Defense Minister Moshe Dayan proposed Thursday night increased settlement to determine the country’s borders. Addressing an alignment election rally here, Dayan declared: “Borders are not set at the Geneva conference but by Israel’s own work of building and development, which others will not do for us.”
Dayan said that great importance is attached to the question of the borders and. accordingly, Israel should be prepared not only to fight alone if necessary, but also to develop the country wherever required. “We should not be ashamed of our efforts to build and expand Jerusalem out toward its neighboring Arab settlements to bring to the city new immigrants and industries,” he said.
The Minister also noted the need for developing and building up the empty areas south of the Gaza Strip so that Israel’s southern border would not lie at Erez and Yad Mordechai. He said Jerusalem was not only a local problem, but a symbol of the entire land of Israel, and the city’s problems and the solutions to them were to a large extent symbolic of all the problems in Israel.
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.
