Informed sources reported today that none of the Ambassadors of the Big Four — the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union — would attend the Israel Independence Day parade here next Monday.
The United States and France reportedly have followed the lead of Britain and the Soviet Union in instructing their envoys to boycott the parade. They reportedly feel that the parade threatened the “international status of Jerusalem as provided by the United Nations partition recommendations of 1947.” It appeared that West Germany would be the only major Western power planning to be represented at the parade. Other countries planning to be represented are those with Embassies in Jerusalem, mainly from Latin America and Africa. The major powers have their Embassies in Tel Aviv.
The decision of the major powers to abstain from participation in the Jerusalem parade because it will include military units marching in a city close to the Jordanian border apparently ignored the fact that the Israeli Government limited the armed units in the parade to those authorized in Jerusalem by the Israel-Jordan Mixed Armistice agreement. There will be no tanks or other armor in the procession which will consist only of 1.600 men and a number of jeeps, trucks and command cars. Artillery display will be confined to 30-mm and 40-mm cannon and 81-mm mortars.
Former Premier David Ben-Gurion, who announced yesterday that he will not attend the Jerusalem parade because he is opposed to the curtailment of the display of Israeli armament at the parade, said today that Israel has no obligation to observe the armistice limitations on heavy equipment in Jerusalem. He told a student audience at Tel Aviv University that Jordan was not observing clauses of the armistice agreement providing for free access to Jewish holy places in Jordan-held old Jerusalem, and to the Israeli enclave on Mount Scopus. “It is irrelevant whether this or that envoy is attending,” he said. “What is important is that the army be present and that the people see it.”
Mr. Ben Gurion also rejected today the idea of any foreign controls over Israel’s research in the use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes. In an interview with the “New Outlook,” the publication of the dissident Israel Workers Party (Rafi) he founded, the former Premier said that Israel should not sign any convention aimed at supervising Israel’s peaceful atomic research, “No one should decide for us what we should do.” he stated.
He expressed no opposition, however, to international controls over-atomic research for military purposes, provided that similar supervision was enforced on all countries, including the Soviet Union and the United States. Israeli officials have consistently denied rumors that Israel either was engaged in atomic weapons research or producing atomic military devices.
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