Memorandum of Conversation with Secretary of State Dean Acheson, Foreign Minister of Israel Moshe Sharett, and Ambassador of Israel Abba Eban

2765 361 s/s DEPARTMENT OF STATE M. A 287 Memorandum of Conversation conf DATE: October 20, 1950. SUBJECT: DECLASSIVIED Situation of Israel. E: O. 11652, Sec. 3(B) and an a pao Teer wor 72.72 Depr. of State lexper, 1-26-19 PARTICIPANTS: HC , 2-15-79 S - The Secretary Mr. Moshe Sharett, Foreign Minister of Israel Mr. Abba Eban, Israeli Ambassador to the US. COPIES TO: NE - Mr. Rockwell NEA (2) s/s (2) NE USUN DRN CIA UNP E AmEmbassy, Moscow AmEmbassy, Tel Aviv the AmEmbassy, London AmLegation, Amman AmEmbassy, Baghdad AmLegation, Beirut AmEmbassy, Cairo AmLegation, Damascus AmEmbassy, Jidda AmConGen, Jerusalem 1-1493 I received Messrs. Sharett and Eban at their request. Mr. Sharett began the conversation by expressing Israel's pleasure at having been elected to the Peace Observation Commission. He said that Israel was grateful for US support of its candidacy. Mr. Sharett then began a lengthy discussion of the Israeli im- migration situation. He described the numbers of Jewish immigrants arriving daily in this country, and said that Israel considered it to be its destiny to accept all Jews who wished to come. For the next few years it was hoped to receive 200,000 Jews annually, but thereafter the flow would most certainly begin to diminish. Although the Government did not publicly say so, Mr. Sharett continued, it was making efforts to restrict the immigration accord- ing to the absorptive possibilities of the moment. Thus, a system of priorities had been set up. At present the highest priorities were accorded to Iraq and Rumania, while countries where the Jewish communit were not suffering undue hardships, such as Turkey, were accorded low priority. Mr. Sharett said that the all-out immigration policy of the Israeli Government should be of interest to the US Government because through it manpower was siphoned from the Soviet reservoir into the Bestern reservoir. There was another advantage in that the Isreel immigration policy was eliminating potential trouble spots. The Jewish community in Yemen, for example, had been transported to Israel practically in its entirety.