The victory of Israel in 1949 marked a watershed
in the history of the Middle East. It laid cruelly
bare the comparative weakness of the Arab
nations and the growing strength of the new State
of Israel. In the Arab nations the upheavals that
followed brought new forces to prominence.
They had been developing, however, long before
the outbreak of the war. The foundation of Israel
in the heat of war was not alone responsible. But,
within a decade of those Arab defeats, Britain’s
bases of power in Egypt, Jordan and Iraq had
been eliminated by a renewed wave of Arab
nationalism. Western influence declined during
the Cold War for the paradoxical reason that the
Arab nations knew that the Western powers
would defend them from Soviet attack. The
Middle East, with its vast resources of oil in the
Gulf and Saudi Arabia, was vital for Western
industry and for Japan, leaving aside the strategic
importance of the region.
As the West became more dependent upon
Arab goodwill, so Western influence over internal
developments in the Middle Eastern states dimin-
ished. The monarchial Arab states did not become
more Westernised, constitutional and liberal;
indeed, there was a decisive turn to authoritarian
rule by new elites, to internal suppression, police
states and torture. There was also a new urgency
to build up military and economic strength against
the twin threat of Israel and Western interference.
Israel alone remained Westernised and demo-
cratic, heavily dependent upon Western, especially
American, financial and military support. As the
US’s only reliable anti-Soviet ally in the region,
Israel was able to follow an independent Middle
Eastern policy, frequently to the discomfiture of
its Western allies.
The Palestine war in 1949 weakened the
undisputed hold of the Arab ruling classes of
landowners and politicians over the nations
created under Western tutelage after the First
World War. The old ruling elites were not over-
thrown simultaneously, but were steadily sup-
planted in a process that saw radical change in the
ten years after 1949 and that still has not come
to an end. A new, much more violent Arab
nationalism now swept through the Middle East.
The Cold War provided added tensions as well as
opportunities for the new Arab leadership to play
off West against East to extract supplies of arms
and development aid.
The appeal of the new leadership lay in its calls
for a renewal of Arab national pride and for com-
plete independence from the Western powers,
whether Britain, France or, later, the US, even
while the Arabs benefited from the Western shield
of security against the threat of Soviet territorial
expansion. The new leaders promised an accelera-
tion of social change and a concern for the welfare
of the poor masses, with the state playing a plan-
ning role. A new radicalism and impatience with
the corruption of the past and with the Western
imperialist connection stirred Arab society. There
was a search for fresh solutions and frequent con-Chapter 40
1956
CRISIS IN THE MIDDLE EAST – SUEZ