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UN Committee Calls for the Return of Palestinians to Their Homes

April 29, 1976
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The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People received today the text of draft recommendations calling for the implementation of General Assembly and Security Council resolutions on the rights of “all Palestinians to return to their home, lands and property” and the creation of a Palestinian state.

The recommendations were submitted for inclusion in the report which the 20-member committee is to submit by June 1 to Secretary General Kurt Waldheim for transmission to the Security Council.

The recommendations, made by an eight-member drafting group of the committee, suggested a two-phase implementation of Palestinian rights. The first calls for the return to their homes of the Palestinians displaced as a result of the Six-Day War. The second phase deals with the Palestinians displaced between 1948 and 1967. The recommendations said that Palestinians not choosing to return to their homes should be “paid just and equitable compensation.”

TIMETABLE FOR COMPLETE WITHDRAWAL

The committee also recommended that the Security Council publish by June 1, 1977 a timetable for the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from territories taken in 1967. The territories would be handed over to the United Nations which subsequently will give them to the Palestine Liberation Organization “as the representative of the Palestinian people.”

According to the draft recommendations, after the Palestinians return to their homes, and with the establishment of an Independent Palestinian entity, the Palestinian people would be able to exercise its right to self-determination and decide its form of government without external interference.

The 20-nation committee, established by the General Assembly last Nov, 10. Is made up mainly of Third World nations. Israel has repeatedly declared that it does not recognize the committee and will not abide by its decisions. The committee will meet next week to consider the draft recommendations after members have consulted with their governments.

ZIONISM UNDER ATTACK

Meanwhile, Israel was accused of collaborating with South Africa by Syria during yesterday’s debate at the United Nations Economic and Social Council. The Syrian representative told the Council that the ties between the “racist regimes of Pretoria and Tel Aviv” justified last November’s General Assembly resolution equating Zionism with racism.

The Syrian, Riad Siage, who was an observer at the 54-member Council, spoke during the organization’s debate on the current Decade for Action to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination, which is chiefly aimed at South Africa and Rhodesia.

During a conference of African and Arab ministers in Dakar, Senegal last week, Iraq, Libya and Syria called for a new campaign against Zionism in UN bodies. Reportedly Egypt, Jordan and other Arab and African countries opposed this. African countries feared that interjecting the Zionism issue would hurt the drive against South Africa and Rhodesia.

At this after noon’s session of the. Economic and Social Council, William Scranton, the U.S. Ambassador to the UN, is scheduled to reaffirm U.S. opposition to any anti-Zionist moves when he speaks. Israeli Ambassador Chaim Herzog is expected to address the Council late today or tomorrow.

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