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 February, 1957 - JERUSALEM
- In early February 1957, heavy snow fell on Jerusalem for three days. There were
long power outages. Just several years before, David
Ben-Gurion had led Israel during its War of Independence. He became Prime
Minister on February 25, 1949, the day after the first armistice with Egypt was
signed to end hostilities. He would remain in that post until 1963, except for
a period of nearly two years between 1954 and 1955. In 1953 Ben-Gurion announced
his intention to withdraw from government and settle in the Kibbutz Sde-Boker,
in the Israeli Negev. He returned to office in 1955 assuming the post of Defense
Minister and later prime-minister. Returning to government, Ben Gurion collaborated
with the British and French to plan the 1956 Sinai War in which Israel stormed
the Sinai Peninsula in retaliation for raids by Egypt thus giving British and
French forces a pretext to intervene in order to secure the Suez Canal after Egypt's
President Gamal Abdel Nasser had announced its nationalization. The Eisenhower
administration forced a cease-fire on Britain and France. Then Eisenhower threatened
Israel with sanctions if it did not withdraw from the Sinai. By early 1957 all
Israeli troops had withdrawn from the Sinai. As part of the deal, the United Nations
Emergency Force (UNEF) was placed in the Sinai (on Egyptian territory only) with
the express purpose of maintaining the cease-fire. While effective in preventing
the small-scale warfare that prevailed before 1956 and after 1967, budgetary cutbacks
and changing needs had seen the force shrink to 3,378 by 1967. The Egyptian government
then began to remilitarize the Sinai, and demanded that the UNEF withdraw. This
action, along with the blockade of the Strait of Tiran, led directly to the Six
Day War. Photo: David Ben Gurion
from Smithsonian Institution fair use for educational purposes
only. 
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THE
BARRISTER'S 100 YEARS & 50 YEARS AGO TODAY
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