Cabinet Condemns Unassembly Resolution Declaring the Camp David Agreements As Invalid

The Cabinet today strongly condemned the United Nations General Assembly’s resolution declaring the Camp David accords invalid. The resolution, adopted Thursday night by a vote of 75-33 with 37 abstentions, was denounced in a Cabinet communique as “another proof of the decline of the United Nations. The international organization designed to keep the peace ‘condemns’ a peace agreement,” the communique said.

The General Assembly resolution declared that the Camp David agreements signed in September, 1978 by Israel, Egypt and the United States, “have no validity insofar as they purport to determine the future of the Palestinian people and the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since 1967. “Although the General Assembly and other UN bodies have expressed opposition to the agreements in the past, this declaration was the first by the General Assembly to reject the accords by name.

The resolution also condemned “all partial agreements and separate treaties which constitute a flagrant violation of the Palestinian people,” a reference to the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty, and rejected those provisions of the Camp David agreements “which ignore, infringe upon, violate or deny the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including the right of return, the right of self-determination and the right to national independence and sovereignty in Palestine.”

The resolution was opposed by Israel, Egypt, the U.S. and eight of the nine member states of the European Economic Community. France, the ninth member, abstained. An earlier attempt by Egypt to delete the references to the Camp David accords was defeated by a vote of 56-51 with 30 abstentions.

The resolution was supported by Third World countries. The Cabinet communique criticized the non-aligned bloc for “voting automatically for resolutions proposed by the most extreme to the Arab states which are backed by the Soviet bloc.”