A?renewed appeal to the British Government to open the Negev Valley for Jewish development, in order to partially solve the problem of Jewish and non-Jewish refugee immigration to Palestine, is made today by Cyril Henriques, expert on the Negev and member of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, in an article published in The Union, a London monthly.
Mr. Henriques, who was engineer to the Palestine Zionist Executive from 1925 to 1928, points out that the Negev Velley is sterile only because of neglect. The article stresses the Yast possibilities of the region and the willingness of the Jews to devote their greatest efforts toward making any settlement there a success.
“The Jewish people have shown that in an equally unpromising country only a few miles to the North they can convert a wilderness to smiling fields and fill the countryside with friendly homes. They and their fellow refugees from other countries, and of other creeds, only ask to be allowed to once again bring the services of man to the broad acres of land, derelict as a result of ages-long neglect,” the article concludes.
The project of developing the Negev Valley, an area 1,200,000 acres large, has been broached many times in recent years and some exploration as to irrigation possibilities have been made. Experts vary on the feasibility of developing agriculture there. Some, like Mr, Henriques, are sure it is possible, while others are equally positive that the land cannot be used. However, during the first war the Turks grew much of their vegetables there and in ancient times it was a flourishing Roman province.
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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.
