Israeli officials here appeared satisfied today with a United States veto of a Soviet-sponsored resolution in the United Nations Security Council last Friday which called for an international embargo on military aid to Israel after a debate in which Israel’s Ambassador Yehuda Blum called the voting “a day of shame and infamy.”
The Soviet resolution, which 11 Council members, including France, approved, and on which three nations–including Britain–abstained, proposed that a total arms embargo should continue “until the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from all Lebanese territory.” The other two abstaining nations were Zaire, which recently resumed diplomatic relations with Israel, and Togo.
The debate included some of the harshest exchanges in the history of Security Council efforts to grapple with the Mideast deadlock. French support for the resolution embittered the Israelis and evoked Blum’s denunciation of the day as one of “shame and infamy,” a charge that led French delegate Phillippe Louet to say he was dumbfounded.
Hamilton Whyte, the British delegate, who joined in the criticism of Israel’s military thrust into Lebanon, said Britain did not believe the Soviet resolution would make any positive contribution to Middle East peace and that Britain decided not to add its veto to the resolution because this might send “the wrong signal” to Israel.
The Soviet draft resolution was submitted Thursday. The Council held an acrimonious hour-long meeting that night and then adjourned until Friday. The draft text was revised to meet objections voiced in private consultations. A reference to the proposed arms embargo as “a first step” was dropped and a clause added which would have the embargo in effect only until all Israeli troops left Lebanon.
U.S. TERMS MEASURE UNBALANCED
Charles Lichtenstein, the United States delegate, in announcing the U.S. veto, called the draft resolution unbalanced and warned it would harm the peace mission of Philip Habib, President Reagan’s special envoy, who is currently focussing his efforts on getting an agreement under which the 5,000 to 6,000 PLO terrorists would leave west Beirut.
Although Lichenstein vetoed the Soviet proposal, he urged Israel to accept the action sought by the Security Council in a resolution adopted unanimously last Sunday, which was rejected by Israel’s Cabinet the next day: a total cease-fire and a halt in Israel’s siege of west Beirut. Lichtenstein also echoed a Council resolution, adopted last Wednesday by a vote of 14-0 with the U.S. abstaining, that Israel yield the military gains it made when it moved into west Beirut.
The Council voted on the Soviet draft resolution after Israel rejected last Sunday’s resolution which had also called for the deployment of UN cease-fire abservers and ignored another resolution calling for Israel to withdraw to the lines it held prior to its entry into sections of west Beirut.
Council members voting for the Soviet draft, in addition to France, were: the People’s Republic of China, Guyana, Ireland, Japan, Jordan, Panama, Poland, Spain, the USSR and Uganda.
USSR, ISRAELI DELEGATES IN SHARP EXHANGES
The sharpest language of the debate came in exchanges between Soviet delegates Richard Ovinlkov, and Blum. During the exchanges Thursday night, Ovinikov said the Security Council must “wrest their weapons from the hands of the crazed Israeli aggressor.” He delcared that the “Israeli barbarians” must not be allowed to turn Beirut into “another Warsaw, Lidice or Coventry,” a reference to cities destroyed by Nazi Germany during World War II.
A visibly furious Blum responded that Ovinikov, whom he described as a man known for his vulgarity, had outdone himself “in obscenity and perversion” in making such a comparison. Before the vote Friday, Ovinikov said the Soviet draft was the “minimum response” the Security Council could make.
After the vote, Lichtenstein said the Habib mission represented the best hope for peace in Lebanon and that the United States would support any Council action that would strengthen Habib’s efforts and, conversely, while working hard to achieve consensus at the Security Council, would not take any action that might adversely affect Habib’s mission.
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