Tomeh Charges U.s., Jewish Agency Collaborate to Colonize Occupied Territories

Syria’s Ambassador to the United Nations, George Tomeh, quoting a Jewish Telegraphic Agency dispatch, accused Israel of “international banditry” in a letter to Secretary General U Thant released here today. Mr. Tomeh charged Israel with making “its illegal military occupation of part of Syria a fait accompli” by establishing settlements in the Golan Heights. He cited a JTA dispatch of May 31 from Jerusalem announcing Cabinet approval of a five-year plan to expand Israeli settlements in the Heights. Mr. Tomeh also charged in his letter that the Jewish Agency was carrying out “this despicable act of colonization” with “hundreds of millions of American tax-deductible dollars” in the occupied areas of Syria, Jordan and Egypt. “The United States government itself has given Israel since its occupation of Arab territories after the blitzkrieg of 5, June 1967, hundreds of millions of dollars to support its crumbling economy, as well as the most sophisticate airplanes and arms.” To support his charge of “imperialist” support for Israel, Mr. Tomeh complained that on June 4, the World Bank, under pressure from its president, Robert McNamara, approved a $25 million loan to Israel “in the face of opposition of a large number of member states of the Bank.” Mr. Tomeh failed to mention in his letter to Mr. Thant at the same time loans totalling over $50 million were approved for India and Mali and that a day earlier the World Bank had loaned $18,650,000 to Congo, Liberia and Zambia. The Syrian envoy also assailed “seventy-three Senators of the United States Senate” who “for obvious politicking and vote-getting motives, urged the President, after the bankruptcy of his Indo-Chinese adventure to give Israel 125 Phantoms and Skyhawks.”