314 • 17 ISRAEL'S REBIRTH AND THE RISE OF ARAB NATIONALISMoccupation of the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip. Israel finally with¬
drew under heavy US pressure, and its main gain from the war was a vague
guarantee that its ships could use the Gulf of Aqaba, hitherto blockaded by
Egypt. A UNEF contingent was stationed at Sharm al-Shaykh, a fortified
point controlling the Tiran Straits between the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red
Sea. This arrangement, backed informally by the Western maritime powers,
lasted up to May 1967.
Nasir had survived the Suez Affair because the UN—and especially the
US—had saved him. Washington justified its opposition to the tripartite
attack on Egypt as backing small nations of the Afro-Asian bloc against
imperialist aggression. The abortive Hungarian revolution was going on at
the same time. How could the Americans condemn Soviet intervention to
smother a popular uprising in Budapest while condoning a Western attack
on Port Said? A more cogent reason, though, was that the crisis occurred
only days before the presidential election, hardly the time for a confronta¬
tion with the USSR. Thus the US government managed to alienate the
British, the French, and the Israelis. It won little gratitude from Nasir and
the Arabs.
The Eisenhower administration thought that its pro-Arab tilt in the Suez
Affair would persuade the Arab governments to back the West against
communism. The loss of the British and French hold in the Arab world
seemed likely to create a power vacuum that the USSR and its allies would
fill if the US did not move in resolutely. Only Iraq had formally joined the
anticommunist military alliance (the Baghdad Pact), and no other Arab
state would commit itself so firmly to the West. Most cut diplomatic ties
with France and Britain after the Suez invasion.The Eisenhower Doctrine
Yet some Americans thought that an aid offer might win over some Arab
governments. Thus was born the Eisenhower Doctrine, a program in which
the US government offered military and economic aid to any Middle East¬
ern country trying to resist communist influence. When it was announced
in January 1957, the Eisenhower Doctrine probably helped impress the
American public with the importance of the Middle East. It may have de¬
terred the USSR from a more assertive policy in the area, but its reception
in Arab capitals was decidedly cool. Only Lebanon accepted it. Arab na¬
tionalists viewed it as a US attempt to assume Britain's role as guardian of
the Middle East. To them, the Suez Affair had proved that Zionism and im¬
perialism endangered the Arab world more than did any hypothetical