U.S. Resistant to Offering Guarantees in Exchange for Israeli Withdrawal from Sinai
(February 19, 1957)
Following the end of the Suez War, Israel is under pressure to withdraw from territory it captured but wants certain guarantees, which the United States is reluctant to provide.
The Minister of State for Foreign Affairs said that the United
States Government were evidently unwilling to endorse the specific
guarantees about Gaza and the Straits of Tiran for which Israel was
asking as the price of withdrawal of her troops. There was indeed
some risk that the United States Government might feel compelled
to vote in favour of a resolution invoking sanctions against Israel, if
such a resolution was eventually introduced. On the other hand,
public opinion in the United States seemed to be hardening against
the employment of sanctions against Israel; and it was still possible
that the Canadian resolution, which would, in effect, give Israel the
guarantees on which she was insisting, might be reintroduced if
sufficient support for it could be mustered
Source: British National Archives CAB 128/31/12 |