ig54: a spy story i i 9 main problems of Zionist history: relations with the Arab world and relations with the Western powers. (One should also add that the Lavon Affair had a salutary effect in certain areas, highlighting as it did some questionable practices. The Israeli Army has since become by far less involved in politics, and the secret services have been brought under more direct control.)
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On July 27, 1954, the British-Egyptian Agreement was finally signed. When Israel sent a ship under its own flag, the Bat-Galim (Daughter of the Waves), to the Canal as a test, the crew was arrested and returned only after some torture and long negotiations. The ship itself was impounded.
But a much more important event ultimately drew attention away from the Canal. In the middle of February, 1955, Ben-Gurion returned to the Ministry of Defense (leaving Sharett, for the time being, as Prime Minister, in name if not in substance). Two weeks later, the Israeli Army attacked the Gaza camps, killing scores of Egyptian soldiers. This event is now considered the turning point in Middle Eastern history. Abd-el-Nasser has declared many times that he decided to buy Soviet bloc arms (thereby allowing for the first time full-scale Soviet penetration into the Middle East) because of this attack, which revealed the helplessness of his Egyptian Army. There is no doubt that, with this raid, there began the period of raids and counter-raids, and ever-mounting terrorism and retaliation, culminating in the murderous campaign of the Fedayeen, and leading right up to the Sinai War of October 1956.
Why was this attack made? There seems to be no clear answer. The acts of infiltration which preceded it, severe as they were, were not unusual and certainly did not deserve a massive counterstroke which upset the whole equilibrium of the Middle East. Cynics said that it was a way