Emphasizing that “enormous benefits” would accrue to both sides from the early establishment of an Arab-Jewish peace, Jonathan B. Bingham, Assistant Director of the Technical Co-operation Administration, today told 5,000 persons attending the opening session of the 38th annual convention of Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America, that instability in the Middle East was hampering Israel in its quest for economic self-sufficiency.
Mr. Bingham who returned recently to this country following a survey of economic conditions in Israel and the Middle East, reported that the establishment of normal trade relations between Israel and her neighbors would benefit the Arab peoples and would considerably shorten the time necessary for Israel to achieve economic independence.
Speaking in the name of the State Department, Mr. Bingham said: “In all of our dealings with the government and the people of Israel we have been tremendously impressed by the gigantic and courageous efforts which have been made to build this new nation and the hardships which the people have imposed on themselves to that end. During the few days that I spent in Israel last month I was impressed to see what has been accomplished in a few short years.”
Ambassador Abba Eban of Israel told the delegates that “an Arab nationalism which broods over an impossible dream of strangling Israel will justly fail to make progress in Africa or Asia.” The Ambassador said that an Arab nationalism which maintains hostility toward Israel forfeits its moral title in the issues of Morocco and Tunis. “When I observe these issues raised by the Arab group in the United Nations. I feel a deep longing for the day when nations will apply to their own society and policy the same exalted standards which they suggested for others,” he declared.
“There is a sharp rise of public confidence today in comparison with the situation which I saw in Israel six months ago,” he reported. “The abundant harvest, the uninterrupted expansion of the cultivated area, the consolidation of industrial enterprises, the commencement of serious mining operations, the beneficial facts of technical assistance programs, and more recently the successful negotiations of the Israel-German reparations agreement are all seen as portents of victory in the struggle for economic stability.”
Mrs. Samuel J. Rosensohn, national president of Hadassah, expressed the conviction that if “Israel is to be more than another small nation, and is to fulfill the purpose of Jewish history there must be a free interchange of ideas between Israel and free Jews everywhere–a give and take which will be the basis of an affirmative, continuing, creative Jewish life wherever Jews live.” Miss Hannah L Goldberg, convention chairman, reported that the membership of the organization has been growing steadily.
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