Summary
The UN force created by the General Assembly on 7 November 1956, whose stationing Israel first refused in any territory it held and then made the condition of its withdrawal and of freedom of navigation in the Eilat Straits — in Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, Golda Meir’s March 1957 declaration assumed that on evacuation the Gaza Strip’s military and civil administration would be transferred “exclusively to the UN Emergency Force”, an assumption Henry Cabot Lodge’s reply set aside, and the book argues that even the force’s presence was no guarantor of complete freedom of navigation (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.271, p.298, p.344).
Details
- Yohanan Bader noted in the Knesset on 5/3/57 that the force the 7 November decision had barred — “a foreign force, whatever it is called, including a force of the UN” — had in fact entered the territories held by Israel after the 8 November withdrawal announcement (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.303-304).
- After the withdrawal the force “was parked in the Gaza Strip, and confrontation with it would have far-reaching international implications” — one of the political facts that made David Ben-Gurion’s threats of self-defensive action empty ones (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.317).
- Ben-Gurion (5/3/57): “recognizing freedom of navigation alone does not ensure freedom of navigation to Israel as well, as was the case regarding the Suez Canal; and therefore there is a need to station a UN force until there is a peace agreement”; the book answers that a force that remains only until Egypt asks it to leave makes navigation depend “on less than nothing”, and that about two years after the war Israel sold two frigates anchored in the Gulf to Ceylon because the closure made removing them impossible (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.344).
Related pages
Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, Operation Sinai, Henry Cabot Lodge, Gaza