A last minute effort by the Palestine Liberation Organization to change a Security Council draft version on Jerusalem from a request to the countries which have embassies in Jerusalem to an order to move them out led to a postponement of a Council vote on the issue.
The Council had been expected to vote Friday night on a resolution calling on the 12 countries to remove their embassies from Jerusalem after Arab states dropped on effort to include trade sanctions against Israel and agreed to accept a resolution calling on the nations to remove their embassies from Jerusalem.
The result of the PLO effort was to bring about a postponement on a vote until this week. Had the vote been held as scheduled Friday night, the Council had been expected to endorse it 14-0, with the United States abstaining.
The draft resolution being considered by the Council is a follow-up to one approved by the Council on June 30, by a vote of 14-0 with the United States abstaining. That resolution urged Israel not to change the status of Jerusalem. On July 23, the Knesset adopted a bill proclaiming united Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Less than a week later, on July 29, the General Assembly adopted a resolution by a vote of 112-7 with 24 abstentions demanding that Israel withdraw from all occupied territories “including Jerusalem” and that this start by Nov. 15, 1980.
DRAFT RESOLUTION CENSURES ISRAEL
The draft resolution expected to be approved this week “strongly censures” Israel for changing Jerusalem’s status and calls on the 10 nations to take their embassies out of Jerusalem. Almost all UN member nations, including the United States, criticized the new Israeli law and argued the status of Jerusalem should be negotiated.
There were reports here that earlier in the negotiations, that the PLO and other hardline Arabs pressed for a worldwide embargo on trade with Israel, a proposal virtually certain to be vetoed by the United States. Sources said the expected veto was part of a strategy to a strategy to isolate the U.S. and Israel and to get Arab oil-producing countries to cut off shipments to the United States a second time. The first oil embargo came shortly after the Yom Kippur War of 1973.
That Arab effort, it was reported, fell apart when the radical Arab states learned it would be impossible to get the nine Council votes needed to adopt a sanctions resolution. Reportedly, Britain, France, Portugal, Norway, the Philippines and Mexico Indicated they would refuse to support a sanctions resolution.
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