Mollet in his turn cared little about British imperial problems, but to his death insisted passionately that Israel was his first concern. He was deeply conditioned by the past betrayals of Munich and the Spanish Civil War, and, as a good Socialist, was drawn to Israel as a “pioneer country socialising itself”. He felt she had but one true friend in the world — the United States — which, in the throes of an election, would be unable to help her. He denied hotly that Suez was “done for Algeria”, and yet one is entitled to pose the question: had France not been so embroiled in Algeria, would Mollet have been quite so open to Israeli pressure, and would he in turn have pushed Eden so hard to participate in what was to prove to be such a desperate gamble?

QUESTION: The author inquires whether French entanglement in Algeria made Mollet more receptive to Israeli pressure—a causal chain worth probing.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 493