Yehuda Blum, Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, declared last night that the war between Iraq and Iran has provided the world with many lessons, including that the Arab-Israeli conflict is not the cause of unrest in the Middle East but the product of Arab unrest and frustration.
Speaking at the opening session of the 13th national board conference of Women’s American ORT Blum said another lesson is that Mideast treaties are easily broken, noting that Iran and Iraq are fighting over border areas agreed upon in a 1975 treaty.
He said the war shows that the Arab-Israeli conflict is not the most explosive trouble spot in the Mideast since the war is “totally unrelated to Israel.” He said the war also demonstrates that the flow of Arab oil to the U.S. does not depend on the status of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The Israeli envoy also charged that the United Nations has created the psychological climate for the growth of anti-Semitism in the world by such actions as the “Zionism equals racism” resolution adopted by the General Assembly in 1975. He said that resolution struck at one of the “noblest national liberation movements anywhere, anytime.”
Blum said the UN has become on “unholy alliance of totalitarian regimes.” He said Israel has be- come the “whipping boy” for countries which cannot condemn “directly” the United States and West Europe. But Blum stressed that Israel will remain in the UN. “It took us 1900 years to gain equality in the family of nations,” he noted.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
