Israel has room for the absorption of many immigrants, Abba Eban, Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, declared last night in a television interview. He emphasized that Israel has not yet reached the saturation point in immigrant absorption.
“Our present population of two million is living on only about 50 percent of our land. Half of our land contains only one percent of our total population, ” he said. The Jewish State, however, must still “place frank reliance upon such aid as we can get, ” the Ambassador added. Israel, he said, has made vast strides toward complete self-support, increasing its national product by 75 percent, and raising its earnings from exports by some 200 percent.
“If this increase, ” he said, “can go forward, we will approach a point where our consumer needs are pretty nearly covered by what we produce ourselves.” In the meantime, however, the Ambassador stressed, aid from abroad is still a necessity for Israel. Mr. Eban, who spoke on Station WNTA-TV, called for the consistent development of American and United Nations policy for the support of the integrity and independence of all states in the Middle East.
The Israel Ambassador spoke with high praise of the newly-appointed United States Ambassador to Israel, Ogden R. Reid. “I have known Mr. Reid for many years, ” he stated, “and I think that here is an American mind very sensitively attuned to international affairs, with a special insight into the problem of our region.
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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.
