Israeli Ambassador Yosef Tekoah, replying this afternoon to a Jordanian condemnation earlier in the day of Israeli practices in East Jerusalem, said that Jordan’s policy in Jerusalem before 1967 had “been one of ravage and devastation.” Tekoah added that Jordan “apparently still cannot bear to see that since 1967 the ruins of Jerusalem have been rebuilt, that the reunited capital is developing and flourishing anew, that the universal religious interests of Christianity, Islam and Judaism are fully protected, that the rights of all communities are assured and that Jews and Arabs live and work side by side in peace.”
Jordan “will go down in history as Jerusalem’s amputator and destroyer,” Tekoah charged. “During its forcible and illegal occupation of part of Jerusalem, Jordan razed to the ground the entire Jewish quarter of the Old City with all its 39 synagogues and institutions of learning, uprooted and exiled its Jewish population and barred free access to Judaism’s holy places.” Jerusalem “has had a Jewish minority for more than a century,” Tekoah concluded, “and its present demographic composition and growth are a normal and natural development.” The Jordanian and Israeli statements were made in letters to Secretary General Kurt Waldheim for circulation to UN members.
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