A call for a vigorously stepped-up campaign to increase pioneering in desert and border settlements as a measure for strengthening Israel’s national security was issued here this week end by Prime Minister David Ben Gurion.
Israel’s greatest danger, Mr. Ben Gurion declared, in an address before the Association of Communal Settlements, he not across the borders of Syria or Egypt, but rather in the over-concentration of population along the Mediterranean coastal strip and in the desolation of the Negev Desert.
To meet the danger, the Prime Minister said, 10 percent of the older and more experienced members of communal settlements in the North of Israel should join youth pioneers along the borders and in the Negev in the building of new settlements that would bolster Israel’s national security and, at the same time, strengthen the Israeli economy.
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