Suez Crisis

Overview

The Suez Crisis was an international confrontation and war centered on Egypt between July 1956 and March 1957. On July 26, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the company operating the Suez Canal, provoking a confrontation with Britain and France. On October 29, Israel launched Operation Kadesh against Egyptian forces in the Sinai Peninsula. British and French air forces entered the fighting on October 31, followed by ground landings beside the canal on November 5. The three governments had coordinated their military plan, but pursued different objectives: Israel sought secure borders and free navigation, while Britain and France sought control of the canal and an end to Nasser’s challenge to their regional influence.

The campaign brought rapid Israeli gains in Sinai but failed to deliver an Anglo-French takeover of the canal. United States opposition, Soviet pressure and action at the United Nations brought a ceasefire. British and French troops left Egypt in December 1956; Israel completed its withdrawal in March 1957. Egypt retained the canal, and Nasser’s political stature rose across the Arab world despite the defeat of Egyptian forces in Sinai. The crisis damaged Britain’s international standing, contributed to Prime Minister Anthony Eden’s resignation and accelerated a shift toward a larger United States role in Middle Eastern security.

Background

The Suez Canal links the Mediterranean and Red seas and provided a vital route for trade and oil shipments. Since its construction in 1869, the waterway had been operated by a company with British and French interests. Its importance made control of the canal a central concern for both governments. Nationalization therefore threatened interests extending beyond company ownership: Britain and France feared disruption of oil supplies, commercial shipping and their wider position in the Middle East. Nasser offered full economic compensation for the nationalized company, but compensation did not resolve the political and strategic dispute.

Israel faced a separate maritime confrontation with Egypt before the canal’s nationalization. In the early 1950s, Egypt violated its armistice agreement with Israel by blocking Israeli ships from passage through the Suez Canal. Egypt also restricted traffic through the Straits of Tiran, the passage connecting Eilat to the Red Sea. The blockade effectively cut off Eilat, Israel’s sole outlet to the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. Ships carrying Israeli trade with Asia had to take longer, more costly routes toward Israel’s Mediterranean ports. Free navigation through international waters was thus a concrete Israeli objective, independent of British and French claims concerning canal management.

Border attacks deepened Israel’s security concerns. Armed fedayeen operating from Egyptian-controlled Gaza carried out incursions into Israel, while Egypt’s government increasingly mobilized Gaza’s Arab population for such operations during 1955. Israel’s leaders sought to stop those attacks as well as reopen maritime access. Egypt’s 1955 Czechoslovak–Soviet arms deal added to their concern. It opened a continuing channel for Soviet-bloc weapons, training, maintenance and advisers, alongside closer military and intelligence ties. The arrangement increased Soviet influence in Egypt and altered the military balance that Israeli planners expected to face.

Nasser’s policies also brought France into conflict with Egypt. French officials suspected his government of aiding rebels fighting French rule in Algeria; rebel leaders found refuge in Egypt, and their radio broadcasts came from Cairo. Britain and France considered force as their dispute with Nasser grew. Between August and October 1956, Britain repeatedly signaled to the United States that military action remained possible. Washington instead sought a negotiated settlement, concerned that war involving its NATO allies could widen into a confrontation with the Soviet Union.

On September 9, United States Secretary of State John Foster Dulles proposed a Suez Canal Users’ Association comprising 18 major maritime nations. It would operate the canal while giving Egypt, Britain and France equal stakes. That proposal and other international mediation efforts failed to secure agreement among the contending governments. France and Israel developed their own cooperation in parallel. Israeli defense officials Moshe Dayan and Shimon Peres worked with French counterparts on military supply and planning, creating the basis for the coordinated operation that followed.

Course of the war

Britain, France and Israel secretly coordinated a plan in which an Israeli advance into Sinai would be followed by Anglo-French intervention near the canal. The participants’ aims remained distinct. Israel intended to defeat Egyptian forces, end attacks from Egyptian territory and restore navigation through the Straits of Tiran. Britain and France intended to regain control of the Suez Canal and weaken or remove Nasser’s government. They later presented their troop landings as an effort to protect the canal from fighting, although the intervention had been planned with Israel in advance.

On October 29, 1956, Israel opened Operation Kadesh. Israeli paratroopers landed near the Mitla Pass, and ground forces crossed into Sinai. Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan directed the campaign under Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. Units of the Israel Defense Forces advanced across the peninsula against Egyptian positions. Ariel Sharon commanded paratroopers during the campaign. The Golani Brigade received the mission of capturing the Rafah area to open a route for Israeli armored forces entering Egypt; Israeli forces took Rafah during the offensive.

British and French air forces joined the offensive on October 31. Their attacks expanded the conflict from an Israeli-Egyptian land campaign into a wider war involving the canal’s former operators. Israeli forces completed their conquest of Sinai and advanced to within about ten miles of the Suez Canal, although they did not reach the waterway itself. The distinction mattered: Israel’s battlefield gains lay in Sinai and at the approaches to the Straits of Tiran, while the Anglo-French operation focused on the canal. On November 5, British and French ground forces landed near Port Said and began moving south along the canal.

The invasion produced a severe rift within NATO. Britain and France had acted against the explicit position of the United States, whose government opposed a war that could strengthen Soviet influence and undermine its diplomacy in the region. Washington was also confronting the Soviet intervention in Hungary during the same week. The Eisenhower administration feared that Soviet forces might intervene on Nasser’s behalf and pressed its allies to accept a United Nations ceasefire on November 6. Separate United States and Soviet demands around November 6–7 ended the attempted Anglo-French seizure before its military objectives were achieved.

The fighting closed the canal and disrupted shipping and oil supplies, including imports to Britain. It also showed the limits of the three powers’ coordination. Israel had achieved substantial military gains against Egyptian forces, but Britain and France could not retain their positions in the face of international pressure. Egypt remained in possession of the canal. Nasser’s survival turned the military setback in Sinai into a major political victory for his government across the Arab world.

Israel's conduct and the protection of civilians

Israel’s campaign combined airborne and armored operations aimed at Egyptian military positions and routes across Sinai. Its stated purposes were to stop armed incursions and restore access to international waterways. The rapid advance brought Israeli forces into populated areas, including Rafah, before diplomatic pressure ended the campaign. The war’s effects on civilians cannot be reduced to its military outcome: fighting around the canal damaged Port Said, and displacement and insecurity accompanied the operations and withdrawals.

The crisis also had grave consequences for Egypt’s Jewish communities. During the 1956 Sinai Campaign, Egyptian authorities expelled almost 25,000 Jews and confiscated their property. Others were detained. In Port Said, whose Jewish population was estimated at about 300 in 1956, most remaining Jews were compelled to leave after the campaign. These measures were taken by Egypt’s government against civilians on account of their Jewish identity; they were separate from the battlefield contest between Egypt and Israel. Their effects continued beyond the ceasefire as families lost homes, livelihoods and longstanding communal institutions.

Terrorist tactics and propaganda

Fedayeen attacks from Egyptian-controlled Gaza formed part of the security confrontation preceding the war. Their incursions into Israel included killings, mining and sabotage directed beyond conventional battlefields. Israel’s effort to end those attacks was one of its reasons for entering Sinai. The armed raids should be distinguished from Egypt’s restrictions on shipping: both contributed to the crisis, but one threatened communities along Israel’s borders while the other restricted access to maritime routes and trade.

Propaganda shaped the crisis before and after the fighting. In February 1956, Egypt’s government invited former Nazi propagandist Johann von Leers to advise its information office on political and propaganda policy. By August, he was reportedly working in an anti-Israel propaganda unit within Nasser’s Ministry of National Guidance. During the war, Soviet diplomacy and messaging reinforced Nasser’s image as an opponent of European imperial power. Across much of the Arab world, Britain, France and Israel were portrayed as pursuing one colonial project. That portrayal obscured the difference between Israel’s navigation and border-security aims and the Anglo-French effort to control the canal.

Outcome

The United States voted for United Nations resolutions opposing the invasion and establishing a peacekeeping force. The United Nations Emergency Force was organized to supervise the ceasefire and withdrawals and to serve as a buffer between Egyptian and Israeli forces. Its deployment marked a significant development in international peacekeeping. British and French forces withdrew from the Canal Zone by December 1956, leaving the canal under Egyptian control. Israeli withdrawal proceeded separately and was completed in March 1957. The crisis, which began with nationalization in July 1956, thus ended months after the main fighting had stopped.

For Israel, the war demonstrated the ability of its forces to defeat Egyptian troops in Sinai, but diplomatic pressure required withdrawal from the peninsula. Access through the Straits of Tiran opened after the campaign, allowing Eilat to develop as Israel’s Red Sea port. Israel did not secure a peace agreement with Egypt. For Britain and France, the failure to hold the canal exposed how much their regional power depended on United States support. For Egypt, possession of the canal and Nasser’s continued rule outweighed the loss of military positions during the fighting.

Aftermath and legacy

The Suez Crisis sharply damaged Anthony Eden’s premiership and contributed to his resignation in January 1957. British relations with the United States recovered under his successor, Harold Macmillan, but the episode remained a demonstration of declining independent British and French power in the Middle East. France’s defeat in its bid to reverse nationalization also shaped its approach to Egypt and its cooperation with Israel. The war disrupted Britain’s oil imports and exposed the economic vulnerability created by dependence on the canal route.

Concern about the resulting decline in European influence helped produce the Eisenhower Doctrine. Announced in January 1957, it expanded United States authority to provide economic or military aid to Middle Eastern countries facing armed aggression. The policy reflected Washington’s fear that weakened British and French influence would leave room for Soviet expansion. The 1955 arms relationship had already given Moscow a foothold in Egypt through equipment, training and advisers; during Suez, Soviet pressure helped stop the Anglo-French operation and strengthened Nasser’s regional standing.

The crisis also affected Israel’s diplomatic relations beyond the combatants. On November 20, 1956, Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru told India’s parliament that diplomatic exchanges with Israel were impossible during the crisis. Turkey subsequently downgraded its mission in Israel to chargé d’affaires level. Such responses reflected the broad international consequences of the operation even where governments had not fought in it.

Israel’s cooperation with France extended beyond conventional arms. During September 1956, Peres and scientist Ernst David Bergmann met members of France’s Atomic Energy Commission and reached an initial understanding on a research reactor. The two countries finalized nuclear agreements at a secret meeting outside Paris where they also settled details of the Suez operation. The agreements became a lasting strategic consequence of the planning undertaken alongside the war.

Nasser emerged from Suez with greatly increased prestige as a symbol of Arab resistance to European power. His political victory did not erase Egypt’s military defeat in Sinai or the authoritarian character of his rule. The crisis remains a turning point because its outcomes differed across military, diplomatic and political measures: Israeli forces won ground but withdrew; Britain and France intervened but failed to control the canal; Egypt retained the waterway; and the United States and Soviet Union demonstrated decisive influence over the settlement.