Israel rejected a protest by Libya today on Israel’s credentials before the General Assembly. Taking the floor after the Assembly approved without a vote the credentials of all the countries participating in the 30th annual session including Israel, Chaim Herzog, Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, said, “I reject with all the emphasis at my command this unwarranted statement which contributes nothing to the dignity of the world body and strikes against the roots of its very existence.”
Libya challenged Israel’s credentials on the grounds Israel violates UN resolutions. Herzog said that “I note with satisfaction that world opinion as expressed at the various international meetings in Stockholm, in Western Europe, in Kampala and in Lima, has rejected this move conscious of the danger to the future existence of the United Nations arising therefrom.”
Calling for an end to the acrimonious debate and to “tiresome stream of invective” against Israel, Herzog stated “when I contemplate the behavior of some of my Arab colleagues, their mode of expression when addressing us, their paranoid fear of speaking to or meeting with myself or any of my colleagues, their unrealistic. attitude in debate, I wonder if the time has not been reached for them to graduate from the kindergarten-type of policy in which they indulge.”
The representatives of Saudi Arabia and Syria used the right of reply to condemn Israel’s “policy of aggression against the Arabs.” The Syrian representative also called for the oustar of Israel from the UN, Earlier in the week the Assembly’s credentials committee formally approved Israel’s credentials where Libya voiced the only protest.
OUSTER MOVE EFFORT FIZZLES
Meanwhile, an expected move by Islamic nations to press for Israel’s ouster from the General Assembly failed to materialize at a closed door meeting of the foreign ministers of 40 Moslem Arab and non-Arab states here last night.
The participants instead adopted the position taken by the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in Kampala, Uganda last July and that of the conference of non-aligned states in Lima, Peru in August which called for increased pressure to compel Israel to abide by UN resolutions but fell short of demanding that country’s suspension from the world organization.
A participant in the Islamic foreign ministers’ meeting reported that the more moderate position was adopted because the Kampala and Lima formulas were found to represent the broadest consensus among the non-aligned and Third World nations whose support would be essential to any Arab move to expel Israel. The Islamic foreign ministers therefore, in effect, rescinded the decision on action against Israel which they had taken at a four-day meeting in Jidda, Saudi Arabia last July.
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