Premier Menachem Begin has written to U.S. Secretary of State Edmund Muskie to protest the U.S. abstention in the United Nations security Council last week on the resolution censuring ‘Israel for the Jerusalem law and calling on countries with embassies in Jerusalem to move them Government sources would not divulge the contents of the letter but said it was a strongly-worded rejection of the U.S. claim that the Jerusalem law was a unilateral move which formed the Middle East peace process.
Israel last week denounced the Security Council resolution and said it was “categorically rejecting it.” At the Cabinet meeting last Sunday, Begin said the resolution was passed because the U.S. had abstained. He described the resolution and the abstention as “surrender to blackmail by the oil all monsters.”
Meanwhile, the Foreign Ministry took issue with the U.S. State Department for denying the validity of a sentence in a statement by the Cabinet last Sunday that said “there are clear pledges in the U.S. to transfer the American embassy from” the plain (Tel Aviv) to Jerusalem.” The Foreign Ministry statement, which was apparently inspired by Begin personally, said “the official denial is mistaken.”
It pointed out that the Cabinet had not claimed such a pledge was made by the U.S. but deliberately used the phrase “in the U.S.” The reference was to the Democratic Party platforms of both 1976 and 1980, which the Ministry quoted. The Ministry’s statement concluded: Have there not been ‘clear pledges’ in the U.S. to transfer the American embassy from the plain to Jerusalem? The answer lies in the question.” See related story, P.3.)
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