Israel will reject UN General Assembly resolutions backing the PLO, officials said here following a Cabinet meeting today.
Premier Yitzhak Rabin reviewed the situation in the General Assembly on the eve of three scheduled votes on anti-Israel resolutions: the anti-Zionist draft of the Third Committee; the Egyptian resolution calling for PLO participation in Middle East peace conferences; and the PLO’s own resolution, backed by 50 member states, urging a special committee to work on implementation of the Palestinians’ “inalienable rights.”
Officials still hoped that a European effort to postpone a vote on the anti-Zionist draft, seen here as the most damaging, until next year, might succeed.
PESSIMISTIC ABOUT RESOLUTIONS’ DEFEAT
If voted on, the officials believed the anti-Zionist draft would win the required majority despite solid Western and scattered South American opposition and many abstentions.
The Egyptian resolution calling for a PLO invitation to the Geneva conference would have even easier passage, it was predicted here. Only West Germany and France were expected to join Israel, the U.S. and a few Latin-American states in opposing it. Other Western states are expected to abstain at best. It was hoped, however, that the West would solidly oppose the PLO resolution, but the latter nevertheless, is expected to win a majority.
Officials said that Israel would never sit with the PLO at Geneva or elsewhere, nor cooperate with any committee set up to implement its “rights.” Such resolutions aim to undermine Israel’s very existence and threatened the Mideast peace process, these officials said.
NO MOVE AGAINST SINAI PACT
They indicated that while Egypt’s actions at the General Assembly are viewed here as a violation of its pledge to tone down diplomatic warfare against Israel, Israel is not proposing at this time to cease implementing the Sinai interim agreement in retaliation.
The officials noted that apart from the UN activities and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s anti-Jewish statements, Egypt was carrying out its part of the implementation according to the agreement. The first Egyptian nationals will return to the Ras Sudar oilfield over next weekend, the first Egyptian return to former Israel-held territory under the agreement.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
