Asia, Middle East, Middle Eastern, International Relations 

Caplan, Neil, 1945- Futile diplomacy ; v. 4. 

Volume Four of Nail Caplan’s documentary account of Middle when policy-makers in London and Washington were watching the deterioration in Arab-Israeli relations with increasing pessimism. Their attempts to create a pro-Western regional defence system to the thwart Soviet penetration of the area were suffering as a result of the tension in the region. They therefore decided to take political risks and promote their own peace plan which became known as operation Alpha.
The immediate aim of Alpha was a settlement between Egypt and Israeil. It involved applying incentives and pressure to both parties in an attempt to win their co-operation. After a number of setbacks, Alpha was given on last chance in early 1956 when President Eisenhower sent special emissary Robert Anderson to try to arrange a secret meeting between Gamal Abd al-Nasir and David Ben-Gurion. The collapse of Anderson’s mission caused stiffening in Britain’s and America’s attitude towards Nasir and contributed to the Suez crisis and the subsequent Arab-Israeli War.
 

Part of series that aims to provide a careful and balanced behind-the-scenes account of the intricate diplomatic activity of the period between the first and second Arab-Israeli wars. It exploits a range of available archive sources, as well as extensive secondary sources. - from Amzon 

Table of Contents
Part 1 The background of Anglo-American co-operation, 1948-54
I. Anglo-American support for Bilateral and United Nations Peace Efforts
Dynamic of Anglo-American Co-operation
Support for Bilateral Negotiations
Support for United Nations Initiative
II. The Two-pronged Approach
Nibbling at the Edges - The Failure of Conflict Management
Attempts at Conflict Resolution
Part 2 The best laid plans: preparing alpha
first approaches
Part 3 Stumbling from obstacle to obstacle: from secret sounding to public pronouncements - the Dulles Statement, August 1955
arms and alpha - the Arab connection
Eden's Guildhall Speech, November 1955
showdown with Sharett
arms and alpha - the Israeli connection
alpha's last chance - the Anderson mission
Conclusions: alpha and gamma - post-scripts and post-mortems
carrots and sticks - the limits of Anglo-American coercive diplomacy