Summary
British colonel and author of 100 Hours to Suez (Collins, 1957), an account of the Israeli campaign written at the Israeli authorities’ request and passed by the Israeli censor, who in Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace is quoted both labouring to prove there was no collusion and revealing it: in September 1956 a British Cabinet Minister gave him a message for David Ben-Gurion — “Britain will welcome an Israeli attack on Egypt, at the same time as British forces enter Suez” — to which Ben-Gurion responded only with a smile (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.329, p.330-331).
Details
- Henriques’ book comments on the Israeli Air Force’s orders in the early hours of Thursday, October 25: its role was “to support the ground forces, and to be prepared to counter enemy interference” — “This was a role for which [the Israeli Air Force] had never planned. All previous planning had been based upon the appreciation that it would take six days to reduce the Egyptian Air Force, of which the first three days would be critical”; Randolph Churchill comments that Henriques does not explain that the French-manned Dijon squadrons had been detailed for the cover task (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.329).
- Henriques writes, in response to Childers’ article in the Spectator, that in September 1956 he dined with a Cabinet Minister who transmitted to him, to report to Ben-Gurion: “At all costs you must avoid war with Jordan, but Britain will welcome an Israeli attack on Egypt, at the same time as British forces enter Suez” (Yedioth Aharonoth, 6/11/59) (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.330-331).
Related pages
Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, Randolph Churchill, Operation Sinai, Britain