Israel must achieve greater strength if peace is to be maintained in the Middle East following the recent union of Arab states, Moshe Sharett, former Premier and Foreign Minister of Israel, declared here last night at a United Jewish Appeal mass meeting at Carnegie Hall.
“Today, when the Jewish State is a forceful and dynamic reality, Arab unity has emerged as a by-product of the barren strife against it, “Mr. Sharett said. “It is our firm hope that the new, wider frameworks which have been created for Arab national life, if they last, will eventually be filled with constructive content.
“Yet, if Israel’s future is to be harmonized with this trend, if it is not to become its victim, then Israel must get much, much stronger than it already is. And the achievement of that greater strength–a greater strength for peace–must be the high purpose of the brotherly partnership between Israel and the Jewish people outside, primarily between Israel and American Jewry,” the Israel leader concluded.
The evening’s program was devoted to an observance of three major events in modern Jewish history whose anniversaries will fall in the months ahead: 1. The establishment of the State of Israel ten-years ago in May 1948; 2. The desperate uprising of Jews in the Nazi-created Warsaw ghetto 15 years ago in April 1943; 3. The creation in the United States of the United Jewish Appeal, now embarked on its twentieth annual fund-raising campaign.
In a backstage ceremony Senator Herbert Lehman and Mr. Sharett lighted a memorial candle for the Jewish martyrs who perished in the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto and in the crematoria to which millions were sent by the Nazis.
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.
