compressed into a seven-point agreement later known as the Protocol of Sévres, was
signed on October 24, 1956, by Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion, French for-
eign minister Christian Pineau, and Patrick Dean, a senior official of the British For-
eign Office. The protocol remained secret for nearly forty years, until the BBC revealed
its existence in 1996.
The three parties signed the document one day after public protests began in Hun-
gary against Soviet domination; the demonstrations eventually would blossom into an
uprising during the Suez crisis. Together, these two events count among the most wor-
risome developments of the entire cold war period, as each had the potential to explode
into a full-scale confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union.
The conspirators moved rapidly to put their plan into effect. On October 29,
Israeli paratroopers landed at the strategic Mitla Pass in the central mountains of the
Sinai Peninsula. A day later, Israeli ground forces moved into the peninsula along four
routes, three of them in the direction of the canal. The fourth route was toward Sharm
al-Sheikh, where a base at the extreme southern point of Sinai controlled access to the
Strait of Tiran, the waterway leading into the Gulf of Aqaba, Israel’s only direct access
to the Red Sea.
Following the plan laid out at Sèvres, Britain and France on October 30 issued
an ultimatum to Egypt and to Israel demanding an immediate cease-fire, the with-
drawal of Egyptian and Israeli troops from the canal (Israeli forces were not yet there),
and insisting that Egypt accept temporary occupation of the canal zone by British and
French forces to ensure freedom of shipping. As expected, Israel accepted the ultima-
tum, and Egypt rejected it as a challenge to its sovereignty. Later that day, the United
States submitted a draft resolution to the UN Security Council demanding that Israel
withdraw from Egyptian territory; a majority of the council voted yes, but Britain and
France used their vetoes to block the resolution. By this time, it had become clear to
the world that Britain and France were not—as officials in London and Paris
claimed—innocent bystanders, but were in fact acting in collusion with Israel.
Over the next several days, British and French troops actively joined in the fight-
ing. Starting on October 31, the two countries launched air raids that destroyed much
of Egypt’s newly acquired force of Soviet warplanes, and on November 5 British and
French paratroopers landed at Port Said at the northern end of the Suez Canal. Israeli
ground forces had by then captured the Gaza Strip and all of the Sinai Peninsula,
including Sharm al-Sheikh. Its army having retreated in the face of the Israeli advance,
and its air force a shambles, Egypt responded by sinking ships in the canal, thus pre-
venting use of the vital waterway.
Fighting continued despite the UN General Assembly’s adoption of two resolu-
tions—997 on November 2 and 999 on November 4—demanding an immediate
cease-fire and the withdrawal of all forces behind the lines mandated by the 1949
armistice between Egypt and Israel. The United States and other countries had taken
the matter to the General Assembly to avoid vetoes in the Security Council by Britain
and France. On November 5, the General Assembly adopted Resolution 1000, author-
izing a peacekeeping force to monitor a cease-fire once one took place.
The fighting ended in the early hours of November 7 after intervention by the
United States and the Soviet Union. President Dwight D. Eisenhower placed angry tele-
phone calls to British prime minister Anthony Eden and threatened to block a pending
loan to Britain by the International Monetary Fund. That same day, Eisenhower also
ARABS AND ISRAELIS 81