| November 6 |  |
Editor says, what if the Hungarian Uprising crossed over into the Suez Crises? Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s). This story was published in the November 2012 edition of Changing the Times Magazine.
| Share this Article on: |  Facebook |  Twitter |
In 1956, with cynical timing French-Israeli forces launch an invasion of the Suez Canal just one hour after the polls close for the US Presidential election.
Conjoined Crisis Part 2
Suez Canal Invasion LaunchedUnbeknown to the International Community, the British Government had co-authored the Protocol of Sévres, a secret tripartite agreement that Israel would invade the Sinai. Britain and France would then intervene, purportedly to separate the warring Israeli and Egyptian forces, instructing both to withdraw to a distance of sixteen kilometres from either side of the canal. The reasons to desire to topple Nasser were various; for British Prime Minister Eden, ghosts of Munich, France, meddling in their colony of Algeria, and for Israel, collaborative opportunity to diminsh a local rival.
The rational voices in London and Paris argued that the Canal could not be held by force, and noted also that the modern oil tankers were becoming too big to travel through it. However, the debate was then transformed by a secret request for refuge at the British Embassy from Hungarian Premier Imre Nagy. The secret service urged Eden to betray Nagy and trade his liberty with a pledge of non-interference from the Soviet Union. But in the event, the British Government decided to grant refuge and withdraw from the Suez Canal, venture privately telling France and Israel that its position within the Commonwealth would become diplomatically untenable if London was seen to overtly support one head of state whilst seeking to oust another. However, as a sign of tacit support, London did allow the French to use Cyprus as a staging area and the operation proceeded without Britain.
An article from the Conjoined Crisis thread..
Entry posted by
Jackie Speel
© Jackie Speel, 2012-.Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Conjoined Crisis Source: Wikipedia Labels: Imre Nagy, Egypt, Suez, Hungary, Israel. Editor says, in reality the two crises were not directly connected and the time sequences have been adjusted to suite the story line. By Ed, Jackie Speel and Scott Palter.
~ Things really could be different in the Middle East, but the basic problems seem as though they would persist throughout, anyway.
~ I wonder how this would play internationally?
~ Well, one thing is sure. Israel would have gotten a lot more sympathy in 1956...because the left loved Israel then. You can see that in the movie Exodus, made in 1960, with the script written by Dalton Trumbo, who was a Communist. Any real Marxist must have said that the socialist Israelis are SUPPOSED to defeat the feudal Arabs: That's how it WORKS. But then, alas, the Six Day War happened in 1967, the Soviet Union backed the Arabs, so the rest of the left had to follow suit...and now it does not seem to notice that the Soviet Union no longer exists. So now the right tends to support Israel instead, led by the Evangelicals, who support Israel more strongly than the Jews do. I don't get it either.
~ Jackie -- I have written on this extensively. The left indeed supported Israel until it received orders from Moscow to support the Arabs, but this was in 1955 or so, not 1967. For several years, many found it difficult to go along, but after 1967, they fell into lockstep, even supporting mass genocide. The USSR is gone, but the totalitarian left is still running on autopilot. Check out some of the Communist front groups that remain, such as the institute for Policy Studies -- still shameless anti-Israel bigots, rumor-mongers, and witch-hunters.
~ By the way, Eisenhower won the election. It would never have mattered when the israelis attacked, given the insanity of John Foster Dulles.
~ Stan, one real watershed came in 1978, when Vanessa Redgrave made "Zionist" a dirty word while accepting the Academy Award, after it had been an honored term on the left. Another sign of the times came soon afterwards when she was given every part for a woman over 40...while Anita Bryant, who had denounced gay rights, was left blacklisted and bankrupt. Please note that I do not share Anita's anti-gay views, but I do see the double standard. More recently, I have also seen three or four movies and miniseries about Bobby Kennedy, including "Bobby" "The Kennedys" and "Ethel"...and not one saw fit to mention that Bobby was killed by a Palestinian terrorist. So much for that other canard, that the Jews rule Hollywood. If you say that the LEFT rules Hollywood, that may be closer to the mark.
~ Non-intererence from the SU would've been the only way it didn't spark WWIII in the middle east. What a war that would've been.
~ Jackie -- My father was at the Ambassador Hotel, perhaps 50 feet away, when Sirhan Sirhan made his idiotic move. But he remained a liberal. He went crazy for the late George McGovern -- both were active in the slimey Henry Wallace campaign of 1948. That's never talked about in George's obits, neither are the criminal tricks he used to steal the 1972 nomination.
~ Well, Stan, it made perfect sense to Sirhan. As he later explained, the night befoe he had heard a televised debate where Bobby had sworn to stand with Israel. His Democratic oppoenents said the same thing, but Sirhan knew that Bobby was the most likely to get elected and thus the biggest threat.
© Today in Alternate History, 2013-. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
