Representatives of Arab states here are circulating a draft Security Council resolution demanding that Israel refrain from deporting any Palestinians from the administered territories, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency learned Tuesday.
The Security Council was expected to meet Tuesday night or Wednesday morning to discuss the situation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, where violent disturbances have broken out in recent weeks.
The Security Council meeting was requested by Jordan. But according to sources here, the main force behind the request was Egypt, the only Arab state to have a peace treaty with Israel.
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Benjamin Netanyahu, cut short his vacation in Israel and is enroute to New York to attend the session.
The draft resolution, backed by the Arabs and the Palestine Liberation Organization, calls on Israel to abide by the Geneva Convention of August 12, 1949, which protects the rights of civilians in time of war.
It is intended to bring the weight of the Security Council to bear on Israel to rescind deportation orders issued Sunday against nine Palestinian activists alleged to have been ringleaders in the disturbances, which began Dec. 9 and have continued sporadically ever since.
The resolution would be the second aimed against Israel since Dec. 22, when the Security Council voted 14-0 for a resolution strongly deploring Israel’s handling of riots in the territories. The United States, which has the power to veto any Security Council resolution, chose to abstain from voting.
The Dec. 22 resolution also called on Secretary General Javier Perez De Cuellar to send an emissary to Israel to examine conditions in the territories and to study prospects for implementing the resolution’s recommendations.
The Israeli newspaper Yediot Achronot reported Tuesday that the envoy, Marrack Goulding, is expected to arrive in Israel at the end of this week. Goulding is U.N. undersecretary for Middle East affairs.
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.
