Questions on France in the Suez Crisis/Tripartite Aggression of 1956

[raharris1973]

The only reason the French became anti-Nasser was Nasser's support for the Algerian rebels right? Or did they still have a major financial stake in the Canal?

France was the "joint" of the Tripartite coalition, it's ties to both Israel and Britain, who didn't like each other, were needed for there to be any Anglo-Israeli collusion. [Nasser allegedly interpreted the British buildup in Cyprus as being aimed to protect Jordan from Israel I believe]

Britain and France could have quite plausibly rejected a military response to nationalization of the canal, right ? [Eden being on his meds, or either country seriously thinking through the end game]

So what if the British and French are not up for a military intervention over nationalization of the Suez Canal?

What are the consequences for the Middle East? Should we still expect an Israeli-Egyptian war in '56? What stance would the US and USSR take towards such a bilateral conflict? Might other Arab states join in on the Egyptian side?

If there is no Israeli attack on Egypt in '56, the set up for the '67 war is forestalled (because the presence of UNEF and right to navigation of the straits of Tiran is not made an Israeli casus belli). Could we have decades in the Middle East without territory changing hands, where the maximum level of conflict is terrorist infiltration and reprisal raids? Could even that level of conflict taper off with the result that Israel is the locale of a politically intractable partition (like Cyprus post 1974) but not a scene of additional wars?

If another war is overdetermined to happen in the 1950s or 1960s, are there decent chances for the Arab states launching it (like in the Yom Kippur War & 1948) or would Israel be the attacker in virtually all scenarios?

 

[WolfBear]

I'm skeptical that Israel would be launching an attack of Egypt in 1956 without Anglo-French help. And if there is no 1967 war as a result of this, then that would be very interesting. In such a scenario, I wonder if Gaza could end up becoming the Palestinian state, under heavy Egyptian influence no doubt, while the West Bank remains part of Jordan and Israel keeps its 1949 borders up to the present-day. This scenario would suck for Israelis in the sense that they would now have a much smaller Jewish Jerusalem area relative to real life, of course.