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Israel. This proposal, in point of fact, had been studied for a
long time in the State Department. Secretary Dulles then pointed
out that the Israelis have recently applied to the Export-Import
Bank fer a large loan designed for developmental purposes in Isreel. The Bank has advised the State Department that the Israeli
loan request is a borderline case, and the Bank will be prepared
to grant the loan if the State Department says that such a course
of action is advisable. On the other hand, Secretary Dulles had
told Ambassador Eban that the State Department thinks it unwise to
help Israel to develop additional lands and resources if the newlyavailable land is to be devoted to helping new immigrants into Israel rather than helping refugees already there. If the Israelis
would agree that such a loan would be used to assist the existing
population, it would probably be in the interests of the United
States to grant the loan. Ambassador Eban has stated that he
would talk to Prime Minister Ben-Gurion about our views on this
loan, but we expect a negative response from Ben-Gurion. In short,
‘the State Department would like to make this loan conditional on
‘the adoption by Israel of a new over-all immigration policy with
perhaps some help to the Arab refugees. On the other hand, we
doubt very much whether our hopes are a real possibility in an
election year.
In response to Secretary Dulles’ expression of pessimisn,
the Vice President pointed out that if the Administration made a
real issue of this matter, it would win in Congress in the long run.
The Vice President expressed himself as opposed to granting the
Export-Import Bank loan to Israel unless it were part and parcel
of a new over-all immigration policy by Israel.
Admiral Strauss asked if he might comment. He stated at
the outset that he was not a Zionist and, on the contrary, he had
opposed the creation of the state of Israel. He still made no contributions to the support of Israel, his contributions being confined to assisting the Arab refugees in Israel. Nevertheless, he
believed that perhaps the Secretary of State wes under the misappre-
hension that all Jews in the world were strongly behind the Israeli
state. This was not so. The creation of Israel had managed to save
the lives of two or three million Jews. Mr. Allen's point--that
Jews desiring to emigrate to Israel came from countries where Jews
were not persecuted for their religion--was not gqnite accurate. It
overlooked the fact that in countries like Moroceo and Tunisia economic persecution of Jews stemmed directly from the fact that they
were Jews. Thus, if we try to limit inmigration into Israel and to
impede philanthropy in support of this immigration, we would not
only lose the support of all Zionists, but we would also lose the
broad support of all philanthropic people as well, unless we could
find alternate havens of refuge for persecuted Jews. At the moment,
Admiral Strauss said he could see no such alternate havens.
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