Israel officially protested today against the overt anti-Israel discrimination shown by the Egyptian President of the 122-nation United Nations Trade and Development Conference, currently in session here.
The protest was made in a letter to Dr. Raoul Prebisch, secretary-general of the conference. The Israeli delegation charged that President Abdel Moneim el Kassouny’s failure to invite the Israeli delegation head to a dinner, for which he tendered invitations to the heads of all other delegations in his official capacity, showed “not only disregard for the most elementary rules of courtesy but also a lack of impartiality.”
“The office of president of such an important international gathering calls for the highest standards of integrity and objectivity, ” the Israelis asserted in the letter. “Their absence bodes ill not only for the conduct by Dr. el Kaissouny of the business of the conference, but for its ultimate success as a whole.”
The Israeli delegation also charged the UN-appointed Secretariat with partial responsibility for the discriminatory action, asserting that “arrangements for that dinner were made by the protocol service of the conference. ” The Israeli delegation expressed surprise that the Secretariat “should thus have given a hand in discriminating against a member state of the United Nations and participant in the conference.”
No answer has yet been received by the Israeli delegation, but a spokesman for the Secretariat told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that “the matter is being investigated, and an answer will be forthcoming in the next few days. ” Many delegations, particularly those from Africa and Asia–a bloc to which Israel was admitted at the conference over strong Arab objections–expressed indignation at the unprecedented action of the Egyptian president.
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