Documents just released here indicate that Britain was trying to restore good relations with Israel three years after the Suez campaign debacle, by supplying it with submarines and Centurion tanks.
But the British Foreign Ministry, fearful of offending the Arab world, took great pains to keep it from the public.
The documents were made public here following the expiration of a 30-year ban on publishing secrets.
In 1956, Israeli forces overran and occupied Sinai, in a secret agreement to give Anglo-French forces a pretext to seize the Suez Canal, which had recently been nationalized by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser.
The British and French withdrew under pressure from the United States. The Israelis had to abandon Sinai when President Dwight Eisenhower threatened to cut off U.S. aid.
The British sought to patch up relations with Israel by arms sales in 1959. But Tory member of Parliament Julian Amery, due to address an Israel Independence Day dinner, was warned by the Foreign Office not to mention the subject.
“Our sale of two submarines last October was a public sign of reconciliation,” Amery was told. “The fact that we have also sold other arms, including heavy tanks, is not known; and friends of Israel think she should have more arms from us.”
One of the submarines, the Dakar, disappeared on its delivery voyage to Israel in 1959.
Amery was also warned not to mention the possibility of Middle East peace, because “the prospects are remote, and mention of the problem raises mirages, such as the Western guarantee of Israel’s borders.”
CONTRACT FOR 60 TANKS
British tanks were offered to Golda Meir, then Israel’s foreign minister, in September 1958, according to the Foreign Office papers.
The Israelis, strapped for cash, signed a contract for 60 tanks with an option to buy 30.
When Israel wanted to buy more tanks from South Africa, the British Foreign Office was concerned. Meir warned Britain that the South African tanks might be bought by Egypt instead.
In the end, however, Israel lacked the money to buy the tanks and could not go through with the deal.
Asher Ben-Natan, director general of the Israeli Defense Ministry, told Britain’s Foreign Office in 1959 that Israel was considering the modernization of its air defense system by installing anti-aircraft missiles. Israel guaranteed there would be no publicity if such a deal were made, the documents indicate.
Gen. Ezer Weizman, then the Israeli air force chief of staff, tried to buy such systems from the British without success eight years before the Six-Day War.
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