The ambassadors of six Arab nations today demanded at the State Department that the United States take the lead in preventing Israel from establishing its capital at Jerusalem. The Arab diplomats asked Acting Secretary of State Walter Bedell Smith to take quick action to prevent the transfer of the Israel Foreign Ministry from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Israel’s intention to consider Jerusalem as its capital, said the Arabs, violates the Tripartite Declaration of May 5, 1950, in which the U. S., Great Britain and France guaranteed against violations of stability in the Near East. The Arabs said to Gen. Smith that if the United States does nothing to “control” Israel it would be “precisely, in effect, to do everything.”
The United States is partly responsible for the Israel move, the Arabs told the State Department, because “everybody knows that Israel is completely and absolutely dependent for its survival upon the United States.” The Arab diplomats sought to stress that Jerusalem was sacred to three major faiths and, therefore, was unique among the cities of the world. They contended that the United Nations had decided on internationalization and that Israel was acting with disregard to the will of the United Nations.
“Israel’s act of transferring its capital to Jerusalem,” the Arabs said in a statement, “is in defiance of the whole character of the city.” The Arab diplomats represented Egypt, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
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