Golda Meir interview on Israel's position in future world politics

ITN Roving Report: Israel today: 10th Anniversary; ** TX 24/04/1958 - 'Israel today: 10th Anniversary' ** ISRAEL: EXT Golda Meir (then Israel Foreign Minster,1969-1974) interview SOT (3 / 5) Q: What will be Israel's future role in world politics? - You probably are aware of the fact, that Israel wants to and has to, to a large degree, concentrated all its energies on the development of our country, and building a modern and democratic society, in this part of the world. We would like to see ourselves in world politics in the next ten years, as a country that has succeeded in major development projects for instance, the settling of people in 'Negev' in what is called a desert, in building up industry, and even enlarging and developing our cultural institutions and in doing that un co-operation with our neighbours, so that Israel will not be the country that will be complimented as it has been in these last ten years, only democracy in the Middle East, and the only modern country in the Middle East. We would rather be one of the democracies in the Middle East, and one of the developed countries, in the Middle East, and we see for the future that is the thing we would like to be. - Naturally in addition with that, cooperation with all people in the world through the United Nations and with every other way, to contribute our share for peace in the world. - We are happy that we have been privileged, even in our short existence, to be helpful in a very modest way, to other countries that are also grappling with development problems. We like to think that we will be able to develop the relationships with countries in Asia and Africa, even to a greater extent and to the best of our ability we should like to participate in helping in the solution of their development projects'.