Responding to a plea from Israel’s Premier David Ben Gurion for urgent aid to meet Israel’s “crippling short-term indebtedness,” the United Israel Appeal, at its national convention here today, adopted a resolution pledging itself to carry out a program of increased fund-raising, as well as of borrowing a minimum of $75,000,000 for a period of five years, in order to refund Israel’s short-term obligations.
The resolution also urged American Jews in 1954 to provide a minimum of $125,000,000 through the United Jewish Appeal and the Israel Bond issue. The more than 1,000 delegates from all parts of the United upon President Eisenhower “to use his good offices and the great prestige and influence of the U.S. to bring about in the very near future a conference of Arab governments and Israel aimed at achieving a state of peace in the Middle East.”
On a resolution on cash, the conference took note of the fact that some 200,000 immigrants were still living on “the fringe of Israel’s economy.” It called on the Jewish community of America “to do everything possible to provide the maximum amount of cash through the collection of pledges, bank borrowings or advanced payments on the 1954 campaign in order to alleviate the urgent pressure for the remainder of 1953.”
SENATORS DIFFER ON U.S. POLICY IN THE MIDDLE EAST
Two U.S. Senators, the Republican chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and a ranking Democratic member of that committee, clashed sharply here today in their views on American policy in the Middle East, particularly with regard to the “final peace settlement” between Israel and the Arab states.
Senator Alexander Wiley, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, urged that “the statesmanship of the West must do everything feasible to encourage the Arab leaders to sit down with Israel around the peace table.” Sen. Guy M. Gillette, senior member of the committee, charged, however, that the U.S. is turning toward “the older methods of power politics in the Middle East and setting aside basic principles in favor of what are supposed to be immediate advantages.”
Rudolf G. Sonneborn, national chairman of the United Israel Appeal, told the delegates last night that a total of $1,710,000,000, mainly from Jews in the United States, is needed during the coming seven years to finance a newly formulated “maturity plan” which will enable Israel “to stand on its own two feet and reach a high degree of self-sufficiency by 1960.”
Mr. Sonneborn said that more than four-fifths of the sum must come from the United Jewish Appeal and the Israel Bond Drive, with the balance expected from the U.S. grants-in-aid. An additional $700,000,000 in foreign funds needed to pay for the plan will be derived from other currencies including investments and German reparation payments.
Ellis Radinsky, executive director of the United Israel Appeal, in reporting on the 1954 budget of UIA agencies, said that a total of $92,120,000 is the “basic, minimum sum needed to carry out the barest essentials of the development program in Israel.” The largest unit of expenditure in 1954, Mr. Radinsky said, is the agricultural development program which will cost $50,050,000, “or well over half the total budget.”
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.
