The plenum of the Interparliamentary Union Conference will vote at its final session tomorrow on an extreme anti-Israel resolution adopted by the Soviet-Arab-Third World majority in the Conference’s political committee today. Tomorrow’s vote is expected to be a mere formality and passage seems virtually assured.
The anti-Israel resolution was adopted by a vote of 27-9 with three abstentions. It was taken after many delegates had left the political committee meeting to attend cocktail parties and banquets. The Soviet bloc defected from the Arabs only when it came to voting on a Belgian amendment welcoming the new Israeli-Egyptian interim agreement in Sinai. Egypt and Tunis joined the Western bloc and Israel in voting for the amendment. But a Dutch attempt to speak of each Middle Eastern state’s right to secure and recognized borders was stifled by the Soviet-Arab steamroller.
The political committee ignored the warning of former Foreign Minister Abba Eban, head of the Israeli delegation, that “by adopting the most extreme line in the Arab world you turn the IPU into a rubber stamp for the Arabs.” Eban observed that “soon there will be no need for international conferences; all they will need is to ask the Arabs for their views.” Halid el Hassan, spokesman for the Palestine Liberation Organization, said a vote for the Arab motion “will help us to become moderates. If you don’t vote you will make us extremists.”
Lord Janner, a leader of the Anglo-Jewish community, and of the British IPU delegation, commenting on the vote, stated: “This is the end of the IPU as a true representative of parliamentary democracy.”
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.
