A night session of the U.N. Security Council today adopted a British-Chinese resolution with an American amendment ordering Israel and Egypt to return to the positions they held in the Negev prior to the recent fighting there or face Council action, including the possibility of sanctions. (See next page for text of amendment.)
A Ukrainian resolution directing the Egyptians and Israelis to negotiate on the question was defeated. The vote on the British-Chinese-American resolution was nine in favor, one against and one abstention, while the Ukrainian resolution only had two votes for it.
Despite suggestions by the British, Egyptians, Lebanese and Syrians that the resolution be extended to cover all sectors of Palestine including the Negev, the Council decided to wait for the arrival of the acting mediator’s chief of staff from Palestine to report on the situation there before taking further action. The chief of staff is expected to arrive here tomorrow and the Council will meet on Saturday.
In U.N. circles here it was believed that the British-Chinese-U.S. resolution was rushed to a vote because the American delegation wished to avoid the possibility of new directives from President Truman ordering withdrawal of the amendment. It was known that Truman was on a train making its “victory Journey” from Missouri to Washington and that attempts to contact him on this issue world meet with delay. One evidence of the speed with which the Council acted was the refusal this morning to grant Canada additional time until tomorrow to study the American proposal, a request which the Council had never previously denied to any nation.
(Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter invoked by the U.S.-amended resolution deals with the general problem of “threats to the peace, breaches of the peace and sots of aggression,” while Article 41 specifies certain economic and diplomatic sanctions. However, Article 41 is included in Chapter VII.)
After the rote Israeli representative Aubrey Eban protested the language used by British delegate Sir Alexander Cadogan during the debate. “We cannot be silent,” Eban declared, “when Israel’s soldiers defending their territory are likened to Rattler’s Nazi hordes. I am convinced that the United Kingdom representative in that remark went beyond the limits of accuracy or good taste.” khan also said that it is “especially disquieting that those who have such comparisons in mind should seek to influence a solution of the Palestine problem.” Cadogan later denied comparing the Israeli Army to Hitler’s hordes.
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