Premier David Ben Gurion summoned United States Ambassador Edward B. Lawson today and conferred with him for an hour over Secretary of State Dulles’ statements to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week indicating a further delay in granting Israel’s arms request. The Premier told Ambassador Lawson that the situation was serious and that American delays encouraged the Arab states to attack Israel and Israel will not “sit quietly waiting for the attack.” Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett was present during the meeting.
(The United States has shipped “a very limited number of military aircraft of the propeller type” to Saudi Arabia since 1951, it was disclosed in Washington today, by Secretary of State Dulles when he revised testimony originally given the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last Friday. The new information was the first official admission that the United States has sold military planes as well as tanks to Saudi Arabia.)
Mr. Sharett today received Maj. Gen. E. L. M. Burns, chief of staff of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization. The visit followed cancellation of a meeting of the Israel-Egyptian Mixed Armistice Commission at Nitzana yesterday because the Egyptian delegation would not use a route laid out by the Israelis for coming to the meeting place. The meeting was to have taken place on Israel soil in the demilitarized zone. Meanwhile. Egyptian gun posts in the Gaza area opened fire on Israeli troops, but there were no casualties. The Israelis returned the fire.
The Foreign Office has instructed the Israel delegation to the UN to discuss with Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold responsibility for criminal and other offenses committed by UN observers during their stay in Israel. The instructions grew out of the case of a UN observer who fired at and wounded two Israeli children playing around his car. When the police tried to detain him the UN staff claimed immunity for him and subsequently transferred him. Now, with parents of the children demanding compensation, the Israel Government wants to clarify the problem.
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.
