Summary
Labour MP who, two weeks after the Suez invasion, put ten questions to the British government in the House of Commons (Hansard, Vol.560, pp.868-870, 13 November 1956) that Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace quotes in full as an indictment of the collusion: the secret 16 October Paris meeting, French troops massing at Marseilles, Valiant bombers moved to Malta, Israeli officers consulting the French General Staff from 26 October, and the unpublished Tel Aviv dispatch of 26 October that its London editor thought “too fantastical to appear in print” — the British government did not answer the questions (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.321-322).
Details
- His fifth question: why did the British Ambassador in Tel Aviv, when he asked for assurances that Jordan would not be attacked, say nothing about an attack on Egypt, an attack which, the Government said, would imperil the Canal? (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.321)
- His tenth question, which he called decisive: the Israeli action “started from Elath, a few yards from Aqaba where the 10th Hussars are stationed. The Government must have been warned by the 10th Hussars days before that the Israelis were preparing for an attack. If the Government knew nothing about the Israeli plan, they must prove it” (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.322).
- He concluded: “Unless they answer the questions which we have put, they are self-condemned, and the world will judge them by the standards which they applied to the squalid plots by which Hitler and Mussolini ushered in their aggressions in the ‘thirties” (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.322).
Related pages
Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, Britain, Anthony Eden, Operation Sinai