Rabin Says Israel Must Remain Ready to Meet Danger of Renewed Arab Warfare

Maj. Gen. Itzhak Rabin, Israel’s Ambassador-designate to the United States, told a gathering of the Joint Palestine Appeal here last night that Israel must prepare now for the financial and manpower needs three years hence because the danger of renewed warfare with the Arabs still exists. “The money and the people must come to us now, not when the crisis is upon us,” he said.

Gen. Rabin, former Chief of Staff of Israel’s armed forces, spoke at a dinner given in his honor by the JPA. He shared the dais with Israel Ambassador Aharon Remez, Hayim Morrison, national chairman of the JPA, and Harold H. Poster who chaired the event. Gen. Rabin is scheduled to leave here Saturday night for his new post in Washington.

He warned that “no one can say with certainty that last June’s war was the final one.” He said that the “Arabs have not yet convinced themselves entirely that they cannot achieve their aims in another war, although they are much more reluctant to start one than they had been.” As for Israel, he said, “our frontiers are infinitely more advantageous then they were.”

The possibility of renewed warfare keeps Israel on the alert and is the reason why military service has been extended from two-and-a-half to three years. But it is not only Jews and Arabs who are involved. There is a significant Russian military presence in the area and the evolution of the Israel-Arab dispute to a new armed confrontation depends in large measure on the confrontation between Russia and America,” he declared. Gen. Rabin said that if Israel has to fight again she will fight, as before, “alone, except for the aid and comfort of the Jewish people.”