The United Nations Human Rights Commission’s action last Friday calling on Israel to release Archbishop Hillarion Capucci from prison and charging Israel with desecrating Moslem and Christian holy sites was assailed Friday as “hypocritical” and “further compromises the United Nations’ role as a guarantor of human rights and an agency of international peace.”
Rabbi David Saperstein, associate director of the Religious Action Center of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations and the Central Conference of American Rabbis, denounced the Commission’s decision and asked religious and political leaders to join in preserving the integrity and dignity of the UN by demanding an immediate reversal of the decision. He urged “a reversal based on truth and justice rather than pressure from oil-rich Arab countries.”
Capucci, Rabbi Saperstein said, “although clearly anti-Israel and long suspected of actions sym- pathetic to the Arab terrorists, was nevertheless given complete freedom of speech and action during his years in Israel. Only upon being apprehended while using his clerical privileges to smuggle into Israel arms and explosives for terrorists, and after a public trial in which he was accorded the full legal rights given to every Israeli, was he sentenced to jail.”
Rabbi Saperstein added; “As of this time, all fact-finding missions to Israel have contradicted the Commission’s stand on holy sites under Israeli control. Those sites in Israel and the occupied territories which Israel permits to be run by the religious orders which worship there have never been kept as well, or as open to all people, as they have been by Israel.”
U.S. VOTED AGAINST BOTH RESOLUTIONS
The United States was the only nation among the 32 members of the Commission to vote against both resolutions. The resolution charging Israel with violating the “basic norms of international law” in the administered areas was approved 22-1, with nine abstentions. The resolution accused Israel of violating the 1949 Geneva convention on the protection of civilian war victims, and with “deliberate destruction and devastation” of Kuneitra on the Golan Heights.
The resolution called on all nations to act to make Israel stop “all acts and policies aimed at colonizing and changing the physical character and demographic composition of the occupied Arab territories.”
The demand for the release of Capucci was contained in the second resolution, which accused Israel of desecrating Moslem and Christian shrines. The resolution was adopted by a vote of 21-6, with five abstentions. Joining in opposition with the U.S. were France, Britain, West Germany, Italy and The Netherlands. All five abstained on the first motion, as did Austria, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic.
The resolution on violations of international law was sponsored by Cyprus, Ghana, India, Pakistan, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Yugoslavia and Zaire. The other resolution was sponsored by Cyprus, India, Pakistan, Senegal, Zaire, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Tunisia and Turkey, Israel Charges Allegations Are Fantastic
Israel, which is not a member of the Commission, could not vote but could reply. Eytan Ronn, the Israeli representative, sitting as an observer, assailed the “fantastic allegations and accusations so steadily voiced against Israel.” He said the fact was that “the situation in the administered territories is better than any sensible man of goodwill could reasonably expect or even hope for in the face of permanent incitement to hatred, hostility, violence and terror surging from Arab capitals.”
Ronn said the Commission, dominated by countries friendly to the Arabs, was being used for political propaganda. He said the war crimes charge was based on “irrelevancies blown up to monstrous proportions, fictitious allegations made to look like proven atrocities.” After the meeting, Ronn was reported to have said the matter of Capucci was a criminal case outside the Commission’s jurisdiction and that Israel would ignore the Commissions demand for his release.
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