The Cold War series has become very popular and is the form of military history series that the publisher excels at. The Suez Crisis was as significant a world changer as the defeat of the Nazis in 1945. This new addition to the series has the same high quality selection of images, including full colour images, supporting concise but highly informative text. – Very Highly Recommended.
NAME: Cold War 1945-1991, Suez Crisis 1956, End of Empire and the Reshaping of the Middle East FILE: R3149 AUTHOR: David Charlwood PUBLISHER: Pen & Sword BINDING: soft back PRICE: £14.99 GENRE: Non Fiction SUBJECT: Cold War, end of Empire, United States, Soviet Union, Egyptian revolution, trade routes, Suez Canal , French forces, Israeli Defence Forces, British forces, amphibious warfare. Middle East, international relations ISBN: 1-52675-708-7 PAGES: 128 IMAGE: B3149.jpg BUYNOW: tinyurl.com/vta4rqf DESCRIPTION: The Cold War series has become very popular and is the form of military history series that the publisher excels at. The Suez Crisis was as significant a world changer as the defeat of the Nazis in 1945. This new addition to the series has the same high quality selection of images, including full colour images, supporting concise but highly informative text. – Very Highly Recommended. In some respects, the Suez Crisis was not directly part of the Cold War, or an action by surrogates, as in Indo-China. The German Holocaust had accelerated the desire by many Jews across the world to return to their homeland. In practical terms, survivors of the Holocaust could not be easily returned to the homes they had occupied before the Nazi pogrom. The war may have been won but there was still anti-Jewish feeling in populations that had happily taken over homes released when their Jewish owners were taken to the death camps. Even 75 years on there is still dispute about assets stolen by the Nazis and sold on. American Liberals had proposed a new Jewish homeland in Africa which satisfied neither Jew nor indigenous African. The spiritual and ancestral homeland was Palestine where there was already an indigenous Jewish and Arab population that had been living together happily since the Romans left. In Egypt a coup had been staged by a group of junior Egyptian army officers who had been plotting for a decade or more and now risen to the rank of Colonel in most cases. That revolution threatened the Anglo-French Suez Canal interests with the new Egyptian leaders intending to nationalize the Canal as one of the major assets needed to fund their new government. The Egyptians were as keen on support from former Nazis as from the Soviet Union and their political driver was nationalism rather than communism. The Suez Crisis saw a coalition of Israel, France and Britain. The Soviet Union was not a major player in what happened. France and Britain wanted to retain control of the vital trade route through the Suez Canal that had been built by their nationals and was both a valuable asset and a critical link with the Far East and surviving remnants of colonial rule. The US saw Suez as a threat to the new World Order where the US, supported by its allies, stood toe to toe with the Soviet Union and its satellites. In this vision the US saw itself as the director of world affairs. It can therefore be argued that the Suez Crisis was between Europe and the United States and is certainly the view of those working towards building a United States of Europe with an agenda that included humbling the United States and driving it from its international position. The Israelis simply wanted to use the opportunity to hamstring the Egyptians before they could ally successfully with Arab nations to kill the Jews and erase the State of Israel. In the event the Allies, Britain, France and Israel, enjoyed a military success at Suez but a political defeat by the US which forced them to withdraw, leaving the Canal in Egyptian hands. The major consequence proved to be a hardening of the hatred across the Middle East and more opportunities for the Soviet Union. It also backfired on the US. In Europe there was deep resentment that continues to this day and is evidenced by the European Union and its desire to built its own federal military forces against US interests and driving the US out of NATO. It was also a major factor when the US assumed that Britain would join them and Australia in fighting the Vietnam War. Labour PM Wilson responded with a strong no, claiming it was because Britain remembered the US betrayal at Suez.