Security Council Adjourns Without Setting Time for Resuming Debate

The Security Council adjourned this afternoon without setting a time for resumption of debate, now in its fifth day, on Israel’s commando raids on terrorist installations in Lebanon April 10. The adjournment came as two draft resolutions were in circulation–one sponsored by Britain and France that contained in its preamble an equal condemnation of Arab terrorism and Israeli counter actions, and another, sponsored by the Arab States, containing an all-out condemnation of Israel without mentioning terrorist acts.

The United States was reportedly seeking to moderate the tone of that portion of the British French draft that included a phrase “condemning the repeated attacks conducted by Israel.” The U.S. Ambassador, John A. Scali, warned yesterday that the U.S. would not support one-sided resolutions, but by the same token would not condone violations of the sovereignty of one state by another, an apparent reference to the Israeli raids on Lebanon.

Before adjourning the Security Council was addressed by Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohammed H. el-Zayyat and by Israel’s Ambassador Yosef Tekoah, who spoke in direct reply to the Egyptian. El-Zayyat announced that his delegation would make a formal request tomorrow for the Security Council to consider the entire Middle East situation. He called Israel’s raids on Lebanon a “symptom” of Israel’s policy of “aggression and expansion.” He said Israeli commandos had ‘used forged British and Belgian passports in carrying out the raids and for that alone should be punished. “but who will punish them?” he asked.

TEKOAH ASSAILS LEBANON’S DUPLICITY

Tekoah said that the Egyptian Foreign Minister was the same person who had defended the terrorists responsible for the Munich outrage last Sept., the Lod Airport massacre last May and the murders of two American and a Belgian diplomat in Khartoum last month. He said el-Zayyat was now asking the Security Council to assist “those perpetrators of terror” and accused Cairo, Beirut and Damascus of playing a role “in the barbaric campaign of the terrorists” in violation of international law and the United Nations Charter.

In an impassioned speech to the Security Council yesterday, Tekoah-compared Lebanon to “the house owner who consorts ‘with murderers, who permits criminals the use of his home and then, when the neighbors strike back, complains that the house is being damaged or affected.” Tekoah said, “To the government of Lebanon I would give a piece of very simple advice. Get rid of the murderers in your midst. Chase them out of your house before they bring that house down upon you.”

He claimed that the Lebanese government encouraged terrorists by its attitude. “It fosters and gives added strength, by the kind of statements to which the Security Council has been treated in the course of this debate, to the terrorist groups active on its territory,” Tekoah said. He spoke in direct reply to the Lebanese Ambassador, Edouard Ghorra, who charged that Israel was using its military superiority “left and right…not for defense, as its leaders pretend, but to maintain an offensive campaign of terror and intimidation against neighboring Arab states.”

ISRAEL UNDER HEAVY FIRE

Since the Security Council debate opened late last Thursday afternoon at the urgent request of Lebanon, Israel has come under increasingly heavy fire for the raids on Lebanon. The most bitter condemnations of the action that Israel insists was a legitimate exercise of its right of self-defense came from the Arab and Soviet blocs and from China. Britain and France took a highly critical view of the Israeli raids although they also deplored Arab terrorism.

French Ambassador Louis de Guiririgaud implied in his address to the Security Council this morning that the only way to bring peace to the Middle East was a total arms embargo against the countries that were belligerents in the Six-Day War. France has maintained such an embargo for the past five years. However, it does not consider Lebanon and several other Arab states, including Libya, as having been belligerents.

The British-French draft resolution in circulation”calls upon all states to refrain from providing any assistance that would facilitate” military attacks such as Israel’s raid on Lebanon. Israel charged that this would subject it to sanctions. UN Charter experts agreed that while the proposed draft would not make sanctions mandatory, it could serve as an excuse for any nation that chose to cut its economic ties with Israel.

U.S. OPPOSED TO UNBALANCED RESOLUTION

(A highly placed American source told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in London today that the U.S. would certainly veto an anti-Israel resolution in the Security Council. The source said that while it was true that the U.S. has condemned Israel’s raid on Lebanon, it is the American position that unless the resolution is a balanced one, the U.S. would vote against it.)

(The British-French draft resolution was discussed in London today by the Israeli Ambassador, Michael Comay, who had requested an urgent meeting with Foreign Secretary Sir Alec Douglas-Home. Comay told the JTA that the meeting was occasioned by the draft resolution in circulation. It was learned that Sir Alec informed Comay that Britain was not committed to the circulated text despite its participation in the drafting and that Britain favored equal condemnation of Israel’s raids and of terrorism and those who support it.

(Sir Alec rejected, however, Israel’s contention that there was no room for condemnation of the raids on Lebanon because they were acts of self defense. It was reported that he told Comay that Britain did not regard the implied threat of sanctions against Israel in the circulated text to be the final terms of the resolution and that further negotiations would take place before a final draft was ready.)

U.S. ROLE IS KEY

The role of the United States was regarded as the key to any resolution that might emerge from the Security Council. Scali warned yesterday that unless the Council could move “from recrimination to even-handed condemnation of all forms of violence, there will be no progress toward peace.” He noted that in the last few months hundreds have been killed–“innocent men, women and children, diplomats, tourists and by standers alike.”

Scali said that while condemning the acts of terrorism “we do not and will not condone violations of the sovereignty of one state by another state.” He said it was the duty of “every state actively to prevent the organization or instigation” of acts of terrorists on its own territory.