All Government departments have been instructed to employ a suitable number of Arabs, and private cooperative enterprises should follow suit in order to absorb in employment a maximum number of members of minority groups, Prime Minister David Ben Gurion said today.
Mr. Ben Gurion made his statement in Parliament after a left-wing Arab deputy, Yissuf Khamis, told the House that the number of Arabs meeting higher educational qualifications is growing. He said that many of the Arab intelligentsia are unable to obtain public employment, and declared that putting more Arabs into public service would help speed peace between Israel and the Arab states.
The Prime Minister rejected the latter assertion, telling Parliament the Arab right to employment derives from his being a citizen of status equal to all other citizens of Israel.
Israel’s first Arabic-language morning paper, “El Yom,” appeared this week. It previously had been published as a small tabloid evening newspaper. There are also nine Arab weeklies in Israel and 14 other Arab periodicals.
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