Israel watched calmly today the news of the opening of the Arab summit conference in Cairo, in the conviction that the assembled Arab rulers will not be able to prevent the pumping of water from the Jordan River and Lake Tiberias to the Negev.
“We are full of confidence,” a senior Israel Foreign Ministry official said. “We are strong enough to withstand any Arab attempt to use force.” He pointed out that the Arabs have no legal basis for their opposition to bringing Jordan River waters to the Negev. Other officials stressed that the water development project is not a river diversion. They pointed out that, although water will be pumped away from the Jordan River and Lake Tiberias, the water there will continue to flow exactly in the same place.
The general feeling in Israel is that the Arab summit meeting was called by President Nasser of Egypt not so much to challenge Israel but to show to the Arab rulers Egypt’s military superiority, and to impress them, that without accepting Egypt’s leadership, they will never be able to undertake anything against Israel.
(Both of New York’s major morning newspapers–the Times and the Herald Tribune–advised editorially today that the real solution of the Jordan River water disagreement between the Arab states and Israel lies in acceptance by all sides of the Eric Johnston regional water development plan, worked out by President Eisenhower’s special emissary in 1955. “The resolution,” stated the Times, “is the regional development worked out years ago under United Nations and United States auspices. Only Arab hostility prevents it from showering blessings on the entire region.”)
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.
