THE LAND OF DAVID

THE Gaza Strip is a geographic absurdity--an ownerless, 5-by-25-mile enclave of sand, hate and history (Samson pulled down the temple in Gaza), jutting from the world's most troubled frontier. The last surviving bit of the old British Palestinian mandate, this narrow ribbon of primitive coastal land was administered from 1949 until last fall by the Egyptians, who kept lackadaisical order among its 90,000 poverty-stricken, disease-ridden Arab natives, and left to the U.N. relief agency the care and feeding of the 219,000 Palestinian refugees huddled there since the 1949 armistice.

Now the Israelis (who controlled Gaza in the days of King David) have driven the Egyptians out, as their ancestors once expelled the marauding Philistines circa 1000 B.C. The Israelis are determined to stay--first to make sure that Nasser's suicide raiders shall never return to resume their over-the-border raiding from Gaza against Israel's desert settlers, but also because they think the place belongs historically, geographically and economically with Israel. They have decided that they cannot now annex the strip, if only because that would mean absorbing the refugees and so increasing their Arab minority to an unacceptable 30%. Their long-term plan: keep administrative control under U.N. supervision, press the U.N. to resettle the refugees, and meanwhile, run the strip so progressively that both the Arabs of the area and the world will some day see that Israel should keep the place permanently.

Despite the worldwide speculation about the future of Gaza, the Israelis seemed to have no doubt at all. Eighteen Israeli government agencies have just started work on an ambitious program to raise the standard of living to that of surrounding Israeli farm settlements. Israeli engineers are busy paving dusty streets, repairing broken-down harbor jetties, and surveying the ancient towns of Khan Yunis, Rafa and Deir el Balah for their first municipal water, electricity and drainage systems. Trains are hauling in supplies from Tel Aviv 40 miles away; mail is arriving marked "Gaza via Israel." Work is expected to start soon on bringing water from the Yarkon-Negev pipeline to irrigate the first 2,500 acres of citrus-growing land in the Deir el Balah sector. In nearly every village, Israeli experts are handing out new strains of grain, instructing farmers in how to fertilize their soil and improve their scrawny breed of cattle.

But Zion's newest marches are not to be won lightly. In crowded Gaza, where the 9 p.m. curfew has not prevented Arabs from clustering to hear Cairo radio's nightly exhortations to "rise up and act for the glory of the Arab world," the Israelis face a crisis in cooperation. The Arabs feel the uncertainty of Gaza's status, and scent change. Urchins openly hawk cigarette lighters bearing Nasser's picture. Authorities last week arrested 20 Gaza teachers for assigning teen-age pupils to write essays on the need for killing Israelis. Merchants were refusing to accept Israeli money, and the only shop that the Israelis had opened in the strip reported no trade because purchases could be made only in Israeli pounds.

Under Gaza's pale minarets and scraggly date palms, locally recruited Arab police and Israeli constables patrol in pairs, distinguishable from each other in their air-force-blue uniforms only because the Arab wears a beret, the Israeli a garrison cap. But while the persistent Israelis clean up the towns and modernize the farms, the inhabitants of much-conquered Gaza wait warily. Said one, when asked last week for his view of Gaza's future: "Tell me who is going to be our master, and I'll tell you what I think."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.