| Egypt
at the end of 1954: power belonged to the Revolutionary Command
Council. Evacuation had finally been won and relations with the
Anglo-Americans had become healthier. Everything, it seemed, was auspicious
for an invitation to the big Western powers, to help Egypt's economic
development, the key to every problem in the nation
At
Bandung,
Abdel
Nasser befriended Chinese Premier Chou En-lai and
Indian Premier Jawaharlal Nehru. Chou convinced him that
he could advance Egyptian and Arab interests by interacting commercially
and culturally with communist powers, and Nehru stressed the wisdom
of "positive neutralism," the
doctrine devised by Indian leaders that emphasized nonalignment with either
the American or the Soviet alliances (1).
Abdel
Nasser had toyed with neutralism since 1953, when he threatened
to endorse it to elicit concessions from Britain
during the base
negotiations. After the Bandung conference he fully embraced it
as Egyptian policy (2)
.
President
Abdel Nasser, who headed the Egyptian delegation at Bandung,
appraised the forces that he observed in action; elected chairman of the
committee charged with selecting and formulating the resolutions of the
conference, he was impressed with the consummate skill of the Chinese diplomats,
who deliberately restricted themselves to a subordinate position; he was
angered by the servility of the small group of pro-Western countries (the
Philippines,
Pakistan and Thailand, among others); and he relied on the centralist
majority group.
Recognized
as the leader of the Arab world, Gamal Abdel Nasser came
away from the conference with a stronger determination to pursue his quest
to unite the Arab, Islamic, and African worlds and lead them to independence
from foreign imperialism.
On
his homeward journey he stopped in Karachi, New Delhi and
Kabul.
"My visit to India," he was to say later, "was the turning point
in my political understanding. I learned and recognized that the only wise
policy for us consisted in adopting positive neutralism and nonalignment.
On my return home, the reception that greeted this policy convinced me
that
it was the sole possible policy that could attract the broadest support
of the Arab people." (3)
The five principles adopted by Nehru and Chou En-lai in April
1954 began to be known in Egypt, where they won the virtually
unanimous acceptance by the general public.
This
"Asian" contribution was to receive from "the other Europe"
a transfusion that assumed a "Yugoslav color". Several Yugoslav
missions followed one another to Cairo, particularly the military
mission in September and October 1954. But it was not until
September
5, 1955, that Marshal Josip Broz Tito and President Abdel
Nasser first met, on board the Galeb in the roadstead of Suez.
The Yugoslav chief of state made his first official visit to Cairo from
December
28, 1955, to January 6, 1956; friendship was established on
the basis of the principles of Bandung, and the two leaders declared
their identity of views on the major international problems, as well as
their determination to pursue a positive, active and constructive policy,
the only means of bringing about a reconciliation between the two blocs.
(3)
Meanwhile
the U.S. was frantically trying to entice Abdel Nasser
to accept the northern tier security pact. To increase the
chances of Compliance of all parties concerned, American officials
also attempted to arrange a permanent peace settlement between
Egypt
and Israel. That objective became especially pressing in late
1954 because Israeli insecurity in the aftermath of the Anglo-Egyptian
base settlement threatened to embroil the Middle East in war. American
officials worried that war would destabilize the Middle East behind
the northern tier and thus render it vulnerable to Soviet political
and military penetration. Worse, in early 1955 the U.S was
convinced that the Soviets and Communist Chinese were about to start an
offensive to gain influence in the Middle East by means of a short
of war.
In
late
1954, the Anglo-Egyptian base agreement and American plans to promote
a northern tier security arrangement generated tension between
Israel
and Egypt. Israeli officials feared that British troop withdrawal
from the Canal Zone and Egyptian acquisition of the abandoned stores
and facilities would encourage Egyptian aggressiveness toward Israel
and remove Western leverage to modify Egyptian behavior on issues such
as Suez Canal restrictions. Projected American economic and military
aid to Egypt would exacerbate this problem. Moreover, American plans
to build a northern tier pact and either link it to the Arab
League or include Arab states in it seemed to threaten Israeli security.
Citing "a nervousness and feeling of isolation . . . never before known"
in Israel, Ambassador Abba Eban, supported by sympathetic
congressmen, pressed Dulles to extend military aid to Israel
and
guarantee Israeli security. Rumors circulated that Israel planned
to launch a preventive war against Egypt once the British troops
withdrew.
Israeli
policy toward
Egypt in late 1954 evidenced a new truculence
and readiness to go to war. In July, Defense Minister Pinhas
Lavon sent agents to Cairo who planted bombs at American and
British installations ,
leaving evidence that their work was perpetrated by Egyptians, in an effort
to disrupt the Anglo-Egyptian base negotiations (4).
Egyptian authorities arrested the saboteurs and hanged two of them. In
late
September, Israel sent the Bat Galim, (Daughter
of the Waves) in Hebrew a
five-hundred-ton vessel flying
the Star of David, into the southern end of the Suez Canal to
test Egyptian restrictions before the British departed Egypt. The
Egyptian navy seized the ship . On
1 September Israeli forces
entered Jordan and killed four persons. (5)
In
late
1954, the United States, convinced that this alarming situation
would impede its plan for establishing the northern tier security pact,
tried to dissipate Egyptian-Israeli tension to prevent war.
Although convinced that Abdel Nasser harbored no aggressive
thoughts toward
Israel,
Assistant Secretary of State for
NEA
Henry A. Byroade convinced him, despite the domestic political risks,
publicly to affirm his peaceful intentions toward Israel. To avoid
bitter hearings and another Soviet veto, American officials prevented Security
Council consideration of the
Bat Galim dispute and persuaded
Abdel Nasser to release the crew and ship in early 1955. Moreover,
they censured the Israeli incursion into Jordan and urged both Egypt
and
Israel
to reduce tension along the Gaza border. Dulles doubted that
the raids from Gaza were sanctioned by the government in Cairo,
but he pressed Abdel Nasser
to pacify the border before Israel
retaliated. Abdel Nasser
agreed to consider a United Nations
plan to arrange consultations between border area commanders in times of
crisis.
In
addition to dispelling the immediate Israeli-Egyptian tension, Dulles
decided to pursue a permanent Arab-Israeli peace settlement to stabilize
the region behind the northern tier. In late 1954, he endorsed a
suggestion by Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden that British and American
officials collaborate in this endeavor. Career Foreign Service OfficerFrancis
Russell, the new assistant secretary of state for NEA,
George
V Allen, and the Foreign Office's Middle East expert,
Sir
Evelyn Shuckburgh, promptly negotiated peace terms, code-named "Alpha."
They
hoped within two years to arrange an Arab-Israeli peace treaty, boundary
settlements and border security, termination of
Suez Canal
shipping
restrictions, resettlement of refugees and compensation for their lost
property, resolution of the question of sovereignty over
Jerusalem,
and unified economic development of the
Jordan River Valley.
Alpha,
Shuckburgh summarized, was "a full blueprint for a settlement."
Russell, Allen, and Shuckburgh
decided that
Egypt would
be the first Arab power they approached because of its influence over other
Arab states, its current friendly relations with the Western powers
after the Anglo-Egyptian base settlement, produced the base for a settlement
and the promise of an American economic aid.
Eisenhower agreed with
Dulles
that "we should make an all-out effort to get a settlement, if possible,
before the elections of 1956. (6)
Eden
made a preliminary approach to Abdel Nasser about Alpha when
he visited Cairo on 20 February 1955, but violence along
the Egyptian-Israeli border immediately undermined the prospects for its
success.
Eden encouraged Abdel Nasser to settle
with Israel " as a means of leading the Arab world into a new
era of peace and prosperity and curbing the growth of Soviet influence
in the region", In this regard Eden made vague offers
of Western military and economic aid in exchange for Egyptian cooperation.
"Nasser did not react favorably," Eden told Dulles.
Eight
days later, however, two Israeli platoons stormed an Egyptian army
outpost near Gaza, killing thirty-eight soldiers. The United
States and Britain
joined other powers in censuring the attack,
but the adverse effect of the raid on Egyptian pride portended future hostility
between
Israel and
Egypt.
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