About 200 Americans landed at a military observation post in the Sinai desert yesterday. They were not technicians sent to man advance warning surveillance stations and although they resembled tourists, sight-seeing was not the main purpose of their trip. The visitors were members of the United Jewish Appeal Study Mission on the third day of an eight-day fact-finding visit to learn of Israel’s economic needs at first hand.
Yesterday they got an idea of what it will cost Israel to build its new line of fortifications after the Mitle and Gidi Passes become part of the United Nations buffer zone under the recently signed Israeli-Egyptian interim accord. Watching armored units engage in target practice–the target was an old Soviet tank captured in the Six-Day War–they were informed by a senior army officer that “each shell costs more than $200.” The three-minute exercise in which five shells were fired cost over $1000.
One of the UJA’s tasks is to make clear that the economic aid Israel receives from the U.S. goes mainly into defense and that the nation depends on the proceeds of the UJA and Keren Hayesod to carry out its multitude of humanitarian and social tasks.
NOT A FUN TOUR
“It was not a fun tour,” remarked Leah Harris, chairman of the Israelis for UJA in Greater New York, as she and the other Americans stood atop a 1300-foot ledge viewing the broad plain between the Sinai passes and the Suez Canal, a battleground of Israelis and Egyptians in three wars. The broad, flat terrain could be the scene of war again, and Israel, giving up the natural defenses that the passes provide, must spend huge sums to redeploy its troops and build new lines. The Americans knew this before; yesterday they saw the problem with their own eyes.
They were briefed by Col. Nahman Karni at the Refidim military base on the military implications of the Sinai accord. Karni also supplied some history linking Israel with the region. According to the Bible, it was from Refidim that Moses set forth to receive the Ten Commandments.
The visitors watched off-duty soldiers play volleyball. They talked to some of them and discovered that Israeli soldiers know little of UJA activities. Some members of the group suggested more informal meetings between UJA representatives and Israeli troops. Air conditioned buses drove the visitors along the Mitle Pass.
Except for the American surveillance technicians, they will probably be the last civilians to enter the region for a long time. “Let’s just hope we shall not have to come back here to fight again,” said one elderly woman as the party boarded their plane for the return flight to Jerusalem.
The UJA Mission members are scheduled to visit Israeli families in Ashdod and nearby Kiryat Gat Saturday night to acquaint themselves with the day-to-day problems in those towns where the populations are composed largely of immigrants from the Soviet Union, Poland, Morocco and Argentina, On Sunday, the Mission members will inspect Jewish Agency projects at Teffen and Segev in Galilee.
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.
