Arabs “Badly” Treated

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31908, 8 February 1969, Page 3

Arabs “Badly” Treated

The Arabs were getting a “terrible deal” in Israel when she was there for six months in 1967, about the time Israel took Jerusalem, said a Christchurch girl, Miss Noel Galvin, in an interview.

During three months working on an Israeli kibbutz, Miss Galvin did not find the people very friendly. “The young Israelites, the ones bom there, were more open and friendly but the older ones were very bitter. Many had come from Germany, Poland and other countries in the 1930 s and 19405. They had had hard times and seemed anxious to hang on to all they had got,” she said, In Jerusalem, she was frequently warned by police not to have anything to do with het boy-friend, an Arab. “One Israeli do-gooder came up to me once at a cinema, while he was away getting the tickets, and told me he had followed me for three miles to warn me my boyfriend was an Arab. In the end, I took to wearing a large cross to indicate that I was a tourist and could do what I liked.”