The 28th World Zionist Congress paid tribute to former Premier David Ben-Gurion at a special session today and heard the man who proclaimed Israel’s independence nearly 24 years ago state his formula–massive aliya–for Israel’s survival as a Jewish State in the years ahead. Ben-Gurion was presented with a commemorative scroll which referred to him as “the far-sighted prophet, architect of the State and fighter for freedom.” The elder statesman, whose 85th birthday was the occasion for nationwide celebrations in Israel last Oct., said that if Israel is to survive as a Jewish Sate, a majority of the Jewish people all over the world must settle here.
“We need another five or six million Jews and I believe they will come,” Ben-Gurion said. Another prerequisite for survival, he declared, was the population and rehabilitation of 80 percent of Israel’s pre-1967 territory which is wasteland and desert, especially the Negev. His third point was “Peace with our neighbors.” Recalling Israel’s Declaration of Independence which he read out on May 14, 1948, Ben-Gurion said it contained these words: “We stretch out our hand in peace to our neighbors.”
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