Foreign Minister Abba S. Eban left Israel by air today for urgent consultations in Paris, London and Washington on the Middle East crisis. He was to see President Charles de Gaulle in Paris and Prime Minister Harold Wilson in London today and was scheduled to meet Secretary of State Dean Rusk and. possibly, President Johnson, in Washington tomorrow.
Meanwhile, it was generally believed here, Israel would take no further measures pending the outcome of Mr. Eban’s talks and receipt of information on the outcome of talks United Nations Secretary-General U Thant was having in Cairo this week. Israel received the Soviet declaration of full support for the Arab States made yesterday in Moscow calmly and without surprise. Israelis said that the Soviet Union’s attitude had been suspected from the very beginning of the crisis.
Before his departure, Foreign Minister Eban received individually the envoys of most of the Eastern European countries to each of whom he explained the Israeli position and declared that Israel, in accordance with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, reserved the right of self-defense in the event that Nasser imposed a blockade on the Straits of Tiran.
Mr. Eban was also in close touch throughout the day with the embassies of the Western countries. Instructions went out from the Foreign Ministry to all Israeli envoys abroad to explain to the governments to which they were accredited that Israel intended to adhere to its policy on international waterways as described by Golda Meir, then the Foreign Minister, addressing the United Nations General Assembly in March 1957. This policy, it was stressed, was approved by the 14 maritime nations which were represented in the Geneva Conference on the International Law of the Sea.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
