Ambassador Jacob Doron. Israel’s acting permanent representative to the United Nations, declared Monday before the UN Commission on Human Rights that “no human rights or freedoms of anybody have been violated by Israel” in the administered territories. Instead. Doron noted, one of the countries complaining against Israel has violated human rights by murdering Israeli prisoners of war during the Yom Kippur War and by refusing to release the names of POWs it holds.
Delegates from Egypt, and Iraq interrupted Doron several times and challenged his right to bring up the POW issue since they claimed this topic was not on the commission’s agenda. But Doron noted the commission was discussing “Questions of the Violation of Human Rights in the Territories Occupied as a Result of Hostilities in the Middle East.”
Despite Doron’s denials, the commission adopted by a 21-1 vote, with eight abstentions, a resolution deploring Israel’s “continued grave breaches” of the Fourth Geneva Convention in dealing with the civilians in the territories acquired in 1967 and charging Israel with “war crimes and an affront to humanity.” Nicaragua cast the lone negative vote.
The draft, similar to one adopted by the commission last March, called on Israel to stop immediately the establishment of settlements in the occupied lands and urged other states to see that Israel desisted from “all acts and policies aimed at changing the physical character and demographic composition of the occupied Arab territories.”
In rejecting the charge. Doron pointed out that even the Egyptian representative admitted that many Arabs visit the territories. “It should be obvious to him, as to everyone else,” Doron said, “that had there been even an iota of truth in these allegations, the visits by Arabs, from neighboring and far away countries and many walks, of life, would not be taking place, for the simple reason that these people would not be willing to take the risks involved in visiting an area where all those grave breaches and violations are allegedly continuously taking place, and secondly: would Israel allow hundreds of thousands of Arabs to come and witness such a state of affairs, had it in fact existed?”
Doron said that Israel has been repeatedly condemned by UN bodies for action in the territories through resolutions that “fly in the face of the actual situation.” He said that “even the war unleashed against my country in 1973 could not bring about a change in the attitude of the population of these areas, who in their vast majority continued going about their lawful occupations. The bridges on the Jordan River remained open, traffic and commerce continued to flow, and in the areas themselves, the progress, prosperity and tranquility achieved since 1967 continued undisturbed.”
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.
