Gamal Abdel Nasser on the Nationalization of the Suez Canal

Impact

The nationalization of the Suez Canal struck a serious blow to British economic interests in the Middle East. Some members of Parliament believed that the only appropriate response was military action. Britain, however, lacked support from the United States and did not want to further damage its relationship with the Arab nations. Accordingly, it conducted secret talks with Israel and France to decide on a course of action. Diplomatic representatives from Britain, the United States, and France held meetings in London. Meanwhile, the United States discreetly sought a way to resolve the crisis peacefully, but these efforts proved to be unavailing.

In October 1956 representatives from Britain, France, and Israel (including Israel's prime minister, David Ben-Gurion) met in the French town of Sèvres. After two days of discussion, the parties agreed to the Protocol of Sèvres, which was signed on October 24. Under the terms of this agreement, Israeli forces would invade and occupy the Sinai Peninsula. British and French forces would use the Israeli occupation as a pretense to intervene, restore peace, and act as a buffer separating the warring parties. Britain would then use the event to argue that Egypt was not capable of defending the canal. After the protocol had been signed, diplomacy became a bit of a cloak-and-dagger affair. Britain denied the existence of such an agreement. Efforts were made to collect all copies to eliminate the paper trail, but the French refused to relinquish their copy; so did the Israelis, who did not trust Britain and did not want to be left stranded by their allies in the middle of an armed conflict. Israel did, in fact, invade the Sinai Peninsula (Operation Kadesh) beginning on October 29, and British and French forces intervened (Operation Musketeer and Operation Telescope) beginning on October 31. Hostilities continued into early November.

At this point, the Canadians became involved in the Suez Crisis. Lester B. Pearson, who would later become Canada's prime minister, suggested that a neutral UN peacekeeping force be dispatched to the region. Britain and France rejected the idea in the UN Security Council, but with the support of the United States, Pearson's suggestion prevailed in the UN General Assembly. Canadian troops and troops from neutral nations not aligned with either the Western powers or the Warsaw Pact were sent as part of the United Nations Emergency Force. In effect, this was the first UN peacekeeping force. Pearson has been credited with creating the modern principle of UN peacekeeping, and for his efforts he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957.

Britain and France were under enormous pressure to withdraw and were accused of naked aggression. The Saudis imposed an oil embargo against both countries, and other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the major Western defense pact, refused to fill the gap by selling their oil to the two nations. Some members of NATO proposed that Britain and France be ejected from the organization. The Soviets threatened to attack Paris, London, and Tel Aviv. The United States threatened to sell off its holdings of British government bonds, which would have had a devastating effect on the value of the British pound and Britain's ability to pay for imported goods, including food. In the face of this pressure, the British prime minister, Anthony Eden, called a cease-fire on November 6, 1956. British and French forces were withdrawn before Christmas, and the Israelis withdrew from the Sinai in March 1957. Because of the crisis, Eden suffered a severe mental breakdown and retired. The canal, which Nasser had blocked by sinking old ships, was reopened for traffic in 1957.

The nationalization of the Suez Canal and the ensuing Suez Crisis had profound and far-reaching effects. The events of 1956 and 1957 marked the beginning of the decline of Britain and France as major world powers. The Suez Crisis was the last time that Britain acted militarily in its crumbling empire without the backing of the United States. From this point forward, Britain behaved less like the imperial power it had been for more than a century and focused more on European cooperation. The crisis exposed the inability of NATO to act outside its immediate sphere of influence. France, in response, withdrew its military from NATO, pursued its development of nuclear weapons, and may have sold nuclear weapons technology to Israel. Furthermore, relations between France and Canada became strained. Because of the crisis, Canada changed the design of its national flag to the simple maple leaf in order to eliminate images that suggested its former status as a colony of France and England. It is thought that in retaliation for Canada's role in resolving the Suez Crisis, French president Charles de Gaulle fomented separatist sentiment in French-speaking Quebec. Many historians mark the Suez Crisis as the beginning of an era in which the United States and the Soviet Union became the world's two sole “superpowers.” Meanwhile, Nasser enjoyed a boost to his reputation in the Arab world. His vision of pan-Arabism was adopted by many people in the Middle East and North Africa, and at least partly under his leadership the Palestine Liberation Organization was formed in opposition to Israel in 1964.

The United Nations Emergency Force remained on the Sinai Peninsula and was able to keep the peace. However, by 1967 the size of the force had shrunk to just over three thousand troops, and its hold over the peninsula and the canal was tenuous at best. The Soviets interfered in 1967 by passing along to Egypt a false report that the Israelis were planning a surprise attack. In response, Nasser, in concert with other Arab nations, massed troops along the border with Israel. Alarmed, Israel launched a preemptive attack, which began the Six-Day War of June 1967. Israel delivered a stunning defeat of the Arab forces arrayed to attack, consolidating its hold on additional portions of Palestine. During the war, Israel occupied the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, the West Bank, and the Sinai Peninsula. Israel's occupation of this territory remains a source of hostility in the region, even though it returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt in 1982 and withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005.

In the twenty-first century, the Suez Canal remains under the authority of the Suez Canal Authority, a government-owned agency that was established by the act that nationalized the canal in 1956. About twenty thousand ships pass through the canal each year.