To the Editor:
Mr. Benno Weiser’s “Ben Gurion’s Dispute with American Zionists” (August) is to be commended as the most illuminating and brilliant analysis published in America or Israel.
It is, however, regrettable that the conclusions of the article do not equal the brilliance of the analytical parts. To say that in order to pull Western immigrants, the (economic) conditions in Israel have to be greatly improved—while it is just in order to improve the economic conditions that the Israeli leaders yearn for Western immigrants—is not to propose a constructive solution, but only to create one more dialectical circulus vitiosus.
Furthermore, to say that Zionism means ali-yah to some people while for others it means help to Israel, and for a third group, finally, only a way of Jewishness, is merely to engage in semantics. Ben Gurion believes that only the first group deserves the name (and by implication the rights) of Zionists. The American Zionist leaders, who—almost all of them—belong to the second or third group, claim the name (and by implication the rights). It does not clarify things when Mr. Weiser generously bestows the name of Zionist on all of them.
Samuel Gringauz
New York City
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