“It is my firm belief that the Arabs can live in peace and harmony with the Jews in Israel,” Henry Morgenthau Jr., general chairman of the United Jewish Appeal, declared at a press conference here today following an official reception in his honor in Premier David Ben Gurion’s office, The former Secretary of the Treasury added that Arab refugees returning to Israel would definitely enjoy a higher standard of living than that existing in any Moslem country.
“On my visit to Nazareth,” Morgenthau asserted, “I saw how 20,000 Arabs live under Israeli rule, with 90 percent of the administrative system in Jewish hands, and how they live in peace and harmony. As a fund-raiser for the United Jewish Appeal, I realized that the only place where displaced persons can go, and where they are received with open arms, is Israel, where they can be settled in the Negev. Therefore, Israel needs the Negev.
Replying to questions on the extant of anti-Semitism in the United States, he said that the successes of the Jewish fighting forces are having a particular influence on the rise and fall of anti-Semitism, “for the Christian world respects fighters.” He added, “speaking on good authority,” that the United States would extend de jure recognition to Israeli immediately after the elections here in December.
The U.J.A. chairman said that he realized that Israel was the only bulwark against Communion in the Middle East. It was his understanding, he said, that in turn it would be the understanding of any United States Government that it was necessary to invest money in Israel for the assistance of the Jewish state. Commenting on future immigration to the Jewish state, he declared that more funds must be raised in the United States then ever before for immigration, settlement and development of the new country.
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.
