The Suez crisis assumed strategic importance for Israel, because of
India’s stance regarding the freedom of navigation. Even while endorsing
the principle of nondiscriminatory treatment, India’s position crucially
diff ered from that of Israel. In the United Nations, New Delhi declared
that a legal controversy existed over the right of passage through the
Gulf of Aqaba, pronounced the entire gulf an “inland sea,” and claimed
its waters were Egyptian “territorial waters.” Krishna Menon argued that
“various states have held that the gulfs and bays indenting their territo-
ries with mouths wider than that of the Gulf of Aqaba as territorial.”^90
This position regarding the Gulf of Aqaba became relevant in 1967, when
India endorsed the Egyptian closure of the gulf to Israeli shipping, a move
that precipitated the June war.
India’s stance on the Gulf of Aqaba was po liti cal and disregarded real-
ity. In its eagerness to support Egypt, it overlooked a number of crucial
but uncomfortable geo graph i cal facts: (1) The Gulf of Aqaba has a multi-
lateral shore, and even if Israel were to be excluded, the gulf has three
other in de pen dent littoral states;^91 (2) the examples cited by Menon to
justify the Gulf of Aqaba as territorial waters were fundamentally diff er-
ent, because the other examples wash the shores of only one sovereign
state;^92 (3) the Gulf of Aqaba is the only sea outlet for Jordan, and thus
declaring it as Egyptian territorial waters was harmful to the Hashemite
Kingdom; and (4) the area claimed as territorial zones by the four littoral
states far exceeded the total breadth of the gulf.^93 Taking these facts into
consideration, India’s future arguments during the 1967 crisis become
weaker.
At another level, the Suez crisis marked a clear deterioration of Indo-
Israeli relations. Soon after the tripartite aggression, Nehru formally
ruled out the normalization of relations.^94 His strong support for Nasser
brought some benefi ts, and the Egyptian leader overwhelmingly sup-
ported India’s inclusion in the newly formed United Nations Emer-
gency Force (UNEF), which was deployed along the Egyptian- Israeli
border. This was in sharp contrast to Nasser’s refusal to allow Pakistani
participation in the UNEF. The only consolation for Israel was Nehru’s
unsuccessful attempts to stop Nasser from deporting Jewish persons
from Egypt.^95
This overt unfriendliness toward Israel, however, did not prevent
Nehru from seeking its help in times of crisis.
198 nehru and the era of deterioration, 1947–1964