The General Assembly’s Special Political Committee yesterday passed overwhelmingly three resolutions blaming Israel for the plight of the Middle, East refugees. The first resolution, passed by 88-5 votes with 27 abstentions (including the United States), “strongly deplores” Israel’s practices in the Gaza Strip and calls on Israel to “desist forthwith” and to “immediately” return the inhabitants “to the camps from which they were removed.”
The second resolution, passed by 83-6 with 26 abstentions (including the U.S.), made similar demands in regard to all the administered areas and insisted that Israel “desist forthwith from all measures affecting the physical, geographic and demographic structure of the occupied territories.”
The third resolution, which passed by 63-21 votes with 31 abstentions (with the U.S. voting against), called for “the people of Palestine” to be “permitted to enjoy their inalienable rights and to exercise their right to self-determination,” which are “indispensable for the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East.”
Israel voted against all three drafts. On the first two, it was joined only by Latin American countries: Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala and Nicaragua on the first draft and those four plus Haiti on the second. The three drafts were cosponsored by Afghanistan, Guinea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Pakistan, Somalia and Yugoslavia.
LINK IN CONTINUING POLITICAL WARFARE
The Committee also passed unanimously, 110-0 with Israel abstaining, a U.S.-sponsored resolution regretting the refugees’ situation and urging increased aid by world governments. Finally, the Committee passed unanimously two additional- resolutions on the refugee situation, both co-sponsored by 21 nations. The first, approved 112-0 with Israel in favor, voiced “grave concern” for the refugees’ plight and urged “vigorous and constant” fund-raising; the second, approved by 111-0 with Israel voting yes, “strongly” appealed for “generous” contributions to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
Israel Ambassador Jacob Doron excoriated the anti-Israel resolutions for recognizing “the often-repeated claim for certain rights for the Palestinian Arabs” while “completely ignoring the rights of the Jewish people generally and in Israel in particular.” Doron called them “another link in the continuing Arab political warfare against Israel.”
The resolutions “are contrary to realities,” Doron declared, and “deliberately misrepresent the facts and disregard the major improvements in the situation of the Arab refugees in the areas administered by Israel, especially as compared with their situation in the Arab States.” But “despite this negative and obstructive attitude of the Arab governments,” Doron concluded, “Israel will continue to do everything on its part to assist the refugees in further improving the conditions of their life and achieving complete normalization thereof.”
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.
