After 10 days of oratory, in which the Middle East crisis shared the spotlight with the Vietnam war, the General Assembly faced another week of “general debate” beginning tomorrow — with the Israeli-Arab issues in dead center.
Mahmoud Riad, Egypt’s Foreign Minister, who addressed the Assembly Friday, rejected all proposals for direct negotiations with Israel, again demanded Israel’s immediate and unconditional withdrawal of its armed forces from occupied Arab territories, once more called for condemnation of Israel as an “aggressor,” and accused the United States of aligning itself with Israel and showing hostility to the Arab states.
In reply, Arthur J. Goldberg, chief U.S. delegate, defended Washington’s position on the Middle East, and indicated that the U.S.A. felt Egypt’s actions had precipitated last June’s conflict. Several ranking delegates supported the principle of direct negotiations between Israel and the Arab states and specifically called for a resolution that would link Israel’s withdrawals of its troops from occupied-Arab areas with an end to Arab insistence on the “right” to belligerence against Israel. Among these spokesmen were Martinez Moreno, Foreign Minister of El Salvador; Leslie W. Leigh, a member of the Sierra Leone cabinet in charge of foreign affairs, and Bolivia’s Foreign Minister Walter Guevara Artez.
Lord Caradon, Britain’s delegation chairman, called on Secretary-General U Thant this weekend and requested that the Middle East crisis be debated by the Security Council. Mr. Thant, in an interview, told newsmen he felt that the Council should again take up the Middle East question. The Assembly itself is scheduled to start debate on that topic specifically about October 15.
Qualified optimism about eventual solution of the Middle East deadlock was voiced in New York this weekend by Mr. Goldberg. In informal remarks to a meeting of New York State’s Liberal Party, he said the solution would result when both sides to the dispute — the Arab states and Israel — find the existence of a “will to peace.” At the present time, however, he declared, he doubted that such signs existed in the Middle East.
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