Sacher: Israel’s Urgent Need is to Solve Problem of Poor

The urgent and pressing need to solve the problems of Israel’s underprivileged was stressed here by Michael Sacher, chairman of the Joint Palestine Appeal and a member of the executive of the reconstituted Jewish Agency. Sacher, who just returned from Jerusalem where he participated in a series of meeting of the governing bodies of the Jewish Agency, told a press conference: “I am convinced that the greatest danger that faces Israel is the problem of the underprivileged. It is my opinion that failure to tackle this problem resolutely, and to solve it in the near future could seriously affect Israel’s resistance to outside pressures and, in the long run, weaken her ability to successfully ward off physical dangers.”

Sacher, who is also the chairman of the British Board of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, told the conference that “Israel’s military budget will have to be as high in the coming year as it was in the current one.” At the same time, he observed, there is also a growing need for welfare and education. The budgets of the housing and education ministries will have to be higher next year than in 1971, Sacher stated. He added that the socially deprived must be a basic concern whatever the agencies of the military and political situation.