Israel’s delegation to the United Nations will not walk out of the General Assembly chamber when a representative of the Palestine Liberation Organization addresses the world body early next month. It was learned today. Contrary to expectations in some quarters, Foreign Minister Yigal Allon has instructed Israel’s UN Ambassador Yosef Tekoah and his delegates to take as active a part as possible in the debate on the Palestine Question and wherever possible to expose the true nature and aims of the PLO.
Some political circles here had favored an Israeli walk-out as a gesture of contempt for the PLO and Israel’s outrage at the UN for Inviting a terror gang to participate in its deliberations, But officials said today that the government decided “not to give the PLO and its supporters the satisfaction of seeing the Israeli delegation walk out.” The officials said that the walk-out by Israeli Ambassador Bar-Yaacov Friday when the UNESCO meeting in Paris voted to admit the PLO as observers was a spontaneous gesture by the Ambassador. He had received no specific instructions as to how he was to act in the circumstances, the officials said.
Israeli observers expressed some small satisfaction with the UNESCO vote which, from Israel’s viewpoint, was marginally better than the 105-4 vote in the General Assembly recognizing the PLO. They noted that all of the Western European delegations at the UNESCO meeting abstained, whereas in the General Assembly vote France, Italy, Sweden, Norway and Ireland had all voted for the PLO. On the other hand. Bolivia and the Dominican Republic did not join Israel and the United States in opposing the PLO In UNESCO as they had in the General Assembly voting.
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.
