Importance of Developing Galilee Stressed by Aaci

The Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel (AACI) stressed the importance of developing Galilee in a resolution adopted at the closing session of its 22nd convention here today. The 300 delegates, who elected Morton Skidelsky, a 41-year-old former resident of Chicago, president of the AACI for a two-year term, succeeding Esther Zackler, called on the government to recognize that the settlement of Galilee is as important as settlement elsewhere and to do everything in its power to aid and encourage such settlement.

The resolution represented a compromise reached in the ongoing controversy over the government’s preoccupation with settlements on the West Bank. Many delegates had wanted the AACI to express dissatisfaction with settlement in the Judaea and Samaria regions at the expense of Galilee, In fact, the selection of this new immigrant town near the Lebanese border as their convention site was a pointed reminder to the government of the importance American and Canadian immigrants attach to the region and their desire to attract other North American immigrants to Galilee,

US, Ambassador Samuel Lewis, who came to Maalot to greet the convention, spoke in that spirit when he extolled the natural beauty of Galilee and declared that no foreign friend of Israel is more in favor of settlement in Galilee than he was, lewis’ remarks were taken by some delegates as an abridge reiteration of US, policy against settlements on the West Bank. The Canadian Ambassador, Joseph Stanford, also greeted the convention, Other resolutions called for an end to discrimination in housing against single persons, encouraging aliya and casing the absorption process for new immigrants.