Conflict Breaks out Between Israel Government, Jewish Agency on Immigration

A new conflict developed between the Israel Government and the Jewish Agency over the functions of each in the sphere of immigration. The Agency Executive has unanimously rejected a reported proposal by Deputy Premier Yigal Allon to transfer most of the Agency’s immigration activities to the Ministry for Immigrant Absorption which Mr. Allon heads.

The Ministry was established in 1968 by the late Premier Levi Eshkol. At the time it was decided that the Jewish Agency would retain responsibility for immigration but that the absorption of newcomers would be handled jointly by the Agency and the new Ministry. Mr. Allon said in an interview published in the newspaper Haaretz recently that if he is asked to retain the Ministry in the next Cabinet one of his proposals would be that it take over most of the Jewish Agency’s functions regarding immigration. Several members of the Jewish Agency called the proposal “dangerous” and “damaging.” Louis A. Pincus, Jewish Agency chairman, wrote to Mr. Allon after the interview was published, rejecting the proposal.

(The conditions in Israel that await Jewish immigrants from Latin America were discussed at a daylong meeting in Buenos Aires of the Tnuat Haliyah, the Zionist immigration movement in Argentina. The gathering was addressed by Gen. Uzi Narkis, director-general of the Jewish Agency’s immigration in Latin America. Naphtali Bar-Giora, deputy director of the immigration department, spoke about absorption prospects. Other speakers included Nachman Radzichowski, chairman of the Argentine Zionist Federation, and the Israeli Ambassador, Eliezer Doron.