Search JTA's historical archive dating back to 1923

Blum Warns Palestinian State Would Be First Stage in PLO Plan to Destroy State of Israel

December 3, 1980
See Original Daily Bulletin From This Date
Advertisement

— Yehuda Blum Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, charged today that a Palestinian state in Judaea and Samaria would be the first stage in a plan to destroy Israel.

Addressing the General Assembly debate on the question of Palestine, which opened here yesterday, the Israeli envoy said that the Palestine Liberation Organization designs are to establish, as a first stage, “a second Palestinian Arab state anywhere in the territories administered by Israel since 1967, while the second stage would be to use that proposed state as a launching pad for the ultimate liquidation of Israel.”

Blum said that the Arabs could have established a second Palestinian Arab state in Judaea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip when these territories were under their control before the 1967 Six Day War. But the Arabs did not do it. Blum charged, because “The entire world knew that the Kingdom of Jordan is the Arab State in Palestine, just as the State of Israel is the Jewish State in Palestine.”

Blum accused the PLO of engaging in acts of terror and sabotage against Israel. “In parallel and particular since the signing of the Camp David Framework Accords for peace in the Mideast in Sept. 1978, the PLO has also been allotted the task of intimidating and silencing Arabs in those territories (the Administered territories) who support the peace process.”

URGES NEGOTIATIONS

“Israel,” Blum declared, “feels no obligation to accommodate its enemies by evacuating Judaea, Samaria and the Gaza District, nor to offer the PLO a free hand in those territories.”

Referring to the autonomy negotiations for the West Bonk and Gaza, Blum said: “The program of autonomy which we have proposed for the Palestinian inhabitants of Judaea, Samaria and the Gaza district, as accepted in principle in the Camp David Frameworks, is the first practical proposal to be advanced to provide a dignified solution for the needs of the Arab population of those areas.”

Blum called on the Arab states to sit down with Israel for force to force negotiations as the only way to solve the Arab Israeli conflict. Citing the peace between Egypt and Israel, Blum said “When on Arab state is prepared to recognize Israel’s right, things fall rapidly into place.”

Recommended from JTA

Advertisement