Suez Crisis felt very much offended by what he considered to be the lackadaisical attitude of the Eisenhower administration to the nationalization of the Suez Canal Company. This was especially the case because earlier in 1956 the Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov had offered the French a deal whereby if Moscow ended its support of the FLN in Algeria, Paris would pull out of NATO and became neutral in the Cold War. Given the way that Algeria (which the French considered an integral part of France) had become engulfed in a spiral of increasing savage violence that French leaders longed to put
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