State Department spokesman Robert Funseth said today that the U.S. would make known its position on legal questions arising from the Israeli rescue raid in Uganda in the course of the UN Security Council’s debate on that matter expected to open on Friday. The Security Council will convene at the request of the Organization for African Unity (OAU) which is seeking to condemn Israel for violating Ugandan territory.
The legal question brought up at today’s State Department briefing was whether or not Israel violated the provisions of the Foreign Military Sales Act by employing U.S.-made C-130 military transports to carry out the rescue of hostages held at Entebbe Airport in Uganda.
In reply to a question submitted yesterday, Funseth said, in a prepared statement, that “Israel has received C-130s and most other defense articles from the U.S. under the Foreign Military Sales Act. The arrangements made with Israel, as with other recipients under the FMS Act provides that such articles are to be used for internal security, legitimate self-defense and to permit the recipients to participate in regional collective arrangements or measures consistent with the United Nations Charter.”
Asked by a reporter today if the Uganda operation violated any of these restrictions, Funseth replied. “That gets into issues that will be covered in the UN Security Council debate. Our position on these issues will be made known in the course of that debate.”
Meanwhile, Israeli sources here, questioned about the use of the C-130s, indicated that they consider a legal question to be non-existent or at the most a secondary matter. The sources said that the legal question has not arisen and is without importance and pointed out that President Ford’s letter to Premier Yitzhak Rabin had endorsed the entire Uganda operation and Israel has received from the U.S. only congratulations on its successful outcome.
ISRAEL PREPARING ITS CASE
(In Israel, the government was preparing for a diplomatic assault on the Uganda operation in the Security Council but with few illusions that the world organization, accused by Israel of being one-sided on the Middle East conflict, could be convinced of the justice of the Uganda mission.
(Prof. Shlomo Avineri, director general of the Foreign Ministry, indicated yesterday that Israel would claim precedence for its action by comparing it to stamping out piracy and the slave trade in past centuries. He noted that during the struggle against slavers and pirates, the British Navy assumed the right to stop ships on the high seas and to raid pirate bases wherever they were located to advance the principle of human freedom and safety of international travel.)
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