"History does not repeat itself, "said Mark Twain, "but it does rhyme." And as bloody events in Ukraine and Gaza have competed for the world's attention, I’ve been reminded of two similar confrontations in the Sinai, Eastern Europe and the United Nations, fifty-eight years ago.
In the 1950s the Middle East was dominated by four intersecting struggles: the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union; a non-violent struggle of various Arab nationalists against the two remaining imperial powers, Britain and France; the continuing Arab-Israeli dispute; and a contest for influence among different Arab states.
In the summer and fall of ‘56, Great Britain, Israel and France secretly planned and then carried out attacks against Egypt. The British were furious about Egypt's nationalization of the Suez Canal through which most of Britain's oil traveled. The French were angry at Egypt's support of rebels in the French colony of Algeria. The Israelis wanted to break a blockade of their outlet to the Red Sea and to punish Egypt for supporting Palestinian fedayeen guerrillas who had attacked Israel from the Egyptian-held Gaza Strip.
None of their plans had been revealed to the U.S.
Meanwhile, 1956 was a tumultuous year for Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev. He denounced Stalinism in February. There were large mostly peaceful anti-Soviet demonstrations in Poland - and then violent revolution in Hungary. After first acquiescing, the Soviets decided that they couldn’t let a buffer state break away from the Soviet Empire and ordered hundreds of thousands of troops back into the country. 5,000 Hungarians were killed, 20,000 wounded and 200,000 became refugees.
President Eisenhower was incensed by both actions. He was in the final days of his re-election campaign as a candidate who kept the peace. As his Vice President Richard Nixon explained later, "We couldn't on one hand, complain about the Soviets intervening in Hungary and, on the other hand, approve of the British and the French picking that particular time to intervene against Nasser."
In the UN, the French and British tried to keep the Hungarian uprising front and center as a distraction from their actions in Suez.
And while the Soviets probably would have crushed Hungary anyway, the Suez crisis did indeed distract the UN while Soviet tanks did their bloody work.
Stung by the secret action of Great Britain, France and Israel, and worried about a Soviet threat to send troops to Egypt, the US voted with the Soviets in the General Assembly to call on the British, French and Israelis to withdraw, accept a ceasefire and support the creation of a UN peacekeeping force.
In the current crises, my hunch is that the Russians and Israelis have welcomed the world's distraction from their respective actions, while Ukraine and Hamas would have preferred to have had the world stage to themselves.
