Vishinsky Postpones U.N. Debate on Arab, Israel Complaints

A meeting of the United Nations Security Council on the Arab-Israel issue, which was scheduled for tomorrow, was suddenly cancelled today without explanation by Soviet delegate Andrei Vishinsky, president of the Council for this month.

It was announced that the next meeting of the Security Council will take place on Monday afternoon. The Council will then continue its debate on whether the Lebanese complaint against Israel concerning the Nahalin incident and the Israel complaint of Jordan’s violations of the armistice agreement should be considered separately or whether the problem of Israel-Jordan relations should be discussed as a whole, as requested by the Western Powers.

It is understood that the cancellation of tomorrow’s meeting was requested by Dr. Charles Malik, of Lebanon, who speaks for the Arab states. Dr. Malik insists that the Security Council must first censure Israel for an attack made on March 28 on the Jordanian village of Nahalin. Only after such a resolution is adopted, would the Arabs agree to a general debate on the frontier situation, the Lebanese delegate said last Monday.

In a statement issued here last night Ambassador Abba Eban, head of the Israel delegation to the United Nations, said: “It would be very grave if the heavy toll of innocent Jewish bloodshed, including that at Scorpion Pass and Kissalon, should encounter irreverent indifference, while lesser casualties which armed Arab troops have suffered should be the subject of prejudicial observations against Israel at the Security Council. We now hear of an extraordinary Lebanese proposal that the powers commit themselves to judgment on the significance of the Nahalin incident, without any discussion of the violent Arab siege and assault of which that incident is a symptom and a result. The Security Council will surely adopt a balanced, moral course. It is time to stop discriminating against the victims and casualties of violence.”