General Assembly Returns Arab-israeli Dispute to Security Council

The special emergency session of the United Nations General Assembly confessed defeat this weekend and returned the Middle East question to the Security Council with the request that the Council consider “the tense situation in the Middle East” as a matter of urgency. An almost complete reversal of position by the Soviet Union which tried to get Arab agreement to a substantive resolution linking withdrawal of Israeli forces to the pre-June 5th line with Arab recognition of Israel’s existence failed completely. The Arabs complained that the resolution “temporarily” adjourning the session was a “lamentable betrayal” of the Arab cause.

The president of the General Assembly was authorized to reconvene the body “as and when necessary.” Arab spokesmen made their intention known to have the Assembly back in session soon as a forum for anti-Israel demonstrations as it was during the past five weeks. No Council meeting was scheduled for the immediate future.

The adjournment resolution had the support of the Soviet Union after it had become clear that all attempts at a substantive resolution had failed. Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko of the USSR castigated the United States after the voting for what he called Washington’s “spirit of hostility” towards the Arabs and its support of Israel. Ambassador Arthur J. Goldberg replied that the Russian knew “more than anybody else in this hall” that the United States had made every effort “to arrive at a meeting of the minds” which the Assembly could approve.

Mr. Goldberg noted that Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin had told the Assembly, on June 19. that “every people enjoys the right to establish an independent national state of its own.” In Mr. Goldberg’s view, that statement had placed the Soviet Union in a position of conceding that the Arab states should acknowledge Israel’s right to exist as an independent state.

Foreign Minister Abba S, Eban of Israel told the Assembly after the vote-on which the Israeli delegation had abstained — that Israel stood ready now to negotiate a peace settlement with the Arab states. In the course of Israeli-Arab peace negotiations, he declared, all parties would be “free to present and examine any claims or proposals in an effort to reach mutual agreement.”