Ben-gurion Says Israel Must Remain Vigilant; Hopes for Peace with Arabs

The prediction that “the future will bring peace and cooperation between Israel and her Arab neighbors” was made here last night by Israel’s Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion addressing 450 Jewish leaders from all parts of the country assembled to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Israel Bond Organization.

“The Arab countries in the Middle East are legitimate expressions of the national independence of their peoples,” Mr. Ben-Gurion said. “So is Israel. The future will bring peace and cooperation between Israel and her Arab states and Israel will lead to the flowering of the Middle East and bring back to our area the status which it occupied in ancient times.”

However, he emphasized that for the present Israel must increase her vigilance. “I regret that nothing has occurred in recent times to make it possible for us to relax our vigilance. On the contrary I think there is need today for greater vigilance than ever before.

“The objective of all defense policy today is to prevent war. War is the evil which we must ward off. We cannot ward it off by weakness, either militarily, economically, socially, or politically, but only by strength. Weakness is a temptation and the strength of which I speak is not a threat to anyone but assurance that no one will ever make the miscalculation of attacking us,” the Premier declared.

The Prime Minister recalled the circumstances of the meeting in Jerusalem in September 1950, when he asked American Jewish leaders to undertake the flotation of an Israel Bond Issue in the United States. Although the economic experts advised against it, the program was adopted because “I know Jews and I was confident that Jews would be capable of doing the seemingly impossible and I was not disappointed in my faith in American Jewry.”