Pledges of support for the defense of the State of Israel and of measures to strengthen its security position were voiced here last night at an emergency “Land for Israel” conference of the New England Jewish National Fund. The 1,000-odd delegates also expressed concern over the shipment of arms by the Soviet bloc to Egypt and called on the United States Government to grant Israel arms for its defense and to conclude a security pact with the Jewish State.
The conference pledged its aid to the JNF border defense-settlement program to reclaim 250, 000 acres of land along Israel’s borders. The delegates expressed their support of the Israel Government of David Ben Gurion and welcomed Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett on his current visit to the United States. Fred Monosson, prominent Zionist leader, was re-elected president of the New England JNF for 1956.
Dr. Harris J. Levine, national president of the JNF, in the major address to the parley, criticized President Eisenhower’s message to last week’s Madison Square Garden rally for Israel’s defense in which the President reiterated a pledge to guarantee Israel’s borders after a peace agreement had been reached between the Jewish and Arab states. This, Dr. Levine asserted, merely gave the Arab states a veto power over such guarantees. The only way to help Israel and halt the Soviet Union, he continued, is to give Israel arms and security guarantees now, without “waiting for Arab permission.”
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