Talk:Suez Crisis

The name used most for this war (per Google) is "Suez Crisis" (afaik, that's also the name used in Dutch and German, but that's not the issue here), rather than "Suez War". In both cases, the article should be renamed, removing the rather obsolete 1956 in the title. Any other thoughts on this? jheijmans

There's a problem with most names, since:

It included actual warfare, as Israel took over Sinai, U.K. and France were very close to sending in their troops. So it can't be called a "crisis"
The operation's various parts had different names (Israeli attack: Operation Kadesh, joint U.K./French attack: Operation Musketeer), that cover different parts of the attack

My proposal is Suez Campaign, which seems to evade both these difficulties. What do you think? --Uriyan

I checked for "Suez Campaign" as well, which appears to be used as well, but even less than "Suez War". Of the three options, I would prefer War, since it is the only accurate description as far as I am concerned. However, we are not in the situation where we can name this situation ourselves; we have to use the common name or names for it. It appears that "Suez Crisis", no matter how "wrong" the title may be, is most widely used, followed by "Suez War" and "Suez Campaign". Therefore, I say we should name the article Suez Crisis, and create redirects for the other two. The different operations could actually deserve separate articles, in case enough information on them is available which doesn't belong at the general article (as do specific battles, for example). jheijmans

Ok, Yet Another Alternative (tm): Sinai Campaign (which in Google seems to rank less than Suez War but more than Suez Campaign). I'm lousy at choices so I leave that to you :-) I don't think the individual operations deserve articles of their own, first as they were bound together from the very beginning, secondly because there isn't too much to write on Operation Musketeer anyway (the British and the French withdrew when the Soviets began to shake their nukes). --Uriyan

I agree with jheijmans. This war is called the Suez Crisis. That doesn't mean it wasn't a war. But we have to use the name it has in English. --rmhermen

I have moved the article, including this talk page jheijmans

Can we have some citations for the allegations made in the final paragraph. They are very POV. i.e.

There were a few thousand casualties, mostly Egyptian, many civilian. in the course of the invasion the British stormed an Egyptian police station that held out under intense fire and killed almost all the policemen inside. The French were seen machine-gunning to death peasants who had jumped into the canal in fear. There were acusations of torture against the British and racism was a clear factor which allowed the invaders to justify their own inhumanity towards the Egpytian soldiers and civilians. The poorest area of Port Said, for example, was marked on British maps as "Wog-Town".

Mintguy

I've given the reference to the newspaper article I got that from. The article seems scholarly and balanced. Slaughter is "POV" by definition. AW

A newspaper article is hardly ever scholarly. Even an august body like the Independent. Robert Fisk's articles always have a slant. It's not really objective. Mintguy

I did a major update to this page because I have been reading a little about this recently and the Wikipedia page on it seemed to miss the basics of the war entirely, focusing almost exclusively in the Israeli involvement. It seems to me that this misses the essential imperial point. Also, the last version claimed that the invaders were vitorious! Even the most right-wing of tabloid papers in the UK considers Suez to be a historical disaster and an embarrassment. Consequentaly, it is not talked of very often: a "forgoten war" in UK history. It's ghost has been floating about recently beacuse of the uncanny parallels that Blair faces between Suez and the current impending war against the Iraqis.

I have not removed the details of the Israeli involvement, just refocused the article, including the main points of the war from a UK perpective. It could probably use a French perspective too, and definately needs more of an Arab POV in the mix.

AW

Asa. Musslini of the Nile are Robert Frisk's words. Please show me reference to the term not written by Robert Frisk. Mintguy

The opening clause "To persuade the British public of the need for war..." suggests that Eden didn't have conviction in terms of his fear of Egyptian nationalism, which is unfair to Eden, who BTW was a knight of the realm at the time. Mintguy

Eden compared Nasser to Hitler and Mussolini in a letter and when after British troops landed he is quoted (from a Robert Frisk article) as saying "If we had allowed things to drift," he said, "everything would have gone from bad to worse. Nasser would have become a kind of Muslim Mussolini, and our friends in Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and even Iran would gradually have been brought down. His efforts would have spread westwards, and Libya and North Africa would have been brought under his control." Mintguy "