Ambassador Abba Eban, addressing the United Nations Security Council today, said that the Israel Government “is prepared to give an assurance that if no hostile act is carried out by Egypt against Israel, then no hostile act of any kind will be carried out by Israel against Egypt.” He spoke at the session called to resume discussion of the Gaza incident and the tension prevailing on the Egyptian-Israel frontier.
“Will the Government of Egypt join us in a declaration of fidelity to the provisions of the United Nations Charter calling upon us to settle all disputes by peaceful means and to refrain from threat or use of force against the territorial integrity and political independence of any state#” Mr. Eban challenged.
“The acceptance of such a code of Egyptian-Israel relationships would not take us beyond our existing commitments under the armistice agreement and the Charter of the United Nations,” he said. “These are all things that we have agreed to do already. But under the burden of belligerent doctrines the pacific obligations which we have undertaken have become lost to sight; and the insidious fallacy of a state of war has spread its contagion both in the theory and the practice of our relationships. If the Government of Egypt, through its delegation, is able at any stage to give affirmative answer to these questions, my government would make wholehearted response.”
EGYPTIAN VIOLATIONS OF ARMISTICE CITED BY EBAN AT SECURITY COUNCIL
Pointing out that “at no time since the signature of the armistice agreement has the pressure of Egyptian hostility been exerted upon Israel with such provocative intensity as during the past six months, “Ambassador Eban drew the attention of the Security Council to the fact that the tensions of the Egyptian-Israel frontier “are revealed with deep gravity” in the reports presented to the Council by Maj. Gen. E. L. M. Burns, United Nations truce chief.
Mr. Eban cited a number of Egyptian violations of the armistice agreement in recent months. “If we were to follow up all such cases,” he said, “the preponderance of Egyptian violations would be greater than the 3 to 1 ratio appearing in Egypt’s disfavor in the Mixed Armistice Commission records over recent months. The Mixed Armistice Commission in the period between August 1, 1954 and March 7, 1955 has found Egypt guilty of violating the armistice on no less than forty occasions.”
Ambassador Eban pointed out that according to the official transcript of the meeting of the Special Committee of the Egyptian-Israel Mixed Armistice Commission on the Gaza incident, held on March 11, 1955, the chairman addressed the parties as follows: “I think all of us realize that this did not arise out of a blue sky, and certainly no report or evidence before the Security Council by any responsible party would give that impression.
The head of the Israel delegation emphasized that “the report to the Security Council by General Burns conveys the astonishing assertion by Egyptian authorities that ‘persons committing murders and sabotage (in Israel) were being inspired, paid and equipped by political elements in Egypt inimical to the government and desirous of aggravating the border situation.’ Whatever the truth of the explanation, the murders and sabotage thus candidly avowed emanated from Gaza headquarters, for whose activities the Egyptian Government is responsible.” Mr. Eban stressed.
CALLS EGYPT’S REQUEST FOR NEGEV AN “INSOLENT TERRITORIAL CLAIM”
Ambassador Eban revealed that the Governments of the United States and of the United Kingdom have also “considered the problem serious enough to warrant the use of their good offices within recent months.” He said that the Government of Israel received information from each of those two governments, as well as from the Government of Turkey, during the period between October 1954 and February 1955, concerning the representations which they had made in Cairo in support of the appeals of the Mixed Armistice Commission calling for the cessation of assaults and sabotage against Israel from the Gaza strip.”
Quoting a number of threats against Israel voiced by Egyptian leaders, Ambassador Eban referred to the “insolent territorial claim” to the Negev put forward this week by Major Salah Salem, Egyptian Minister for National Guidance, who thereby “revealed the underlying purpose of Egyptian harassment in the Negev. The object is to impede the development of the Negev in order to bring about its annexation to Egypt.”
“Is there a single precedent in contemporary international life for a state openly to assert a claim to half the territory of its smaller neighbor, to launch dozens of assaults upon it against severe international condemnation, and, on the first occasion when it provokes resistance, to run for protection to the very Security Council whose authority it had repudiated a few weeks before#” Mr. Eban asked.
Concluding, Ambassador Eban said: “My delegation feels justified in seeking a condemnation by the Security Council of the Egyptian incursions, murders, demolitions and sabotage activities described in Ceneral Burns’ report as ‘a main cause of present tension’ and in the Mixed Armistice Commission resolutions as ‘repeated aggressive acts by Egypt against Israel.’
“We seek confirmation of the Security Council’s view that the claim or practice of active belligerency by land and sea is inconsistent with the Armistice Agreement and the Charter of the United Nations. We urge a reassertion by the parties of their obligations to each other in terms of non-belligerency, pacific settlement and respect for political independence and territorial integrity; and we await the Egyptian reply to this proposal.
“We advocate, after six years of armistice, a serious effort to make a transition towards permanent peace. To any attempt at stabilization and pacification our government will lend its full support.”
Before the Council adjourned without setting the date of its next meeting, Egypt’s Omar Loutfi answered Ambassador Eban, but instead of referring to the Israel delegate’s peace challenge accused Israel again of “flagrant, brutal” aggression. Then Dr. Loutfi made what seemed to many observers here a tactical error by shifting his attack to Gen. Burns, alleging that Gen. Burns in his report went “far beyond the framework of urgent considerations concerning the aggression against Gaza.”
Both Dr. Loutfi and Mr. Eban addressed a number of questions to Gen. Burns in an effort to strengthen their cases. The Israel delegate elicited the information that Egypt has been gravely condemned by the Mixed Armistice Commission at least twice since the Gaza incident.
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