Evening star., 1948-07-18
immigration Of Million
Is Planned by Israel
In 5-to-10-Year Plan
By Morley Cossidy

SIS - ~ ~ WI ! t0HH
By Morley Cossidy
SARONA, Israel, July 13 (NANA,
by airmaiD The new state of Israel
has its own flve-to-ten-year plan,
and If not the most ambitious ever
drafted, 1t is certainly well up in
the running. 1t call for the re
patriation' in that time of 1000, 900
Jews, who will be brought to Israel
from nearly every land of the Jew
ish Diaspora. The mere figure is
impressive enough, but against the
microscopic background of Israel
the program. appears truly stag
gering.
1t means that Israel, in from
five to ten years, will virtually
triple its current population Of
about 100000.
An this means, in turn, that
Israel will make OF itself one of the
tightest little islands in the world
a Jewish island in the Arab sea Of
the Middle East, where some 1,600,-
900 Jews will be undertaking to sup
port themselves on an area about
half ss big as Delaware. and about
one-sixteenth as fertile.
ALI Back Policy.
In a world where most nations
are erecting new barriers against
immigration, such a program is a
conspicuous reversal, and 1t would
seem natural to expect many Jews
to be dubious about admitting a
food of penniless immigrants.
But there is no such voice. Next
to the winning of the war with the
Arabs, the most passionate wish Of
every Jew in Palestine is the speed
ing up of repatriation-a term
which in Israel has come to re-
place immigration, to underline the
fact that this Is no ordinary food
of migrants, but the mass return Of
Jews to their homeland after 1900
years.
Repatriation. in Israel, is term
which can hardly be discussed with
out some measure Of hysteria. In
the nine years since the immigra-
ton restrictions of the famous
White Paper were laid down, 1t has
been the living force behind the
, entire Jewish fight for freedom.
Genuine Refuge Sought.
The reasons behind this passion
ate concentration are mixed. but
they are very strong.
Strongest of all is the burning de-
sire to provide genuine refuge for
Jews from any land where they may
face oppression. There is hardly a
Jew in Palestine who did not lose
members of his own family or close
relatives in the madness that Hit
Ter loosed on Europe.
More than 10000 of them, arriv-
ing in Palestine between 1899 and
l94S, have had personal experience
of the horrors of murderous anti
Semitism. A shoe clerk tells you
casually that his twisted arm was
smashed by a gun butt when he
tried to pull his mother off death
train bound for AuschWitz. A hotel
maid tells of her sisters flight
through Vienna woods at night, her
baby dead in her arms and her
husband lying dead at their door
step. Your hostess at dinner men
tions that she walked 400 miles in
escaping from Germany; her father
and mother died of hunger on the
way.
Must Make State Strong.
But these memories are only part
of the reason. Almost equally i'm
portant Is the consciousness that
this tiny new state, surrounded by
enemy Arab states, must quickly
make itself strong.
This years war, it Is recognized,
will not necessarily be the last. II
the Arabs are worsted this year, they
may come back next year, or the
year after that.
So there is desperate haste to
bring to Israel, first of all, men
and Women-of fighting age, who
can quickly be prepared to take
their place in Haganah, and make
the young state of Israel impreg-
nable.
And in the minds of some, too
there Is still a third reason: that
only massive repatriation" will give
Israel strength to burst its present
bounds and take possession Of all
its Biblical territory.
This motive cannot be attributed
to the more responsible leaders OF
the current provisional government
who are gravely embarrassed by the
refusal of a minority to accept the
boundaries proposed by the United
Nations.
Hope To Prove British Wrong.
However, this minority, spear
headed by the Irgun Zvai Leumi, the
Stern group, and the Revisionist
Party, makes no secret of its deter
mination to continue It's fight for
the freeing" of all of ancient Pales-
tine. including Transjordan. And
to this end it fights most vigorously
for the speedier repatriation which
1t deems essential to its undertaking
In the minds of Isreal's responsible
leaders, however. the program of re-
patriation represents an opportunity
to prove their ideas about Palestine's
"absorptive capacity"
Now, free of immigration regula-
tions, the new government confid-
entity expects to prove that the
British ideas of this absorptive cap
acity were criminally short of the
AnyERTISEMENT.