The Withdrawal of UNEF and the Future of Peacekeeping

Abstract

In 1957 a senior officer of the Egyptian Army told me that some of his colleagues were advocating that unef should be asked to withdraw. This was not long after the Force had become established in Gaza and on the Sinai frontier. My informant had pointed out to them that if the Egyptian forces took over at Sharm el Sheikh, President Nasser would be obliged to close the Tiran Strait to shipping bound for Eilat, the Israeli port at the head of the Gulf of Aqaba. This would mean a renewal of the war, as one of the reasons why Israel had attacked in October, 1956 had been to open the channel, and it was on the promise that it would remain open that the Israelis had finally withdrawn from Sinai and the Gaza Strip. Did my friend's colleagues want a renewal of the war, and were the Egyptian armed forces prepared for it? The answer to these questions was evidently No, at that time. Ten years later, however, the desire of the Egyptian hawks to see unef removed was gratified, with the result predicted by my friend, and other results which were not foreseen in 1957. A question over which future historians will puzzle is: What really were President Nasser's intentions? And there are other subsidiary questions to which we now have no answers, and to which no answers may be heard for a long time. Meanwhile, we can only speculate. In his letter of May 16 to General Rikhye, demanding withdrawal of unef, General Fawzy, Chief of Staff of the U.A.R. armed forces wrote: To your information, I gave my instructions to all U.A.R. Armed Forces to be ready for action against