Israel to Spend $41,000,000 on Irrigation During Current Year

Israel’s irrigation target for 1955, which will be sought with the aid of American Jews, is to add 200,000 dunam–about 50,000 acres–to the irrigated area of the country at a cost of $41,000,000, Dewey D. Stone, national chairman-elect of the United Israel Appeal, announced here today in a special report to the organization’s board of directors. This blueprint will bring the total area under irrigation in Israel to 1,000,000 dunam by the end of 1955.

“We are, of course, deeply gratified,” Mr. Stone stated, “to hear reports of possible rapprochement between Israel and her Arab neighbors on using the Sea of Galilee as a reservoir for rainwater. We hail the efforts of Eric Johnston, President Eisenhower’s personal envoy to the Middle East, and of the United States government, for seeking to achieve a peaceful and effective solution of these important irrigation problems for the welfare of the people of the whole region. At the same time, however, the UIA and its agencies, are continuing to carry out on schedule an extensive internal irrigation network which will make possible the absorption of needy newcomers to Israel.”

Of the total of $41,000,000 to be spent for irrigation during the course of the current year, a minimum of $9,000,000 will be provided by the United Israel Appeal budget. The balance will be spent by the Israel Government. UIA agencies are directly concerned with irrigation projects to create a productive agricultural framework for the resettlement of immigrants entering the country, particularly the 30,000 Jews who are expected from North Africa during 1955.

Mr. Stone described as the most important event in the field of irrigation this year the opening by late summer of the Yarkon-Negev pipeline which will carry 100,000,000 cubic meters of water annually from springs near Tel Aviv to parched areas in the Negev.