This noble commitment speaks loudly of their desire for peaceful advancement. This act is not one of calculated investment. but one of unusual moral sentiment. For the first time in Israels history. taxpayers will spend more for the cost of absorbing new immigrants than for defense. An estimated 20 percent of Israels budget will be spent on absorption this year alone. In September. the Shamir government is expected to formally request from the United States $2 billion a year loan guarantees over the next 5 years to offset the estimated $45-$50 billion cost of absorbing 1 million Soviet and Ethiopian immigrants. For over two decades the United States has made the freedom of Soviet Jewry a central tenet of our foreign policy toward the U.S.S.R. We now have the opportunity to assist in this historic. humanitarian effortthe successful absorption of this Jewish community into Israel.
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immigrants