Jordan this morning opened the long-awaited debate which it called for on the status of Jerusalem by charging that Israel “was bent on Judaizing Arab Jerusalem” as part of its plan to establish an “expanded Zionist empire.” Jordan’s Ambassador to the UN, Baha Ud-Din Toukan, said Israel’s activities in East Jerusalem since it occupied the sector during the 1967 Six-Day War were previously planned and were carried out in “utter disregard” of repeated UN resolutions on the status of Jerusalem. The Jordanian representative stated “the only course left is for the Security Council to invoke whatever sanctions it deems fit to ensure respect for its decisions and to present a fait accompli in Jerusalem from interfering in a just solution which must be ultimately reached.”
As of late this afternoon, Israel’s UN Ambassador Yosef Tekoah, had not yet spoken before the Council. But the advanced text of his remarks declared that Jordan’s attitude about the “Judaization” of Jerusalem contains “a sinister echo” of “Hitler’s maniacal campaign against the so-called ‘Judaization’ of German life.” Tekoah’s statement continued: “We have not forgotten how this campaign developed into the genocide of six million of our brethren.” Tekoah was expected to claim that the real motivation behind the Jordanian call for the current debate on Jerusalem is a desire to divert attention from internal and inter-Arab problems with “a show of hostility toward the Jewish state.”
TOUKAN SAYS MASTER PLAN PREMEDITATED
Toukan contended that Israeli arbitrary arrests, detention, torture, demolition and deportation in the Arab sector had continued unabated despite General Assembly and Security Council resolutions. He said the majority of 4,000 Arabs evacuated from the Old City between June 1967 and May 1971 are reportedly “living in the suburb of Jerusalem in the most inhuman conditions after they had been thrown out of their homes.” He cited an Israeli “Master Plan” for greater Jerusalem which, he said, provides for the settlement of 122,000 new Israeli residents in the territories occupied from Jordan in 1967.
This, Toukan declared, involves construction on illegally confiscated private and public land and property in four Jerusalem suburbs. He said news media reported in 1969 that the plan was already being drawn up in 1964 to include the ultimate integration of the Israeli and Jordanian sectors of Jerusalem, thus indicating, he said, that the June, 1967 occupation of East Jerusalem and the subsequent annexation of it were planned long in advance.
EAST JERUSALEM SECURE, THRIVING
In Tekoah’s advance text, the Israeli Ambassador noted that the most important building project undertaken in East Jerusalem by the Israelis since 1967 has been the reconstruction of the Jewish Quarter “destroyed” by the Jordanians after they occupied the Eastern sector in 1948. And referring to activity on Mount Scopus–including reopening of branches of the Hebrew University and Hadassah Hospital–Tekoah was expected to state that these projects would have been undertaken years ago had Jordan not violated its commitment under the Amistice Agreement of 1949 to ensure free access to the humanitarian and cultural institutions on Mount Scopus. He said that Israel’s planning and construction in East Jerusalem has been necessary for the normal development of a “living and throbbing metropolis.”
Tekoah’s statement compared the current “secure and peaceful” status of a unified Jerusalem with what he termed the “suffering of the Eastern sector between 1948, when Jordan “invaded Jerusalem in violation of” the UN Charter and UN resolution, and 1967, when the Israelis took control of the Old City. Tekoah’s statement said Jerusalem’s 300,000 inhabitants–three-fourths of whom are Jews–“have the same rights as the citizens of any other city in the world. They refuse to have their lives tampered with and dissected by those who had mercilessly trampled them into dust.”
He also charged that UN debates on the Middle East were “almost like rituals of acrimony and animosity.” “We face foregone conclusions,” the statement continued, “and even a resolution formulated in advance.” This was a reference to the resolution Jordan reportedly plans to submit before the Council calling on Israel to desist from further measures that change the character of Jerusalem or the city’s status.
RESOLUTION TO DECLARE MEASURES INVALID
It is understood that the resolution will not demand that Israel revoke such measures already taken, but will simply declare such measures invalid. Sources said the language of the draft resolution has already been agreed upon by Jordan and the United States. However, it was still not clear today whether Arab states more militant than Jordan will agree to it. Besides Jordan and Israel, Egypt is also scheduled to participate in the current debate.
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.
