Israel has come under withering fire from Arab delegates attending a United Nations conference on energy in Nairobi, Kenya. Twice this week delegates from Arab nations, except for Egypt, walked out when Israelis took the rostrum to speak. The first time was when Israeli delegate Eliahu Douek rose to reply to Arab criticism of Israel, according to reports reaching here.
Israel was bitterly attacked for its raid on the Iraqi nuclear reactor last June and for its plan to generate hydroelectric power by constructing a canal from the Mediterranean to the Dead Sea. Some 3,000 delegates from most of the 154 UN member countries are attending the UN conference on new and renewable sources of energy, which concludes tomorrow.
Arab delegates are seeking to censure Israel and are lobbying for support for a draft resolution which terms the canal project illegal and condemns the raid on the nuclear reactor. Douek, in his speech yesterday, said Iraq tried to obtain nuclear facilities not normally used for peaceful purposes.
Arab objections to the canal project are based on the contention that it would perpetuate Israeli military rule over the occupied areas, flood fertile Jordanian land, and reduce the amount of potash extracted from the Dead Sea. A Palestine Liberation Organization representative claimed that the canal had military purposes because Israel could use it to flood the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank to retaliate against Palestinian “commando” operations.
A draft resolution sponsored by Iraq, Pakistan and Morocco calls on the conference to declare that the canal project “constitutes an illegal act of infringing on the sovereign rights of the Palestinian people.”
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