President Chaim Herzog of Israel appealed today to the Arab nations to open a dialogue with Israel and negotiate for peace. “Let us forget the bitterness of the past and move forward together on a basis of mutual respect and tolerance to a new era, which will bring healing recovery and advance to a region which has suffered so much,” Herzog declared.
The Israeli President’s appeal was made in the course of his address to the United Nations General Assembly. Herzog, who was the former Israeli Ambassador to the UN, said, “I turn once again to our neighbors and to the representatives of the great Arab nation and the peoples of Islam, in the name of our common heritage and the golden ages of cooperation between our people in the past, and say. Let us renew our days as in the past for our mutual benefit and for the benefit of the peoples of our region.”
IRAQI TRIES TO BLOCK SPEECH
At the opening of his speech most of the Arab delegates at the General Assembly hall rose up and left the hall. The Egyptian delegation stayed. Lebanon’s representative was absent. The Iraqi delegation tried to prevent Herzog from speaking by raising a point of order. The Iraqi representative claimed that “the State of Israel” is an unclear term because Israel occupies Arab land and therefore Herzog should be prevented from speaking. The President of the Assembly, Jorge Illueca of Panama, rejected the Iraqi contention pointing out that Israel is a member state regardless of UN resolutions taken on various Middle East issues. Herzog then proceeded to speak.
Herzog devoted the opening paragraph of his 19 page speech to criticism of the United Nations and its treatment of Israel. “As I look at this Assembly, I am grieved to pain to note that politics of fear still persist. Here, the demonstrative departure from this hall of the delegates of some countries summed up for you in the most succinct manner the problems that Israel faces in the Middle East. Here you see the problem of the unwillingness of nations to listen to each other, to enter into a dialogue, to try to understand each other,” Herzog declared.
WARNING ON LEBANON
Turning to the issue of Lebanon, the Israeli President reiterated Israel’s declared intention of withdrawing all its forces from Lebanon “subject to satisfactory arrangements being made which will ensure that Lebanon will not be used again as a base for attacks on Israeli territory.” He said as the start of this process Israel withdrew partially from Lebanon, south to the Awali River.
“I wish to emphasize that the partial withdrawal we made to the Awali River is part of an overall withdrawal within the framework of the agreement reached with the government of Lebanon, which the government of Israel proposes to make in due course, subject to the necessary satisfactory arrangements being made to guarantee that Lebanon will not be used as a base for hostile action against Israel,” he said.
Herzog warned however that Syria’s massive military presence in Lebanon increases the danger that Lebanon will become once more a base for attacks against Israel. “Therefore the sooner Syria accedes to the Lebanese government’s demand to remove its occupying army from Lebanon the better will it be for Lebanon and for the prospects of bringing peace and stability to the entire region,” he said.
Herzog called on Egypt to return to the negotiations for Palestinian autonomy within the Camp David framework and urged Jordan and representatives of the Palestinians in the West Bank to join in those negotiations as the only way to peace and a solution of the Palestinian problem.
He also appealed to the Soviet Union to give equal rights to its Jewish citizens and to allow those who wished to, to emigrate to Israel. He called on all other countries, including Syria, to open their doors to Jewish citizens who wish to go to Israel.
Herzog, the first Israeli President to address the General Assembly, was greeted by a guard of honor when he arrived at the UN this morning, a protocol accorded all heads of state. Before delivering his address, he conferred with UN Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar and with General Assembly President Illueca.
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.
