The Arab states will “undoubtedly” try to achieve through the United Nations Conciliation Commission peace parley in Paris “what they failed to gain by brute force,” Israel Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett warned here last night at the opening session of the 37th annual convention of Hadassah.
The Foreign Minister expressed concern that the Conciliation Commission would sponsor an attempt to penalize Israel for her survival by imposing on her one-sided concessions. “Israel has not achieved her independence by the sacrifice of blood and treasure only to see it crippled by a political settlement.” he declared.
The only issue at the conference, he added, is whether the Arab states will recognize Israel’s independence, as has the rest of the world, “in terms of both area and population.” He said that the Israel Government is represented at the parley despite repeated Arab refusal to talk peace directly because it wishes to “leave no avenue unexplored in its quest for peace.” He reiterated that Israel is willing to make compensation for abandoned Arab lands, but cannot accept the complete restoration of the Arab refugees to their pre-war status in Israel.
He spoke of America’s friendship and assistance to the Jewish state since its inception, citing the recent treaty of friendship, commerce and navigation signed by the two and the grants-in-aid which are currently nearing approval in Congress.
Mrs. Rose Halprin, president of the women’s Zionist organization, told the convention that “as Zionists we endorse the concept of Chaluziut.” Adding that she understands Israel’s call that some American Jewish youth should come and share in its upbuilding and that she believes that some American youths will respond to the call, Mrs. Halprin asked that the Zionist movement give moral and material support to these youths.
She insisted, however, that the American Jewish community, “rooted in American life and bound in loyalty to the great democracy of which it is part,” considers American Jewish life part of the “stream of Jewish history.”
Sen. Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, addressing the 3,500 delegates at the largest convention in Hadassah’s 40-year history, compared Israel to the United States in “pioneering spirit and development.” Israel is a “vital and intimate part of the story of mankind,” the Senator added.
Dr. Martha M. Eliot, newly-appointed chief of the U.S. Children’s Bureau, today praised the “vigor and intelligence, imagination and wisdom” with which Israel meets the health and welfare problems of the immigrants. Dr. Elot, who visited the Jewish state last spring while serving as assistant director general of the World Health Organization, U.N. affiliate, declared that young people in Israel show–in a multitude of ways–enthusiasm, courage, vision and willingness to work and sacrifice to create a new nation.
Jewish children in Arab lands live in “unspeakable horror” and only if Jewish communities in the various Arab countries are emptied through immigration to Israel is there any hope for them, Mrs. A.P. Schoolman, co-chairman of the Youth Aliyah management committee of the Jewish Agency, told the delegates. Appealing for more funds to bring 12,000 youths to Israel in 53,000 children from 54 countries, since 1934.
Of the fate of the Jews in Arab countries, she said: “Some three-quarters of the 250,000 Jews in Morocco live jammed together in unspeakable horror. They vegetate in dugouts, in the ghettos, literally in holes in the mud. Nine and ten people often inhabit one earth room without furniture, beds, light, water or sanitary facilities. They scarcely eat at all. And for whole communities immigration to Israel is the only rationale, the only hope.”
Dr. Peter Neubauer, director of the Child Development Center in New York, who recently returned from a tour of Israel, praised the new state’s approach to emotionally disturbed children as unique and deserving of the attention of international professional bodies interested in these problems. Dr. Harry Grundfest, Associate Professor of Neurology at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, and Dr. Jacob Fine, Professor of Surgery at Harvard University’s Medical School, reviewed the efforts being made to mobilize outstanding American medical teaching and administrative talent for the Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical School in Jerusalem.
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.
