A sharp recent increase of “armed attacks and incursions from Jordanian territory” as well as the mining of roads and “other acts of sabotage by raiders operating from the east bank of the Jordan” underscore the importance of outposts established by the Nahal Corps of the Israel Defense Forces, Israel’s UN envoy Joseph Tekoah said in a letter today to Secretary-General U Thant.
The letter was in reply to one addressed to Mr. Thant by Jordan’s Charge D’Affaires. Anton A, Naber, on July 18 to which he attached a map allegedly depicting the locations of “some 35 new Jewish settlements, the majority” (of which) are “paramilitary fortified settlements…to be established’ in occupied territories. Mr. Naber alleged that they “constitute the groundwork for a world-wide campaign to recruit more settlers to the occupied territories ‘to help populate enlarged Israel’ and provide it with a ‘security belt.'”
He asserted that “in order to achieve these aims and in order to solve the demographic problem of disparity between the Arab and Jewish populations, the Israeli authorities are subjecting the Arabs on the West Bank of the Jordan and the other occupied territories to continuous harassment, economic strangulation and semi-starvation to compel them to leave their homes and lands.”
Mr. Tekoah denied these charges and said that only 14 of the settlements cited in Mr. Naber’s letter are in former Jordanian areas now occupied by Israel and some have been in existence for “some time.” He noted that the Nahal paramilitary settlements carry on activities “designed to assist in ensuring the security of the area and in maintaining the cease-fire.”
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