WI: No Yom Kippur War?
- Thread starter Van555
- Start date
hard to say, a Left wing Nasserist likely stays close to the USSR and keeps up the War of Attrition drags on, which suits the USSR fine, more and more Soviet advisors and soviet control in Egypt, with out the shock to the Israeli system that the Yom Kippur gave and then Begin's withdrawal from Sinai I don't know how big the Settler movement gets, left-wing settler zionism was pretty much dead even though the Labor government tried to push settlement by those types in 1967-74, but maybe thats too short a time for it to take off any ways, who knows, no major war and a Soviet dominated Egypt means Israel doesn't give back sinai, Suez never reopens and is lost totally into the sands, maybe no Oil embargo
Hmm I may have to some thinking on this... No suez Canal at all!
yes it was closed by the Six-Day war till 1975 in OTL, 15 ships got stuck in it when the Egyptians sank ships on ether end to block, they became known as the "Yellow Fleet" they even had their own postage stamps
Hmm this is problematic but the good news is that the Canal wouldn't be lost in the silt. Still wouldn't this prompt some attempt by the Soviet Union or The United States to get this canal back in operation?
Though I guess everyone lived without for five years...
8 years, not being an engineer I have no idea how long it'd take to silt up the Canal, but as long as two armies are on the East and West banks facing each other it's not going to reopen.
I can't help but think even ignoring the Canal that Egypt or Israel is just is going to just sit around doing nothing. Maybe a different conflict breaks out? :/
oh well that might be but that would take bold leadership, the Soviets didn't want it, they pushed for 1967, and watched their arms get humiliated in the field which lead to issues in Eastern Europe, young Poles proudly talking about "our Jews" beating up the Arabs, Prague Spring, etc so the USSR was very much against war, at lest major war, the War of Attrition suited the USSR very well, it was a war made for cold war propaganda, they could say they were doing something while not running the risk of getting into a war with the USA while grinding down the Egyptian economy and making them more and more relent on the USSR, by the time Sadat took over there were 25,000 Soviet "advisors" in the country (about the same number of troops the US had in Vietnam in the beginning of 1965) and the Egyptian army was a mess, Sadat threw out the Soviets, ended the War of Attrition reorganized the army and basically black mailed the USSR into up arming them for the war
so yeah less bold leaders slowly allow Egypt to become a USSR puppet while keeping up the war of War of Attrition.
Unless Egypt tries to re-open the ancient Nile Canal (a canal linking the Nile with the Red Sea, thus bypassing Israeli threats for the most part).
Cook
Banned
That’s a proposal that runs contrary to the leanings of the various political camps in Nasser’s government. Remove Sadat from the equation and the leadership would have gone, as you propose, to the Socialist Ali Sabri, the former Egyptian Prime Minister. Sabri was one of the most militant members of the regime, permanently opposed to negotiations with Israel and a firm supporter of the armed struggle. For his part, Sadat felt he needed a military win to have the credibility to enter into negotiations with Israel.
My guess? If the Canal Front stays quiet due to a left wing Egyptian government not wanting to start something, there will soon be great pressure by the U.S. and Europe for Israel to withdraw from the Canal area (and possibly from Sinai altogether).
The reason will be the need to reopen the Canal. It will be thoroughly justified by the demonstrable fact that Israel has no need of a Sinai buffer against a clearly non-hostile Egypt.
Israel will at some point give in, probably after asking guarantees against any future militarization of Sinai.
Further than that I would not speculate, but I suppose we would see a decrease in at least part of the tension in the region, which can only be a good thing.
The reason will be the need to reopen the Canal. It will be thoroughly justified by the demonstrable fact that Israel has no need of a Sinai buffer against a clearly non-hostile Egypt.
Israel will at some point give in, probably after asking guarantees against any future militarization of Sinai.
Further than that I would not speculate, but I suppose we would see a decrease in at least part of the tension in the region, which can only be a good thing.
Sabri was a much brighter and cunning politician than Sadat. There's been some suggestion that Sadat simply followed from where Nasser left off in on-and-off secret negotiations with Israel, which means Sabri might go down a similar path.