50 years on from Suez

At its simplest, the Suez Crisis was an invasion by British and French military forces that was intended to assert their legal rights of ownership over the Suez Canal, and in the process, bring about the expulsion of the Egyptian dictator, Gamal Abdel Nasser. Nasser had nationalised the Suez Canal, despite the Canal legally belonging to the British and French (the Egyptians having sold their share of the canal to the British in 1875).

From the point of the British and French, Nasser was simply a dictator out of the same mould as Mussolini or Franco. He had ousted the Egyptian King, Farouk, a few years earlier, and in the process fanned the flames of Arab nationalism defined in part as a rejection of European cultural dominance in the Arab world and a denial of monarchs and leaders viewed to be over-friendly to European interests.

Running alongside the rise of Arab nationalism was the establishment of the Jewish state of Israel. The Arab-Israeli war of 1948 resulted in large numbers of Palestians leaving Israel for neighbouring Arab states, including Egypt. Nasser directly and indirectly supported raids by paramilitaries into Israel, further increasing tensions between the two countries.

Britain, France, and Israel came up with a secret plan that served each of the three nations’ goals. The plan was that Israel would invade Egypt through the Sinai Peninsula, Britain and France would “ask” Egypt and Israel to stop fighting, presenting them with an ultimatum before they would invade and force the two countries apart. They knew Egypt would never agree to terms they would request, ensuring that they would have a safe and legal pretext for an invasion. Britain and France would then swoop in, secure the Suez Canal, and separate the Israelis from the Egyptians.

Israel invaded in October 29th, 1956, Britain and France began bombing Egypt two days later, and invaded the country by November 5th. Militarily, the operation was a success, and though Nasser was not yet toppled, the Canal was at least back in European hands, and the Israelis had secured the entire Sinai to within a few miles of the Canal. The problems came afterwards.

One issue was timing. October 1956 was also the time of the Hungarian Uprising, during which time the Soviet Union re-imposed its control over the Hungarian state. The United States had of course condemned this, but this had placed the Americans in an awkward position: how was the Russian supression of a nationalist uprising any different to what the British and French were doing in Egypt? Ultimately, the American government under Eisenhower decided there was not enough difference to make the invasion of the Suez Canal politically acceptable, and insisted that the British and French pull out. For Britain, the pressure was intense: the Americans threatened to dump their reserves of British currency, which would have had catastrophic implications for the Britsh economy.

To be fair, the Americans also believed that their interests were best served by seeing Britain and France abandon their colonies. After all, this would continue the shoft of power away from Europe and towards the US, and the various newly-independent countries in Africa and Asia were potential markets for American goods, services, and above all political ideas.

The second issue was how the plan had been concocted. Whilst the French and Israelis had treated the invasion as a fully legitimate, if secret, action, the British Prime Minister Anthony Eden had largely played his role independently of the poltical establishment. He had not discussed the invasion with his Cabinet, and had instead channeled ideas through trusted colleagues and military officers. He had also lied about British involvement in the plan in the House of Commons, so when things went wrong, this gave many British politics the excuse to distance themselves from the Suez Crisis and withdraw their personal support for Eden as Prime Minister. By 1957 he was out of office, his personal reputation in tatters, and his health broken.

For all concerned, Suez was a key determining factor in future events. For Nasser, by playing the strong man, even while losing militarily in the short term, he won out in the long term, and the success of Arab nationalism was secured. Nasser was just the first in a series of men who continue to dominate Arab politics, men like Hafez al-Assad, Muammar al-Gaddafi, and of course Saddam Hussein. Arab politics continues to be less about economics or social welfare, but more about national identity, resistance to “colonial powers”, and of course Israel. The Suez Canal, of course, has remained in Egyptian hands.

The border between Israel and Egypt may be fixed, but the extent of Israeli occupation moved back and forth in the years after Suez. Israel has continually maintained its dominance militarily, but in having to find a balance between security and world opinion, it moved soldiers in and out of Sinai until the Camp David accords of 1978 finally established peaceful relations between the two countries.

Britain and France took very different routes. Britain oriented itself towards the United States, whereas France increasingly defined itself at the heart of Europe, especially in alliance with Germany. It is easy to over-emphasise this of course, as Britain, France, and the United States obviously have far more in common with each other that separates them. All are liberal democracies based on free trade and freedom of speech. But there are important nuances that do delinieate the three, and while Britain and the US more often than not agree with one another on the world stage, France frequently positions itself as the alternative.

Ultimately Suez was the point at which the “old alliances” between European powers ceased to be relevant. British and French colonial ambitions didn’t collapse afterwards; the Falklands War of 1982 was perhaps the last major that would fit into that category. But what did happen was a shattering of the illusion that Britain and France were superpowers of the same type as the United States (or, at the time, Soviet Union). NATO and the European Union have both, in different ways, re-defined the “power” status of Britain and France. What remains less clear is how, if ever, there can be the same sort of tidying of relationships between Arab nationalism, the State of Israel, and the United States.