💥 29 October
Israeli forces invaded the Sinai peninsula. They quickly beat the Egyptian army and moved towards the canal.
The Creation of Israel, the War of 1948-49 and the Suez Crisis of 1956 » The Suez Crisis: Attack, Withdrawal and Results
What you'll learn this session
Study time: 30 minutes
Edexcel spec: Paper 2 Section B, Breadth study B7, Key topic 2
- How Britain, France and Israel planned and carried out the attack on Egypt in 1956
- How the United Nations and the two superpowers forced them to stop
- What the crisis meant for Egypt, Israel, Britain and France
- How the years 1947-56 fit together
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Unlock This CourseThe secret plan
After Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal Company (took it into Egyptian state ownership) in July 1956, Britain and France wanted the canal back and wanted Nasser gone. Britain's prime minister, Anthony Eden, saw Nasser as a dangerous dictator. Israel had its own reasons to act: Egypt had a large new stock of Soviet bloc arms, and raiders from Egyptian-controlled Gaza kept attacking Israeli villages.
Key terms:
- Collusion: a secret agreement between countries to act together while pretending they are not.
- Ultimatum: a final demand, backed by a threat of action if it is refused.
- Veto: the right of a permanent member of the UN Security Council to block a resolution by voting against it.
- Superpower: a country so strong that it can influence events across the world. In 1956 these were the USA and the Soviet Union.
- UN Emergency Force (UNEF): a force of soldiers from small countries, sent by the UN in 1956 to keep the two sides apart.
In late October 1956 British, French and Israeli leaders met in secret at Sèvres, near Paris. The plan was simple. Israel would invade Egypt. Britain and France would then demand that both sides pull back from the canal, knowing Egypt would refuse. That would give them an excuse to send in their own forces, claiming to protect the canal. It was collusion, and Britain and France denied it for years.
The attack, October-November 1956
📢 30 October
Britain and France issued their ultimatum: both sides must pull back from the canal, and Egypt must let Anglo-French troops occupy the canal area. Egypt refused, as expected.
On 31 October British and French aircraft began bombing Egyptian airfields. Egypt sank ships in the canal to block it. On 5 November British and French paratroopers landed near Port Said, and on 6 November more troops came ashore from the sea. The Egyptian forces could not stop them, but Nasser stayed in power.
The United Nations and the superpowers
The attack soon ran into strong opposition at the UN and from both superpowers. At the UN Security Council the USA proposed that Israel should withdraw, and Britain and France used their veto to block it. The matter then went to the General Assembly, which on 2 November voted 64 to 5 for an immediate ceasefire. Canada's foreign minister, Lester Pearson, suggested a UN force to separate the armies, and the UN Emergency Force was approved on 5 November.
The superpowers, who disagreed about almost everything else, were both against the attack:
- The USA: President Eisenhower was furious that his allies had not warned him. An election was only days away, and he did not want to be seen backing old-style empires. When the value of Britain's money began to fall, he refused to help until British troops agreed to withdraw.
- The Soviet Union: its leaders sent angry notes on 5 November, threatening Britain and France with rocket attack. At that moment Soviet tanks were crushing a revolt in Hungary, so the Soviet Union was glad to turn the world's attention to the West's actions.
Britain stopped fighting late on 6 November, before the canal was fully taken. France and Israel had to stop too. British and French troops left by 22 December, and UNEF moved in. Israel pulled out of Sinai and Gaza by March 1957.
The results of the crisis
🇪🇬 Egypt
The canal was blocked until April 1957, but Nasser kept control of it. Many Arabs saw him as the man who had stood up to Britain and France, and his fame across the Arab world grew.
🇮🇱 Israel
Israel gave up its gains, but its ships could now use the Straits of Tiran to reach the Red Sea, and UNEF stood on the Egyptian side of the border. Raids from Gaza eased for some years.
🇬🇧 Britain
Britain was humiliated and its relations with the USA were damaged. Eden resigned in January 1957 and Harold Macmillan took over. It was clear that Britain could no longer act in the Middle East without American approval.
🇫🇷 France
France also lost face, and turned more towards Europe. In March 1957 it signed the Treaty of Rome with five other European countries.
The crisis also helped the superpowers. The Soviet Union gained friends among Arab states, and Egypt looked to it for help, later including help with the Aswan Dam. In January 1957 the USA announced it would help Middle Eastern states resist Communism, stepping into the gap left by Britain and France.
Drawing together 1947-56
The UN voted to partition Palestine in 1947. Israel was declared in 1948 and fought a war with its Arab neighbours that ended in the armistice agreements of 1949 (agreements to stop fighting). Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians became refugees, and raids and reprisals continued across the borders. By 1956 the quarrel had grown into a crisis involving great powers.
Change: the conflict grew from a local dispute into one that involved the superpowers, Britain and France, and the UN, while Britain's influence dropped sharply. Continuity: the disputed land and the refugee problem were still unsolved, and fighting was still the way disputes were settled.
Common mistakes
- Saying Britain, France and Israel won. They failed to take back the canal, and Nasser came out stronger.
- Forgetting that Israel attacked first, and that the Anglo-French action was a planned follow-up.
- Writing about the USA and the Soviet Union as allies. They simply agreed on this one crisis.
Exam-style question
How significant was international involvement in the Arab-Israeli conflict in the years 1947-56? [16 marks]
You may use the following in your answer:
- the United Nations partition plan (1947)
- the Suez Crisis (1956)
You must also use information of your own.
Model answer
International involvement was highly significant in the years 1947-56, although local disputes also drove the conflict.
It began with the United Nations. In 1947 Britain handed the problem to the UN, and in November the General Assembly voted 33 to 13 to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. The Jewish leaders accepted but the Arab leaders did not, and when the British left in May 1948 Israel was declared. So an international decision created the state at the centre of the conflict, and the UN also arranged the truces and helped to bring about the 1949 armistice.
Other outside powers mattered too. The USA recognised Israel within minutes of its declaration, and Czechoslovakia sent Israel weapons during the 1948 war. Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Transjordan invaded in May 1948, so the first war was international from the start. In 1955 Egypt's arms deal with Czechoslovakia brought the Cold War directly into the conflict.
The Suez Crisis showed this most clearly. Britain and France, with Israel, attacked Egypt in October 1956 after an ultimatum that Egypt was bound to refuse. It was the USA, the Soviet Union and the UN that ended it: the General Assembly demanded a ceasefire, the USA refused to support the falling pound, and the Soviet Union threatened rocket attacks. Britain and France had to withdraw, Eden resigned, and UNEF patrolled the Egyptian side of the border with Israel. Afterwards the USA and the Soviet Union became the main outside powers in the Middle East.
However, outside powers did not cause the deepest problems. The Palestinian refugees and the disputed land were local issues, and raids and reprisals across the borders continued whatever the great powers did. Even the UN could only freeze the situation, not solve it, and Israel's border villages and the Palestinian camps stayed full of bitterness.
Overall, judged by whether outside powers changed the course of events, international involvement was most significant because it created Israel, shaped the first war and brought the Suez Crisis to an end, which changed who held power in the region. But because the root causes stayed unresolved, it was not the only reason the conflict continued.
What lifts this to the top level: it covers several aspects, uses facts beyond the bullets, weighs outside involvement against local causes, and ends with a reasoned judgement.
Exam tip
On a 'how significant' question, plan three or more aspects before you write, then end by saying which mattered most and why, using words like 'because' to show your criteria.