American Expert Urges U.S. to Give Atomic Research Reactor to Israel

“The development of atomic energy in Israel can be the key to peace and stability throughout the Middle East,” Dr. Joseph Weil, Dean of the School of Engineering of the University of Florida, reported today at a press conference at the offices of the American Technion Society.

Dr. Weil, who has just returned from a two-month mission to Israel, set up a program of nuclear energy studies at the Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, which is supported by the American Technion Society. He also surveyed the present status of atomic energy development in Israel.

Dr. Weil urged the United States Government to make available to Israel an atomic research reactor, which could be used both for production and experimentation. He estimated the cost of such equipment to be $2,000,000. He paid tribute to the foresight of the Israel Institute of Technology, the only college of engineering in Israel. and called it “an excellent institution providing first-rate training to Israel’s future engineers and technologists.”

“The lack of adequate water in Israel, Egypt and all the Arab countries is the fundamental cause for the present strife in the Middle East,” Dr. Weil said “The problem of the Arab refugees is not one of displaced persons, but one of idle displaced persons. If there were enough water to provide cultivable land for these people throughout that part of the world, differences existing today between Israel and her Arab neighbors would vanish overnight.

“Water resources can be developed only through the availability of cheap power, and cheap power can be made available only through the practical application of atomic energy,” Dr. Weil continued. “Uranium is obtainable from the phosphate ore now being mined in the Negev section of Israel, and the prospects for the use of atomic energy in Israel commercially are much further advanced than most people seem to realize.”