Arabs Mount Drive to Persuade U.S. to Reverse Arafat Decision

The Arab bloc has mounted a full-scale attack on the U.S. government to force a reversal of its decision to prevent Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasir Arafat from addressing the United Nations.

The General Assembly was to meet in special session, either Tuesday night or Wednesday, to consider an Arab draft resolution condemning the American position and urging the U.S. State Department to reconsider.

At the same time, the General Assembly deferred its annual Palestine debate, which was to have opened here Thursday with an address by Arafat.

A U.N. source said the General Assembly deferred its annual Palestine debate, would probably take place December 13 to 15 and would be shifted to the U.N. European headquarters in Geneva.

The PLO, meanwhile, is mounting a legal challenge to the State Department’s decision Saturday to deny Arafat a visa to enter the United States. The PLO plans to file suit Wednesday, in federal district court in New York.

PLO sources said the well-known American attorney, William Kunstler, has been engaged to conduct the legal contest.

The PLO won a legal battle with the State Department last summer, when a federal court overturned its order to close the PLO’s mission to the United Nations.

The issue then and now is American compliance with the 1947 Headquarters Agreement, which placed the United Nations in New York and designated the United States as the host country.

EFFORT TO SWITCH DEBATE TO GENEVA

The draft resolution on which the General Assembly has been asked to act urges “the host country to abide scrupulously by the provisions of the Headquarters Agreement and to reconsider and reverse its decision.”

The text of the proposed resolution was circulated here Tuesday and its adoption by the General Assembly was considered virtually certain.

According to diplomatic sources, if the United States still refuses to abide by it, the General Assembly will be asked to adopt a resolution to switch the debate on Palestine to Geneva, where Arafat would be assured of a platform.

Further pressure was applied on Washington Monday night by the U.N. Committee on Relations With the Host Country. The committee asked the U.S. government to “review and reverse” its decision to deny a visa to Arafat.

The flurry of activity on behalf of the PLO chief underlined the fact that Tuesday was the 4ist anniversary of the General Assembly’s resolution to partition Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states.

In past years, the anniversary, known as “Palestine Day,” was observed as a date of calamity by the Palestinians and their friends. But since the Palestine National Council endorsed the partition resolution at its meeting in Algiers earlier this month, the anniversary has become part of the PLO’s peace offensive.

U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar issued a statement on the occasion from his sickbed. It referred to “the landmark session” of the PNC and to the intifada, the Palestinian uprising in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which will mark its first anniversary on Dec. 9.

OTHER ANTI-ISRAEL RESOLUTIONS

Perez de Cuellar, who is ill with the flu, said the intifada is a direct result of the stalemate in the search for a peaceful settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the frustration and despair of the Arab population that has lived under Israeli administration for more than 20 years.

Meanwhile, the Special Political Committee of the General Assembly sharply condemned Israel’s policies and practices in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

A resolution to that effect was adopted by a vote of 89-2 with 32 abstentions. Only Israel and the United States voted against it.

The committee adopted other resolutions accusing Israel of mistreating the Palestinians, illegally establishing settlements in the territories and trying to change their demographic composition. It called those attempts a serious obstacle to peace in the region.