Well, T-Dave, I agree that the text accompanying the maps is a very condensed summary of Israel's history.
I re-read a reasonably full account of the 1956 Suez Canal War and events preceding and following it in
The Seige: The Saga of Israel and Zionism, by Conor Cruise O'Brien, who was the newly appointed Irish ambassador to the U.N. at the time the Suez/Sinai war was occurring and being decided on by the U.N.
It is a
very complicated war, and O'Brien's 30-page or so account still clearly glosses over some events.
There were Egyptian sponsored and trained raids and killings (raiders called the
fedayeen) of Israeli citizens that were occurring for years prior to 1956, but with increasing organization and frequency.
Egypt had blockaded the the Israeli port of Eilat (the Southernmost tip of Israel), and the Strait of Tiran (near the Southern tip of the Sinai peninsula), closing off the Gulf of Eilat to any Israeli shipping and trade. This cut somewhat into Israel's economy, but it was more importantly a challenge to Israel's sovereignty as a state.
So with this Egyptian aggression going on, Israel had the justification already to attack Egypt and eliminate these threats to its citizens and trade. But Israel was considerably more isolated from the U.S. at this time (the U.S. at this point in 1955-56 was more interested in downplaying its relationship with Israel, to establish better relations with oil-rich Arab nations, and actually saw its relationship with Israel as a liability), and feeling very politically isolated from the U.S., Britain and France, Israel was not initially eager to react and risk isolating itself even further from the major powers in this period (1953-1955).
Egyptian President Nasser was the first leader of an Arab nation to break out from under British and French colonial rule (Britain and France had divided up the Ottoman Empire after the Axis-aligned Ottomans lost in WW I in 1918).
Nasser was very outspoken against the British, French and Americans over Cairo-based radio. Nasser broadcast throughout North Africa and the Middle East not just to his native Egypt, and was rallying an anti-colonial sentiment that threatened British control of Jordan, Iraq, and other areas, and French colonial rule in Syria and Algeria.
Nasser had also pushed out British bases in the Suez Canal, and had limited shipping through the Suez region, again to the fury of Britain and France.
In addition, Britain had further infuriated the Arab world by brokering a defense pact between Turkey and Iraq (called the
Baghdad Pact), to further isolate the Middle East from the Soviet Union. Egyptian President Nasser was infuriated by this shift of power, and condemned the British-controlled Iraqi government, that also threatened to generate popular revolt in Jordan and French-controlled Syria.
In direct response to this event intended to close off the Middle East to Soviet influence, Egyptian President Nasser signed an alliance pact with the Soviet Union, under which the Soviets would send a huge arsenal of planes and weapons to Egypt: 300 medium and heavy tanks of the latest Soviet design, 200 MIG-15 jet fighters, among others.
Israel knew with certainty that these weapons, once deployed, would be used against them, and that Israel would be vastly outgunned at that point. Their intelligence reported that it would take Egypt roughly 6 to 8 months to receive and deploy them. So Israel would have to do something to neutralize that threat within that 6 to 8 months, before it was too late.
It was at precisely this point that Britain and France approached Israel about a deal for recognition and backing if they conducted a war with Egypt.
So as you say, T-Dave, France [and Britain] wanted Nasser out. France and Britain both encouraged Israel, in a secret alliance, to invade Egypt under the auspices of Israel's pre-existing grievance with Egypt's Eilat Port blockade, and Egypt's sponsored terrorism against Israel. And once Israel had initiated the war, the plan was that Britain and France could come in and "separate the combatants" (Egypt and Israel).
And under the cloak of U.N. police action, Britain and France could look to the Arab world like they were protecting Egypt from Israeli military action, while re-shaping Egypt's government in a way more compatible with their colonial holdings in Africa and the Middle East. Doing so in a way that made Britain and France look like benevolent powers instead of empires clinging to their holdings, which they were.
But to the astonishment of the British and the French, in the U.N. security council meeting, the U.S. rejected Britain and France's proposal, so Britain and France's invasion of Egypt was never able to go on as planned. (In fact, President Eisenhower was really ticked off that Britain and France had attempted such an action without consulting the U.S., especially in October 1956, just weeks before Eisenhower's re-election.
A cease-fire was brokered, and Israel agreed to give back the Sinai Desert to Egypt, in exchange for greater aid and strategic importance to the U.S., which continued to increase after the war.
Despite the U.S.'s preventing the further invasion and overthrow of Egypt, the U.S. was vilified by Nasser and the rest of the Arab world as another Western imperialist power in the years that followed, while Israel's relationship with the U.S. continued to prove a reliable one to the U.S., and as U.S. outreaches to Arab nations continued to wither on the vine.
All of which is still the tip of the iceberg, and is very difficult to sum up in three or four sentences.
In summing up the facts limited to Egypt and Israel, and not getting into the deeper politics of the U.S./Soviet Union Cold War, and those of the waning British and French empires in the region, I think the map summary did a pretty good job of summing up the essential facts: Egypt was orchestrating terrorist raids on Israel and closing off the Eilat Port to shipping, Israel invaded and seized the Sinai to stop the raids and re-open the port, and Israel gave back the Sinai to Egypt after Egypt agreed to let Israel use the Eilat Port.
The linked maps are an overview of Israel's history and wars, and while related events are important, they would reqire much more space, and run much deeper than the summarized overview the maps are intended to give.
I took the liberty of looking at what Worldbook Encyclopedia had to say on the subject, and it's only slightly more informative about the 1956 war (within a larger piece on the Arab-Israeli Conflict) :
http://www.aolsvc.worldbook.aol.com/wbol/wbPage/na/ar/co/027260?op1=&st1=Israel&op2=&st2=&op3=&st3=A summary is a summary. I look to other sources for a more detailed explanation.
