The Iraqi delegate to the United Nations Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee today launched a violent attack on Israel for protesting in the United Nations against the execution in Baghdad of two Iraqi Jews convicted of terrorism. All Israeli delegates absented themselves from U.N. meetings Tuesday in protest against the hangings.
The Iraqi delegate, Mrs. Badia Afnan, observing that the Israeli delegation had implied that the two Jews were executed because they were Jews and without justice, declared; “We can assure the committee that these men were tried and sentenced under the same laws, the same procedures that try and sentence any criminal, whether he be of Jewish or Moslem faith.”
She went on to say that “Zionism, by assuming a unique jurisdiction over all Jews of the world, tries to confuse the intent of its aggression. It tries to profit from the respect the world feels for the Jewish religion, and to hide behind the sympathy felt for persecuted Jewish people. We do not recognize to Zionism that particular exclusive jurisdiction. Zionism is a political aggressive creed and Judaism is a religion recognized by our own,” Mrs. Afnan said.
Emil Najar of Israel, on a point of order, said that he had no intention of drawing the committee into a discussion, but he wished to point out that his delegation had not “surreptitiously” brought up the matter. It had done so solely because the United nations was concerned with it. If the president of the Assembly had not intervened on behalf the two Jews, the Israeli delegation would not have referred to the case, he declared.
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