Warriors at Suez
Reviewed by John Law

اعداد : مســـعد غنيم - مدير تحرير مصرنا

For scholars and specialists—as well as for people who have read Kennett Love's herculean Suez: The Twice-Fought War, which appeared in 1969—there is little that is new in this book about the 1955-56 crisis in which Britain, France and Israel tried to topple Egypt's leader Gamal Abdul Nasser. But Mr. Neff has written a readable, coherent and vivid account of a period whose lessons are still relevant for the policy-makers of today. Everyone who could use a fascinating refresher course on what actually happened whether he is a specialist or not, should by all means read it.

Mr. Neff selects February 28, 1955 as the date of origin of the crisis. On that day, Israeli paratroopers launched a sudden night raid on an Egyptian army camp in Gaza, killing 38 soldiers and civilians. It was Nasser's anger and humiliation over this raid—which he was powerless to respond to, in part because he had been unsuccessful in procuring military hardware from the West—that led him to the Soviets for weapons. The anti-Nasser hostility which was provoked in the West by this move led eventually to a U.S. decision to renege on its offer to finance Nasser's cherished Aswan Dam. Seven days later, on July 26, 1956, Nasser retaliated by nationalizing the Suez Canal. Three months afterwards, Israel, Britain and France were at war with Egypt.

Another turning point for Nasser came in February 1955 when he became convinced that Egypt had to arm to defend itself against Israel. This decision put him on a collision course with the West that ended on the battlefields of Suez a year later. In February 1955, the Israeli army attacked Egyptian military outposts in Gaza. Thirty-nine Egyptians were killed. Until then, this had been Israel's least troublesome frontier. Since the end of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Egypt's leaders, from King Faruk to Nasser, had avoided militant attitudes on the ground that Israel should not distract Egypt from domestic problems. Nasser made no serious attempt to narrow Israel's rapidly widening armaments lead. He preferred to spend Egypt's meager hard currency reserves on development.

Israel's raid on Gaza changed Nasser's mind, however. At first he sought Western aid, but he was rebuffed by the United States, France, and Britain. The United States government, especially the passionately anticommunist Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, clearly disapproved of Egypt's nonalignment and would make it difficult for Egypt to purchase arms. The French demanded that Egypt cease aiding the Algerian national movement, which was fighting for independence from France. The British warned Nasser that if he accepted Soviet weapons, none would be forthcoming from Britain.

Rejected in this shortsighted way by the West, Nasser negotiated the famous arms agreement with Czechoslovakia in September 1955. This agreement marked the Soviet Union's first great breakthrough in its effort to undermine Western influence in the Middle East. Egypt received no arms from the West and eventually became dependent on arms from the Soviet Union.