Israelis Bitter over Security Council Condemnation, See Vote As ‘one-sided’

Israelis were bitter this week over the Security Council’s resolution Tuesday condemning Israel’s March 26 air raid in Jordan without mentioning Arab terrorist activities that provoked it. The final vote, 11-0, with the United States, Great Britain, Paraguay and Colombia abstaining, deprived the Security Council of the unanimity it had been seeking on Middle East issues. But there was anger here with the U.S. and Britain for not casting negative votes that would have amounted to a veto.

The resolution adopted Tuesday represented a modification of the original draft sponsored by Pakistan, Senegal and Zambia, which had contained a direct reference to Chapter seven of the UN Charter that empowers the Council to adopt enforcement measures such as economic or military sanctions in order to secure compliance. Substituted for this was a warning of “more effective steps” if the ceasefire is violated again. One Israeli official said the Council was “so one-sided in its present composition that even if it came to sanctions it cannot make much difference either way.”

Israel claimed the March 26 attack was aimed at an El Fatah base near the Jordanian village of Salt. Jordan said the raid hit a hostel killing 18 civilians. Among the dead were four West Bank truck drivers whose bodies were returned to the West Bank with the permission of Israeli authorities.

In the Israeli view, the Security Council’s action underlined a “double standard” applied by that body to Israel and the Arabs in the Mideast conflict. The Israelis said the condemnation meant that the terrorists were free to do as they please but Israel was not permitted to take counter-measures. It also meant, according to Israeli officials, that the Security Council accepted the Arab claim that the Arab governments were not responsible for the terrorists although all member states of the Council were well aware that those governments finance, equip and otherwise encourage the guerrillas. In the minds of most Israelis, the resolution tended to set up the Security Council as a judge over Israel and the Arab states irrespective of the fact that six of its members have refused to maintain diplomatic relations with Israel. Israelis noted that, in the course of 20 years, the Security Council only once passed a resolution in Israel’s favor. That was 18 years ago when the Council upheld Israel’s right to use the Suez Canal. It was ignored by Egypt.

Voting for Tuesday’s resolution were its three sponsors, the Soviet Union, France, Spain, Finland, Hungary, Nepal, Algeria and China. Israel’s UN Ambassador Yosef Tekoah said the vote was a clear sign that the U.S. and Britain were opposed to Arab terrorism but that the Soviet Union was supporting it. Moscow, he said, “claims for itself the right to give advice on Israel’s vital interests, on Israel’s quest for peace and security.” U.S. Ambassador Charles W. Yost refused to vote for the resolution on the grounds that it did not cite Arab terrorism, and Sir Leslie Glass of Britain said he could not support a measure which condemned Israel without taking into account all violations of the Middle East cease-fire established following the Six-Day War.

An accommodation with the British and American points of view was frustrated by Arab refusal to accept any language that would label as cease-fire violations sorties against Israel by Arab commando organizations.

There had been fear that the unacceptability to the U.S. and Britain of a resolution which condemned Israel but did not also condemn the Arab terrorism which has provoked Israeli air raids would be damaging to the Big Four talks on the Mideast scheduled to begin today. But that fear, observers said, was groundless and the talks were expected to begin at the Park Ave. apartment of France’s UN Ambassador Armand Berard.

Agha Shahi, Pakistan’s delegate, said that the three sponsors had acted to modify their resolution to prevent a division among the Big Four, all permanent Council members, on the eve of the Big Four meetings.

Tuesday’s divided vote was among the few since the Security Council adopted a resolution on Nov. 22. 1967 that established the guidelines for a peaceful settlement. The Council, considering the sensitivity of the problem, usually had sought unanimity even when compromise was involved. When unanimity could not be achieved, the Council’s president sometimes had stated a “consensus” with no formal vote.

The principle operative paragraph of the compromise resolution declared that the Council: “Condemns the recent premeditated air attacks launched by Israel on Jordanian villages and populated areas in flagrant violation of the United Nations Charter and the cease-fire resolutions and warns once again that if such attacks were to be repeated the Council would have to meet to consider further more effective steps as envisaged in the Charter to insure against repetition of such attacks.”