Declaring that he could not remember a time when “the hostility and lawlessness of the Arab governments was at so high a pitch over so wide a front,” Israel Ambassador Abba S. Eban charged this week-end that a whole series of lawless acts by Arab states were concerted by the Arab League governments, all of which were responsible for each violation.
Mr. Eban charged an Arab conspiracy when he addressed a press conference here in connection with the submission of Israel’s complaint to the Security Council against Egypt’s blockade of Israel-bound shipping. He mentioned the Egyptian blockade, the Jordan refusal to honor its signature on the armistice agreements, the Syrian refusal to accept the verdict of the majority of the Security Council, the Iraqi arrests of innocent air passengers forced down on Iraqi territory and the threats of the king of Saudi Arabia.
A situation exists, he said, of “total hostility” in which “there is a flight from agreements and obligations along the entire front. All this takes place,” he added, “with a remarkable lack of alert international counteraction.”
Mr. Eban declared it “inconceivable” that at the climax of Arab hostility and lawlessness, military aid should be given to any member of the Arab League whose governments threaten the peace. He singled out Iraq which, with Saudi Arabia, has been mentioned as possible recipient of American military aid, as “the most extremist member” as leader in the original aggression against Israel and as the source of numerous irridentist moves in the Middle East.
MEMORANDUM EXPLAINS ISRAEL’S COMPLAINTS
In a memorandum submitted earlier to the Security Council explaining Israeli complaint against Egypt’s extension of the anti-Israel blockade at the Sues Canal and at the mouth of the Gulf of Aqaba, Mr. Eban pointed out that the Anti-Israel Boycott Committee cited la the Egyptian legislation extending the blockade to food shipments as requesting tightening of the blockade included representatives of all member-states of the Arab League.
The memorandum, requesting discussion of the complaint at an early meeting of the Council, listed the Egyptian blockade of the Canal and the interference with shipping bound for the Israeli port of Elath as violations of the Security Council resolution of September 1, 1951, and the Israel-Egypt armistice agreement. It charged that both actions were “equally piratical and illicit.”
Avowing the Israel Government’s refusal to “acquiesce in this arbitrary violation of its international rights,” the memorandum insisted that “the continued practice of these acts of war is bound to weaken the integrity of the Armistice Agreement, to deprive the decisions of the Security Council of their due authority, and to aggravate the threat to peace and security in the Middle East.”
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