American Histadrut Cultural Exchange Institute Conducts Conference on Israel

Israel, with her limited resources, has done more to help the underdeveloped nations of the world than have the major industrial powers. Akiva Eger, director of Histadrut’s Afro-Asian Institute in Tel Aviv, told the 11th annual Arden House Conference of the American Histadrut Culture Exchange Institute. The conference theme was “Israel Among the Nations.” During the past decade, Eger said, Israel “trained some 17,000 Asians and Africans in many fields–agriculture, medicine and cooperatives–and about 60 percent of these trainees were taught by Histadrut and its subdivisions.” Addressing 80 scholars, teachers, trade unionists, businessmen and community leaders who attended the conference last weekend, Eger reported that 2,500 graduates of the Asian-African Institute currently hold important posts in their respective countries and are a living bridge between their countries and Israel. On the other hand, he added, the United Nations Development Decade — the 1966’s — was a “complete failure” although some $10 billion annually was provided by industrialized countries for the development of those seeking aid. The results, Eger said, were minimal because of lack of understanding of the basic structure of the undeveloped societies.

Victor Reuther, international affairs director of the United Automobile Workers, scored the “immorality of the Big Powers” who had the arrogance “to (try to) determine the basis of settlement in the Middle East.” Reuther said there is no possibility of a lasting peace unless both sides agree, the situation being similar to that of labor-management disputes, where a settlement from the outside is doomed to failure. Prof. Marver H. Bernstein of the Woodrow Wilson School of Political Science in Princeton University, discussing peace efforts in the Middle East, said that wars and tensions were due to the “irreconcilable claims” of the Jews and Arabs. He pointed out three possibilities for peace: one that would be imposed by the Big Powers, which would not be lasting; one based on Israel’s becoming “part of the Arab world,” but this was impossible as Israel was a Mediterranean country that was rapidly becoming industrialized and had religious and other ties with the West; or the situation could be “defused” of its most explosive issues.

For the time being the last course was the most feasible, Bernstein said, and Israel is trying to do this by such means as fostering West Bank economic development: Menachem S. Aroni, former editor of the now defunct magazine, “Minority of One,” stated that the “Zionist movement was the first and most successful movement of national liberntion.” He noted that the new society of Israel “was not the offspring of a hereditary elite” but of people who lifted themselves by their own bootstraps. Uni Bloch, American representative of the Histadrut Executive, said the international activities of Histadrut in the free world played an important part in Israel’s foreign relations. Its constructive achievements in the past half-century have made it “the focus of attention” of the free trade unions, which have rallied to Israel’s side.