World-wide press and other reaction to Israel’s successful first launch of a space rocket today focused on the military implications of Israel’s entry into the international space club.
The Times of London declared that “treated purely as a technical achievement, “the rocket firing “ought to be the subject for warm congratulations.” However, The Times added, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and his colleagues “know very well that it is the military implications of the launching which will be studied by Israel’s neighbors to the exclusion of anything else.”
The Times also said that the danger was “that tension in an already over-tense region is heightened as much by rumors of arms deliveries as by real deliveries. Most Arabs are convinced that Israel is building an atomic bomb and that when this is completed they will be compelled to solicit one of their own–presumably from Russia.”
The Times remarked that in view of all that has been said about the need to preserve a balance of military forces in the Middle East, the Arabs “might claim this as a right. Then the extension of nuclear weapons, which the world has so much reason fear, would indeed be out of control. For psychological reasons, therefore, it would have been better if Israel’s scientific research had remained grounded.”
The London Daily Herald noted that, while the Israeli rocket was small by Big Power standards, the height attained of 52 miles suggested that Israel could establish a rocket range over the hostile Arab states on all of its borders. The Herald added that there was no reason, however, to assume that Israel “is close to any effective military rocket.” Nevertheless, it added, the Israeli success “could start a rocket and missile race in the Middle East. “
The Wall Street Journal reported that the launch was “certain to stir concern among Arab nations which have already expressed alarm over Israel’s atomic program.”
The New York Journal American commented that the implications “will not be lost on President Nasser of the United Arab Republic, particularly in view of the official communique that the rocket was planned, built and fired by Israeli scientists and technicians.”
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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.
