Foreign Minister Yigal Allon said today that if the Arabs and their allies succeed in having Israel expelled from the United Nations–a possibility that is far from certain they can achieve–he would propose to the government that all UN activities in Israel and in all areas concerning Israel, should be suspended. He said this would include the role of the UN at Geneva, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), all UN activities in the administered territories and the presence of the UN High Commissioners House in Jerusalem.
A move to oust Israel from the UN should concern Israel’s neighbors and the Soviet Union, Allon declared in a television interview. He said the USSR cannot expect that Israel would agree to its playing any part in the Geneva peace conference or any other arena if it is not openly against the exclusion of Israel from the UN.
According to Allon, although the Russians loudly support the Arab ouster move in their Arabic propaganda, they have privately expressed a negative attitude toward the Arab-sponsored move against Israel in the world organization.
ISRAEL HAS COUNTER-WEAPONS
Allon said that although the Arabs and their Communist bloc and Third World allies command the preponderance of votes in the General Assembly, their ouster moves are far from assured of success. He noted that Israel has potent counter-weapons against such a move. He referred to Israel’s success in arousing international opinion against UNESCO’s moves to exclude Israel and said that proved that Israel can rally international movements against such attempts.
He disclosed that Israel has approached friendly nations and Third World nations with which it has connections and was given assurances, some in the form of official communiques from governments, that they would act against any attempt to exclude Israel from the UN.
(In Washington today, the State Department re-affirmed that the U.S. would be angered if the Organization for African Unity (OAU) adopted a resolution for Israel’s expulsion from the UN at its meeting in Kampala, Uganda. State Department spokesman Robert Anderson said that, as Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger has stated. “We are completely against the expulsion of any nation from the UN.” In Kampala, Uganda’s bitterly anti-Israel president Idi Amin told the OAU delegates that Israel must be expelled from the UN.)
EGYPT’S LATEST REPLY, HOPEFULLY NOT THE LAST
Referring to the negotiations on the interim agreement, Allon said he didn’t think that Egypt’s reply to Israel’s latest proposals represented Cairo’s last word. He said Israel sincerely wanted an interim agreement and he believed a chance should be given for another step. Every possible way must be explored and if, regretfully, no agreement is reached, it will be clear to us and to the U.S. that Israel did everything possible to achieve one, Allon said.
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.
