Summary
A British Conservative MP, wartime underground liaison and later Deputy Minister of War, who at the 1986 Beersheba conference marking 30 years since Suez was, in the Haaretz report reproduced as Appendix 2 of Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, “the harshest critic of Operation Sinai” (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.515-516).
Details
- Amery had been one of the heads of the “Sinai Group” that struggled against the British evacuation from Egypt, and characterized the operation as “‘Europe’s Waterloo’” (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.515).
- He attacked the Americans, who in his opinion caused the operation to fail; the failure, he held, harmed Britain’s relations with the Third World, caused a rupture between Britain and France, forced the French to withdraw from Algeria, and brought about a process of decolonization (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.515-516).
- He attacked Eden, who “lied in Parliament when he denied that the British had had contacts with Israel over the operation”: ““Diplomacy”, he said, “is the art of lying to others for your country, but not of lying to your own people.”” (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.516).
Related pages
Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, Operation Sinai, Anthony Eden