Israel Faces Heavy Fire in UN Assembly on Nuclear Issue

Israel will come under fire on nuclear issues during the 36th session of the UN General Assembly which opened Tuesday, Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Yehuda Blum, told Israeli reporters at a briefing here yesterday. He disclosed that more than 40 countries are presently sponsoring a resolution to discuss Israel’s air attack on Iraq’s nuclear reactor last June 7.

The nuclear issue, insofar as Israel is involved, will come before the General Assembly when a group of nuclear experts present a document on Israel’s nuclear ability and its alleged nuclear cooperation with South Africa, Blum said. He noted that this amounts to singling Israel out inasmuch as no other country rumored to have a nuclear potential has been accorded similar treatment.

PREDICTS EXTREME ANTI-ISRAEL RESOLUTIONS

Blum said Israel will also come under attack in the debate on Palestinian and Middle East issues, already a tradition at the UN. He said this would occur at the end of November in the General Assembly and in its various committees. Blum predicted that the anti-Israel resolutions will be even more extreme than in the past but this, he said, might reduce support for them.

He said that Israel’s Foreign Minister, Yitzhak Shamir, will be in New York beginning this weekend until Yom Kippur, Oct. 8, and is expected to meet in that period with about 30 other Foreign Ministers. Shamir will address the General Assembly Oct. 1.

Blum said, in response to a question by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, that he does not expect any move to suspend Israel’s credentials in the General Assembly this year, although rhetoric along those lines may be heard from some Arab and Third World delegations. He said that two Knesset members, Shlomo Hillel of the Labor Alignment and Yosef Rom of Likud, will join the Israel delegation to the 36th General Assembly at a later date.