Prime Minister David Ben Gurion disclosed today that United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold had suggested that if Israel could take in a large number of Jews, it should be de to accept also a large number of the Arab refugees.
Details of the exchange, which occurred during the Secretary General’s recent visit to the Prime Minister’s retreat at the Sde Boker kibbutz, were reported by the Prime Minister at the Convention of the Latin American Organization in Israel now being held here.
He quoted Mr. Hammarskjold as remarking to him that if the Prime Minister envisaged “the absorption of 2, 000, 000 Jews, could you not take back 1,000,000 Arabs?” The Prime Minister said he replied: “Would those Arabs be able to do what our boys and girls do in conquering the desert and turning it into flourishing green land?” The Prime Minister said he believed Mr. Hammarskjold understood the point.
The Prime Minister also told the delegates that while 50 percent of Latin American Jews migrating to Israel went into the pioneering settlements on the borders–a record he lauded—he still felt that numerically Latin American Jewry was not fulfilling the mission of Aliyah.
Asserting that the 7, 000 Latin American immigrants were only one percent of the total Latin American Jewry, the Prime Minister said that it was essential that immigration from
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