U.S. Urges Favorable Security Council Action on Israeli Application for U.N. Membership

The United States today strongly urged the U.N. Security Council to act favorably on Israel’s application for United Nations membership so that the Jewish state could be accepted at the current session of the General Assembly.

The American delegate, Philip Jessup, told the Council that “the United States hopes that the Council will approve the application of Israel so that the General Assembly may admit Israel before the end of this session.” He reviewed Israel’s qualifications for membership. “Israel,” he said, “is a ginning state pursuing an independent foreign policy and thus meeting the requirements of sovereignty provided in the U.N. Charter.” He added that the Israelis are a homogeneous people with a stable administration.

The only question about Israel’s fitness which might be raised, he said, concerns its frontiers. However, he pointed out, “many nations began their history with undetermined boundaries.” Jessup emphasized that Israel proved its peaceful intentions in accordance with the U.N. Charter by cooperating with the United Nations in an attempt to carry out the partition decision and truce orders issued by the Security Council. It had further expressed its willingness to negotiate a settlement with the Arabs, he said.

The American delegate appealed for prompt and urgent action by the membership committee of the Security Council, demanding that it report back on Monday so that the current session could approve Israel’s application before adjourning. His warm words surprised many delegates.

“It is of great importance and of great value to the Assembly in an effort to reach a solution that Israel be seated on an equal basis in the family of nations,” Jessup said. “By every Charter qualification–that a state is to be peace-loving and able and willing to carry out its obligations–Israel meets the tests.” He defined the word “state” as a people in a territory with a government capable of conducting its own foreign relations. Israel fulfilled all these criteria, he declared.

Addressing himself to Fernand Van Langenhove, Belgian president of the Security Council, Jessup said: “We are dealing with something more than a legal concept. We are dealing with a valiant people who have labored to construct their community and to establish a free government in an independent state. The United States has watched with sympathy and interest the development of Israel’s institutions and we are looking to their forthcoming elections to further demonstrate their strength.”

BRITAIN CONSIDERS ISRAELI APPLICATION “PREMATURE” AND “DOUBTFUL”

Soviet delegate Yakov Malik supported Israel’s application. French delegate Alexandre Parodi supported the suggestion that the Israeli application should be referred to the membership committee, but urged that no decision be taken before the political Committee had completed its work on Palestine and before Israel’s reaction to the terms of the resulting recommendations were known.

Sir Alexander Cadogan, speaking for Britain, said: “I should be lacking in frankness if I did not say that my delegation considers Israel’s application both premature and rather doubtful.” He served notice that when the matter was taken up by the membership committee, Britain would move that the application be deferred.

Israel’s application was referred to the membership committee as a whole, with every indication that it would receive rapid consideration. However, the Council failed to instruct the committee to bring in its verdict by Monday, as Jessup had suggested. Before Jessup made his statement, the Council defeated an attempt by Egypt and Lebanon to becloud the membership question by demanding that the Council discuss Israel’s alleged failure to implement the Council’s Negev withdrawal resolution.