The Suez conflict. Video hosted on Google. The Suez Crisis erupted in July 1956 when President Nasser of Egypt suddenly nationalized the Suez Canal. Amidst growing international tensions, Secretary of State for External Affairs Lester B. Pearson - later Canada's 14th Prime Minister - proposed that a multinational United Nations peacekeeping force be sent to the Suez to separate the warring parties. As Canada embarks on a new century and a new millennium, her legion of peacekeeping veterans has grown to almost 100,000. Of them, more than 100 hundred died in the line of duty, while hundreds more suffered serious injury. Fifty years ago on July 26, an ambitious Egyptian army colonel, Gamal Abdel Nasser, shocked the world when he defied the most powerful nations in the West and nationalized the Suez Canal. 75% of Europe's oil was shipped thru the canal making it the most important waterway of its day. Nasser's takeover of the Suez Canal would spin the world into a crisis that a half-century later still echoes across the divide between the West and the Arab world.
The struggle for control of the Suez Canal would be the final blow to Great Britain's empire and her role as a world power. It became a rallying point for Arab nationalism and, with the Soviet Union vying for a foothold in the Middle East, caused a dangerous escalation of the Cold War. The crisis also prompted a new role for the United Nations when Canada's External Affairs Minister, Lester B. Pearson, convinced the United Nations to establish a new type of operation sending a peace-keeping force into Egypt. It was the first time such a force had ever been used and it created a peacekeeping legacy for Canada that has lasted nearly 50 years.
When Nasser nationalized the Canal, Britain's Prime Minister Anthony Eden was furious. Britain and France the two co-owners of the canal vowed to take it back; but how? An Anglo-French army would need time to prepare for an invasion and America, fearful of escalating an already dangerous situation, opposed any military action.
But France and Britain were determined, and in a shocking display of political hubris, embarked on a plan which today sounds strikingly familiar: if there was no obvious threat to world security, they would invent one.
In a series of covert meetings, Britain and France allied with Israel, and together the three countries made a secret pact. Israel agreed to invade Egypt and pretend to attack the Suez Canal. The British and French role would be to pretend to protect the Suez Canal from the fighting. To do this, they must deceive the world into believing that, in the name of peace, they must invade Egypt.
The scheme was as ridiculous as it was ineffective. Before British and French troops ever landed in Egypt the world cried foul. They were condemned at the United Nations, berated by the United States and threatened with nuclear retaliation by the Soviet Union. With no support, the invasion ground to a halt. The United Nations, guided by Lester Pearson's idea for peacekeeping, showed that it could unite for peace under the UN's famous blue banner.
CBC's award-winning documentary production team travels to Egypt, Israel, Britain, Canada and the United States to capture eyewitness accounts of the events surrounding the Suez Crisis. Using archival footage -- including rare newsreels found in Cairo the documentary reveals a gripping story of one the 20th Century's most compelling and complex political dramas ever played out on the world stage.
 Map Suez Area The Suez crisis began as a result of the increasingly independent and assertive leadership role played by Egyptian prime minister (later president) Gamal Abdel Nasser. When he came to power in 1954, Nasser followed a pro-Western diplomatic course. He soon diverged from this path, however, emerging as a prominent figure in the Nonaligned Movement, an association of countries that made no formal commitment to either Cold War bloc the West, led by the United States, or the East, led by the USSR while often seeking the support of both sides. In September 1955 Nasser arranged to purchase large amounts of Soviet weaponry from Czechoslovakia, a Communist country; at the same time, he secured promises from the U.S. and British governments to help fund a huge construction project on the Nile River, the Aswan High Dam.
The U.S. secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, was not pleased by Nasser's simultaneous overtures toward an Eastern-bloc nation, and he successfully maneuvered to block the funding of the Aswan dam project. Nasser responded in July 1956 by nationalizing the Suez Canal, transferring ownership of the company that controlled the daily operations of the canal from its British and French owners to the Egyptian government. He declared that he would use the company's profits of $25 million per year as an alternative source of funding for the dam. Nasser defended this action by stating that the canal was Egyptian property, and he pledged to compensate the company's shareholders and to keep the waterway open to the shipping of all nations (though Israel remained excluded under an earlier Egyptian policy).
The British and French governments found the prospect of losing control of the canal unacceptable, because the waterway provided a strategic conduit for huge amounts of oil shipped from the Middle East to Europe. Britain and France demanded that Nasser back down, and when diplomacy failed, they turned to Israel for a military ally. Israel at this time was already considering military action against Egypt. Since 1949 Egypt had forbidden the passage of Israeli ships and any ships carrying cargo to or from Israel through the Suez Canal. Since 1951 it had blockaded the Strait of Tiran at the mouth of the Gulf of Aqaba, completely cutting off Israeli access to the Red Sea. Also, in previous years, guerrillas had staged numerous raids on Israel from the Egyptian-held Gaza Strip.
After several months of secret planning with Britain and France, Israel initiated what would be known as the Suez-Sinai War by invading the Sinai Peninsula on October 29, 1956. In one day, the Israeli forces swept across the Sinai to within a few miles of the Suez Canal. On October 30, as planned, Britain and France issued an ultimatum demanding that both Israeli and Egyptian forces withdraw from the Suez Canal so that a combined British and French military contingent could establish control along the length of the canal. Nasser refused to comply, and on October 31 British and French forces bombed Egyptian military bases, destroying much of the Egyptian air force on the ground. The Egyptian army in the Sinai was routed, and within a week the Israelis controlled almost the entire peninsula. British and French forces began to occupy the canal. In retaliation, Nasser ordered the sinking of 40 ships in the Suez Canal, effectively blocking the waterway.
The United States and the USSR were both caught off guard by these developments, since their attention had been focused on the anti-Communist uprising underway since late October in Hungary. Both superpowers demanded an immediate cease-fire along the canal. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev threatened to use long-range rockets in support of the Egyptian army, while the U.S. government vowed to block all further oil shipments from South America to Europe. This combined pressure, coupled with a strongly worded cease-fire resolution rushed through the UN with the support of both superpowers, forced the British, French, and Israeli governments to relent. They withdrew their forces and agreed to the deployment of a UN peacekeeping force in the canal zone. By the end of December 1956, therefore, the Suez Canal and the Sinai Peninsula had been restored to Egyptian control, and Nasser emerged as an Arab nationalist hero. While Israel was not granted access to the Suez Canal, it did regain free use of the Strait of Tiran in return for withdrawing from the Gaza Strip in early 1957.
The long-term significance of this crisis was threefold. First, it gave a graphic example of the newly assertive attitude animating many so-called Third World nations, which would no longer be content to follow the demands of their former colonial masters. Second, it showed that the two Cold War superpowers would intervene decisivel despite their ideological rivalry to curb what they perceived as dangerous and unnecessary conflicts among third parties. Finally, it demonstrated that the UN could act effectively in those instances when the United States and the USSR pursued the same goal and ceased to block its initiatives from within.
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
