RELIEVING TENSIONS

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30215, 21 August 1963, Page 10

RELIEVING TENSIONS

Influence Of C.0.R.5.0. Freedom from Hunger Campaign scherqes for the Near and Middle East, which New Zealanders were financing through C.0.R.5.0., would help not only to remove hunger but reduce psychological and political tensions dangerous to world peace, said C.O.R.S O.’s national secretary (the Rev. H. C. Dixon). These tensions, Mr Dixon said, were particularly acute in the refugee camps he visited recently in the Gaza Strip, where there were 250,000 Arab refugees, most of them seething with resentment. Many were Bedouins whose former homes and pastures lay now on the Israel side of the frontier, only a few hundred yards away. “With contributions from the people of New Zealand we have financed worth-while undertakings in Jordan and the Gaza Strip that have helped, and are helping, many refugees to a better way of life and a better frame of mind. “The Kalandia vocational training centre near Jerusalem is turning out, with money donated by C.0.R.5.0., a fine stamp of young refugee who can get a job anywhere in the Middle East, where qualified people in every walk of life are im demand,” he said. “In the Gaza Strip, New Zealanders are helping also to finance through C.0.R.5.0. the Beit Hanoun agricultural centre and, in Jordan, the Abdelliyeh Village project—two Freedom from Hunger Campaign schemes that will help greatly many refugees. We are contributing a total of £lB,OOO to these schemes and a further £lB,OOO for a farm broadcasting scheme for the Middle East which will benefit millions of farmers and help to relieve psychological and political tensions even further.”