A vision of a Greater Eilat as Israel’s largest port in the not too distant future was described here today by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion in an address to some 3, 000 members and guests of the Israel Exploration Society which held its annual conference in Eilat.
Mr. Ben-Gurion who celebrated his 76th birthday today, said that Eilat could not exist without large industry, just as it could not exist without a strong Negev hinterland. The Prime Minister revealed that as far back as 1935, he had visited the Eilat area with the late United States Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, who proposed, on the spot, that a large sum of money be raised to purchase lands there.
Professor Yigal Yadin of the Hebrew University, reported to the conference on his findings in the Bar Kochba cave explorations in the Negev, Professor Nelson Glueck, president of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, also addressed the session.
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