After a brief but very hot exchange between Israel and a group of Arab representatives in the General Assembly’s Special Political Committee today, the group’s chairman, Mihail Haseganu, of Rumania, ruled that a violently anti-Israel speech made this week by Ahmed Shukairy will be distributed as a committee document.
Shukairy, the most volatile of the Arab spokesmen here for 12 years, delivered an address lasting more than two hours, saying he represented the “Palestine Arab Delegation,” a group of 18 Arabs with no official delegation accreditation here. Today, Dey Ould Sidi Baba, of Morocco, requested that the speech be circulated as a document as the view of “the chairman of the Palestine delegation.”
After a series of interventions by Michael S. Comay, Israel’s permanent representative, who was being heckled by Salah El Dine Tarazi, of Syria, the Israeli withdrew his objections to a formal vote on the Moroccan proposal, and Mr. Haseganu ruled in favor of the Moroccan request. Mr. Comay concluded the exchange by reminding the committee that Mr. Shukairy spoke as an individual, and that the circulation of his speech as an official document “in no way alters his capacity.”
The committee is currently discussing the Arab refugee question, with emphasis on the operations of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees. UNRWA is the UN arm for relief of the refugees, and 70 per cent of its budget is contributed by the United States.
The Syrian and Yemenite delegates in the committee today voiced the customary anti-Israeli attacks, insisting that the refugee question must be settled not between Israel and the Arab states but with the “Palestine prople” whom Shukairy claims to represent. They also voiced high praise of Dr. John H. Davis, UNRWA’s outgoing chief, who, earlier this week, made a long speech despairing of Arab-Israeli peace because, he said, the “Arab nations and Arab people want only the elimination of Israel as an entity in the Middle East.
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.
