A clearly defined relationship between the Israel Government and the world Zionist movement was demanded here last night as the Knesset resumed its debate on Premier David Ben Gurion’s two-day presentation of his eight-month-old government’s achievements and its future domestic and foreign policy.
The demand for a clarification came from Abraham Granot, leading member of the Progressive Party — a centrist group. He asserted that the confused relationship is responsible for an uneven absorption of the immigrants. The situation, he said, is also responsible for the decreasing influence of the Zionist movement and a resultant unfavorable economic situation in Israel.
A clear-cut relationship, he predicted, would enable the Zionist movement to recover its high position among the Jews of the world and would permit the movement to contribute its share to the absorption of the mass of immigrants now in the country.
Jacob Chazan, Mapam deputy, repeated his party’s charges that the government lacked a clearly defined economic policy which, he said, was leading the country into a severe economic crisis. He stated that he could not visualize how the government would solve the immigration absorption problem nor how it would bridge the enormous gap between the supply and demand of its economic system. In the absence of a government economic plan, he continued, it remains unexplained how the country’s small industrial capacity can meet its needs.
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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.
