Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Yosef Tekoah, yesterday conferred with Dr. Ralph Bunche, UN Undersecretary for Special Political Affairs, and handed him a note renewing Israel’s request that a new UN envoy that will study conditions of civilian populations in the occupied territories should also look into the condition of Jews in Iraq, Syria and Egypt. Mr. Tekoah met with Dr. Bunche, as Secretary-General U Thant’s representative, since Mr. Thant is currently on a tour of European capitals.
Mr. Tekoah told Dr. Bunche, an Israeli source said, that the refusal of the three states to permit an investigation of the status of Jews there is a cause of grave concern for their welfare. The human rights of Jews affected by the Six-Day War deserve the same consideration as other such affected groups, Mr. Tekoah said, and suggested that the UN should not permit itself to be a party to discrimination by allowing its representative to be blocked from probing the status of Jews.
Last year, Mr. Thant sent Nils Goran-Gussing, of Sweden, to look into Arab complaints of Israeli oppression in the occupied zones. Mr. Gussing reported that life there was normal and that the Arab population of East Jerusalem was mingling freely with the Jewish inhabitants of Jerusalem. However, the Egyptian and Syrian Governments refused to permit him to make a first-hand investigation of the situation of Jews in those countries. There is no Jewish community in Jordan. Iraqi Jews are reportedly suffering from virulent discrimination.
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