Israel Invades Sinai: Suez Crisis Begins

Israeli paratroopers dropped into the Sinai Peninsula on October 29, 1956, and armored columns crossed the border into Egypt, launching the military operation that became the Suez Crisis, the Cold War's most dangerous intersection of colonial ambition, superpower rivalry, and Middle Eastern nationalism. Within a week, Britain and France would join the attack, and both superpowers would force them to retreat in humiliation, redrawing the geopolitical map of the world. The crisis began four months earlier when Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, the vital waterway connecting the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean that had been owned and operated by an Anglo-French company since its construction in 1869. Nasser seized the canal to fund the Aswan High Dam after the United States and Britain withdrew their financing offer, a move Nasser interpreted as economic warfare. Britain and France, whose economies depended heavily on the canal for oil shipments from the Persian Gulf, were furious. Prime Minister Anthony Eden viewed Nasser as a new Mussolini and secretly colluded with France and Israel to retake the canal by force. Under the Protocol of Sèvres, Israel would invade the Sinai, providing Britain and France with a pretext to intervene as "peacekeepers" separating the combatants, while actually seizing the Canal Zone. The Israeli assault went according to plan. Within days, Israeli forces under General Moshe Dayan overran the Sinai, routing the Egyptian army and reaching the outskirts of the canal. Britain and France issued their ultimatum, then began bombing Egyptian airfields on October 31 and landed paratroopers at Port Said on November 5. The military operation succeeded. The diplomatic reaction destroyed it. President Dwight Eisenhower, who had not been consulted, was livid at being ambushed by his own allies during a presidential election. The Soviet Union threatened rocket attacks on London and Paris. The United States imposed economic pressure through the International Monetary Fund, threatening Britain's currency reserves. Eisenhower and Khrushchev, finding themselves on the same side for the only time in the Cold War, demanded a ceasefire. Britain and France withdrew by December. Suez ended the era of European colonial intervention in the Middle East. Eden resigned in disgrace. Nasser emerged as the hero of Arab nationalism. And the United States and Soviet Union demonstrated that global power had shifted permanently from London and Paris to Washington and Moscow.