A new fight was in the offing tonight in the United Nations General Assembly over a resolution to deal with the Middle East situation. The fight was centering on a proposal by the Scandinavian countries to offer a resolution calling on the Arab states and Israel to use restraint in the present situation and to ask the Secretary-General to send a high-ranking personality to the Middle East as his representative to negotiate with the governments involved.
As a result of the new development. Foreign Minister Abba S. Eban, who was to have left New York tonight to return to Jerusalem, cancelled plans for his departure.
A complete stalemate had developed in the General Assembly on measures to deal with the Middle East situation. The emergency session, summoned by action of the Soviet Union, debated 14 days. A Soviet resolution to condemn Israel as the aggressor and to order it to pull its troops back from territory it had taken, was roundly defeated in what was considered a severe blow to Soviet prestige,
A resolution backed by the unaligned states and the Afro-Asian bloc which would have called on Israel to pull back its forces, after which the Security Council would deal with all aspects of the problem, failed to receive the necessary two-thirds majority. A Latin-American resolution, endorsed by the United States, which would have tied Israeli withdrawal and cessation of belligerency, likewise failed to receive the necessary majority.
A Pakistani resolution declaring Israel’s unification of Jerusalem invalid was carried by 99 votes to none against with Israel not participating in the voting. An Israeli spokesman said later that the Jerusalem question was “outside the competence of the General Assembly,” Mr. Eban reportedly informed Secretary-General U Thant of this today and Mr. Thant took note of the Israel reservations.
One other resolution, urging measures to alleviate the plight of the war victims was unanimously adopted.
ASSEMBLY PRESIDENT CLAIMS GREAT GAINS MADE IN DEBATE
Today, when the General Assembly met to hear explanations by various delegations on the votes they had cast on the resolutions Tuesday, the president, Abdul Rahman Pazhwak of Pakistan, in summing up the emergency session’s activities, asserted that the session had made “important contributions to the cause of peace in the Middle East.” He said it had “laid down principles and guidelines which, if properly pursued, may terminate the long period of delay in bringing the unfinished business in the Middle East to a peaceful solution.” In seeking to express a consensus of the Assembly views, Ambassador Pazhwak stressed the demand for withdrawal of the Israeli forces, asserting that “there is virtual unanimity in upholding the principle that conquest of territory by war is inadmissible in our time and under our Charter.”
Israel notified the United Nations today that it would permit Lt. Gen. Odd Bull and his staff to reoccupy Government House in Jerusalem, former headquarters of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization. The Israelis specified however, that this was solely in connection with Gen. Bull’s duties in supervising the cease-fire arrangements, not observance of the 1949 armistice agreements.
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