Israel Rejects U.s., Austrian Demands That She Stay out of UN Anti-terrorist Initiatives

Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan protested to the U.S. against its request of Israel to stay out of anti-terror initiatives at the United Nations. Speaking in the Knesset yesterday, Dayan said he made the protest after the U.S. tried to make Israel withdraw her motion in the UN debate on anti-hijacking measures.

According to Dayan, the U.S. was not the only power which wanted Israel to stay out of the international initiative against international terror. Austria, too, told Israel she preferred that Israel would not support her motions in the UN, for fear of losing Arab support. Israel rejected the foreign appeals, Dayan said. Ambassador Chaim Herzog in New York and Dayan himself in a meeting with U.S. Ambassador Samuel Lewis in Israel expressed Israel’s discontent with the American request. Referring specifically to the subject of anti-terror measures, Dayan said he did not believe international agreements were an effective tool to deal with terror. Mutual cooperation between countries was much more effective, he said.

(At the UN today, 46 countries submitted a resolution condemning aircraft hijacking and other interferences with civil air travel, and calling for more stringent airline and airport security. The draft also urged all countries to exchange information aimed at thwarting hijacking and to take “joint and separate action” in accordance with the UN Charter “to ensure that passengers, crew and aircraft engaged in civilian aviation are not used as a means of extorting advantage of any kind.”

(Sponsors of the resolution, circulated in preparation for the opening of a debate on this issue in the General Assembly’s Special Political Committee, included Austria, Britain, Canada, France, West Germany, Italy, Japan, Liberia, Norway, Spain, the United States, and other European, Asian and Latin American countries.)