https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271801/sinai-campaign-lessons-forgotten-war-ari-lieberman
Sixty-two years ago, on October 29, 1956 sixteen Israeli Air Force C-47 Dakota transport planes (one piloted by a woman) dropped 395 paratroopers deep behind Egyptian lines in the Sinai Peninsula, just outside the Mitla Pass. Hours earlier, Israeli P-51 Mustangs cut Egyptian phone lines in Sinai with their wings and propellers severely disrupting Egyptian military communications. These actions represented the opening shots of the Sinai Campaign, codenamed Operation Kadesh, a large-scale Israeli military undertaking directed at Israel’s main antagonist at the time, Egypt. The paradrop was followed-up by land thrusts.
The reasons for the attack were four-fold. First, Egypt led by its belligerent pan-Arabist leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser, blockaded the Straits of Tiran, an international waterway, to Israeli shipping. As a result, Israel’s southern port city of Eilat was rendered useless and its maritime access to parts of Asia and Africa was cut off.
Second, since the early 1950s, Egypt had been sponsoring Fedayeen attacks against Israel. The Fedayeen were largely Palestinians, armed, trained and paid by Egypt. They launched their terrorist attacks mostly from Egypt and Jordan. One of the most notorious of these was known as the Scorpion Pass Massacre, a deadly ambush attack that left 11 Egged bus passengers including women and children, dead. At least one female passenger was raped before being murdered. Kadesh was aimed at punishing Egypt for its role in the Fedayeen attacks and destroying Fedayeen bases in Gaza and Sinai.
Third, in 1955 Egypt concluded a major arms purchase with the Soviet Union which in turn utilized Czechoslovakia as its convenient interlocutor. The deal involved the sale to Egypt of hundreds of T-34 tanks, armored personnel carriers, artillery, MiG-15 fighters, Ilyushin ll-28 bombers, and naval vessels. Such a large-scale transfer of weapons altered the balance of power in favor of Egypt. Israel’s Defense Minister Moshe Dayan estimated that it would take a year for Egypt to absorb this massive amount of hardware and when it did, it would strike at Israel. Nasser never missed an opportunity to proclaim his nefarious intentions to his base and the Arab world at large and Israel took his threats seriously. As such, Israel determined that if war was inevitable, it was better if it occurred before the Egyptians learned how to use their new toys.
