Summary
The Israeli invasion of Egypt launched on 29 October 1956, coordinated with the Anglo-French attack on Egypt over the nationalization of the Suez Canal, as treated in Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace: announced by the IDF as a strike at Fedayeen units “near the Suez Canal”, it conquered Sinai and the Gaza Strip in under a week, was proclaimed by David Ben-Gurion as inaugurating “the Third Kingdom of Israel”, and collapsed within some thirty hours under world pressure, ending in a forced withdrawal completed in March 1957 (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.247, p.250).
Details
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The IDF announcement of 29 October 1956, meticulously formulated and authorized by Ben-Gurion, stated that IDF forces had “entered and struck at Fedayeen units in Ras al-Naqab and in Kuntila and captured positions west of the Nahal junction, near the Suez Canal”; the next day Britain and France vetoed the US Security Council proposal to condemn Israel and bar intervention — “for the first time in the history of the UN” as printed — and the day after presented their ultimatum, which Egypt rejected and Israel accepted, its forces not yet within 10 miles of the Canal (PDF p.247-248).
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Anglo-French bombing began 1 November; the Iraqi oil pipeline was blown up in Jordan on 2 November after oil was found flowing through it to Haifa, and Egypt blocked the Canal with sunken cement-loaded ships; by 6 November the IDF controlled Sinai and the Gaza Strip, while the Anglo-French invasion failed under worldwide anger and Egyptian resistance (PDF p.248-249).
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Ben-Gurion’s telegram to the 9th Brigade, read by Dayan at Sharm al-Sheikh on 6 November, declared that Yotvat (Tiran), “until one thousand four hundred years ago was an independent Hebrew state, will once again become part of the Third Kingdom of Israel” (Davar, 7/11/56) (PDF p.249-250).
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In the Knesset on 7 November 1956 Ben-Gurion declared the Egypt ceasefire accord and lines “dead and buried” and “breathed their last”, claimed “Our army did not strike Egyptian territory” (Sinai being treated as separate from Egypt), refused any stationing of foreign force “in any of the territories held by Israel”, and the Knesset backed him 88 to 3, only Maki dissenting (PDF p.250-253, p.265).
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On the night of 8 November, under political pressure, Ben-Gurion broadcast agreement in principle to withdraw from Sinai, while naming Gaza’s annexation (“the liberation of territory of the Homeland that had been seized by the invader”) and Suez navigation freedom among the operation’s three principal aims (PDF p.266).
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The UN General Assembly voted 65 to 1 (Israel alone against, 10 abstentions) for immediate evacuation on 7 November; on 19 January 1957 it again demanded complete withdrawal, Britain voting against Israel for the first time, and on 3 February 1957 a US-India resolution passed 74 to 2 (Israel and France), John Foster Dulles warning that “Israel’s very existence is dependent to a great extent on the good will of many nations” (PDF p.271, p.279, p.290).
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Israel sought to keep Gaza without its army, under an “Israeli administration” (23/1/57), the Knesset resolving that “Israel will keep the Gaza Strip” and that the IDF would not evacuate the Tiran coast before navigation guarantees; the government’s final capitulation and the completed withdrawal fall in the next part of the book (PDF p.281, p.289).
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The withdrawal was completed in March 1957: after John Foster Dulles had four times rejected Golda Meir’s draft UN speech before approving it, he told nine Arab states’ representatives the USA had given no guarantees and the evacuation would be complete and unconditional, and Henry Cabot Lodge told the Assembly Israel’s declaration was not contingent on any conditions; Dulles told Abba Eban on 7/3/57 Israel would not even have the legal right to evict Egyptians returning to Gaza (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.295-300).
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The 5-6 March 1957 Knesset debate ended with all non-confidence motions defeated (the Communists’ by 104 to 6, the General Zionists’ and Herut’s by 85 to 25) and, for the first and only time in its history, the Knesset dissolved after a foreign-policy debate without passing any resolution; the day after Ben-Gurion’s 13/3/57 “freedom of action” reply the Egyptian governor returned to Gaza and the USA resumed economic aid (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.315-316).
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Chapter 7’s post-mortem verdict: Operation Suez-Sinai “was a joint and combined operation, both from the aspect of initiative and the planning and also in the execution”, the Anglo-French “separation of the warring parties” pretext “a transparent ruse that had been prepared in advance”; measured by its initiators’ maximal hopes — deposing Nasser, seizing the Canal, annexing Sinai or Gaza — it was a failure, and even its reduced declared goals (Gaza annexation dropped between the November and March lists of objectives, Suez navigation dropped with it) were not achieved (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.334, p.338-341).
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Chapter 7’s balance-sheet continues: the withdrawal campaign was “a complete refutation, reductio ad absurdum” of the activist policy of force — even under a “unique historical chance”, with two global Powers collaborating, that policy “cannot impose anything on its adversaries”, and the watchdog threat lost its potency, which is why in the five years since Sinai no more than one “reprisal action” was carried out: “If you have fired a cannon and missed, then there’s no point in threatening someone with a pistol” (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.351-353).
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Dayan’s answer, to Northern Command officers on 31 March 1957, was that Israel must say it is ready “to do a second, third, fifth round even if it ends in withdrawal” — “tomorrow five Sinais are needed, then five Sinais it is” — which the book calls a poker-player’s strategy: “even in the game of poker there is not much value in bluffing after your hand has been tipped” (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.353-354).
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The “preventive war” rationale is dismantled: Ben-Gurion (19/6/56) and Lavon (4/1/55) had both held preventive war to be antidemocratic madness — Lavon: “there is a fundamental contradiction between democracy – real democracy, not fake, and the idea of preventive war” — Egypt in late 1956 was only beginning to absorb Soviet arms (fifty to sixty trained pilots for some 300 Russian aircraft, per The Economist), and an Egyptian attack would have been “political and military suicide”, the one thing Eden and Mollet would most have welcomed; the verdict: “The Sinai War was indeed a preventive war; but it was not an Egyptian attack on Israel that it prevented, but the possibility of negotiations with Egypt” (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.354-358, 365).
Related pages
Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, David Ben-Gurion, Gaza raid (1955), Fedayeen, Watchdog state, Gaza, Mapam, Dom Mintoff, U Nu