Shimon Peres and the French-Israeli Alliance, 1954--9

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Journal of Contemporary History

DOI: 10.1177/0022009409356915 2010; 45; 406 Journal of Contemporary History

Guy Ziv Shimon Peres and the French-Israeli Alliance, 1954�9

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Guy Ziv

Shimon Peres and the French-Israeli Alliance, 1954–9

AbstractThe years 1954 to 1959 mark the pinnacle in Israeli-French strategic relations. During this period, France did what no other major power was willing to do: it sold massive quantities of high-quality arms to the fledgling Jewish state, thereby dramatically shifting the Middle Eastern balance of power in Israel’s favor. This article attempts to demonstrate that the ‘French connection’ was far from an inevitable consequence of mutual interests; rather, it was largely the brainchild of Shimon Peres, the then director-general of Israel’s Ministry of Defense. It is shown that the situational factors that were conducive to the ‘French connection’ — for example, the mutual desire to defeat Egypt’s President Gamal Abdul Nasser — were hardly apparent at that time to many key decision-makers in both France and Israel. Peres was able to succeed where the Foreign Ministry had failed by identifying situational nuances and bureau-cratic opportunities that led to Israel’s arms deals with France. By engaging in an active, personal diplomacy of a most unorthodox sort, Peres overcame both structural barriers and competing political interests, paving the road to the Israeli-French alliance.

Keywords: arms deals, France, French-Israeli relations, Israel, Shimon Peres, Suez War, US-Israeli relations

The April 2007 election of President Nicolas Sarkozy appears to have prompted a turnabout in French-Israeli diplomacy. In a marked departure from the gov-ernments of Jacques Chirac and other predecessors, Sarkozy’s first reception of a foreign leader at the Elysée Palace was none other than Israeli President Shimon Peres.1 Sarkozy, in turn, visited Peres in Israel in June 2008. The first French President to visit Israel in 12 years, Sarkozy received a standing ovation

The author thanks Shibley Telhami for his mentorship, advice, and assistance in securing several of his interviews; Mohammed M. Hafez, Jonathan Pearl, George Quester, Miranda Schreurs, John Steinbruner, and Vladimir Tismaneanu for their valuable feedback; Doron Avi-Ad of the IDF Archives; Alexis Deroudille for his assistance in translating French sources into English; and the editors and anonymous reviewers at the Journal of Contemporary History for their constructive comments and suggestions.

� A. Primor, ‘In Show of Love for Israel, Sarkozy Makes Peres his First Official Visitor’, Haaretz, 11 March 2008.

Journal of Contemporary History Copyright © 2010 The Author. Vol 45(2), 406–429. ISSN 0022–0094.DOI: 10.1177/0022009409356915



Ziv: Shimon Peres and the French-Israeli Alliance, 1954–9 407

from members of the Israeli Knesset, before whom he declared that a nuclear Iran ‘is intolerable’ and that ‘anyone trying to destroy Israel will find France blocking the way.’2 While highly unusual, the warm atmosphere presently enjoyed between the two governments is not unprecedented. It is fitting that Peres has played such an integral role in the current diplomatic thaw, since it was he who, more than 50 years ago, was most deeply involved in cultivating the so-called ‘French connection’.

The years 1954 to 1959 mark the era of unprecedented strategic co-operation between Israel and France, the Jewish state’s first ally. During those years, France provided Israel with significant numbers of high-quality weapons that shifted the Middle Eastern balance of power in Israel’s favor. At the pinnacle of this relationship, Israel and France, together with Great Britain, launched a pre-emptive war against Egypt in an effort to overthrow Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser. The informal alliance even led to a French-built nuclear reactor near the Israeli town of Dimona, transforming Israel into a nuclear weapon state. This article revisits the short-lived French-Israeli alliance by demonstrating the unlikely but central role of Shimon Peres, the then Director General of the Ministry of Defense, in shaping these outcomes.

Most of the recent scholarly works on this period focus on the common strategic interests shared by France, Britain and Israel in plotting to remove Nasser from power as the basis for explaining the 1956 war with Egypt. Typically neglected, however, is an adequate discussion of the decision-making processes that brought France and Israel closer together and which ultimately produced the high-stakes gambit at Suez.� Based on recently declassified archi-val documents from the Israel Defence Force (IDF) Archives, as well as inter-views with Israeli witnesses from that period, I attempt to show that, far from being an inevitable consequence of mutual interests, an adequate explanation of the Suez war must account for the critical role played by Shimon Peres in build-

� A. Zilber, ‘Sarkozy to Knesset: A Nuclear Iran is Intolerable’, Haaretz, 2� June 2008. Sarkozy subsequently warned Iran that, in its efforts to obtain a military nuclear capacity, it was risking an Israeli attack. See F. Murphy and E. Jarry, ‘Sarkozy Warns Iran it Risks Israeli Attack’, Reuters, 5 September 2008. To be sure, Sarkozy’s Knesset speech also contained elements of traditional French policy concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including a demand to stop settlement construction and a call for shared sovereignty over Jerusalem. See ‘Sarkozy says Israel must share Jerusalem’, AP, 2� June 2008. Nor did Sarkozy hesitate to demand that Israel stop its offensive in Gaza, which began in late December 2008. See I. Black and R. McCarthy, ‘Sarkozy Leads International Pressure on Israel to Halt Gaza Bloodshed’, Guardian, 5 January 2009. Nevertheless, a new era in French-Israeli relations characterized by greater warmth and, more significantly, increased attention to Israel’s security concerns appears to have emerged with the election of Sarkozy.� See, for example, M.B. Oren, ‘Escalation to Suez: The Egypt–Israel Border War, 1949–56, Journal of Contemporary History 24(2) (April 1989), �47–7�; S. Papastamkou, ‘France–Egypte–Israel: Un triangle impossible, 1954–1956’, Journal d’étude des relations internationales au Moyen-Orient �(1) (March 2008), 85; F. Schillo, ‘Genèse de la “collusion”: Les fondements stratégiques de l’alliance franco-israélienne de 1956’, Revue d’histoire diplomatique 4 (Winter 2007), �05–21; A. Shlaim, ‘The Protocol of Sèvres, 1956: Anatomy of a War Plot’, International Affairs 7�(�) (July 1997), 509–�0; D. Tal, ‘Israel’s Road to the 1956 War’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 28(1) (February 1996), 59–81.



408 Journal of Contemporary History Vol 45 No 2

ing Israel’s special relationship with France. What makes this case particularly compelling is not merely that one individual yielded disproportionate influence over the relations between the two countries, but also that this individual was not a senior policy-maker. Indeed, during this period Peres was neither a min-ister in the government nor even an elected member of the Knesset. Rather, he was a young aide to Prime Minister and Defense Minister David Ben-Gurion. One would not expect that Peres would have been able so strongly to influence major political outcomes from this position, especially given the Anglo-Saxon orientation of the Israeli political establishment and its skepticism toward France, on the one hand, and the French government’s official Arabist Middle East policy, on the other. Yet by engaging in an active, personal diplomacy of a most unorthodox sort, Peres overcame both structural barriers and competing political interests, paving the road to the Israeli-French alliance, which pro-duced unprecedented arms deals, a war, and a nuclear reactor.

In the early 1950s, Israel was politically isolated and in a precarious military situation. The young state was faced with both a quantitative and qualita-tive disadvantage in armaments vis-à-vis the Arab world. Coupled with the perpetually hostile attitudes toward Israel by Arab leaders, this disparity led Ben-Gurion to obsess over Israel’s fate. He is said to have once told an aide, ‘I could not sleep at night, not even one second. I had one fear in my heart: a combined attack by all the Arab armies.’4 For Ben-Gurion, therefore, modern-izing the Israeli army in preparation for the ‘next round’ of conflict, following the Arabs’ defeat in 1948–9, was of the highest priority. To this end, he insisted that, prior to the next round, Israel would need to obtain the backing of at least one major power that could supply it with a steady stream of quality weapons.

While the Israeli leadership almost unanimously viewed the United States, the first country to recognize the new Jewish state, as the natural candidate to which to turn for arms, the US embargo on arms sales to the Middle East made this a daunting challenge. The embargo began on 5 December 1947, and had been reinforced by the Tripartite Declaration of 25 May 1950, whereby the United States, Great Britain, and France committed themselves to maintain an arms balance in the region. As Peres and others have pointed out, however, Israel was effectively denied arms while Arab countries continued to receive them, because of previous commitments or understandings. Thus Great Britain continued to supply Jordan with weapons and training under the Anglo-Jordanian Treaty; a treaty between the United States and Saudi Arabia served as the basis for continued arms sales to the Saudis; and Egypt continued pur-chasing arms from France and Italy.5 Without any such treaty, Israel was left without a major arms supplier. Although Israel was able to purchase modest quantities of relatively outdated (including damaged) armaments from a small number of countries during its 1948 War of Independence — Czechoslovakia,

� A. Shlaim, The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World (New York and London 2001), 205; S. Aronson, Conflict and Bargaining in the Middle East (Baltimore 1978), 4�, 92.� S. Peres, David’s Sling (New York 1970), �4.




for example, provided Israel with rifles, Messerschmitts and heavy machine-guns6 — the small quantities of these largely obsolete weapons that were in Israel’s possession after the war left the young state vulnerable, particularly in the face of Western-aided Arab armament.

Obtaining arms from the United States thus became a high priority for the Israeli Foreign Ministry. A related matter, though of secondary importance, was the Israelis’ desire for a security guarantee with the United States, a matter they began pushing in late 1954.7 The Eisenhower administration was unreceptive on both fronts, despite repeated requests by Moshe Sharett, the Foreign Minister who briefly succeeded Ben-Gurion as Prime Minister dur-ing the latter’s ‘retirement’ from late 195� to 1955, and later by Ben-Gurion, once he resumed the premiership. The administration all but rejected Israel’s arms requests in 195�, which included 25 155mm howitzers (artillery) and 54 anti-aircraft guns, agreeing to provide only twelve 90mm guns.8 Likewise, Eisenhower turned down Israel’s request in June 1954 for 24 F-86 jets.9 The US administration’s justification for these rejections was its concern about violating the 1950 Tripartite Agreement.10 Despite the Arab states’ numerical superiority of arms — Israel reportedly had 122 medium tanks while the Arab states had a combined total of 216 — the Americans considered the status quo to be de facto Israeli preponderance, given the purported efficiency of Israeli forces, shorter lines of communication, and the US State Department’s view that Israel was the more aggressive actor in the conflict.11

Nevertheless, the Foreign Ministry remained hopeful that Israel would ulti-mately be able to receive both arms and a security guarantee from the United States. Sharett and Abba Eban, the Israeli Ambassador to the United States, were convinced that with the right set of policies Israel stood a reasonable chance of having its requests met. Standing in the way of this ‘right’ set of policies, how-ever, were the ‘activist’ policies Ben-Gurion had instituted as Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, policies which his protégés, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan, Minister of Defense Pinhas Lavon, and Director-General of the Ministry of Defense Shimon Peres continued to pursue in Ben-Gurion’s absence. ‘Activist’ policies were defined, first and foremost, by the notion that cross-border raids from the West Bank (Jordanian-controlled territory) or Gaza (Egyptian-controlled territory) were to be met with heavy retaliation. To the activists, only a show of force would deter would-be infiltra-tors, while convincing the leaders of Egypt and Jordan to act to prevent them. Indeed, the frequent but limited border clashes that began after the armistice agreements of 1949 had evolved into large-scale military reprisals, such as

� Ibid., ��, �9.� Z. Levey, ‘Israel’s Quest for a Security Guarantee from the United States, 1954–1956’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 22(1) (1995), 4�.� Ibid., 46.� Ibid.�0 In an effort to stabilize the armistice agreements of 1949, France, Britain, and the United States agreed not to supply weapons to any state ‘harboring aggressive designs’.�� Levey, ‘Israel’s Quest’, op. cit., 46–7.




the Israeli raids into the West Bank villages of Qibya (14 October 195�) and Nahalin (28 March 1954), as well as a major raid into Gaza (28 February 1955), the latter resulting in the deaths of dozens of Egyptians.12 These opera-tions in general, and the Gaza raid in particular, received widespread interna-tional condemnation, including from the Americans, who perceived them to be unnecessarily harsh. The American protests were viewed, in turn, with the utmost gravity by Sharett and Eban, who tried in vain to put the brakes on what they saw as short-sighted policies that undermined Israel’s relations with the United States and thus jeopardized Israel’s foreign policy objectives.

To be sure, Sharett was not opposed in principle to the policy of retaliatory strikes. He insisted upon Israel’s right to retaliate in response to civilian casual-ties or violations of its territory and was sensitive to public support for these reprisals.1� Some of these retaliatory operations, in fact, took place while he was Prime Minister, though not necessarily with his approval.14 Nevertheless, he grew increasingly frustrated with the frequency and scale of the retaliations, viewing them as exacerbating tensions with the Arab world and as damaging to Israel’s attempts to obtain arms and a security guarantee from the Americans. Sharett’s position was shared by his colleagues in the Foreign Ministry and by the Israeli Embassy in the United States, even though it made him despised by senior IDF officers.15

Contra the moderate line of Sharett, Peres and Dayan were the lead advo-cates of military reprisals. Peres wrote at the time,

In a political region in which peace has yet to be realized, it is very important to emphasize that ‘crime does not pay’. And instead of the political means that are common between civi-lized countries toward a war of mutual crimes, Israel must — to our regret — use military means to achieve the same ends.16

He challenged ‘those who oppose retaliatory attacks’ to ‘first and foremost offer an alternative way,’ arguing that ‘every declaration on our desire for peace’ was tantamount to ‘a disclosure of weakness’.17 If Israel desired peace, Peres said, it had to be prepared to fight:

�� There is a discrepancy in the literature concerning the precise number of Egyptian deaths in Gaza, with counts generally ranging from �7 to 4�. Michael B. Oren and Avi Shlaim, for example, put the number of deaths at �7. See M.B. Oren, ‘Escalation to Suez’, op. cit., �57; Shlaim, The Iron Wall, op. cit., 124. Motti Golani estimates the number of deaths at �8: see M. Golani, Israel in Search of a War: The Sinai Campaign 1955–1956 (Brighton 1998), 1. Others, such as Zach Levey, argue that the Gaza raid resulted in 4� Egyptian deaths. See Levey, ‘Israel’s Quest’, op. cit., 52.�� Levey, ‘Israel’s Quest’, op. cit., 45; B. Morris, Israel’s Border Wars, 1949–1956 (Oxford 199�), 2��–5.�� Indeed, some of these military reprisals conducted by the IDF took place behind his back. See M. Sharett, Yoman Ishi [Personal Diary] (Tel Aviv 1978), 416.�� G. Sheffer, Moshe Sharett, Biography of a Political Moderate (Oxford 1996), 5�9.�� S. Peres, article in the kibbutz journal Niv Hakvutza, June 1954, File #2, Batch #101042, 1965, IDF Archives, Tel Hashomer.�� Ibid.




Only if we demonstrate that we are a nation that has physical strength, military preparedness, military manpower to win or bend the Arabs in a war, and if we will have statesmen and leaders willing to use this strength — not for conquering, not for war, but to protect what we have attained — maybe that is the only way in which we can ensure peace that does not entail indefinite concessions. Because Israel is not interested in merely any peace. Israel is not interested in a peace without the Negev, and peace alone is not an end. We must remember that the Arabs basically are not interested in peace. The fact that there is robbery, murder and other problems does not disturb in the slightest Arab powers in the Arab countries. This is perhaps the glue that unites the Arabs, this is perhaps a jumping board for Arab leaders notable for their hatred of Israel.18

Peres expressed the fear that peace talks, even if this were a realistic option, would invariably entail Western pressure on Israel to surrender its vital inter-ests to the Arabs: ‘either before or after we will agree to conduct negotiations with the Arabs, we will find ourselves with the Arabs plus the British plus the Americans, and so forth. As difficult as it is for us to stand up to the Arabs, it will be even more difficult to stand up to Arabs getting advice and guidance from other nations,’ Peres said.19 Thus, despite the wishes of the moderates in the Foreign Ministry, Peres was convinced that the time was not ripe for advocating peace.

In addition to defending the retaliatory policy and rejecting the doves’ calls for peace, Peres was highly skeptical of the moderates’ claim that different Israeli policies would lead to a tangible improvement in Israel’s relations with the United States. In briefings to journalists and in his writings, Peres repeat-edly expressed doubts that the United States could be persuaded to provide Israel with arms.20

Peres had witnessed first-hand the consequences of the arms embargo. In January 1950, Ben-Gurion sent him to the United States to head the Israeli pur-chasing mission. Despite his task, Peres saw no conventional way of procuring arms, even though he did find a way clandestinely to purchase surplus second world war equipment from various suppliers.21

It was clear to Peres that Israel would need to look elsewhere for a steady supply of quality arms. A more practical way would have to be found, in other words, to circumvent the arms embargo in order to overcome the mili-tary disparity between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Peres’ opinion did not change with the election of President Eisenhower in 1952. In June 1954, Peres observed that the deterioration in Israel’s relations with the United States (as well as with the Soviet Union) had been manifested both in terms of rhetoric

�� S. Peres, lecture in Yifat, 8 September 1955, File #10, Batch #101042, 1965, IDF Archives; S. Peres, article in Niv Hakvutza, October 1956, File #24, Batch #101042, 1965, IDF Archives.�� Ibid.�0 Peres, article in Niv Hakvutza, June 1954; S. Peres, Comments in Senior Meeting of the Defense Ministry, 29 October 1954, File #469, Batch #101042, 1965, IDF Archives.�� The parts were then assembled in a small plant in Burbank, California, by its owner, Al Schwimmer, who repaired and built Mosquito aircraft — small, wooden bombers — for Israel. See M. Golan, The Road to Peace (New York 1989), 22–�.




and in the provision of arms to the Jewish state.22 While Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, Abba Eban, doggedly worked year after year to persuade officials in the Eisenhower administration to assist Israel militarily,2� Peres con-tinued to believe that such efforts were futile. He was especially concerned with what he perceived as outward hostility toward Jews by Eisenhower’s Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles.24 The historical evidence suggests that Peres’ reservations about US intentions concerning arms sales to Israel were justified. The Americans consistently evaded the question of selling arms to Israel and most likely had no intention of acceding to Israel’s repeated requests.25

Peres looked to France as the most logical alternative source of arms. In contrast to the majority opinion in the Israeli political establishment, he was adamant that France — not the United States — was the address to which Israel needed to turn. Writes Peres:

My personal experience of France in those days prompted my feeling that despite the refusals which Israel’s requests had encountered and which had been properly noted by our own Foreign Ministry, there was still the chance of a change in French thinking which could lead to a change in attitude towards Israel.26

In one closed-door session of a senior Defense Ministry meeting in late October 1954, Peres pointed to France as ‘the friendliest country today’.27

Peres was virtually alone in trying to steer Israeli procurement efforts in the direction of France. Israeli officials tended to view France not as a regional power but as a ‘broken reed’, and recommended that Israel proceed with ‘an awareness of France’s limitations . . . the United States and Britain are the masters of this region’.28 Beyond the skeptical attitude of the Foreign Ministry, Peres had to contend with the resistance to his efforts by Pinhas Lavon, who became Minister of Defense — and thus Peres’ boss — during Ben-Gurion’s voluntary retirement in December 195�. Lavon preferred dealing with the

�� Peres, article in Niv Hakvutza, June 1954, op. cit.�� M. Bar-On, The Gates of Gaza: Israel’s Road to Suez and Back, 1955–1957 (New York 1995), 1�7.�� ‘He [Dulles] has a Jewish complex,’ Peres claimed. See Peres, Lecture to Senior Defense Ministry Officials, 4 June 1956, File #�7, Batch #101042, 1965, IDF Archives.�� N. Caplan, ‘Review Article: Zionism and the Arabs: Another Look at the “New” Historiography’, Journal of Contemporary History �6(2) (April 2001), �59; Bar-On, Gates of Gaza, op. cit., 1�7–5�; U. Bialer, Between East and West: Israel’s Foreign Policy Orientation, 1948–1956 (Cambridge 1990), 261–81; N. Caplan, Futile Diplomacy, vol. 4, Operation Alpha and the Failure of Anglo-American Coercive Diplomacy in the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1954–1956 (London 1997), ch. 11.�� Peres, David’s Sling, op. cit., 47.�� Peres, Comments in Senior Meeting of the Defense Ministry, 29 October 1954, File #469, Batch #101042, 1965, IDF Archives.�� Z. Levey, ‘French-Israeli Relations, 1950–1956: The Strategic Dimension’, in S. C. Smith, Reassessing Suez 1956: New Perspectives on the Crisis and its Aftermath (Hampshire 2008), 89; B. Pinkus, From Ambivalence to a Tacit Alliance: Israel, France and French Jewry 1947–1957 (Sede Boker, Israel, 2005), �56.




Americans and strongly discouraged Peres from reaching arms deals with the French, who he believed would exact a high political price.29

Following Ben-Gurion’s return to the Defense Ministry in February 1955, Peres still had to push hard to persuade his mentor of the futility of attempt-ing to acquire armaments from the Americans and the wisdom of trying to do so from the French.�0 Winning over Ben-Gurion on this matter proved to be a daunting challenge, given the deep reservations he held regarding France. ‘Why did they surrender to the Nazis?’ he would often ask, recalls Peres.�1 Ben-Gurion’s diary and archival documents of Mapai Central Committee meetings demonstrate that, time and again, he would express private misgivings about Israel’s relations with France.�2 Only reluctantly did he come around to accept-ing Peres’ view that France — not the United States, and certainly not Britain — would supply Israel with the arms it needed. As Sylvia Crosbie notes, ‘It was largely because of Peres’ insistence that Israel opted for French weapons rather than following the tortuous path of endless negotiations for American arms,’ as the Foreign Ministry preferred to do.�� Once he overcame his hesita-tion, Ben-Gurion gave Peres complete authority to pursue what would become known as the ‘French connection’, a role Peres fulfilled diligently over the following two years.�4

A confluence of mutual interests and French empathy for the fledgling Jewish state had led Peres to be optimistic that France would agree to assist Israel. Recent scholarship has been rightly critical of earlier works that tended to exaggerate the ‘romantic’ aspects of French-Israeli relations in the 1950s, citing recently declassified French Foreign Ministry documents that point to mutual strategic interests as the overriding factor in these two countries’ co-operation in the 1950s.�5 As far as Peres and his associates are concerned, however, sentimentality on the part of a significant segment of France’s popu-lation nevertheless played a not-insignificant role in the arming of the Jewish

�� Pinkus, Ambivalence, op. cit., �74.�0 S. Peres, interview with the author, � November 2006, Tel Aviv.�� S. Peres, Battling for Peace: A Memoir (New York 1995), 10�.�� Z. Levey, ‘Israel’s Pursuit of French Arms, 1952–1958’, Studies of Zionism 14(2) (199�), 204–7.�� S.K. Crosbie, A Tacit Alliance: France and Israel from Suez to the Six Day War (Princeton, NJ, 1974), 45.�� Crosbie, Tacit Alliance, op. cit., 46; Golan, Road to Peace, op. cit., 25–6, �2, �7; Peres, David’s Sling, op. cit., 47, 61; Peres, Battling for Peace, op. cit., 10�; M. Amit, interview with author, 10 October 2006, Ramat Gan; M. Bar-On, interview with author, 16 October 2006, Jerusalem; Y. Nahmias, interview with author, 18 October 2006, Tzahala; A. Ben-Natan, inter-view with author, 15 November 2006, Tel Aviv; and D. Tolkowsky, interview with author, 15 October 2006, Tel Aviv. The then Colonel Meir Amit was the Deputy IDF Chief of Staff during the mid-1950s; Lt.-Col. Mordechai Bar-On was Moshe Dayan’s Chief of Bureau during the Suez campaign; Yossef Nahmias was the Defense Ministry’s Representative in Europe from October 1954 until October 1956; Asher Ben-Natan was chosen to replace Yossef Nahmias as the Defense Ministry’s Representative in Europe in October 1956; and Col. Dan Tolkowsky was Commander of the Israeli Air Force from May 195� to July1958.�� Levey, ‘French-Israeli Relations, 1950–1956’, op. cit.; Papastamkou, ‘France–Egypte–Israel’, op. cit.; Schillo, ‘Genèse de la “collusion”’, op. cit.




state. Post-second-world-war France was exceedingly self-conscious about its role during the war and, as a result, its leadership and the media tended to be sympathetic towards Jews. Some of France’s leading politicians in the 1950s had been involved in the Resistance during the second world war;�6 others had been prisoners in the very concentration camps that had held Jews, a fact that forged strong bonds between them.�7 Writes Peres:

It was natural that the people of post-war France, who had themselves tasted the bitterness of Nazi horror, should feel a kinship with the victims of Nazism who had suffered the greater losses, and should wish to help the pioneers of Israel create conditions in which another Holocaust would never again be possible.�8

Both Israel and France also held bitter feelings toward Great Britain; the for-mer from their experience in Palestine under the British Mandate, the latter due to Britain’s support for Arab nationalist movements between 194� and 1946, which undermined France’s influence in Syria and Lebanon. Many French naval officers and bureaucrats admired the Israeli army, which had defeated both the Arabs and the British.�9

Socialist leaders in France, moreover, tended to identify with the socialist Jewish state, viewing the governing Israel Labor Party as a ‘sister party’.40 French sympathy toward Jews in the years following the second world war was accentuated by the ascendance in April 1954 of Egypt’s Nasser, the pan-Arab leader who reminded them of Hitler and the potential dangers inherent in appeasing a man the French Labor Party leader Guy Mollet termed ‘an apprentice dictator’.41

Peres writes of a conversation he once had with French Defense Minister Maurice Bourges-Maunoury, in which the latter remarked that ‘sentiments play a great role, not only in human relations, but also in political relations. I can’t describe France without a deep feeling for the Jewish people and for Israel.’42 These factors help to explain France’s decision to assist Israel imme-diately after Israel’s declaration of independence on 15 May 1948. Although

�� J. Frydman, interview with author, 12 November 2006, Jaffa. Frydman became acquainted with Peres during the latter’s stint as Director-General of the Ministry of Defense. Frydman, living in France, had founded a company for a radio station called Europe Number One.�� M. Bar-Zohar, Gesher ‘Al Hayyam Hattikhon [Bridge Over the Mediterranean: French-Israeli Relations, 1947–196�] (Tel Aviv 1964), 21–2; Peres, David’s Sling, op. cit., 44–5; H.M. Sachar, Israel and Europe: An Appraisal in History (New York 1998), 77–8.�� Peres, David’s Sling, op. cit., 44.�� M. Bar-Zohar, Gesher ‘Al Hayyam, op. cit., 2�; Crosbie, Tacit Alliance, op. cit., �9; H.M. Sachar, Israel and Europe, op. cit., 77.�0 Bar-Zohar, Gesher ‘Al Hayyam, op. cit., 77.�� Peres, David’s Sling, op. cit., 45; Crosbie, Tacit Alliance, op. cit., 18; A. Thomas, Comment Israel fut sauvé: Les secrets de l’expédition de Suez (Paris 1978), 111.�� S. Peres, ‘The Road to Sèvres: Franco-Israeli Strategic Cooperation’, in Selwyn Ilan Troen and Moshe Shemesh (eds), The Suez–Sinai Crisis 1956: Retrospective and Reappraisal (London and New York 1990), 144. In an interview Peres gave to an Israeli newspaper in 1962, he characterized France’s relationship with Israel as one based on friendship, rather than mere interests. See ‘We Expect Developments that will Burden the Security Situation of the State’, Davar, 18 May 1962.




France did not recognize Israel until 21 May 1949, the Israeli Army received illegal shipments of weapons from France, and volunteers left French ports to assist the fledgling Jewish state.4�

A second factor for establishing French-Israeli ties was that these ties had mutual economic benefits: Peres was attracted to the idea that French planes were cheaper than equivalent American planes — assuming, of course, that a deal over American planes could even be worked out. For their part, the French military establishment sought to promote arms sales as a way to support French military industries and ease the balance of payments.44

Most importantly, however, Israel and France shared common strategic interests. New developments of a strategic nature that took place in the mid-1950s convinced Peres that Israel would be able to do business with France. First, in February 1954, French influence in Syria was dealt a major blow with the removal from power of Colonel Adib al-Shishakli. From 1949 to 1952, France was a major arms supplier to Syria, providing the Shishakli regime with 10 billion French Francs (or 2.8 million dollars).45 The ouster of Shishakli in a coup and the murder of Colonel Adnan Maliki, the Syrian deputy chief of staff, the following year opened the door to greater Soviet influence in Syria and a readjustment in France’s Middle East policy. The fall of the Shishakli govern-ment, it is noted in a now-declassified French diplomatic document, ‘doesn’t allow us to rely on Syria any more’.46 Ben-Gurion wrote in his diary how the Maliki murder in Syria further strengthened Peres’ conviction that ‘the time is ripe for buying from France’.47

A second regional development affecting France’s policy in the Middle East involved the formation of the 1955 Baghdad Pact, a mutual defense treaty initiated by the United States and NATO and signed by Great Britain, Turkey, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq. Aimed at keeping the Soviet Union at bay, the pact pointedly excluded France because of its involvement in Indo-China’s colonial wars. Israel, for its part, felt threatened by an agreement that would provide Iraq with access to British and American military resources, thereby threaten-ing the Middle East arms balance. For France, support for Israel was a way of enhancing its role in regional and international developments; moreover, sup-port for Israel was a means of stabilizing the balance of power in the region.48

Above all, however, it was France’s tensions with Egypt over Algeria that presented a golden opportunity for closer French-Israeli ties. The Algerian War of Independence began on 1 November 1954. Israel’s sworn enemy, President Nasser of Egypt, openly supported the Algerian rebels while promoting his pan-Arabism movement, actions that served to undermine France’s hold on Algeria. Nasser’s support for the National Liberation Front (FLN) took the

�� Bar-Zohar, Gesher ‘Al Hayyam, op. cit., 28–�0.�� Crosbie, Tacit Alliance, op. cit., 40–1.�� Pinkus, Ambivalence, op. cit., �64–5.�� Schillo, ‘Genèse de la “collusion”’, op. cit., �12.�� Golan, Road to Peace, op. cit., �2.�� Pinkus, Ambivalence, op. cit., 15; Sachar, Israel and Europe, op. cit., 25–6, 79.




form of broadcasts from Radio Cairo, arms shipments, and military training of Algerians at al-Azhar.49 In April 1955, he persuaded the participants at the Bandung Conference — the meeting of leaders from Africa and Asia repre-senting non-aligned states — to adopt a resolution siding with the rebels.50 Pierre-Eugène Gilbert, the French ambassador to Israel, perceived Nasser as the common enemy France shared with Israel and suggested that a united front be formed against him.51 Peres shared Gilbert’s conviction, believing that by stressing their common interests, Israel had a unique opportunity to bring its relationship with France to a new level. At one point, Peres bluntly remarked that ‘every Frenchman killed in Algeria, like every Egyptian killed in the Gaza Strip, is a step toward strengthening the ties between France and Israel’.52 He thus made a a point of emphasizing the connection between France’s Algeria problem and Israel’s problems with Nasser in his arms procurement efforts, a strategy which ultimately convinced Prime Minister Guy Mollet to provide Israel with an unprecedented package of high-quality arms that enabled it to achieve the military victory in 1956.5� Indeed, in the years ahead, the Israelis eagerly shared their intelligence on Nasser’s involvement in the Algerian rebel-lion, often exaggerating his role in aiding the rebels.54 French General Augustine Guillaume would later aver that France’s decision to arm Israel was taken as part of the struggle against Nasser and the Algerian rebels.55

The road to French arms, however, was strewn with obstacles that had to be overcome. First and foremost, the Quai d’Orsay, the French Foreign Ministry, did not share the enthusiasm of the Defense Ministry’s pro-Israel orientation. While the latter saw Israel as a useful ally in exerting French influence in the Middle East, the former was preoccupied with France’s deteriorating image in the region because of French policy in Algeria. French diplomats feared that if France became Israel’s sole arms supplier, its influence among the Arabs would be further eroded. Not surprisingly, archival documents from the Foreign Ministry point to the reluctance of the Quai d’Orsay to assist Israel in its quest for arms, notwithstanding the fact that France and Israel shared a common

�� Crosbie, Tacit Alliance, op. cit., 17, 58.�0 Golani, Israel in Search of a War, op. cit., 40.�� Bar-Zohar, Gesher ‘Al Hayyam, op. cit., 60–1.�� Golan, Road to Peace, op. cit., �1.�� E. Galli, interview with author, 5 July 2001, Tel Aviv. Galli was a former aide to Ben-Gurion who left for France to serve as Paris correspondent for the Israeli newspaper Davar and, later, Yedioth Ahronoth. According to Galli, Mollet told him during one of many conversations they had that Peres was the key figure who convincingly argued that France and Israel shared a common interest in undermining Nasser’s rule. Haim Israeli shares the view that Peres ‘played the tune of Algeria’ and thus ‘inspired the French’ to deliver major arms — in particular, the Mystères — to Israel. Israeli served as Secretary of the Defense Minister’s Bureau from 1952 to 1956; in 1956, he became the Director of the Defense Minister’s Bureau: H. Israeli, interview with author, 22 November 2006, Tel Aviv.�� Golani, Israel in Search of a War, op. cit., 41, 44; M. Karpin, The Bomb in the Basement: How Israel Went Nuclear and What That Means for the World (New York 2006), 75; Levey, ‘Israel’s Pursuit of French Arms’, op. cit., 189; author’s interview with Bar-On, op. cit.�� Crosbie, Tacit Alliance, op. cit., 46.




enemy in Nasser.56 Sharett aptly described France’s official approach toward Israel at the time as ‘cold and calculating’.57

In addition, France’s Fourth Republic was weak and highly unstable; cabinet crises were the norm. In its 12 years of existence, 26 governments rose and fell. As a witness to this instability, Peres briefed senior Israeli Defense Ministry officials with the following assessment of France’s precarious system of govern-ment and its implications for Israel:

the governments there are replaced in the mornings. Every government changes its views. First of all, there is no government of the same skin; there are ministers, and the ministers are not just persons, they are representatives of parties and there is no collective responsibility as in the State of Israel, where Mapai is in power all the time and determines the line. There, each time there are different combinations. Also, each party has different views; there is no party discipline within the party itself . . . In contrast, the French army lives with the feeling that the politicians are busy with constructing the governments and are not living the real lives of France . . . There is a contradiction between the army and the politicians and this contradiction exists with regard to Israel as well. The army is pro-Israel and anti-Arab, but it is the politicians that govern the country and not the military men . . . French policy at this moment is less pro-Israel than it has been for many years recently. I am not saying that it is not pro-Israel, but it is less pro-Israel. The policy, I am not speaking of the politicians, nor about the military officials, one has nothing to do with the other.58

In contrast to his colleagues in the Foreign Ministry, Peres saw in these for-midable challenges an opportunity to procure the arms Israel had been unable to obtain from the United States. Someone less persistent than Peres and with a more conventional mindset may have been deterred from navigating the treacherous waters of the Fourth Republic. After all, an agreement with one government, to the extent that one could overcome the likely objections by the Quai d’Orsay, did not guarantee that it would be kept by the one that replaced it. Peres experienced the effect of this phenomenon first-hand when, towards the end of 195�, he reached an understanding with Paul Reynaud, a key figure in the government of Joseph Laniel. A few weeks later, however, the govern-ment fell.

To overcome these structural hurdles, Peres decided he would need to iden-tify and engage each of the relevant players in Paris. He came to the conclusion ‘that direct contact with government leaders could be made and maintained through unofficial channels, and that when one got to meet them, one found that they were people one could talk to, even about delicate matters, and even bring them round to our point of view.’59 In what emerged as a most unorthodox form of diplomacy, Peres took it upon himself to cultivate per-sonal relationships with French politicians, bureaucrats, military officials, and

�� Schillo, ‘Genèse de la “collusion”’, op. cit., �16–7; Papastamkou, ‘France–Egypte–Israel’, op. cit., 85.�� Levey, ‘Israel’s Pursuit of French Arms’, op. cit., 185.�� S. Peres, Lecture to Senior Defense Ministry Officials, 28 December 1955, File #�9, Batch #101042, 1965, IDF Archives.�� Peres, David’s Sling, op. cit., 48; author’s interviews with Amit and Bar-On, op. cit.




industrialists. He methodically met with key figures in the French leadership as well as the opposition, senior as well as junior officials. He also met with unofficial, non-governmental contacts in parallel with his diplomatic efforts to expand his political network in Paris.60

Peres also exploited an important structural weakness he had identified early on with regard to France’s Fourth Republic: its fragmented and dif-fused authority structure. To overcome the frostiness of the Quai d’Orsay, he would later orchestrate direct contact between the French and Israeli Defense Ministries, bypassing the Foreign Ministries of both countries. ‘When you are struggling for your life it’s not necessary to stick to formal diplomacy,’ Peres would later recall. ‘Every foreign office represents the prudence of its nation and prudence doesn’t necessarily promote aid to Israel.’61 As Bar-On notes, ‘Shimon Peres was well acquainted with the maze of interministerial and inter-personal conflicts that characterized the Fourth Republic. He knew how to maneuver between the cracks’.62

In the years 1954 to 1956, a number of key developments took place that would mark important turning points in Israel’s strategic relationship with France. In August 1954, Peres, with the encouragement and logistical support provided by Ambassador Gilbert, arranged a visit to France for Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan. In Paris, Dayan met with Defense Minister Pierre Koenig and the heads of the French army to discuss Israel’s defense needs. According to Ambassador Ya’acov Tsur’s account, Dayan ‘made a great impression on the Defense officials in France with whom he met’.6� Peres capitalized on Dayan’s successful visit by intensifying his procurement efforts. The hard work paid off. That fall, France delivered a substantial package of arms, including AMX-1� tanks, 75mm guns, radar equipment, and Ouragan jet fighter planes, which were superior to any Arab planes at the time.64

The Egyptian-Czech arms deal, announced by Nasser on 27 September 1955, was a watershed event in the Middle East. The Soviet arms acquired by Egypt included 100–150 MiG jet fighters of both the MiG-15 and MiG-17 varieties; 50 Il-28 (Ilyushin) bombers, which had the capacity to reach almost any point in Israel from the Sinai; 70 Il-14 transport aircraft; anti-aircraft guns; training and liaison aircraft; 2�0 T-�4 tanks; 200 armored personnel carriers (APCs); and 600 artillery pieces, including Russian semi-automatic rifles, self-propelled guns, field howitzers, medium guns, and anti-tank guns; and, for the Egyptian Navy, destroyers, submarines, and torpedo boats.65 The deal was a disaster for the Western powers, as well as for Israel. For the former, it signi-

�0 Bar-Zohar, Gesher ‘Al Hayyam, op. cit., 65; Peres, David’s Sling, op. cit., 48–9.�� K. Love, Suez: The Twice-Fought War (London 1969), 1�8.�� Bar-On, Gates of Gaza, op. cit., �4.�� Y. Tsur, Paris Diary (Tel Aviv 1968), 88.�� Love, Suez, op. cit., 1�9; Bar-Zohar, Gesher ‘Al Hayyam, op. cit., 61.�� Golani, Israel in Search of a War, op. cit., 1�. There is a discrepancy among historians con-cerning the precise numbers of each type of arms received by Egypt under this deal. For alternative lists of figures, see, for example, Bar-On, Gates of Gaza, op. cit., 16–17; and Sachar, Israel and Europe, op. cit., 75–6.




fied growing Soviet influence in the Middle East. Israel was deeply concerned because it shifted the arms balance dramatically in Egypt’s favor. At least as significant as the quantitative disparity was the qualitative imbalance resulting from this deal. While the Egyptians were to get some of the best and the latest Soviet arms, Israel’s dated arsenal was, by comparison, dreadfully inadequate. Israel had no submarines and no tanks that could counter the T-�4s, whose gun range exceeded that of Israel’s tanks by over 1000 meters, and the MiG jets the Egyptians were slated to receive were far superior to Israel’s Meteors and Ouragans.66

Under these circumstances, Israel’s political echelon feared that its country faced real and imminent danger from a stronger, more confident enemy. Peres describes a ‘backs to the wall’ feeling in Israel following Nasser’s announce-ment.67 The Israelis perceived the immense arms deal to signify that Egypt was preparing to go to war with Israel. Moshe Dayan would later write:

It was clear to us in Israel that the primary purpose of this massive Egyptian rearmament was to prepare Egypt for a decisive confrontation with Israel in the near future. The Egyptian blockade, her planning and direction of mounting Palestinian guerrilla activity against Israel, Nasser’s own declarations, and now the Czech arms deal left no doubt in our minds that Egypt’s purpose was to wipe us out, or at least win a decisive military victory which would leave us in helpless subjugation.68

In the wake of the Czech arms deal, Dayan and Peres were particularly eager to launch a preventive war against Egypt before Nasser had a chance to absorb the new weapons.69 Ben-Gurion, for his part, had remained adamant that Israel would need to secure the backing of a major power in preparation for the anticipated ‘second round of conflict’ with Israel’s Arab neighbors. Until this happened, he would not accede to Dayan’s and Peres’ urgings to attack Egypt. He also made it clear to his colleagues that, in light of the Egyptian-Czech deal, he saw the subject of arms as the ‘main problem’ and insisted that ‘all efforts [be] concentrated on this’.70 Peres thus made it a top priority to create the con-ditions for a preventive war,71 while redoubling his arms procurement efforts. Given Nasser’s continued support for the Algerian rebels — a point repeat-edly emphasized by Peres to his French interlocutors — the French proved receptive to Israel’s bold requests. Over the next year, Peres would purchase an assortment of armaments from the French: light tanks, artillery, Sherman tanks, cannons, and, most importantly, Mystères (Mark IV) jets. The last was a critical acquisition for Israel, which needed to upgrade its Air Force in light of the Czech MiG sales to Egypt. These arms deals, in turn, caused considerable

�� Bar-On, Gates of Gaza, op. cit., 18.�� Peres, David’s Sling, op. cit., 55.�� M. Dayan, Story of My Life: An Autobiography (New York 1976), 225.�� Golani, Israel in Search of a War, op. cit., 18–20; Thomas, Comment Israel fut sauvé, op. cit., 144.�0 Golani, Israel in Search of a War, op. cit., 2�–4.�� Author’s interviews with Amit and Bar-On, op. cit.




consternation for Nasser, who divulged details of these deliveries to a journalist for Life magazine, charges that Israel promptly denied.72

The tortuous route to procuring the Mystères was skillfully navigated by Peres, whose creative use of the personal relationships he cultivated in Paris ultimately helped to secure their delivery. In the spring of 1955, the French agreed to Peres’ request for additional arms, which included 24 Mystère-2 jet fighters. In July, however, the Israelis discovered that the Mystère-2 was a defective model, leading Peres to work out a new agreement for Israel to receive 24 of the more advanced Mystère-4 jets. However, whereas the former was produced for the French Air Force alone, the latter had been ordered by the United States for NATO and thus required American authorization. Two forces worked against the delivery of the Mystère-4s: the Quai d’Orsay, which did not want further to exacerbate tensions with the Arab world, and the Americans, who refused to authorize the delivery.7� Peres obtained Ben-Gurion’s permission to launch a ‘private’ electoral campaign in France to lobby French politicians from across the political spectrum.74 He befriended George Elgosi, a Jewish economist of Algerian origin who served as an adviser to Prime Minister Edgar Faure. A most unusual arrangement was made when Elgosi arranged for Peres to work out of the Prime Minister’s office, which Peres pro-ceeded to utilize for mailing letters and making phone calls.75 Through Elgosi, Peres was able to meet with Faure as well as Maurice Bourges-Maunoury, the pro-Israel Interior Minister, and his aide, Abel Thomas, to discuss Israel’s arms requests, which included, above all, the Mystères.76

Peres left no stone unturned. He viewed the frequent national elections not as periods in which to scale back on Israel’s lobbying efforts, but the very opposite — opportunities to widen the circle of pro-Israel support amongst French politicians. During the election campaign that followed the collapse of the Faure government, Peres insisted on meeting not only with the incum-bent leadership, but also with Guy Mollet, the Socialist Party opposition leader, who was regarded as a long shot to win the premiership by the Israeli Embassy in Paris. In their meeting, Mollet expressed strong support for Israel and spoke of his admiration for the socialist society Jews had built there. Peres responded by reminding Mollet that Jews had suffered many disappointments from socialists, such as Ernest Bevin, the former Foreign Minister of Britain, once they reached positions of power. Mollet went on to win the election. Once he assumed office, in January 1956, he invited the Israeli team in Paris to his official residence at the Hotel Matignon, and assured Peres and his colleagues that he would not be a Bevin.77

�� H. Azeau, Le Piège de Suez (Paris 1964), 92–�.�� Papastamkou, ‘France–Egypte–Israel’, op. cit., 85; Pinkus, Ambivalence, op. cit., 512.�� M. Bar-Zohar, Shimon Peres: The Biography (New York 2007), 114.�� Author’s interview with Frydman, op. cit.; Bar-Zohar, Bridge Over the Mediterranean, op. cit., 92.�� Ibid., 115; Peres, David’s Sling, 51–�, 56–8.�� Peres, David’s Sling, op. cit., 58–60.




In parallel with lobbying Mollet, Peres continued to engage Bourges-Maunoury, who now served as Minister of Defense, and Thomas, his deputy. While they were now part of the Socialist-led government, they were also Mollet’s political rivals, given their membership in the Radical party. Significantly, Peres and the French Defense Ministry team agreed to bypass both the Quai d’Orsay — now led by Christian Pineau (of Mollet’s Socialist party) — and the Israeli Foreign Ministry in secret dealings.78

Peres was, in effect, conducting an independent foreign policy on Israel’s behalf, despite the fact that he was neither Prime Minister nor Foreign Minister. Yet Ben-Gurion accepted Peres’ rationale that the acquisition of armaments from France would be doomed if the Israeli Foreign Ministry insisted on interfering in the negotiations over the arms deals, since, from the perspective of French Defense officials, it was imperative that these deals be conducted in secret.79 Peres relates that in their very first encounter, Thomas concluded the meeting by exhorting him to ‘keep away as far as possible from the diplomatic crowd — they don’t make foreign policy, but policy that is foreign’.80

In Israel, as in France, relations between the various ministries often bordered on animosity. Ben-Gurion typically defended Peres’ clandestine activities, much to the chagrin of Foreign Ministry (and Finance Ministry) officials. While he preferred that Peres inform the Foreign Minister and the Israeli embassy in Paris of his dealings, Ben-Gurion did not accept their demand that they be included in the decision-making process with the French. On 18 March 1956 he wrote the following to the Israeli embassy in Paris:

Some of the things between us and the French have been done, and will be done in the future, in an unorthodox manner, on occasion bypassing one minister or another, often the finance minister. For this reason, members of the French government choose to talk informally, on a one-to-one basis. I am sure that you value arms acquisition above ceremony, and if the French can waive protocol, so can you.81

Not to be outflanked by his pro-Israel colleagues in the Ministry of Defense, Mollet himself pressed the Eisenhower administration to lift its objections to the sale of the Mystères, which the Americans ultimately did in April.82 The planes finally arrived in Israel on 11 April 1956. Despite Sharett’s claim to have received a promise for the Mystères, it was Peres who succeeded in securing their delivery. The Foreign Ministry had, in fact, been sidelined from the decision-making circle, and it was Peres alone who received the accolades from Ben-Gurion and Dayan for the delivery of the planes.8� Moreover, Dayan

�� Bar-On, Gates of Gaza, op. cit., 164–7; Bar-Zohar, Gesher ‘Al Hayyam, op. cit., 64; Crosbie, Tacit Alliance, op. cit., �2, �5–41, 45–6; Peres, David’s Sling, op. cit., 61.�� Golan, Road to Peace, op. cit., �7.�0 Peres, David’s Sling, op. cit., 57.�� Golan, Road to Peace, op. cit., 86.�� Bar-Zohar, Shimon Peres, op. cit., 121; Pinkus, Ambivalence, op. cit., 519.�� Bar-Zohar, Shimon Peres, op. cit., 122; Z. Levey, Israel and the Western Powers: 1952–1960 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1997), 69; author’s interview with Israeli, op. cit.




demanded that the Israeli embassy in Paris be excluded entirely in future arms-related matters, a suggestion that received the support of Ben-Gurion.84

Relations between Israel and France became even closer in the summer of 1956. Peres had suggested to Bourges-Maunoury that France sell Israel large numbers of tanks and artillery pieces, and additional Mystères, which would be disguised as old ones returning from repair in France.85 Bourges-Maunoury was open to this idea, particularly since he was seeking a client for French arms in order to help balance his country’s defense budget. Peres thus proposed a conference with senior Israeli and French defense and intelligence officials — but no representatives of either country’s Foreign Ministry — to discuss ways in which French-Israeli co-operation could be enhanced, an initiative accepted by the French Defense Minister as well as Prime Minister and Defense Minister Ben-Gurion.86 The participants met secretly in Vermars, outside Paris, on 22 June 1956, without the knowledge of the two countries’ Foreign Ministries. During the conference proceedings, Peres linked Israel’s concerns about Nasser to France’s Algeria problem, a strategy that led to an agreement on the need to work together to topple Nasser.87 In addition, the two sides discussed Peres’ idea of a large-scale arms procurement deal. Peres presented a long list of requests, which included 72 Mystère jet fighters, 200 AMX tanks, 10,000 anti-tank missiles, and large quantities of ammunition. The French agreed to sell every one of the items and commence their first delivery by July; the final deliv-ery would take place in September.88 The colossal deliveries over the following months would be referred to, in jest, as the ‘French invasion’ of Israel. The Vermars conference represented an important watershed in Israel’s relations with France. The unsigned pact signified a de facto alliance between the two countries; intelligence concerning Nasser’s activities would be shared, and the two countries would work together to thwart his initiatives. This agreement set the stage for the Sinai Campaign that would follow shortly thereafter. As to the so-called ‘French invasion’, it would help to redress the arms imbalance in the region, particularly in light of the Czech arms deal. As Bar-On notes, ‘The Vermars arms transaction changed Israel’s military capability overnight.’89

A month later, on 26 July 1956, Nasser announced Egypt’s nationalization of the Suez Canal, providing Israel, France, and Britain with a pretext for war. For the Israelis, the blockade of the Straits of Tiran was unacceptable, as it restricted their shipping. Ben-Gurion had long regarded this potential act as a casus belli. Moreover, he feared that Nasser, who less than a year earlier concluded the arms deal with Czechoslovakia, was preparing for war with Israel and thus needed to be deterred. For Britain, the nationalization of the

�� Levey, ‘Israel’s Pursuit of French Arms’, op. cit., 198.�� Bar-On, The Gates of Gaza, op. cit., 167.�� Pinkus, Ambivalence, op. cit., 522.�� Golani, Israel in Search of a War, op. cit., 27, 184.�� Bar-On, The Gates of Gaza, op. cit., 172; Golan, Road to Peace, op. cit., �9; Golani, Israel in Search of a War, op. cit., 28; and Peres, Battling for Peace, op. cit., 105.�� Bar-On, The Gates of Gaza, op. cit., 170.




Suez Canal was a further erosion of its once-prominent position in the Middle East. The French were also eager to stop Nasser, who was undermining their presence in Algeria. Peres tried to impress upon Ben-Gurion that, as far as the French were concerned, ‘failure in the Suez was tantamount to failure in Algeria’.90

The day after Nasser’s major announcement, Bourges-Maunoury called Peres in for consultations. France and Britain had been discussing a plan of joint action against Nasser — code-named ‘Operation Musketeer’ — in which Israel, upon Britain’s insistence, was to be excluded. (The United States opposed military action.) When the Israeli visitor arrived, the French Defense Minister, disregarding British objections, asked Peres how long it would take the IDF to cross the Sinai Peninsula and reach the canal. ‘In two weeks,’ was Peres’ reply.91 Bourges-Maunoury then asked if Israel would be willing to cross the Sinai in a tripartite military operation, to which Peres responded affirma-tively. When Yossef Nahmias, the Israeli Defense Ministry’s representative in Paris, admonished Peres after the meeting for lacking authority to promise Israel’s participation in such an adventure, Peres replied that he would rather risk his neck than risk missing such a unique opportunity.92

At the behest of Peres and Dayan, Ben-Gurion agreed to explore the possi-bility of French-Israeli military action against Egypt. The formal talks con-cerning Israel’s role in such a joint operation took place on �0 September in St Germain. Israel’s delegation consisted of Prime Minister Ben-Gurion, Foreign Minister Golda Meir (who had recently replaced Moshe Sharett), Transportation Minister Moshe Carmel, Dayan, and Peres. Prior to depart-ing for France, Meir had expressed serious doubts about Peres’ claims of French interest in a French-Israeli military alliance vis-à-vis Egypt. That Prime Minister Mollet backed out of the conference at the last minute only deepened her suspicions that Peres had sold Ben-Gurion a bill of goods.9� The confer-ence concluded with a decision to send a French military delegation, headed by General Maurice Challe, to Israel to evaluate the military options.94 It was this visit that led the French to propose to Britain that Israel be included in the much-discussed operation against Nasser, a plan that would materialize at the Sèvres conference.95

The secret tripartite talks at Sèvres, an affluent suburb of Paris, convened on 22 October. The three days of talks were fraught with tension — particularly between the Israeli delegation and British Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd. Ben-Gurion, ever suspicious of Britain, was adamantly opposed to the British sug-gestion that Israel be the aggressor in the proposed collusion, thus providing

�0 Golani, Israel in Search of a War, op. cit., �9.�� Peres, Battling for Peace, op. cit., 106.�� Ibid., 107; author’s interview with Nahmias, op. cit.�� Peres, Battling for Peace, op. cit., 98. To mollify her concerns, Peres hastened to arrange a private meeting between Meir and Mollet.�� Bar-On, The Gates of Gaza, op. cit., 198.�� Ibid., 22�.




Britain with a casus belli. In the end, though, the participants agreed on a joint plan of action. Short of the full-scale war that Britain had initially demanded, it was agreed that Israel would attack the Egyptian army near the Suez Canal, an action that would appear to threaten the canal. This event would serve, in turn, as the pretext for an Anglo-French military intervention. The written agree-ment even included a paragraph assuring the Israelis that they could retain the captured Straits of Tiran, thus ensuring freedom of navigation to Eilat.96

Throughout the Sèvres conference, it was far from clear to any of the partici-pants — including the Israelis — whether Ben-Gurion would actually sign on to the proposed tripartite war. According to Bar-On, he ultimately lent his support to the ‘collusion’ at Sèvres because of four factors: (1) The future of French-Israeli ties hinged on his fateful decision; (2) France and Britain agreed to a limited Israeli attack rather than a full-fledged war, a fact that reduced the number of potential Israeli casualties while limiting the political damage to Israel for its act of aggression; (�) Britain’s signature would serve as insurance against potential duplicity; and (4) a military pact with great powers would lessen international pressure on Israel.97 Bar-On, however, provides only a par-tial explanation for Ben-Gurion’s decision.

To these factors must be added several additional reasons that testify to Peres’ and Dayan’s inordinate influence on their skeptical mentor. In the weeks preceding the Sèvres conference, Ben-Gurion’s protégés fervently lobbied their mentor to participate in a joint French-Israeli military venture against Egypt. They — as well as Ben-Gurion — were convinced that it was only a matter of time before Egypt would be strong enough to attack Israel again. To Dayan and Peres, the chance to collude with France (and, by extension, Britain) in the launching of a preventive war against Egypt was a golden opportunity to eliminate the threat posed by Nasser. Ben-Gurion, however, did not share their enthusiasm.98 That he had not yet given a green light to such a scheme did not prevent Peres from expressing his enthusiasm for it to his French inter-locutors at various junctures in June and July.99 The gaps between Britain and Israel were overcome to a large degree by creative ideas put forth by Dayan and Peres. Their bridging proposals included, for example, reducing the time interval between an Israeli operation near the Suez Canal and the start of the Anglo-French operation.100 Above all, though, it was the alliance that Peres and his team had been building with France since 1954, and the personal relationships with top French officials, that persuaded Ben-Gurion that Israel had the support of a major power to go to war with Egypt.101 France’s decision

�� Ibid., 242. Ben-Gurion had made it clear to his French and British counterparts that ‘Israel’s Suez Canal is the Straits of Tiran’: see Golani, Israel in Search of a War, op. cit., 1��.�� Bar-On, The Gates of Gaza, op. cit., 246–7.�� Thomas, Comment Israel fut sauvé, op. cit., 188–91; author’s interviews with Amit and Israeli, op. cit.�� Golani, Israel in Search of a War, op. cit., 65.�00 Ibid., 122–�.�0� According to Golani, at one point during the Sèvres conference Ben-Gurion concluded he could not accept the French-British proposal, and he thus prepared to head back to Israel. Peres




to supplement the arms deal of June with another large-scale transaction in October — a deal that included an additional 100 Super-Sherman tanks, 200 armored personnel carriers, �00 six-by-six trucks and 20 tank transporters — was tangible evidence of this backing, as far as Ben-Gurion was concerned.102

Perhaps most importantly, though, it was Peres’ nuclear understanding with the French that ultimately convinced Ben-Gurion to join the military campaign with France and Great Britain. Ben-Gurion had placed Peres in charge of the entire nuclear project, a role he fulfilled from its inception in 1955–6 until his departure from the Ministry of Defense in 1965.10� At the conclusion of the Sèvres conference, with the key French and Israeli decision-makers in the room (following the departure of the British officials), Peres put forward the request for French assistance in building a large-scale reactor in Israel. According to Dayan’s secretary, who was present in the room at the time, Peres’ suggestion was followed by a handshake between Ben-Gurion and Prime Minister Mollet, signifying an agreement in principle.104 As Avner Cohen points out, however, the nuclear understanding Peres reached with the French ought to be under-stood as an incentive, rather than a condition, for Israel’s decision to go to war with Egypt.105

In his memoirs, Peres writes of the ‘wave of relief’ that washed over Dayan and himself when it became clear to them in the course of the negotiations that Ben-Gurion would support the war.106

The Sinai Campaign began on 29 October with the IDF drop of para-troopers near the Mitla Pass. As planned, Britain and France then issued their

then conspired with Colonel Louis Mangin, an aide to Defense Minister Bourges-Maunoury, to fabricate a mechanical problem with the presidential DC-4 plane put at the disposal of the Israeli delegation; they informed Ben-Gurion that, because of this mechanical problem with the plane, he would not be able to leave before the 25th: see Golani, Israel in Search of a War, op. cit., 121.�0� Z. Levey, Israel and the Western Powers, op. cit., 72–�.�0� A. Cohen, Israel and the Bomb (New York 1998), 18; Peres, Battling for Peace, op. cit., 117.�0� Author’s interview with Bar-On, op. cit.�0� Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, op. cit., 54. Following the Sèvres conference, on 26 October, it was decided in an inner French cabinet meeting to instruct France’s Atomic Energy Commission to enable Israel to attain nuclear capability. See B. Pinkus, ‘Atomic Power to Israel’s Rescue: French-Israeli Nuclear Cooperation, 1949–1957’, Israel Studies 7(1) (2002), 120–1. Saint Gobain Nucleaire was to be the designated French company that would build an underground chemi-cal plant attached to the reactor, which was to be established in Dimona. The following year, in September 1957, France delivered the reactor to Israel: Y. Melman, ‘A Royal Present’, Haaretz, 11 October 1992; Y. Evron, Israel’s Nuclear Dilemma (Ithaca, NY, 1994), 4. According to a number of sources, Israel became a nuclear weapon state sometime between mid-1966 and mid-1967: see Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, op. cit., 275; Karpin, Bomb in the Basement, op. cit., 268. The Dimona project was arguably Peres’ most significant contribution to the security of the Jewish state.�0� Peres, Battling for Peace, op. cit., 112. Isser Harel, the then Director of Mossad, Israel’s secret intelligence agency, would later accuse Peres of ‘maneuvering Ben-Gurion, misleading him, and endangering the state in an international intrigue’: see Karpin, Bomb in the Basement, op. cit., 75. According to Shulamit Aloni, Peres indeed played an important role in convincing Ben-Gurion of the need to go to war with Egypt: see Shulamit Aloni, interview with author, 1 November 2006, Kfar Shmaryahu.




joint ultimatum for both sides to withdraw from the Canal Zone. Egypt, as predicted, refused to do so, providing the British and French with the pretext to invade Egypt and gain control over the Canal Zone. American and Soviet demands — including threatening messages to Britain, France, and Israel from Soviet Prime Minister Nikolai Bulganin — led to a cease-fire on 6 November.107 By March 1957, in response to overwhelming international pressure, including threats of sanctions by President Eisenhower, Israel concluded its withdrawal from the Sinai.108

Several months after the Sinai Campaign Elkana Galli, the Ben-Gurion aide turned correspondent for the Israeli paper Davar in Paris, published a piece entitled ‘A Song of Praise to One Man’. In his article, Galli credited a certain man ‘in a blue suit’ who operated in an unconventional manner, dif-fering in style from the traditional diplomat. Thanks to his unique approach, wrote Galli, French-Israeli relations reached their peak during the Sinai Campaign.109 This anonymous individual was, of course, Shimon Peres. Fifty years later, Galli elaborated on this approach. At one point, Galli recalls, he asked Prime Minister Mollet why he responded to Peres’ request for arms, but not to repeated entreaties of the Israeli Ambassador to France, Ya’acov Tsur. According to Galli, Mollet responded that when the Israeli Ambassador visited him, he based his request on Israel’s precarious situation in a region surrounded by enemies who wished to do it harm. By contrast, Peres spoke of mutual interests: by arming Israel, Peres argued, Israel would be able to assist France in its efforts against a common enemy (Nasser). Thus, whereas Tsur asked for help, as a beggar asks for charity, Peres proposed a partnership. And that was what ultimately led to the French-Israeli alliance that crystallized dur-ing Mollet’s premiership.110 Galli’s account suggests that Peres’ effectiveness lay not only in his unorthodox methods but also in his shrewd negotiating skills, whereby he ultimately succeeded in making the case for the common strategic interests that bound the two countries together.

Historians generally view both Egypt and Israel as victors in this war. Nasser not only survived; his prestige in the Arab world (and among non-aligned states

�0� Bar-On, The Gates of Gaza, op. cit., 268; Golani, Israel in Search of a War, op. cit., 191.�0� According to French investigative journalist Pierre Péan, as Israel was preparing to withdraw from the Sinai, Peres requested a French security guarantee in the form of nuclear assistance, to which Bourges-Maunoury and Thomas agreed: see P. Péan, Les deux bombes (Paris 1981), 8�–4.�0� E. Galli, ‘A Song of Praise to One Man’, Davar, 18 January 1957.��0 Author’s interview with Galli, op. cit. Peres’s longtime French friend Jean Frydman, who was well acquainted with the French leadership in the 1950s, was also witness to the impression Peres made on these officials. ‘They looked at him with big eyes, listening to the professor,’ recalls Frydman: see author’s interview with Frydman, op. cit. Galli’s and Frydman’s accounts are con-sistent with other accounts of Peres winning over his interlocutors by focusing on interests, rather than sentiment. When Peres met US President John Kennedy in April 196�, Kennedy was report-edly impressed with Peres’ practical approach. According to one report, Peres’ ‘analysis of the Middle East situation was logical and based on facts without sentiment, and without any attempt to speak in the name of justice and the human conscience,’ as had happened at a previous meet-ing between Golda Meir and Kennedy. See ‘The Americans are Pleased with the Kennedy-Peres Conversation’, Hatzofe, 12 April 196�.




more generally) rose considerably. Israel scored an impressive military achieve-ment by successfully capturing the Sinai peninsula, although it was forced to relinquish this territory at the insistence of both Soviets and Americans. The success of the military campaign boosted the morale of the IDF. Israel reaped other important benefits as well: the removal of the British threat; a decade of peace, including tranquility from terrorist (Fedayeen) raids from Gaza; freedom of navigation in the Straits of Tiran; and a strengthened alliance with France. The latter was a topic that received a significant amount of attention in the Israeli press in the years following the Sinai Campaign.111

The ascendancy of President Charles de Gaulle and the Fifth Republic in France on 8 January 1959 marked the beginning of the end of Israel’s special relationship with France.112 The new French leader committed himself to end-ing the war in Algeria, where rebels were fighting for total independence from France. A high priority for de Gaulle was for France to improve its position in the Arab world. In the wake of this new policy, Israel’s strategic importance to France diminished and the period of close French-Israeli relations came to an end.

Due in large part to the efforts of the then Director of the Ministry of Defense Shimon Peres, France evolved throughout the 1950s into Israel’s first important ally. This informal alliance would probably not have been formed had it not been for Peres’ initiative, determination, an ability to recognize and exploit opportunities, and the unorthodox methods he used to do so. Although the political conditions for French-Israeli co-operation — in particular, the mutual interests both countries shared in combating Egypt’s Nasser — had ripened by 1956, following Nasser’s decision to nationalize the Suez Canal, it was far from a foregone conclusion that Israel would become the recipient of quality arms on such a massive scale from France. It took someone of Peres’ skills to overcome the formidable political and bureaucratic obstacles that stood in the way, including the arms embargo to which France was a party; the opposition of the Quai d’Orsay; the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s preoccupation with obtaining arms and a security guarantee from America; and the constant changes of government in France’s Fourth Republic.

Peres’ unorthodox methods proved highly effective in securing the arms deals, in contrast to the futile efforts of Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett and Ya’acov Tsur, the Israeli ambassador to France, both of whom tried in vain to

�� ‘Israel-French Alliance’, Haaretz, 7 December 1956; U. Dan, ‘The First Arms Deal with the French’, Ma’ariv, 29 October 1957; ‘Peres: French Aid is Promised in the Event of Sanctions’, Davar, 8 February 1957; S. Peres, ‘Present and Future in Franco-Israel Relations’, The Jerusalem Post, 12 June 1957; E. Eitan and Y. Ben-Porat, ‘Informal Alliance with Important Consequences was Established Yesterday between France and Israel’, Yedioth Ahronoth, 7 June 1961; ‘“France to Provide Essential Needs of Israel” — Opinion of Observers in Paris’, Haaretz, 8 June 1961.�� Prior to the creation of the Fifth Republic, de Gaulle served as Prime Minister in the Fourth Republic from 1 June 1958 until becoming President on 8 January 1959. As Avner Cohen shows, de Gaulle’s government almost immediately sought to sever its nuclear ties with Israel. Following the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, de Gaulle imposed an embargo on shipments of military equipment to Israel: see Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, op. cit., 7�–5, 286.




obtain the arms through conventional channels (i.e., between the two coun-tries’ Foreign Ministries). Motti Golani aptly sums up the differences in out-come between Peres and Sharett, stating: ‘Sharett, the Foreign Minister (and ex-Prime Minister), could not deliver the goods, quite literally, whereas Peres could and did.’11�

Moreover, Peres was instrumental in laying the foundations for the Israeli-French-British collusion during the Suez crisis. As Meir Amit notes, Peres was ‘the key man’ in helping to shape the conditions Ben-Gurion demanded for going to war with Egypt.114 His direct, personal diplomacy with the relevant French players, Vermars initiative, tight co-ordination with Israeli Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan, and behind-the-scenes maneuvering during the Sèvres con-ference helped Ben-Gurion and Foreign Minister Golda Meir overcome their doubts about collaborating militarily with the French and the British in an effort to defeat Egypt’s Nasser. While the nuclear agreement that Peres helped secure at Sèvres was not a condition for Ben-Gurion to lend his support to the joint operation against Egypt’s Nasser, it is plausible to reason that it was a powerful incentive for Ben-Gurion to lend his support for the Suez war.115

The high level of intelligence and military co-operation between the Israelis and the French, from 1954 until the beginning of 1959, marked a relatively brief but important period in Israel’s 60-year history. As a result of this rela-tionship, the balance of arms in the Middle East shifted in Israel’s favor, allow-ing the Jewish state to defeat its enemies easily in both the 1956 and 1967 wars with the high-quality weapons it had received from France.116 Israeli-French co-operation also provided Israel with the means of developing an independent nuclear deterrent that complemented its conventional arms superiority. Peres’ role in forging this relationship and in securing these deals is critical to a more thorough understanding of this brief but unprecedented relationship.

�� Golani, Israel in Search of a War, op. cit., 24. Sharett’s diary contains a number of entries in which he expresses his frustration at not receiving any credit for the arms deals secured by Peres. For example, after Peres was congratulated by Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan for the successful conclusion of a deal involving the purchase of Mystère jets — an agreement reached between the two Defense Ministries — Sharett wrote that it was as if ‘Tsur [the Israeli ambassador in France] had not lifted a finger and as if the whole great episode had not commenced with my meeting with Faure at the end of October [1955].’ See Levey, ‘Israel’s Pursuit of French Arms’, op. cit., 198. Golda Meir was even more vociferous than Sharett in criticizing Peres’ methods. Time and again, she would accuse him of conducting his own foreign policy, leaving her in the dark about his arms purchases, thereby undermining her authority as Foreign Minister: see Crosbie, Tacit Alliance, op. cit., 46; Golan, Road to Peace, op. cit., �6, 84–6; Peres, Battling for Peace, op. cit., 98–101.�� Author’s interview with Amit, op. cit.�� Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, op. cit., 54. Mordechai Bar-On, who was present at the Sèvres conference, stresses that while the handshake over nuclear co-operation did, in fact, take place at Sèvres, ‘there were enough good reasons for Ben-Gurion to agree to go to war’, including an assess-ment that the war would bring about a change of government in Egypt. See author’s interview with Bar-On, op. cit.�� A significant number of Israel’s combat aircraft used in the 1967 war were still the French planes acquired by Israel in the 1950s: see Crosbie, Tacit Alliance, op. cit., 20�.




Guy Ziv is an assistant professor at the School of International Service at

American University in Washington, DC. This article is based on his dissertation, entitled ‘Hawks to Doves: The Role of Personality in

Foreign Policy Decision-Making’.



Shimon Peres and the French-Israeli Alliance, 1954--9

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