Israel, D2, Drew Pearson Films, Washington Merry-Go-Round.

[music] >> Hello everybody. Today I want to report on the newest nation in the world and one of the most important. With the United States and its allies facing such trouble at Suez and with the Truman Doctrine being bypassed by Russia in the Near East and with Russia pushing its influence down through Egypt and Syria and North Africa I went to Israel. The one country in that area which remains a staunch friend of the United States. Israel, however, is an isolated country ringed by Arab neighbors. Lebanon up here on the north. And up here further to the north, Syria with a little corridor of about 7 mi wide of Israel in between. And then Jordan coming down a rather ragged border shutting out here only 7 mi from the sea right here in this quarter and coming down here so it splits the city of Jerusalem in two so that the old city has the Holy Sepulchre where Christ was buried [snorts] and Bethlehem where he was born is also in Arab territory. Then the border comes on down here down cutting the Red the Dead Sea right in two. I've got rather a squeaky pencil here. I think Colonel Nasser put a curse on it down to the Red Sea and then up along the Egyptian border in the south to the Gaza Strip which is only 2 and 1/2 or 3 mi wide and that indicates the way Israel is surrounded. And of course there are raids back and forth across this jagged border. On the same night that I went down to the Dead Sea, I passed along this Egyptian border and five Egyptians were killed right about here. Shortly thereafter, I visited up in the Jordan border and six Israelis were ambushed and killed by the Arabs. A few nights later, I was visiting a farm down here in the Negev and 20 Jordanians were killed about here. It wasn't because I'd been visiting that area. Those border raids take place back and forth much of the time. So, the big question is, can this little country surrounded by Arabs survive? If so, what is the future? Will it be just another little Levantine state of which there are already too many? Or will it be an influence for peace and stability in the Near East? I'll be back in a minute to try to give you the answer. Frankly, I went to Israel a bit skeptical. Most newspaper men, of course, are skeptical. But, here's what I found. Despite the border raids, a modern, thriving Israel went about its own business as if nothing was happening. The airport at Tel Aviv is only 2 and 1/2 miles from the Jordan border. But, here in beautiful, bustling Tel Aviv, people were not worried. They took it in their stride. There had been too many border raids in the past and, more important, they had much more vital things to do. They were building Israel. Here in Tel Aviv and in other cities, the theaters are more modern than ours, the hotels on the whole more beautiful than ours, the traffic not quite so crowded and more orderly, the apartment houses very attractive and moderate in rental, and the children in the parks and playgrounds just as happy and thriving and unconcerned and healthy as any in the United States. Arab and Muslim children inside Israel have their own schools if desired, and Christian children can attend their own schools. There's freedom of religious worship for the minorities inside Israel. And relations between Arabs and Jews inside Israel are good, though not good outside. Well, I talked to all sorts of people as a skeptical newspaper man. And among others, I talked to Prime Minister Ben Gurion, whom I found down on a little farm cooperative in the Negev desert, where he lives whenever he can get away from Jerusalem. I talked to him about Israelis' money problems, and I also asked him why he chose this bleak, barren desert cooperative as his home. He replied that the greatest achievement of Israel had been to get the Jewish people back on the land, and to reclaim these barren hills and deserts. He reminded me that in the Middle Ages, Jews had been forbidden by law to own land, and that was why they'd been forced to congregate in the cities, and had taken up the only professions open to them, trade and banking. So, when he and other young students came to Palestine 50 years ago, they decided to get away from the city and work on the land. That, they believed, was the only way to rebuild the Jewish homeland. At first, Jewish farmers used old-fashioned signs. Ben Gurion told me that some of the wealthier Jews at first had merely purchased land and hired others to cultivate it, but this was a failure. The individual had to own his land and work it with his own hands. At one time, the Prime Minister said, "Baron Hirsch had purchased a large tract of land in Argentina, very fertile land, and turned it over to Jews to cultivate, but they drifted back to the cities. It was not their homeland. But, here in ancient Israel, the Jew has been proud and happy and determined," said Ben Gurion, "to reclaim the land because it's the land of his ancestors. It's rocky soil in large part, Rocks eroded since the days of Abraham. But here the present-day descendants of Abraham have planted trees, millions of trees. And here also in the more fertile portions, they have introduced modern farm machinery, just as modern as any in the United States. I saw this farm machinery at work in the fields near Gath, where David slew Goliath. Today, it's the center of a series of thriving farm cooperatives. Gath was a crossroads of traffic in the days of David and Goliath, and so modern-day Jews picked the same area for redevelopment today. And I saw this modern machinery at work in the fields near Ashkelon, where Samson slew the Philistines with the jawbone of an ass, and where he tied firebrands to the tails of 300 foxes, and set fire to the cornfields of the Philistines. Today, not corn, but sorghum, which requires less water, and wheat grow in these same fields, harvested by the most modern machinery the West can supply. But to reclaim this land, it's been necessary to develop irrigation and to drain swamps, some of the worst malaria-breeding areas in the Near East, were pumped dry until the land looked like this. Then it was converted to agriculture. And about 90 mi of pipeline are being laid to bring water from the Yarkon River, which is wholly inside Israel, and from the River Jordan, which starts in Syria and forms part of the boundary between Jordan and Israel. The Jordan is a beautiful stream, not very wide, but clean and fast-flowing, the kind that President Eisenhower would love to fish in for trout. I went up to its headwaters, but the Secret Service, I'm sure, would never let Eisenhower fish there. For when I was there, two Syrian border guards peered down from the hilltop across the river, and there'd been bitter bickering and firing back and forth over this area and the control of the Jordan water. If it can be used under a cooperative TVA plan proposed by Eric Johnston, it would make both Israel and the Arab nations bloom like a rose. But that still has to be ironed out by diplomatic negotiations. Thus, the future of irrigation, the future of Israel's back-to-the-farm movement in part, and the whole future of Israel depend on peace with the Arabs. I'll be back in a minute to report on that vital problem. Peace in Israel at the moment depends partly on the United Nations truce commission, but also on the power of the Israeli army. Israel has a small, determined army today, but not very well equipped. It's a citizen's army, not a professional army. Everyone knows everyone else, and when one man is killed, his buddies vow at his funeral to get revenge. That's what fans the flames in these border raids. When one Israeli soldier is killed, his comrades revert to the Old Testament, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. What makes the situation doubly dangerous is that while Israel has a few tanks and a few modern jets, these are nothing compared with the army of tanks and jet fighters Russia has poured into Egypt. Even the United States and England sold tanks and destroyers to Egypt at the same time that Secretary Dulles denied them to Israel. And the US Air Force sent 36 tanks to Saudi Arabia while also denying them to Israel. Meanwhile, Israeli tanks are outnumbered and out of date. However, the morale of Israeli troops is not out of date. If anything, it's too high, too headstrong. Part of Israel's trouble is the headstrong, I can lick my weight in wildcats spirit of the Israeli army. But that was also the spirit of the pioneers who settled America, they too took on tremendous odds against the British and won, all because of do-or-die determination. And as a skeptical newspaper man, I must confess that I was impressed with the spirit of Israel. It's a country which has made great changes in the land. But more important, great changes in the people. It's a land built by the friends and relatives of the 6 million Jews murdered in the gas chambers of Hitler. Built as a living memorial to that terrible tragedy. And when some of the relatives of that 6 million arrived in Israel to be housed in modern apartments, >> [snorts] >> they refused to go into the shower baths fearing they were gas chambers. That's how indelibly the suffering of Hitler has been stamped on the minds of his victims. However, reversing the gruesome tyranny of Hitler, Israel today has great human dignity, great equality, democracy. Your chauffeur sits down to lunch with you. He speaks seven languages. He's a graduate of Hebrew University. You'll find the garage mechanic at the noon hour reading philosophy. And the sons and daughters of the wealthiest families dedicate themselves to work in the farm co-ops or kibbutzims near the dangerous Arab border. So, this little beleaguered country faces great obstacles. And the big question is, will it be swallowed by the Arabs? My prediction is, however, that it will survive. Moses was never permitted to get beyond the hills of Moab as he led the children of Israel back to the promised land. But today the modern Israeli can look out over those same hills and tell his son that his people are on the verge of fulfilling a great dream to live in peace on their own land. >> [music] [music]