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first Israeli military delegation to visit the United States.

My father attended the Senior Staff College at Camberly in 1951.
     

My father at Camberly (seated on the right at the end of the first row).
     

My father participated in the first military delegation to visit the United States. Here with Haim Hertzog, Yitzhak Rabin and Moshe Dayan.
     
    Political rivalries and upheaval in Israel during the mid-1950s determined, to a large degree, the relationship between the elected civilian government and the army—and also impacted my father’s career. One could roughly categorize two main approaches to Israeli-Arab relations within the ruling labor movement. There was a moderate, diplomatic approach led by Moshe Sharett, Israel’s first foreign secretary and then its second prime minister. Sharett believed Israel should avoid war and seek a negotiated peace settlement with its Arab neighbors. There was also an aggressive approach that wanted to establish Israel as the supreme military force in the region, so that it would never need to negotiate a peace settlement. David Ben-Gurion, who was Israel’s first prime minister, led this approach and was supported by the army’s senior command. In 1953, Ben-Gurion decided to resign as prime minister, leave politics, and live in a remote desert outpost in the southern part of the country, allowing Moshe Sharett to take his place.
    Then in 1955, as a result of a failed covert military intelligence operation in Egypt and the resignation of Defense Minister Pinhas Lavon, Ben-Gurion returned to politics as defense minister. As soon as he returned, he and army Chief of Staff General Moshe Dayan tried to advance a plan for an Israeli attack on Egypt. Prime Minister Sharett was opposed to the plan and led an effective coalition and succeeded in derailing it. This infuriated Ben-Gurion. When general elections were held in July of that year, Ben-Gurion ran a tough campaign and won back the prime minister’s seat. In a political “musical chairs” that is quite common in Israeli politics, Sharett was now once again foreign minister. But Sharett posed a problem for Ben-Gurion. He stood firm in his opposition to Ben-Gurion’s plan to attack Egypt, a plan Sharett believed would lead to an unnecessary all-out war, and he foiled several of Ben-Gurion’s attempts to engage in military operations. Finally, Ben-Gurion fired Sharett. Moderates and liberal-leaning people within Israeli society who viewed Sharett as “the last bastion of moderation” were furious, but Ben-Gurion’s decision was irreversible.
    In 1956, with Sharett out of the way, Ben-Gurion signed a secret pact with France and Britain to attack Egypt. Israel conquered the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula in what was called the Sinai Campaign, or Mivtza Kadesh . The war lasted from October 29 to November 5. Israel suffered 171 casualties, and the Egyptians lost between two and three thousand men. Israel captured 6,000 POWs and the Egyptians captured four Israelis. Just as Ben-Gurion and Dayan had anticipated, it was a devastating blow to the Egyptian army.
    This was the first time Israel had occupied the Gaza Strip—an artificially delineated region on the southeastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea surrounding the ancient city of Gaza—where Palestinians refugees exiled in 1948 were herded. After the Sinai Campaign, my father, by then a full colonel, wasappointed military governor of the Gaza Strip. This was a defining role for him, and it influenced his entire life.
    My father did not usually have conversations with me or with my siblings. If he had something to say, he would lecture us and then get up and leave when he was done. For several years while I was in high school, his classes ran late into the evening, and he did not return home until close to midnight. Before going to sleep my mother would prepare a nice hot soup for him to have when he got home. I would often wait up for him, and we would both have a bowl