ABSTRACT
Coming in the wake of the 1957 crises in Jordan and Syria and the American military intervention in Lebanon, the dramatic events of July 1958 can be thought of as a conceptual watershed in AmericanIsraeli relations by virtue of providing a definitive and tangible demonstration of the fact that, despite the costs and risks to Israel in terms of severely straining its relations with the Soviet Union, Prime Minister Ben-Gurion – unlike such traditional allies of the West as King Saud of Saudi Arabia – was prepared to contribute to the AngloAmerican operation in Jordan. Designed to rescue the besieged King Hussein from the surrounding forces of radical Arab nationalism (which sought to use the violent overthrow of the Iraqi monarchy on July 14, 1958, as a springboard for toppling the Hashemite Kingdom), this operation included the dispatch of 2,200 British paratroopers from Cyprus to Amman and the aerial shipment, by both Western powers, of vital strategic shipments through Israeli airspace to Jordan (necessitated as the result of the suspension of all Iraqi oil supplies to Jordan in the immediate aftermath of the Iraqi revolution).
