There can be no peace if the United Nations permits “flagrant attacks” by one member of the UN against another, and “Israel has no intention to tolerate” such a situation, Mrs. Golda Meir, Israel’s Foreign Minister, declared tonight while discussing Israel’s grievance against United Arab Republic interference with shipping through the Suez Canal.
Mrs. Meir made the statement in an address at a Mapai Party election rally here tonight, Prime Minister David Ben Gurion was scheduled to address the rally also, delivering the first election address since his return from a French Riviera vacation.
Recalling UAR interference with shipping to and from Israel through the Suez Canal, Mrs. Meir said: “One cannot ask Israel to tolerate such attacks and, at the same time, tell her she cannot exercise her right of self-defense because such an exercise of right would mean war.”
“In the face of Egypt’s non-stop aggression since we established our State, ” continued the Foreign Minister, “and especially in regard to the closing of the Suez Canal to Israeli shipping of cargoes, Israel has exercised patience, even more patience than anybody could have expected.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.