The Soviet Communist Party newspaper Pravda demanded unspecified United Nations sanctions to force Israel’s withdrawal from the occupied Arab territories and accused the United States of duplicity in the search for Middle East peace. The Pravda article was signed “Observer” indicating that it was contributed from outside the newspaper’s staff, possibly from a high Government or party source.
The article contended that “the United States on the one hand speaks about the search for a peace settlement and, on the other, renders military aid to aggression.” Pravda described the bilateral U.S.-Soviet talks on the Middle East as an American “diplomatic sideshow” to “cover up” U.S. support of Israel. It said the UN should invoke sanctions to force Israel’s compliance with its resolution calling for withdrawal from the territories seized in the June, 1967 war. The Soviet Union, Pravda said, “firmly and steadily supports the just cause of the Arab peoples” and “will do everything needed to bring about the elimination of the consequences of Israeli aggression.”
(The Pravda article, followed reports that the U.S. and Soviet Union were narrowing the gap between them in trying to find a workable peace settlement to present to the Arabs and Israel through UN envoy Dr. Gunnar V. Jarring. The Mideast dispute figured prominently in the three talks held between Secretary of State William P. Rogers and Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko in recent days.)
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.
