Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion predicted last night that if the Soviet Union opened its gates, “1, 000, 000 Jews will emigrate to Israel within one year.”
Speaking at an open air rally in a Kibbutz near Jerusalem to 350 Jewish community leaders from the United States, Canada and Latin America attending a conference and survey tour sponsored by the Israel Bond Organization, the Prime Minister recalled a remark by Soviet Premier Khrushchev to American visitors recently that the time would come when Russia would permit free emigration.
Reviewing Israel’s security problems, he charged that President Nasser of the United Arab Republic was planning to annihilate the people of Israel as Hitler “and his gang” did in Europe. He said that the Soviet Union was supplying Nasser with arms “because the Soviets require the support of Arab nations at the United Nations and their assistance in exerting influence throughout Africa.”
He declared that Israel’s secret weapon was the spiritual superiority of its people and that this made up for the quantitative imbalance of arms and population in comparison with the Arabs. He asserted that Israel had won a great moral sympathy among a number of African and Asian states because they see in Israel a model for their own development, “They, like us, are starting from scratch, ” he said.
Later, the Prime Minister met with members of the Rabbinical Council of America attending a special conclave in Israel. He told the American Orthodox rabbis that he did not favor complete separation of state and religion in Israel at the present time because national unity had to be preserved in an Israel beset by enemies.
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.
