ABSTRACT
Many books and monographs have been written on the Sinai Campaign (Mivtza Kadesh) and yet the subject has not been exhausted; some facets seem to have remained unresearched. One such is the attitude of Israel’s prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, to the Gaza Strip. Was he in favour or opposed to the incorporation of the Strip into Israel after the occupation in early November 1956? Some of Ben-Gurion’s close associates affirm that he had serious misgivings about such a possibility. To prove their point they cite some of his comments. Abba Eban recounts that on one occasion Ben-Gurion exclaimed: ‘Gaza as part of Israel could be like a cancer. In return for a small sliver of territory we would take responsibility for some two hundred and fifty to three hundred thousand Arabs.. .Our interest in Gaza is security. To take a small territory with a vast Arab population would be the worst possible exchange.’ 1
