Egyptian Chronicles: The Autumn of anger 1956

The Suez war started officially on the 29th of October 1956 , with an Israeli Land invasion to the Gaza strip " was already the Egyptian rule according to the United Nations resolution in 1948" and made a huge progress towards the Suez canal area , in this time UK and France proposed or offered to President Nasser that they could reoccupy the Suez area again to separate between the two armies , but of course President Nasser refused , for that refusal ,which I guess was expected , England and France decided to invade the Suez area claiming that they were protecting the international naval movement and the independence of the Suez canal
That we all know from the fast history books studied in schools now but if we read more history books about this period and if you read the french ,British ,Israeli and Egyptian official and unofficial documents
you will know that that this autumn war was the result of a very long hot ,very hot summer
First before this summer of 1956 , UK ,France and Israel began to got sick from the new ruling growing power of the free officers headed by Nasser since 1954 , they thought "especially Israel and UK" that they got a better new ruler to Egypt then King Farouk , but truth and future proved otherwise
The Suez Canal of course for UK was the central of dispute , It had the largest British military base in the world ,it was controlling the most vital water canal in the world ,a strategic place from which it could control the Middle East. In 1951 Egyptian legendary prime minister Mustafa El-Nahas stood in the Egyptian Parliament declaring that he decided to cancel the treaty of 1936 saying his famous words

"I signed it for Egypt and I cancel it for Egypt"

These magical words were the start key of a fierce resistance from the Egyptian people against the British arm forces in the Canal , as according to the treaty ,England controlled and now after its cancellation from the Egyptian side,they had no reason to stay , anyway they tried to stay in a way or another till they had to leave whether they liked it or not on July 1956 after agreeing to pull out in 1954
Leaving the Canal was another defeat to UK which was losing more and more colonies to be independent nations and more important losing its position as World leader to be replaced after the WWII by the New strong and rich United States of America , not to mention also the new growing power of the Soviet Union
By the way Egypt took its independence from UK in 1921 , not a complete one because of the existence of the British forces in the Egyptian territory and the British control and interfere in Egyptian policies
This was the United Kingdom's side and it was a matter of a dignity of a country or a world power , but it turned out to be a matter of dignity of a tall British man "speaking about him in a separate post with God's will"
For France ,it was another story ,it started first by the support of the Free officers and president Nasser to the Algerian revolution led by Ahmed Ben Bella and his companions who were seeking the freedom of their country from a terrible french colonization ,it was like a pain in the ass for France by all ways
then came the last straw
France may be didn't control the Canal political ,but it owned it financially , Suez Canal beside its strategic political importance had a great economic significance ,it is enough to say now in 2006 ,it is the no.1 source of national income in Egypt and it is enough to say that then 2/3 of Europe's oil was imported through it . The IMF refused to fund Egypt to build the high dam in Aswan to generate electricity for Egypt and protect it from the Nile destructive flood and drought ,already UK and the United States agreed to fund the project but because the deal of Czechoslovakian weapons between Egypt and Communist Czechoslovakia ,the extended relations with Red China and Egypt's total support and participation in Bandung conference they had other thoughts.

All these factors gave to the leading Western countries the idea that Egypt was heading towards the communist East not to mention its disturbing adaptation of Arab Nationalism ideas were waking up bad memories of Mohamed Ali Arabian Empire, and thus Egypt needed to be punished ,unfortunately these punishment policies didn't bring Egypt back to them ,in fact it turned otherwise
As President Nasser decided to search for other alternatives for funding raising the high dam project , and it was on the 26 of July in the Manshya square in Alexandria where he said his unforgettable words :

"We decided to Nationalize The Universal Company of Suez Canal for navigation to be an Egyptian Corporate company "

And that's was it for France and also For UK , Nasser and his friends should be stopped at any cost
Now to the third and the new partner in the game of Nations ,Israel , the newly Hebrew state
By the way this war was the first direct War between Egypt and Israel , and by this I mean no other Arab Country involved in this war like in 1948 or later in 1967 or in 1973
Egypt led the war against Israel in 1948 or in other better words led the war against its establishing , in fact Egypt was the first and I believe only country that attacked the inside cities of newly born Israel in 1948 when the Egyptian Royal Air forces hit Tel Aviv , already Egypt according the last revealed officials and unofficial documents didn't lose the war because of the weaponry or corrupted king ,on the contrary , Egyptian and Syrian army were very close to victory but thanks to both of the regimes of Jordan and Iraq then "and still now in the case of first" as the Hishamis were allies to the British and the British of course gave Palestine to the Zionists ,we lost the war .Anyway of the dramatic results of the 1948 in my point of view was the movement of free officers that led to the 1952 overthrow of the monarchy in Egypt ,it is well known that the siege of the Egyptian army in the Fallujah led many officers including Nasser to think about the conditions of Egypt in that time, and thus when Israel was happy that Farouk left the kingdom of the Nile they didn't know that the new inhabitants of Abdeen Palace would be much worst.General Mohamed Naguib ,the first president of Egypt and after him Nasser defined Israel as an enemy we should be cautious from it , we should restore Palestine from it to the end of this kind of talk , already Israel also considered them as an enemy and started to create a gap between them and the American administration which supported them totally and the best evidence on that was the group of terrorist acts led by a secret terrorist Israeli operating in Cairo against the American establishments and western places in Egypt better known in the Egyptian espionage history as Lavon affair "be cautious with English Wikipedia :)"
Anyway as you may know Egypt as I mentioned before was ruling the Gaza Strip according to the UN resolution in 1948 ,it was n't an occupation like Wikipedia defines it I am sorry to say , because also according to the same UN resolution which I am afraid I don't recall its number Jerusalem was under the Jordanian rule
In Gaza strip in that time before the Suez Crisis , there were many small militia groups ,which made Gaza their base for operations against the Hebrew State and these groups were increasing in number with the increase number of refugees, for that the IDF decided to launch counter attacks ,and guess who was leading those attacks Young Ariel Sharon who left his study in the University to become the leader of the first special forces unit 101 in year 1953 , as I said this unit 101 made attacks on the commandos of the militia groups despite the disapproval of the United Nations ,already if you read what is written in Wikipedia about this Unit ,you will find that they did more than defense ,they did war crimes and genocides, and I believe the Arab regimes then were mistaken to be silenced
Anyway the Silence was over between the Egyptian Army and IDF after the Gaza Raid on 28th of February 1955, I could n't find much information about it except that Unit 101 did a horrible massacre in Gaza, after this massacre Egyptian army decided of course with orders from the regime to support the guerrilla groups ,to train them ,to supply them with weaponry , not that only but also include with them Egyptian guerrilla elements from them who fought the British in 1951 and the Zionist army in 1948 "before the official ordinary Arab armies declare the war on Israel in 1948,Egyptian commandos were having their own battles , and by the way many of them were from the Muslim brotherhood of Egypt " also some people said that there were also Egyptian officers from the army "prove it if you can", this of course made the Israelis more and more angry
Their anger exceeded more when they listened to Nasser full of enthusiasm speech against their state and its existence and his bold move to buy tanks from Czechoslovakia after the American refusal to supply the new Egyptian republic with weaponry ,of course due to Israel request "man we didn't turn left for no reason , Nasser was the God son of Miles Copeland" ,no Arab country should be armed like Israel
The Israelis claim that in September 1955 Egypt closed and sealed off the Gulf of Akaba and thus closed the access to the port of Eilat and that was an act of war , I don't know how much that was true , in fact me and my mom argued about it , but the strange thing is that Eilat was opened in 1957 ,that was after two years from the claimed date !!??
I guess Israel wanted the free navigation in the Red Sea and it knew that it would be difficult with Nasser's policies and the hate of the Arab world to have a free navigation in Red Sea with Israeli flag on the ships ,so they claimed that that Egypt sealed off the gulf of Akaba, already I don't understand why they put Egypt in their minds while that there was still Jordan but may be because there was still Saudi Arabia and it had good relations with Egypt then ,they decided to do their late play , but it seems that no body paid attention to it , because if it were real ,why they didn't go to the UN !! And made it look like an act of war from Egypt's side
Anyway as you see you got three countries angry and mad from Egypt then , want to reach it , till July 26th they didn't have a plea against the new rising power in the Middle East and also the third world ,then after the announcement that shake the Manshya public square in Alexandria ,they got something to move for
It Started hot summer ,with secret and declared negotiations in Cairo,London and Paris and reached to level of Eruption in an Autumn of anger