Suez Crisis to prefer to use the sea route through the Suez Canal. As it was, the rise of super-tankers for shipping Middle East oil to Europe, which were too big to use the Suez Canal meant that British policy-makers greatly overestimated the importance of the canal. By 2000, only 8 percent of the imported oil in Britain arrived via the Suez canal with the rest coming via the Cape route. In August 1956 the Royal Institute of International Affairs published a report titled "Britain and the Suez Canal" revealing government perception of the Suez area. It reiterates several times the strategic
Suez Crisis 1888 Suez Canal Convention), increased following the coup. In late 1954, Nasser began a policy of sponsoring raids into Israel by the "fedayeen", who almost always attacked civilians. The raids triggered a series of Israeli reprisal operations. The raids were targeted as much politically as against Israel militarily. It was Nasser's intention to win himself the laurels of the foremost anti-Zionist state as a way of establishing his leadership over the Arab world. Before 1954, the principal target of Nasser's speeches had been Britain. Only after the Anglo-Egyptian agreement on evacuating the canal zone did Israel emerge as one of