The United States is said to be applying a new form of pressure on Israel to support its two-Chinas policy in the United Nations. According to unconfirmed reports, the State Department has warned Israel that if Taiwan (Nationalist China) is expelled from the UN by a majority vote of the General Assembly, Israel could be the next to go. State Department spokesman Charles Bray said today that the reported warning was not transmitted “to my knowledge.” A spokesman at the Israel Embassy answered all questions on the subject with “no comment.” According to informed sources, however, the matter has been discussed between the two countries. In an interview Sunday on the CBS television program “Face the Nation.” Secretary of State William P. Rogers said that if the Republic of China was expelled, it would set “a very dangerous precedent” and that he could “think of ten other nations that would be on the list in the future.”
State Department officials refuse to name any of them but privately one official mentioned Israel, South Africa and Portugal as countries that have many enemies that might try to oust them from the world body. Asked whether Israel was vulnerable to expulsion, Bray declined to comment specifically. However, he remarked that as a “general response” it was “obvious that when a precedent is admitted in one case it can raise serious cases for the future.” In his speech to the UN General Assembly, Rogers said that to open “the path of expulsion” for “one would be to open it for many.” The question of how Israel will vote on the China question is expected to be the main topic of discussion between Secretary Rogers and Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban when they resume their talks here Thursday. The subject reportedly was discussed last week at the meeting between Assistant Secretary of State Joseph J. Sisco and Israeli Ambassador Yitzhak Rabin.
Sisco was said to have warned the Israeli envoy of the dangers and pitfalls of voting Taiwan out of the UN and urged Israel to cast its vote in favor of the two-Chinas policy. That policy would keep Taiwan’s seat in the General Assembly although the Security Council seat and the representation of China as such would pass to Peking. Israel has no diplomatic relations with either Peking or Taiwan. But Israel recognized the Peking regime during the early 1950s.
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