Kadesh Operation or the Tripartite Aggression took place 59 years ago on October 31st, in 1956. Instigated by Israel, it was soon followed by the French and British forces to regain control over the Suez Canal. However, other reasons played a role in expediting the battle, first of which is that Egypt signed an agreement with the Soviet Union to provide Egypt with weapons and advanced technology to strengthen the armed forces to combat Israel. Upon the nationalization of the Suez Canal by then-president Gamal Abdel Nasser, to which Britain reacted by condemning "Grabber Nasser", as the Daily Mirror put it. He was later compared to Hitler and Mussolini in the 1930s: if he got away with this, where would he—and other emboldened post-colonial leaders—stop? Eden, who had succeeded Churchill as prime minister the year before, argued that the canal was Britain's "great imperial lifeline", especially for oil. Nasser could not be allowed to have his hand "on our windpipe", as reported by The Economist. France, on the other hand, had a different reason to take part in the aggression as they had a stake in the Paris-based company that ran the canal. They also were fighting an increasingly nasty little colonial war in Algeria. According to The Economist, the new government of Guy Mollet was resolved to put down an Arab uprising there with all the force that the Fourth Republic could manage. By the summer of 1956, France had about 400,000 soldiers in Algiers. Nasser, later on, backed the Arab insurgents. Accordingly, Britain and France started to co-ordinate plans for a military invasion of Egypt and a reoccupation of the Canal Zone. However, eventually the United States intervened by putting financial pressure on the UK to end the invasion, as the Bank of England consequently lost $45 million from 30 October and 2 November, and their oil supply had been damaged by the closing of the Suez Canal. The British Prime Minister, Sir Anthony Eden announced a cease fire on 6 November, followed by a warning to France and Israel. Eisenhower also agreed to meet with Eden to resolve their differences, but then cancelled the meeting after Secretary of State Dulles advised him it would inflame the Middle Eastern situation further. After the Suez Crisis, the two world superpowers at the time became the United States and the Soviet Union while Britain had no place on the ground. The Suez Canal had strategic and economic impact for both the Soviet Union and the United States, and it was vital to keep the canal open. The Israelis refused to host any UN force on Israeli controlled territory and left the Sinai in March 1957, and before the withdrawal, the Israeli forces destroyed infrastructure in the Sinai Peninsula. On Nov.7, 1956, the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) was first formed by forces from countries that were not part of the major alliances (NATO and the Warsaw Pact) to secure an end to the crisis upon the resolution 1001. Around 24 April 1957, the canal was fully reopened to shipping.
