The Israeli delegation to the United Nations today branded as “a false alarm based on false premises” he complaint against Israel submitted by Syria yesterday to the UN Security Council. The Syrian complaint charged Israel with planning to pump Jordan River water from Lake Tiberias in the North to the Negev in the South.
The complaint, which charged Israel with violating the Syrian-Israeli Armistice Agreement, asserted that “as soon as the project is completed, several million people will be placed on land in the Negev, constituting a new threat to the Arab world. ” The Syrian letter did not request a meeting of the Security Council but asked the UN only that the contents of the statement be circulated to all delegations.
Commenting on the complaint, a spokesman for the Israel delegation stated: “It is a matter of common knowledge that Israel has been working for many years on planned development of its own water sources. This project will include the utilization of the water within Israeli territory from the Jordan-Yarmuk -Lake Tiberias system. That stage will only be reached a long way ahead.
“There is nothing in the Israeli project which infringes on the armistice agreement or on the rights of any neighboring state. The Syrian note is a false alarm, based on false premises. It is simply a propaganda exercise in the context of inter-Arab politics, ” the spokesman emphasized.
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