Egypt accused Israel today of circulating a “mutilated” version of the report of the African peace mission. The chief Egyptian delegate, Dr. Mohammed H. el-Zayyat, charged in the General Assembly that the version Israel has circulated internationally has only eight pages, with a ninth and final page “taken out of it.” That ninth page, he said, contains three paragraphs declaring that Egypt should not have to give up “any part of its national territory” and that Israel should “give its accord” to a declaration against “territorial annexation.”
After the Assembly adjourned for lunch, Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency correspondent that the phantom page indeed did not exist in the version of the report-which has not been officially released publicly-distributed by Israel. Eban suggested that the alleged additional material has been devised by Egypt to advance her case. Eban addressed the Assembly just before Dr. Zayyat did. The Assembly will vote this evening on three draft resolutions on the Middle East.
Israel supports two of them-one, sponsored by Barbados, endorses the African conciliation report, a reactivation of the Jarring mission and a resumption of the peace talks; and another, cosponsored by Costa Rica and Uruguay, also supports the African study and urges Ambassador Gunnar V. Jarring, the United Nation’s Mideast intermediary, to redouble his efforts toward negotiations. Egypt supports an 18-power draft, usually referred to as the Afghanistan resolution, that emphasizes Israeli withdrawal. Israeli officials declined to predict the outcome of the voting.
In his Assembly remarks today, Eban lauded the “high level of objectivity and international courtesy” in the report of the Organization of African Unity. He said Israel was entitled to “deep preoccupation with physical security,” and asserted it was “not true” that Israel has “an arbitrary appetite for expansion.” Eban said he was “at a loss to understand” objections to “anything whatever” in the drafts of Barbados and of Costa Rica and Uruguay, which “would have the effect of renewing the negotiations tomorrow.”
Dr. Zayyat asserted that Israel should commit itself to the 1947 lines instead of “violating the borders” of Egypt, Syria and Jordan. The Jarring mission, he said in English, “has reached already an impasse,” having been “blocked by the refusal of the State of Israel to reply (positively) to Jarring.” If no such reply is forthcoming by year’s end, the Egyptian stated, the Security Council should take Resolution 242 and “declare it dead and nonexistent” and Dr. Jarring should be relieved of his mission.
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.
