Proposals that Israel cede part of the Negev desert to neighboring Arab states in return for Western guarantees of her borders were denounced as “empty. absurd and mischievous” today by Dr. Nelson Glueck, president of Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion, He spoke at the opening of the 8lst academic year at HUC-JIR.
Dr. Glueck, noted archaeologist, who has just completed a square-mile by square-mile survey of the Negev, drew on his studies of its ancient civilizations to support his assertion that Israel’s interest in the Negev, far from being merely “romantic” is bound up “inseparably, historically, geographically, topographically and economically” with the desert. He warned that cession would be “fatal to the future development and present safety of Israel.”
The plan for “dismemberment of Israel through boundary adjustments of the Negev or Galilee to Arab states,” was prompted, he asserted, by “the wish to appease and perhaps soften the frenzied desire of these states to crush Israel and annihilate its people.”
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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.
