Suez Crisis

The Suez Crisis, also known as the second Arab–Israeli war, the Tripartite Aggression in the Arab world and the Sinai War in Israel, was a British–French–Israeli invasion of Egypt in 1956. Israel invaded on 29 October, with the primary objective of re-opening the Straits of Tiran and the Gulf of Aqaba as the recent tightening of the eight-year-long Egyptian blockade prevented Israeli passage. After issuing a joint ultimatum for a ceasefire, the United Kingdom and France joined the Israelis on 31 October in an attempt to depose Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser and regain control of the Suez Canal (which Nasser had nationalised earlier that year). The countries came under heavy political pressure from the United States, the Soviet Union and the United Nations, prompting their withdrawal from Egypt.

The crisis demonstrated that the United Kingdom and France could no longer implement independent foreign policies without U.S. consent. Israel's four-month-long occupation of the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula enabled it to freely navigate the Straits of Tiran, but the Suez Canal was closed from October 1956 to March 1957.

The crisis strengthened Nasser's standing, internationally humiliating the British (as historians questioned its role as a superpower) and the French during the Cold War. The UN established an emergency force to police the Egypt–Israel border. For his diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict through the UN, Canadian external-affairs minister Lester B. Pearson received the Nobel Peace Prize. Analysts have said that the crisis may have emboldened the USSR, facilitating the Soviet invasion of Hungary.