Israeli officials believe the upcoming conference of nonaligned countries in New York will be crucial in whether the Arab and other Moslem states one successful in their attempt to bar Israel from the current session of the United Nations General Assembly.
A three-day ministerial meeting of 39 Islamic countries ended in Fez., Morocco yesterday with a call for a “jihad,” holy war, against Israel and a drive to enlist other Third World countries in the effort to bar Israel from the Assembly.
Some Israeli observers noted that many nonaligned countries will think twice before voting to bar Israel since this would be a denial of the UN principle of universality. The Israelis believe that if the Arabs find they do not have enough support to prevent Israel’s seating they will drop the move and concentrate on introducing anti-Israeli resolutions into the Assembly and the Security Council.
The Islamic countries reportedly did not call for an attempt to oust Israel from the UN since this could be blocked by a United States veto in the Security Council.
Meanwhile, officials here are pleased over the composition of the General Assembly’s nine-member credentials committee. It includes four countries with which Israel has diplomatic ties the U.S., Costa Rica, Singapore and Haiti Kenya, to which it has ties of friendship, and Spain, another country with which Israel is able to communicate. The other members are the Soviet Union, People’s Republic of China and Angola.
REPORT PLO DEMANDS SHELVED
The reports from Morocco are that a “moderate” majority led by Morocco, Senegal and Saudi Arabia pushed through the anti-Israel resolutions while shelving demands by the Palestine Liberation Organization and Syria for an oil blockade against Israel and its allies, including the United States, and to set up recruiting offices in all Islamic countries to mobilize a holy war army under the PLO.
But the PLO is viewed here as the major beneficiary of the conference in Morocco which demonstrated that the Islamic world intends to press ahead in the effort to force Israel to accept a Palestinian state.
The conference issued a communique pledging the Islamic countries “to continue the struggle against the Camp David approach” and called on Islamic countries to break economic and political relations with Israel. Turkey is the only Islamic country, which attended the conference, that has such relations with Israel. The declaration also called on Islamic countries to withhold loans from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank “unless those bodies grant observer status to the Palestine Liberation Organization.”
Although observers in Fez viewed the position of King Hassan of Morocco as a moderating influence on the conference, the Israelis see the pro-Western king as guiding the conference toward tough anti-Israel resolutions in order to highlight his Islamic orthodoxy within the Arab world and to strengthen his position at home against attacks from the PLO and the radical Arab states.
Another “moderate” at the conference, President Leopold Senghor of Senegal, said the conference was the start of the attempt to restore Jerusalem to its pre-1967 status. He said Israel’s Jerusalem low was “a slap in the face inflicted by Israel to two billion (Moslem) people.” Guinea President Sekov Toure promised the conference that all African states will abide by its decision.
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