Levi Eshkol in a meeting
Levi Eshkol in a meetingGPO

The governments of former Israeli Prime Ministers Levi Eshkol and Golda Meir sought to transfer the Arabs living in the Gaza Strip to Judea and Samaria, according to documents published this morning by journalist Hagai Huberman and Ariel University Associate Professor Miriam Billig.

The documents were located within the framework of a joint study on the perception of the Gaza Strip by Israeli governments since the establishment of the state.

Huberman presented several documents, including those documenting internal discussions at the end of the Six-Day War. In 1967, he said, General Haim Herzog, Moshe Sasson, Shaul Bar-Haim, and David Kimhi, members of a special committee appointed by then Prime Minister Eshkol, suggested to Eshkol that "the Arabs of the Gaza Strip be transferred to the Jordanian kingdom."

He later revealed documents from the “Allon plan,” which posited relinquishing a large part of Judea and Samaria to Jordan following the Six-Day War, indicating that Yigal Allon, who acted as interim prime minister following the death of Eshkol, also supported dealing with Gazan Arabs outside of Gaza itself.

He also revealed that Colonel Motta Gur said in a discussion held a few weeks after the Six-Day War that "a situation must be created in which the residents of the Gaza Strip voluntarily immigrate to the West Bank."

The research was presented in a special seminar being held jointly today, Thursday, by the Institute for National Security Studies and the Katif Center. Later in the day, former deputy chief of staff Maj. Gen. Matan Vilnai, attorney Gilad Sher, once head of the negotiating team in the office of former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Brigadier General Shlomo Brom, and others will discuss the study.