The post-war reconstruction of Palestine as visualized by Jews was partly outlined here today by David Ben-Gurion, chairman of the executive of the Jewish Agency, who emphasized that the country will be able to absorb 5,000,000 men providing that the American plan for the digging of a channel between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea is carried out.
“Tremendous quantities of water sufficient to irrigate hundreds of thousands of dunams which could support 5,000,000 people would be made available if the plan of the American engineers were carried out,” Ben-Gurion says in a statement published in the Hebrew newspaper Hazofeh. “In addition, it would create a source of electric power and would greatly benefit the present population of Palestine.”
In the meantime, Ben-Gurion emphasizes, Palestine can absorb an additional 200,000 Jewish families on the millions of dunams of unsettled land. He estimates that there are 18,000,000 dunams open for settlement and sufficient water available at present to irrigate 4,000,000 dunams.
“Zionist planning,” Ben-Gurion points out, aims at a maximum development of agriculture, industry, commerce and fishing together with the increased construction of power and transport facilities, the recruitment of more manpower and the opening of new markets. Improvement of arid land so as to make it suitable for cultivation requires large-scale government planning, he asserts, and the excavation of irrigation channels from the northern part of the country to the deserts in the south. “The development of agriculture and industry is conditioned by the supply of cheap power, which can be generated by utilization of the vast water power resources of the country,” he concludes.
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.
