Prime Minister David Ben Gurion of Israel said he would “definitely go to Cairo” to meet with Egyptian President Nasser “any time Nasser invites me. ” In an interview published in the current issue of Look magazine, Mr. Ben Gurion declared that he would not hesitate to negotiate with Nasser “as man to man” because “I have never thought of him as a Hitler; I don’t think he would or could do what Hitler did. “
The Israeli Premier said he also was willing to consider an invitation to Israel to join the United Arab Republic. The offer was extended on a Cairo broadcast in Hebrew recently. “If they mean it seriously, ” Mr. Ben Gurion said in Look, “we are willing to consider the offer. In fact, we are trying to find out whether they are serious or not. Personally, I think it was merely propaganda. If they are serious, why didn’t they also broadcast in Arabic so that their own people would hear it?”
Commenting on the possibility of Israel and West Germany establishing diplomatic relations, the Premier said it could come “whenever Germany is ready. ” He asserted there would be no difficulty about it in Israel. Admitting some people in Israel oppose such a move, he insisted they were in a minority. “Why should we go on hating the Germans,” he asked, “especially the new generation who had nothing to do with the Hitler period?”
Discussing the question of religious freedom in Israel for Reform Judaism, Mr. Ben Gurion said; “Send me 10, 000 Reform Jews, and I can promise you they will have their own synagogues and rabbis. Let them try. They will see that we have freedom of religion here.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
