“If Israel is attacked it will not remain on the defensive but will soon pass over to the offensive and fight in foreign territory,” Premier David Ben Gurion last night told the Knesset during a ten-hour debate on the government’s conscription bill. At the end of the debate the measure had its first reading.
In a plea for support of his policy of maintaining a large and powerful armed force, the Premier pointed out that for the Jewish state the problem was either building up its defenses or facing extermination. He asserted that the experience of the Israelis during the recent war has demonstrated that Israel cannot depend on world democratic forces to defend it.
Mr. Ben Gurion also insisted that in some respects Israel was not yet a nation. To support this thesis he pointed to the fact that the majority of the Jews live outside of the Jewish state while the inhabitants of the state are not yet homogeneous. Soldiers of Israel’s Army, he stated, are natives of 55 different nations. The historical process of the nationalization of the Jews has been too long delayed, he declared, adding that Israel’s youth must be good pioneers and good soldiers and must be turned into one nation with a common language.
The Premier also replied to attacks from other political parties including the Mizrachi, a member of the coalition government. Rejecting the Mizrachi’s demand that women be exempted from compulsory military service, he insisted that the “majority of the Yishuv desires equal rights and obligations for women.” He countered a Mapam charge that the majority of the officers in the army are members of the Mapai, stating that 50 percent of the officer corps were members of Mapam while only one-third of them were Mapai members.
He pledged that he would never permit politics to be introduced into the army camps. Finally, he asserted that the existence of 22 political parties on the national scene was “shameful” and that Israel must attempt to reduce this number to two or three.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
