Blum: Israel Will Continue in Its Peace Effort Regardless of What Measures Emerge from UN Session

Yehuda Blum, Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, declared today that regardless of what resolutions are adopted at the present special emergency session of the General Assembly, “Israel will continue undeterred in the current peace process and in its determined effort to bring about a comprehensive peace to our region.”

Blum addressed the General Assembly on the second day of its special emergency session convened to consider the Palestinian question. As the Israeli envoy began his address, many of the Arab delegations rose and walked out of the Assembly hall. The Egyptian delegation remained.

Blum asserted that the peace option “is the only constructive option open” to Israel’s neighbors. “We will not be in any way deterred by the cacophonous chorus of our detractors or by the force of arms raised in support of immoral, unfair resolutions flying the face of truth and justice,” he said. “It would be absurd to think that a people with the past and depth of experience of my people can be browbeaten by the howls of cynics, rigors, hypocrites and opportunists.”

He stressed that “Israel will not be deflected, Israel will not give up its resolve. Israel will continue undeterred in the current peace process and in its determined effort to bring about a comprehensive peace to our region.” The Israeli Ambassador charged that “the holding of this so-called emergency special session is both illegal and preposterous. It makes a complete mockery of the rules of procedure of the General Assembly.”

He also charged that the aim of the Arabs and the Palestine liberation Organization in initiating this debate is to torpedo the peace process in the Middle East. He said that this meeting of the General Assembly and the UN Decade for Women conference currently being held in Copenhagen “are only the latest manifestations of the ceaseless Arab warfare against Israel.”

ATTACKS ‘THE LAWLESS MAJORITY’

Blum attacked what he called “the lawless majority in this Assembly” which, he charged, “shamelessly turned its back on the real problems facing mankind by indulging so much of its time in barren anti-Israel exercises.”

He said “the reason for this hypocrisy, cynicism and bias is not hard to explain. In everything to do with the Arab-Israeli conflict, a majority of this Assembly lets itself be led — in some cases willingly, in others under duress — by a coalition of extreme Arab states in conjunction with the Soviet Union, its satellites and the radicals in the non-aligned group of countries.”

Blum observed that the Arabs and their supporters may be able “to push through whatever resolutions they like.” But, he warmed, “this can only be Pyrrhic victories. Those who seem to think that an excess of repetitive Assembly resolutions adopted by large, automatic majorities, create ‘right’ or make ‘binding obligations’ or even international law, are deluding themselves.”

“In the final analysis,” he said, “they will not change anything on the ground. They will not bring the course of peace any closer” The special emergency session, which opened yesterday, is expected to continue for four more working days, well into next week.

(Meanwhile, it was reported from Amsterdam today that Dutch Foreign Minister Christoph van der Kloauw, attending the conference of European Foreign Ministers in Brussels yesterday, was instrumental indenting a proposal by the West German Foreign Minister, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, for a European draft resolution on the Palestinian problem. Genscher had proposed that such a draft be presented at the General Assembly’s special emergency session in New York. Van der Klaouw pointed out that it would be unwise to submit a European resolution at this time since it would certainly be opposed by an Arab resolution. Genscher apparently believed that a European resolution would have a moderating influence on the General Assembly debate.)