Ex-Premier David Ben Gurion today challenged Gen. E.L.M. Burns, United Nations truce supervision chief, on the UN’s jurisdiction over the location of army maneuvers. Gen. Burns, in his first report to United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold last week, expressed the opinion that Israel army maneuvers near the Jordan border had, presumably, “caused tensions.”
“The UN representative in Israel,” declared Mr. Ben Gurion, addressing a special conference of the Mapai Party Council at Rehovoth, “has nothing to say about where the Israel Army can maneuver. He is not to interfere in what we are doing within our borders. The world should understand and recognize that Israel’s sovereignty is like any other nation’s. No exterior force,” Mr. Ben Gurion said, “Arab or other, would shape Israel’s fate, which can rely only on our internal and military strength.”
Replying to a recent claim by Egypt’s Prime Minister Gamel Abdel Nasser that the Negev desert region of Israel will have to be given up sooner or later because it splits an “Arab” region, Mr. Ben Gurion said: “These claims do not cause fears among us. But they are unsettling, and do cause anxieties among our settlers. Therefore, the settlers in the Negev must be distributed, if necessary, with a strong hand.”
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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.
