Despite some negative developments, mainly due to failure of the United Nations to tackle new approaches to the Arab refugee problem or to deal effectively with U.N. peace-keeping machinery, the 21st session of the General Assembly, which closed yesterday was “on the whole, a period of great satisfaction,” Ambassador Michael Comay, Israel’s permanent representative to the U.N. told a press conference here today.
Mr. Comay saw “special satisfaction” for Israel in the reelection of Secretary-General Thant, in the collapse of an Arab drive for appointment of a custodian over property which the Arabs claim to have abandoned in Israel, and in American and British opposition to aid channeled by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency to Arab refugees enrolled in the Palestine Liberation Organization. The latter is openly training for warfare against Israel.
In the area of general Jewish interest, including Jews all over the rest of the world as well as in Israel, Mr. Comay hailed the adoption of the two human rights covenants guaranteeing economic, social, cultural, religious and linguistic rights to all people. He noted that those rights now extend to Jews in the USSR as well as in other countries. He recalled also that, during the Assembly, Israel spoke up at least three times on Soviet bias against Russian Jewry, noting that such expressions by Israel constitute “a moral duty.”
Mr. Comay noted that Israel was far from isolated, either in the United Nations itself or in some of its major specialized agencies. He pointed to the fact that, here, Dr. Shabtai Rosenne, chief legal officer of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, was reelected to membership on the International Law Commission. At the same time, in Paris, Dr. Moshe Avidar, of Israel, was elected to the executive board of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Both were chosen by large majorities in the face of Arab Moslem-Soviet opposition.
Complicating Israel’s Assembly labors this year, Mr. Comay said, was the fact that, between the pre-Assembly preparatory period in July and the Assembly season in October and November, Israel had to fight three diplomatic battles against the Arab states in the Security Council. During these altercations, Israel was censured once, but came out best in two other disputes.
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