Israel has protested sharply to Austria against Chancellor Bruno Kreisky’s decision to extend a form of diplomatic recognition to a representative of the Palestine Liberation Organization. The Austrian government announced last Thursday it was granting official status to Palestine-born Ghasi Hussain who has been accredited to various United Nations agencies in Vienna as a PLO observer.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry issued a bitterly-worded protest Friday, referring to the heavy responsibility Austria was taking on itself and to the PLO’s ultimate aim which remained the destruction of Israel Labor Party chairman Shimon Peres also cabled Kreisky to protest the Austrian move, the first such action by a non-Communist European government. Peres and Kreisky are both members of the Socialist International.
In Vienna Friday, Israel Ambassador Yissakar Ben-Yoacov protested to the Austrian government saying the move contradicts the Austrian policy of recognizing governments not organizations. ” This is even more deplorable when you take into account that the PLO is an organization that aims to destroy Israel ” he said.
Hussain, meanwhile, called an other West European countries to follow Austria’s example and recognize the PLO. Austrian Foreign Ministry a sources said the recognition of the PLO is a direct consequence of Kreisky’s speech before the United Nations General Assembly last fall in which he said Austria recognizes the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people.
STATE DEPARTMENT WITHHOLDS IMMEDIATE COMMENT
In Washington, the State Department with-held comment on the Austrian move. “The Austrian government is well aware of what our position is regarding the PLO, “Department spokesman Tom Reston said. He repeated President Carter’s statement to the United Jewish Appeal Young Leadership Conference in Washington three weeks ago that the U.S. will not negotiate with the PLO until it accepts UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 and Israel’s right to exist.
Meanwhile, the Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies at Yeshivo University of Los Angeles sent a cable to Kreisky declaring that “Jews the world over are outraged” of the Austrian action. “Our indignation is only deepened by the fact that this move took place on the 42nd anniversary of the Anschluss, the unification of Austria with Nazi Germany, “the cable declared.
Rabbi Marvin Hier, the Center’s dean, who signed the cable, added that the Austrian recognition of the PLO “must surely warm the hearts of the Soviets as they witness the bankruptcy of the Western world’s moral posture in the name of a barrel of oil. Surely the terrorists” in the U.S. Embassy in Teheran and the Dominican Republic Embassy in Bogota “will take heart in the knowledge that in the end, terrorism does pay, Hier said.
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