Israel Must Maintain “peacetime Air Mastery” Premier Ben Gurion Tells New Aviators

The importance of “peacetime air mastery” for the Jewish state was emphasized by Premier David Ben Gurion addressing a group of aviation cadets “somewhere in Israel.” He reviewed the role which the Israel Air Force played in the Arab-Israel war.

The Israel Premier spke on the occasion of the completion by the cadets of their training as pilots in the Israel Air Force training school. Among the top-ranking military leaders present at the graduation exercises were Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Yigal Yadin.

Israel’s economic and political policies will be outlined by Premier David Ben Gurion and Finance Minister Eliezer Kaplan at a four-day national conference of the Mapai, the Israel Labor Party, which opened here tonight attended by 1,400 delegates and more than 1,000 guests. Some 400 of the delegates are immigrants who reached the Jewish state during the last two years.

It is expected that Premier Ben Gurion, who is scheduled to speak tomorrow, will renew his appeal to the left-wing Mapam group of the Socialist Party, as well as to the General Zionists, to join the coalition Cabinet. Mr. Kaplan will present to the conference a three-year economic plan, the main feature of which hinges on the absorption of an additional 700,000 immigrants and on the attraction of capital investments through new loans and other devices.

The fifth national conference of Poale Agudas Israel — the laborite faction of the Orthodox Agudah organization — opened here today with 200 delegates in attendance.

Top item on the agenda of the confernce is consideration of a proposal to form a “Religious Workers’ Federation” which would eventually include members of Hapoel Hamizrachi, who are also religious laborites.