Tekoah Charges Syrian Envoy Making Capital of Israel’s Social Problems

Israel’s permanent representative to the United Nations, Yosef Tekoah, accused the Syrian representative today of trying to make propaganda capital of certain social conditions confronting the Jewish population of Israel which might not have existed had it not been for the warfare conducted against the Jewish State by the Arab nations, including Syria, for the past 23 years. Tekoah made his charge in a letter to Secretary General U Thant responding to a June 21 letter from the Syrian Ambassador. George Tomeh who alleged that Zionism was a colonial instrument bent on exploiting the populace. Tomeh cited a New York Times report of June 15 which quoted remarks critical of the gap between poverty and affluence in Israel made by an American Zionist leader, Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg, of Englewood, N.J. Tekoah’s letter said in part, “Were it not for the warfare pursued against Israel by the Arab states, including Syria since 1948, the resources available to the Israel government to cope with those questions would have been considerably greater and the Syrian government itself would have been able to begin dealing with the problems of poverty and backwardness in Syria.”