Big Three Kibya Resolution is “discriminatory,” Israel Says

The Big Three resolution suggesting that the U.N. Security Council should censure Israel for the Kibya incident was termed today “one-sided and discriminatory” by the Israel delegation at the United Nations in an official statement issued to the press. Discussion on the resolution at the Security Council is expected tomorrow.

“The resolution can only prejudice the chance of a peaceful settlement of the dispute,” the statement said. It pointed out that the language used in the censure of “an admittedly deplorable occurrence” was more “extreme and intemperate” than ever applied by the United Nations to aggressive wars in which there were thousands of casualties.

“The brutal slaughter of thousands of Israelis at the hands of aggressors before and since the Arab-Israel agreements,” the statement said, has “elicited no word of sympathy or of disapproval in the resolution of the body to which this draft is now submitted.”

The Israeli delegation asserted that the resolution came “close to condoning the armed incursions from Jordan.” The statement went on to say that the resolution refuses to consider the causes of the regional tension and concentrates only on criticizing its results. “It turns away from the clear assertion of a need for a negotiated peace settlement, such as Britain, France and the United States have always upheld in the past,” the Israeli delegation stressed.

It even ignores completely the proposals for an immediate and specific discussion in the United Nations of border tension between the two parties,” the Israel statement continued. “In short, this draft crystallizes and conserves all the causes of tension in our area and opposes any forward movement towards a peace settlement such as would eliminate the very incidents which have aroused the Security Council’s concern. This refusal to deal with the basic causes of insecurity is bound to increase it. Its adoption would be a big step backward from peace.”