nothing of a Ministry for Tourism and a Ministry for Police, we don't have a Ministry for Middle Eastern Affairs. These are relegated to the Foreign Ministry, whose primary job is to defend Israel in the international arena from the political onslaught of the Arabs and, therefore, has nothing much to do with making contact with the Arab world and creating an atmosphere of peace. Indeed, such a task requires quite different approaches and talents. All the dealings between Israel and the Arab countries, all political initiatives from Israel towTard the Arab world, are the proper province of the department for Middle Eastern affairs in the Foreign Ministry. But this department employs only thirty out of 900 officials in the Foreign Office, out of a total number of government employees well over 50,000, excluding policemen and teachers. Even this figure of thirty is misleading. If we deduct from it the personnel dealing with non-Arab Middle Eastern countries, such as Iran, and the purely clerical jobs, there are but three or four officials left to deal with what obviously is the main problem of Israel.
The 1967-68 budget of the government of Israel exceeds five billion Israeli pounds. Of this sum, less than 0.05 per cent-or less than three per cent of the expenditure of the Foreign Office-is devoted to Middle Eastern affairs. This sum again includes the Israeli activities in Iran, which are extensive, as well as clerical expenses.
Such a neglect of Israeli-Arab affairs would be impossible, after all that has happened, were it not for the Zionist image of an Israel oriented toward Western Jewry and the West in general. Of all the legacies Zionism bequeathed to the State of Israel, this is perhaps the most dangerous.
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The new Hebrew generation has necessarily a different view of its place in the world. It has grown up in Palestine. It knows that it belongs to a new nation born in Palestine. It does not look at the Middle East from the outside, but from the inside. In fact, it has abolished the term Middle