Ambassador Abba Eban, head of the Israel delegation to the United Nations, today told a press conference here that, when the UN Security Council starts its considerations tomorrow on the Arab-Israel crisis, Israel will emphasize the fact that a total and complete breakdown of the armistice agreement with Jordan is now evident, and will suggest that the Council review the agreement.
Mr. Eban emphasized that, if the Security Council would bring Israel and Jordan together under the provision of Article XII of the armistice agreement, it could “mark a turning point in this unhappy story.”
Article XII, the clause which makes a meeting between Israel and Jordan compulsory, was the most important part of the whole armistice agreement, Mr. Eban said. No precedent existed, he went on, for one party to refuse to meet with another as Jordan has refused to attend the conference convoked by the UN Secretary General.
The Israeli representative said that Israel wanted a peace settlement. But short of that, its minimal requirement was a restoration of the Israel-Jordan armistice agreement in its full integrity. Parts of an agreement, he continued, could not be operative while other parts were in force. He added that Jordan could not have just the articles of the armistice agreement which it wanted.
JORDAN FAILURE TO RESPECT THE PACT CITED BY EBAN
Mr. Eban said that not a single one of the 13 articles in the Jordan agreement was being respected by the Jordanians. He announced that he would ask the Council not only to review the whole agreement but to condemn Jordan for tearing it up.
The Israel Ambassador spoke of “three factors” which resulted in the “total and complete breakdown of the armistice agreement. ” These factors, he said, were: 1. The maintenance and intensification of the guerilla warfare by Jordan against Israel; 2. The decrease in the willingness of the Israeli people to suffer atrocities without response; 3. The sense that the United Nations flag was being hauled down.
As far as the latter was concerned, Mr. Eban said that there was a feeling in Israel that the United Nations was inactive. This was due to the fact that the Armistice Commission could reach no decision on the Scorpion Pass episode; the way in which any resolution in favor of Israel in the Security Council was vetoed by the Soviet; the Secretary General’s inability to pursue efforts to bring about a conference with Jordan under Article XII “to stop the killing. “
The Israeli representative said that, since the Security Council had last discussed the Israeli-Jordan armistice agreement, 38 Israelis had been killed and wounded, and 28 had been abducted. He declared that everyone in Israel lived under constant fear of attack.
(Five members of the Arab League–Egypt, Iraq, Saudi-Arabia, Syria and Yemen–put themselves on record at the UN yesterday as backing the complaint filed against Israel by the two remaining League members, Lebanon and Jordan. Lebanon, a member of the Security Council, had laid the grievance against Israel on behalf of Jordan, and this complaint is coming up for Security Council discussion tomorrow.)
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