Premier Menachem Begin assailed the resolution condemning the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty that was, adopted by the conference of non-aligned nations at its concluding session in Havana yesterday and said that regardless of such statements, Israel would persist in its pursuit of peace.
Addressing the conference on psychosomatic medicine which opened here today, Begin observed that it was paradoxical that 100 nations have to convene in order to condemn peace instead of war and “all the vehement protests of the Egyptian delegation (in Havana) could not change that resolution.”
The resolution on the Middle East, adopted by the 95-member non-aligned bloc and incorporated in the Havana conference’s final declaration issued last night, denounced the Camp David agreements and the peace treaty that followed as “a flagrant violation of the rights the Arab nation and of the Palestinian people…”
The resolution set up a special committee to consider the suspension of Egypt from the nonaligned movement for concluding “a separate treaty which signifies a total abandonment of the cause of the Arab countries….” The committee will submit its recommendations to the next nonaligned conference to be held in New Delhi in 1981.
(In Cairo today, President Anwar Sadat commented that if the peace treaty had been concluded in the Soviet Union instead of in the U.S. it probably would not have been condemned by the non-aligned nations.)
CALLS FOR ELIMINATION OF ZIONISM
The final declaration called for the “elimination of colonialism, neo-colonialism and racism including Zionism.” The latter was equated in the text with apartheid and “all forms of foreign aggression, occupation, domination, interference of hegemony…”
With respect to the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty, the conference said it “energetically condemns all partial agreements and separate treaties which constitute a flagrant violation of the rights of the Amb nation and of the Palestinian people of the principles of the Charter of the Organization of African Unity and of the United Nations, and of resolutions adopted in various international forums on the Palestinian issue and which impede the realization of the aspirations of the Palestinian people to return to their homeland, to self-determination and to exercise full sovereignty over their territories and Violates the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people.”
The resolution stated that “The conference condemns the agreements of Camp David and the treaty between Egypt and Israel.” It noted that the suspension of Egypt was under consideration and that the conference decided to entrust that matter to the Coordination Bureau, acting as an ad hoc committee, to examine “the damage-caused to the Arab people, particularly to the Palestinian Arab people, by the conduct of the government of Egypt in signing the Camp David agreements and the separate Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty.”. But “the final decision of the status of Egypt within the (non-aligned) movement” was deferred to the New Delhi conference.
Egypt’s delegate, Foreign Minister Boutros Ghali, accused the conference of setting itself up as a court to judge Egypt and branded the resolution an illegal act He charged that a “brutal minority” sought to place the entire movement under its control.
ENDORSES USE OF FORCE
In addition to its assault an the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty, the conference reaffirmed that the Middle East situation continues to be a serious threat to world peace “as a result of Israel’s determination to pursue its policy of aggression, expansionism and colonial settlement in the occupied territories with the support of the United States…”
The conference demanded that “The city of El Quds (Jerusalem)… must be evacuated in its entirety and restored unconditionally to Arab sovereignty.” it endorsed the right of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Arab states to pursue” the liberation of the occupied Arab territories .. through all possible means, including force.” It called for sanctions against Israel and its diplomatic and economic isolation.
In an apparent reference to the emigration of Soviet Jews, the conference deplored “the exploitation of the right of individuals to leave their country for political purposes, such as the implementation of the Zionist program of uprooting Jewish communities from the countries of their origin in order to resettle them in Israel and in the Jewish colonies being illegally established in the occupied. Palestinian and other Arab territories”
(In Washington, State Department spokesman Hodding Carter said today that “the final declaration contained positions with which we profoundly disagree.”He said “we are something less than amused by some of the positions taken on the Middle East peace process since we clearly believe that it has advanced the cause of peace and on equitable settlement there.”)
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