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A Time for Optimism. Ben-Gurion is less impassioned about Gaza, although he says he would like to use the Gaza Strip to prove that the Israelis can do right by the Arab refugees driven from their homeland (this Israeli explanation rings hollow in Arab ears). Last week he had reduced his Gaza demands to this: "The Egyptians must not return. They must never return. We won't agree unless we are made to—forcibly." He added: "I don't overestimate our strength. I suppose the U.S. or U.N. could send in armies." He stopped and chuckled. Grinning slyly, dimpling his jowls like an old grey cherub, he said: "There is an Israeli story that people used to tell back in the early days when food was short. The optimist was the hungry settler who said: 'We don't have enough food, what we should do is send a few planes to bomb Washington. Then the U.S. would invade and occupy us and everything would be all right because they will have to feed us.' The pessimist was the pioneer who replied: 'Maybe you're right. But the trouble is, we might win.'
"In this situation, I am an optimist."
Unconditional Conditions. With the injection of Gaza and Aqaba into the debate, the optimist began a war of nerves that was to last for six tense and confusing weeks. Nobody mobilized or signed up "volunteers" in embassies around the world, but diplomats frantically shuttled about, going without sleep, drafting and redrafting documents that never reached public print. Chiefs of state engaged in heavy cannonading in a rivalry for favorable world opinion.
The U.S., intent on getting the Israelis out of Egypt and Gaza without losing the good will it has been trying to build up among the Arabs, was bound by its declaration that aggression must not be rewarded. The Israelis, invoking a theory of war older than U.N., insisted that victors earn spoils.
The U.S. kept trying to say to the Israelis that it understood their demand for guarantees in Gaza and Aqaba and in some ways supported them, but—the Israelis must not expect the U.S. to say so too explicitly. So began a semantic battle requiring a conditioned Israel withdrawal involving what could not be described as conditions. The happy substitute that emerged was the word assumptions. On Feb. 11 John Foster Dulles handed Israel's Ambassador Abba Eban an aide-memoire. As soon as Israel pulled out, Dulles said, the U.S. would 1) itself proclaim the right of innocent passage in the Gulf of Aqaba, and 2) support U.N. action to ensure that the Gaza Strip would not again be used as a base for guerrilla raids on Israel. Ben-Gurion's response was so flatly negative that President Eisenhower cut short a Georgia vacation and took to the air to restate the U.S. proposals and warn of "pressure" if Israel should fail to cooperate.