U.S. Govt. Criticized for Initiating Aberrant Justice in Middle East

The United States Government was criticized here today for initiating “aberrant justice” in the Middle East, by sponsoring the recent resolution at the United Nations Security Council censuring Israel for its retaliatory raid on the Syrian border where anti-Israel provocations had been carried on for many weeks.

The criticism was voiced by Label A. Katz, president of B’nai B’rith, addressing a public meeting here. He said that American diplomacy “would better serve our national interests by vigorously encouraging direct peace negotiations” as called for by the Arab-Israel Armistice agreements. He condemned the UN resolution “for patently evading the real issue in the Israel-Syrian dispute: Which nation is prepared to negotiate a peace settlement, and which refuses to do so while engaging in provocative acts by shooting across the other’s borders?”

The recent Security Council action, passed 10-to-0 with France abstaining, reprimanded Israel for a military raid March 16-17 on Syrian gun posts overlooking the Sea of Galilee. The area is a demilitarized zone under terms of the 1949 Armistice agreement. The U.S. resolution made no reference to Israel’s complaint to the UN of Syrian artillery fire on Israeli fishermen and police boats in the weeks preceding the raid, except to deplore “hostile exchanges” between the countries.

Mr. Katz called the United States position “strangely inconsistent with our own national policy and actions, past and present, in Korea, in Berlin, in Southeast Asia and elsewhere, where our Government has taken appropriate defense measures against the military encroachment of aggressors. There is shameful irony,” he said, “in the fact that Egypt, sitting as a member of the Security Council, with American acquiescence, can vote to censure Israel, while Egypt is still in flagrant violation of UN resolutions directing her to open the Suez Canal to free transit by all nations.”