Lebanese President Suleiman Franjieh’s disavowal of responsibility for the Tel Aviv massacre was described yesterday by Israeli Ambassador Yosef Tekoah as “an unabashed attempt to misconstrue facts and evade the obligation incumbent on the Lebanese government to put an end to terror operations from Lebanon.” In a letter to Yugoslav Ambassador Lazar Mojsov, Security Council president for June, Tekoah charged that Lebanon’s disavowal was an attempt to “conceal the facts, confuse public opinion and disclaim…responsibility” through “cynical callousness and…contempt for Lebanon’s international obligations.”
Pointing out that the Lydda Airport massacre “was conceived, planned and organized in Lebanon by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine based in Beirut,” Tekoah asserted that it was “an established and well-known fact” that Lebanon has been “allowing its territory to become a center of Arab terror organizations and a base for international terrorist operations.” In Fatah-land in southeastern Lebanon, the Israeli envoy noted, there exists a 5000-member “base of terror operations against Israel,” and “Lebanon’s capital, Beirut, has become the seat of the terror organizations’ headquarters.”
LEBANON ‘WILFULLY DISTORTING FACTS’
Denying this, Tekoah said, “is wilfully distorting facts and ignoring the criminal activities in and out of Lebanon that have already resulted in the loss of numerous human lives.” In addition to the Lydda action, he noted, the hijacking of a Sabena jet last month and of a Lufthansa jet in Feb. were carried out by terrorists trained in Lebanon.
Lebanese responsibility is “especially grave,” Tekoah continued, because “it has not only failed to act against the criminal activities of the terror organizations but has entered into a pact of cooperation with them,” signed in Cairo on Nov. 3, 1969, and “observed in…letter and spirit by the government of Lebanon.”
Tekoah declared: “If it (Lebanon) does not take effective measures to eliminate terror activities on and from its soil it must be considered as consciously violating the obligations incumbent on it….When the government of Lebanon resolves to terminate these activities and takes measures to bring this about, the crimes against humanity perpetrated by the terror groups from its territory will stop.” It was understood that Israel is not asking for United Nations sanctions against Lebanon because it holds out no hope for their being voted. Israel’s approach, it was understood, will be to put pressure on Lebanon, through third-party nations, to eradicate terrorism.
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.
