Weizmann Says Israel to Seek Ties with the West, Associated Press, San Francisco Chronicle, June 10, 1948.

Click here to view the original article.

PARIS, June 9-President Chaim Weizmann said today his new state of Israel will seek close ties with Western nations.

He said at a news conference that he meant this to include England. But he did not mention Russia.

The 74-year-old president said “the future of Israel depends on good relations with the Western states.”

He parried questions which seemed aimed at getting him to mention Israel’s relations with Russia.

Weizmann said the Jewish state would never agree to be part of a Palestinian federation.

ECONOMIC UNION

Meeting the French and foreign press here for the first time in his new position, Weizmann added that Israel would not accept any solutions to the Palestine problem “absorbing part of its sovereignty.”

Weizmann said, however- “We are ready to establish an economic union between the state of Israel and the rest of Palestine. That can be a beginning.”

Weizmann said Israel can absorb all the 1,000,000 to 1,250,000 Zionist immigrants expected for the next 10 years. The President said 250,000 of these are Jewish displaced persons in Europe. Another 300,000 to 400,000 European Jews in Poland, Germany, Romania and Hungary “stand in need of immediate immigration,” he said. The rest are expected mainly from Moslem areas, such as French North Africa.

“The Jews in the Arab countries are in immediate danger,” Weizmann said.

IRRIGATION

Israel depends on irrigation developments in the Negeb, or southern desert, to absorb new population. For this reason, Weizmann said Israel could not consider proposals to exchange the Negeb for Western Galilee-a move which might also give the Arabs a majority in Israel.

“I cannot agree that the boundaries of Israel are not fixed,” he went on. “Up to now the Arabs have not crossed the limits of the State of Israel, except for the Egyptians in a small corner of the Negeb, and I do not think they will ‘ stay very long.”

Israel will defend the interests of Christianity in the international city of Jerusalem, he said.

“I do not think British recognition will come very fast, though it will not take more than amount or two,” he said.

Weizmann said Israel was not hurrying the French, because of French concern over the Arab reaction in North Africa.

The Vatican has some hesitation, but I think we will come to an understanding with the Vatican and very soon,” he said.

Eight Die in Blast

RECIFE, Brazil, June 9 (U.P.)-Eight persons were killed and nearly 100 injured today by the explosion of a boiler in a sugar and alcohol mill.