Shamir Explains to the Knesset His Call for a ‘greater Israel’

Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir told the Knesset on Tuesday that when he recently said that large-scale aliyah required a “greater Israel,” he meant “spiritual greatness,” not demographics or territory.

Shamir spoke in reply to 10 motions of no confidence in the government. Two of the motions complained that the government is not prepared to deal with the huge influx of immigrants, mainly from the Soviet Union.

The others objected to his remarks to Likud activists last month, which were widely interpreted at home and abroad to mean that Israel planned to settle Soviet immigrants in the administered territories.

That drew strong warnings from both the United States and the Soviet Union. The Arab states, charging that Israel planned to displace Palestinians with the Soviet newcomers, Union, appealed to Moscow to halt Jewish emigration.

They have now taken their campaign to the U.N. Security Council in New York and to the U.N. Human Rights Commission meeting in Geneva.

Shamir insisted he never said Israel needed the internationally disputed areas to absorb Soviet Jews. But that does not mean that Israelis are not free to live wherever they want, he said.

“Immigrants should have the same right. Immigration is the cornerstone of the Jewish state. As long as there is an Israel, there will be immigration to all parts of the Land of Israel,” Shamir told the Knesset.

Statistics show that fewer than 1 percent of Soviet Jews who come to Israel settle in the West Bank.

Nevertheless, the International Committee of the Red Cross claimed in Geneva on Tuesday that Israel was violating international law by settling new immigrants in the territories.