A softening of France’s stand toward Israel emerged here Friday during the Security Council’s continuing debate over Israel’s 32-hour incursion against terrorist bases in Lebanon earlier last week. Ambassador Jacques Kosciusko-Morizet, of France, Security Council President, declared that Israel has a right to recognition, guaranteed borders and peace with its neighbors. Although M. Kosciusko-Morizet insisted that Israel must withdraw from the occupied Arab territories and deplored its action in Lebanon, his remarks were regarded here as the most even-handed to be made by a French government representative on the Middle East since former President Charles de Gaulle condemned Israel as the aggressor in the June, 1967 Six-Day War. “Israel has the right to existence, to recognition and to security,” the French envoy said. “Its neighbors must undertake clearly and unequivocally to live in peace with Israel. But these frontiers cannot be the frontiers of occupation or annexation.”
Observers pointed out that M. Kosciusko-Morizet’s assertion of Israel’s rights went well beyond those spelled out in the Security Council’s Nov. 22, 1967 Mideast resolution which is generally regarded as the UN’s accepted guideline to Middle East peace. The resolution called for Israel’s withdrawal from the occupied Arab territories but did not ask for recognition of Israel or for an explicit undertaking by the Arabs to live in peace with the Jewish state. It was also pointed out here that France has sided with the United States and Great Britain more frequently than with Soviet Russia at recent meetings of the Four Power UN Ambassadors seeking agreement on a Mideast settlement. Friday’s Security Council debate, like the four sessions that preceded it, ended inconclusively. The Council adjourned until Monday without the introduction of an expected Arab-Soviet resolution demanding economic and military sanctions against Israel. Such a resolution was reportedly being pushed by the Arabs with Russian support.
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