Initially, I was baffled by Faisal Al Yatai’s criticism of U. S. policy with respect to the Suez Crisis, which occurred sixty years ago. That was when Egyptian President Abdel Nasser seized control of the Suez Canal. In reaction Israel, Britain, and France attacked Egypt with the intentions of restoring the canal to Western control and removing Nasser.
The U. S. did not participate.
The part that I was baffled by was his apparent condemnation of U. S. non-action. What he was actually criticizing was our failure to capitalize on the goodwill we had acquired by not being just another colonial power:
The result is also well known: Britain and France limped out of the region, replaced by the United States. Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egypt’s president, became a popular figure across the world. And, in the popular retelling at least, a new era of decolonisation was sparked across the world.
There is another aspect to the crisis, however, that is rarely discussed. The untold story of Suez is that the US could have genuinely forged a new diplomatic relationship with the Middle East, but kept getting drawn back into imperial intrigue. Suez could have been a turning point between the US and the Arab world, but neither Europe nor Nasser would accept it.
The root of the problem was power and politics. America under Dwight Eisenhower viewed itself in two ways: as the coming power after the battering the European powers took in the Second World War, and as the supporter of those who wanted to be free from colonisation.
In Egypt, those two desires were in tension. The latter desire would lead the US to back Nasser, who wanted to lead Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries out of the colonial era. But Nasser wanted Egypt to be genuinely free, not to simply replace the subservience to Britain with a reliance on America. At first, he sought to be neutral between the US and the Soviet Union – a policy that the US could not accept.
I don’t think he’s reading the situation quite correctly “Nonintervention” means you don’t take sides in local disagreements. What actually happened is that we maintained a tense neutrality towards both Egypt and Israel right up to the Six Day War. During that period France was Israel’s greatest patron not the U. S. During the 60s Egypt cozied up to the Soviet Union.
IMO much of present U. S. policy with respect to the Middle East stems from our decision to back Israel and Israeli goals. That brings us right up to the present day, fighting wars in a half dozen Middle Eastern and West Asian countries all at the same time. We put ourselves in that position one step at a time.
Israel is seen as a friend. Not as a strategic partner, not as an asset, but as a friend. Like Britain or Canada. Israel puts the lie to the notion that nations have no friends, only interests, because frankly our relationship with Israel is not and never has been in our interest.
That’s not to say that the ME would be significantly better without Israel muddying the picture. The underlying problems have nothing to do with Israel or with us. If US troops are in your country shooting people it’s not because you had your shit together as a country and we just came along and messed it up. We almost never send troops to Denmark to shoot people.
As I mentioned in the post, that’s the post-1968 view.
I think that my view is a bit closer to President Obama’s: Israel is a client not a friend and pursuing Israel’s interests simultaneously hurts our position in the region and enables Israel to avoid coming to terms with the realities of their situation.
Yes, and if Israel really was just a client we might be able to recalibrate our support for Israel. But they are not a client, they are a friend. Ask any member of Congress, they’ll tell you. Ask Israel’s strongest supporters in the evangelical and Jewish communities: Israel is a friend. Ask every president at least since Nixon.
If we decided to cut Israel off from arms, for example, do you think the hordes of chanting protesters would be people who profited from a client relationship? Or do you think they’d be people who insisted Israel was a friend?
It is elitism to insist that Israel is not a friend when the American people insist on seeing the world in terms of friends and enemies. Who runs this country in the end? The people or the elites? From whence do power and legitimacy flow? From the people. And the people see Israel as a friend and wouldn’t even recognize the word ‘client’ in this context.
See also: Falklands War. Made no difference to us, was not a NATO matter, and yet who did we help? Our ‘friend’ Great Britain.
The U.S. participated in the Suez Crisis by threatening to bankrupt the UK, if they did not withdraw immediately. The UK then told France that it would be withdrawing, and France withdrew as it was dependent on the UK for these operations. The U.S. determined the outcome.
After pushing the UK and France out of the Middle East, the U.S. made economic and security commitments to the Middle East states through the Eisenhower Doctrine The U.S. would invest in strengthening Middle East nations, ostensibly to prevent Soviet incursion, but the terms applied to Nassar’s Egypt as well. Its first military application was when Eisenhower sent marines into Lebanon’s Civil War.
I’m not sure there is an inherent conflict here; the British/French/Israeli troops threatened Egypt’s independence; Egypt (albeit very indirectly) threatened Lebanon’s independence; Iran would later threaten Iraq’s independence; Iraq would threaten Kuwait’s independence, etc. etc.
As to Israel, of course we mustn’t speak about the the Rothschild banking empire, that’s neither here or there, or Jewish dominance in the entertainment industry which guides public perception and opinion. These are immaterial . I know there are people here who will eloquently shoot down both of these “conspiracy theories”.
But as to the real reason Israel is a “friend” I would offer two more.
Evangelicals in America who hold that The Jews are God’s chosen people, and maybe bigger yet, the large number of Israelis with dual citizenship.
It is true, if Israels back is against the wall, America will be there.
Moving on, and off and still on topic, Arafat was still right. The Palestinians are out breeding the Jews, Demographics will do them in. Without a war.