Gurion had gone on leave, appointing Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett as Acting Prime Minister and Minister Pinchas Lavon as Acting Minister of Defense. No one dreamed that Ben-Gurion's vacation would last five months-and that afterward he would resign from the Cabinet.
Ben-Gurion himself had told friends he needed a rest in order to recharge his mental batteries and that he was joining the remote desert settlement of Sdeh Boker in the Negev to tend the sheep and meditate. This was duly and enthusiastically reported in the American press. The real reason was somewhat different. What actually happened was that Ben-Gurion suddenly found himself in a minority in his own government. He had been advocating a belligerent new line toward Egypt. The Cabinet was mainly composed of moderates led by Sharett, who overruled the Prime Minister. Ben-Gurion was really quitting in disgust, expecting to be called back very soon, after the Cabinet, without him, had made a mess of things. He was one of the many Israelis who believed Ben-Gurion was indispensable.
* * *
The chain of events that caused Ben-Gurion to advocate a more active policy toward Egypt had started a year earlier, when a group of young officers, most of them veterans of the Palestinian war, overthrew King Farouk. They were led by Egyptian General Mohammad Nagib, a quiet, pipe-smoking, middle-aged man whom Ben-Gurion seemed to have liked. In fact, Ben-Gurion publicly offered to fly to Cairo himself, to talk about peace between the two countries. This offer was, of course, ignored. No Arab politician would have dared to recognize Israel, without at least a solution to the refugee problem to clear the atmosphere. During the year, it gradually became apparent that the pleasant Nagib was only the figurehead of the Egyptian revolution. A new, quite different personality