtually all of the fighting that took place
was conveniently between Egypt and Israel.
The conflict raged for one week
until the United State finally stepped in
and told Britain, France and Israel to back off,
and they did.
Israel still feared that a pull back
might leave the Sinai and Gaza once again
available as bases for launching terror attacks into Israel.
But, the US promised Israel that in return
for a rapid and complete withdrawal
form those territories, the Americans
would guarantee that the waterways
would remain open for Israeli shipping.
The US also agreed that Israel would be free
to use force to defend her rights in the future.
A deal the Israel would definitely take them
up on, a few years later.
Several days after the fighting had stopped,
reports coming out of Prime Minister Ben-Gurion's office,
suggested that Israel might annex the Sinai Peninsula.
US President Eisenhower, was not cool
with this idea, to say the least.
He told Israel, in no uncertain terms
that such a move would derail relations
between their two countries.
This might sound strange since the United States
nowadays is the greatest supporter of Israel,
in the international community.
But, in those early years of the State of Israel,
the US adopted a more pragmatic approach
to the Middle East, so as not to drive
the Arabs into the hands of the Soviets.
But, this didn't really work out so well,
and the Soviets ended up as a major
supporter of the Arab states anyway.
Once the conflict was over, it wasn't just the US
that seemed isolated form Israel.
Other Western nations, including the British and the French,
who were responsible for the entire war plan to begin with,
were also unprepared to damage their relations
with the Arab world,
by tolerating an Israeli occupation of Egyptian territory.
The Soviet Union, now Egypt's sponsor,
led the demands for complete Israeli withdrawal.
Regardless of the outcome of the campaign,
Israel had already gained much from its partnership
with Britain and France.
Although, it was still a young nation,
it was finally being taken seriously
by the major Western powers,
and was being supplied with arms from the French.
This Israeli-French cooperation continued
with the sharing of knowledge of nuclear energy,
and the secret construction of a nuclear rector in Dimona.
Was I not supposed to say that?
Within Israel, the reaction to the war's outcome
was generally positive.
We can now understand why Israelis
often see the Sinai Campaign
as their second War of Independence.
It restored a sense of security,
to a people that had lived through 8 years
of infiltrations, and constant threats of annihilation.
The success and professionalism of Israel's military
also became a great source of pride,
and led to a decade of relative quiet in the region.
Well, kind of, but we'll talk about that in another episode.
(upbeat music)