Spokesmen for two Arab countries and for a member of the Soviet bloc rejected in debate before the Security Council today any suggestions for stationing United Nations observers on the Israeli-Jordan cease-fire line as a means of easing the area’s rising tensions. The positions were taken during the third meeting of the current Council session, which began Monday at the request of Jordan and Israel following the Aug. 4 Israeli air blow at new terrorist bases near Salt, 15 miles west of Amman, in Jordan.
Before the meeting opened this afternoon, it was reported that Pakistan was seeking to draft an anti-Israel resolution for consideration by the Council. It was indicated that Pakistan hoped to win support for a resolution calling for sanctions against Israel, but the United States was expected to oppose such a resolution. Egypt, Jordan and the Soviet Union have demanded sanctions, either directly or by implication, in debate this week. On March 24, the Council approved unanimously a resolution condemning Israel’s March 21 raid against a terrorist base at Karameh in Jordan, which warned that actions of “military reprisal and other grave violations of the cease-fire cannot be tolerated” and that the Council “would have to consider further effective steps as envisaged in the Charter to ensure against repetition of such acts.”
Speaking against UN observers on the cease-fire line were Muhammad H. el-Farra of Jordan, George Tomeh of Syria and Jozsef Tardos of Hungary. In almost identical terms, the three delegates asserted that such observers were not preventing Israeli “aggression” along the Suez Canal demarcation line and “would not have prevented” the Aug. 4 raid and similar Israeli counters to the rising tempo of Arab incursions and Jordanian shelling of Israeli targets.
The Jordanian delegate, like previous Arab spokesmen, demanded the Council take “strong and effective” action under a UN Charter provision which provides for sanctions. He also called for restoration of the 1948 armistice agreements which Israel has contended were rendered void by the events preceding the June, 1967war. Mr. el-Farra insisted that the armistice agreement should be restored “in full vigor” and that the Council should put its full weight behind that effort, adding that his proposal would require Israel’s immediate withdrawal to the pre-June 1967 lines.
The Jordanian, Syrian and Hungarian delegates were joined by Ibrahima Boye of Senegal in denying Israel’s claim of self-defense as Justification for its reprisal blows at terrorist bases in Jordan. Jordan, Syria and Hungary also rejected Israel’s description of the guerrillas as “terrorists,” asserting that they were “freedom fighters.” Jordan also disclaimed completely any responsibility for acts of the guerrillas operating from Jordanian territory.
All of the speakers, including Israeli Ambassador Yosef Tekoah, warned that the spreading cease-fire violations were harmful to the mission of Dr. Gunnar V. Jarring, the UN special envoy, who is seeking to bring the Arabs and Israel together for negotiations toward a peaceful settlement. The Arab speakers and the Hungarian delegate blamed Israel for the area’s unrest and possible harm for the Jarring mission. Mr. Tekoah said Arab aggression was undermining the Jarring mission and that the cessation of Arab warfare was a prerequisite to a Just and lasting peace in the region.
The Israeli representative said the Arab representatives had offered a “strikingly bizarre thesis” – that Arabs would continue to attack Israel but that Israel must not retaliate. He told the Council that Jordan, giving armed support to raiders from its territory, did not recognize the ceasefire line and, In effect, wanted Israel to accept that line as a protection for armed raiders. He said the Council should not accept the view that one of the parties view the cease-fire line as a front for attacks on Israel. He said it was for the Council to decide whether to end the Arab “conspiracy of aggression” or whether it would be left to Israel to deal with it. He again rejected the Arab thesis that the guerrilla raids were entirely a phenomenon of Arab “patriotism” and “resistance to the occupier,” declaring that they had not started last June but were as old as Arab-Israel hostilities.
JORDANIAN, SYRIAN QUOTE REPORTS IN JEWISH TELEGRAPHIC AGENCY ‘DAILY BULLETIN’
Both the Jordanian and Syrian delegates quoted the Jewish Telegraphic Agency news service in efforts to prove that Israel was engaged in a “long-range conspiracy” with the intent of “expanding” indefinitely. Both also sprinkled comparisons of Israel with the Nazis in their statements. The Jordanian delegate quoted a statement by Mr. Tekoah, alluding to a JTA Daily Bulletin of July 26 to the effect that the Israeli envoy had cited legal experts on international affairs as questioning the validity of many UN resolutions directed against Israel. (In the article, the authorities were quoted as saying they doubted also the “moral and political import” of such resolutions, adding that many of the resolutions on the Middle East situation “lack in equity and fall to take into consideration Israel’s legitimate rights and Interests.”) Mr. el-Farra said that the Tekoah comment was “proof” of Israel’s “determination” to “ignore” Security Council resolutions against its “aggression.”
Mr. Tomeh cited a JTA Aug. 2 Daily Bulletin reporting that the United States Senate had approved a 1969 foreign aid bill containing a provision that the President should sell Israel the Phantom Jets which Israel has been seeking since last January to offset the buildup of Arab air forces by sophisticated jet fighter planes from the Soviet Union. The Syrian delegate said the Senate action indicated that Israel was finding “support” for its “intransigence” from the U.S. He added that what had been “perpetrated” by Israel against Jordan this year and against Jordan, Syria and Egypt in the Six-Day War was “not essentially different from the war conducted by the U.S. in Viet Nam.”
Skjold G. Mellbin of Denmark said his delegation considered all cease-fire violations deplorable because they “impeded progress to peace” He added that the parties concerned, as well as all members of the UN, must support the Jarring mission which he called the best “and perhaps the only” hope for a just and lasting settlement. He said Denmark deplored massive raids by Israel, as well as all other acts of violence across the cease-fire lines.
The last speaker during the session today was Jamil M. Baroody of Saudi Arabia. The meeting was then adjourned until 10 a.m. Friday.
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.
