A Tacit Alliance: France and Israel from Suez to the Six Day War

Almost immediately after Israel declared its independence in 1948, it began to benefit from a unique series of scientific and military exchanges with France. These exchanges, arranged for the most part outside normal diplomatic channels, were in conflict with the official pro-Arab position of the French government, and also ran counter to Israel’s leanings toward the United States, Britain, and the Commonwealth countries. They thus indicated the beginnings of a “tacit alliance”—a relationship of mutual cooperation and support based on no official government contract.

Sylvia Kowitt Crosbie traces the rise of the France-Israel friendship from its informal beginnings through its peak at the time of the Sinai Campaign, the Suez crisis, and the joint Anglo-French invasion of Egypt to its abrupt end in 1967 during the aftermath of the Arab- Israeli June War. The author studies the problem from the standpoint of the interplay of international politics as it affected the Middle East, at the regional level of the Arab-Israeli dispute, and in terms of the domestic politics of the two partners of the alliance.

Originally published in 1974.

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