ABSTRACT
Israeli attitudes towards the United Nations (UN) were also influenced mostly in a negative way, by leaders' experiences in their dealings and negotiations involving the UN secretary-general. On 29 March 1955, the Israeli cabinet devoted a marathon six-hour session to a debate over David Ben-Gurion's proposal to conquer the Gaza Strip as a way of curtailing fedayyun cross-border attacks. The degree of support for the 'oom-shmoom' outlook was one of the major variables in the 'attitudinal prism' of Israeli decision-makers interviewed by Michael Brecher in the 1960s, as revealed in his pioneering work, The Foreign Policy System of Israel. While appreciating the contribution of UN Acting Mediator Ralph Bunche in concluding armistice agreements with Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria during the first half of 1949, Israelis had feared and fought the imposition of a peace plan formulated by Bunche's predecessor, Count Folke Bernadotte.
