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UNITED NATIONS — For the first time since 1956, the two New York major league baseball teams are facing off in the World Series. But beyond the sports parallels, a number of international political events curiously mirrors the autumn of 1956 in both Central Europe and the Middle East. Intriguingly, all this is set to the backdrop of an American Presidential election.
So while the New York Yankees and the New York Mets battle it out in the Subway Series, the Mideast crisis pitting Palestinian rioters against the Israelis continues to churn dangerously on the West Bank and Gaza. The current violence however remains shadowed by the larger events of 1956 when Gamal Nasser, Egypt's reckless populist leader, nationalized the strategic Suez Canal against the West prompting the British, French and Israeli forces to attack across the Sinai and seize the waterway.
In Central Europe too a tumultuous revolution has toppled the Yugoslav dictator. Happily the Serbs have set out to redeem themselves and have overthrown Slobodan Milosevic. Yet during the height of the face-off in Belgrade between the regime and democratic protesters, there was little chance of outside military action.
In late October 1956 after industrial rumblings in Poland, the Hungarians rose up against their communist regime and briefly ousted the Soviets and their comrades from power in Budapest. The Hungarians gained a brief taste of freedom. But literally on the weekend before the US Presidential vote, and with the Suez invasion going full steam, Soviet tanks battered their way back into Budapest crushing the democratic revolt but not the spirit of the Hungarian revolution.
Tragically Suez and Hungary reached boiling points the fateful weekend before the Presidential elections. The United Nations Security Council held marathon series of back to back meetings juggling the crises in both in Hungary and the Middle East.
Diplomatic action was desultory in both cases, military force decided the outcomes.
Today, the Suez Crisis is a long forgotten footnote in the Middle East but it's widely conjectured that if it had not been for these simultaneous showdowns, Western diplomatic--not military--action may have been forthcoming in Hungary.
We know what happened. President Dwight Eisenhower was reelected, President Nasser consolidated his power in Egypt, and Premier Khruschev began a sanguinary crackdown in Hungary. Significantly, in 1956 there was a genuine threat of a larger Arab/Israeli military conflict over Suez and an US/Soviet confrontation over Hungary.
Happily today, neither in Yugoslavia nor the Middle East is there a serious risk that outside players will inject military power into the equation. Though formal Arab military moves against Israel seems unlikely, there's the equally potent weapon of an oil boycott which highlights America's dangerous dependency on foreign oil sources-- especially those from the Middle East.
Diplomatic posturing both in the UN as well as the Arab League Summit, still has not reached the rhetorical crescendo point of no return. There's still maneuver room should we find a few statesmen able to finesse it.
One such seemingly stillborn effort was the recently concluded Sharem El Sheikh Summit--an attempt to gain a cease-fire in the Israeli/Palestinian struggle. Nonetheless what's going on the West Bank and Gaza is a an uprising--an Intifada II--not a war as some media are portraying it as. Still the stark reality of a protracted Palestinian uprising, with parallel terrorism, shadows the region.
As if by a miracle, in Autumn 2000, the Hungarians are celebrating nearly a decade of being a free multiparty democracy. The memory of the 1956 Revolution however should be kept alive in the conscience of free men everywhere. In autumn 2000 the tragic Middle East tensions have returned too, evoking searingly poignant memories of what can happen, and hopefully won't.
John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com.
