U.N. defers Israel action after acrimonious debate

Press, 7 August 1982, Page 8

U.N. defers Israel action after acrimonious debate

NZPA New. York After an angry, name-call-ing debate, the United Nations Security Council deferred action until early today on a Soviet resolution calling on all States to halt arms shipments and military aid to Israel. The council scheduled a noon (4 a.m. today, N.Z. time) meeting to continue consideration of the draft, which included a demand for Israeli compliance with resolutions adopted on Monday and Thursday.

These called for a ceasefire. and a halt to military activities in Lebanon, withdrawal of Israeli troops from positions occupied since Sunday in Beirut, and the deployment of United Nations observers to monitor the situation.

While demanding the embargo, the Soviet text did not invoke the sanctions provisions of the United Nations Charter that would be necessary to make it mandatory on member countries.

After a five-hour meeting of its Cabinet in Jerusalem yesterday, Israel rejected the monitoring plan and ignored the council’s demand that its troops give up newly occupied ground. • The Israeli response prompted the Soviet Union to call for an urgent meeting of

the Security Council, which got under way shortly before 2 a.m. (6 p.m. last evening, N.Z. time).

The hour-long session was marked by acrimonious exchanges between the Soviet and Israeli representatives. The Soviet Ambassador, Richard Ovinikov, said the “insolence of the aggressor” was attributable to the economic, political and military aid of its overseas protectors. He described his resolution as an absolute minimum the council could do to “wrest the weapons from the hands of the crazed Israeli aggressors.”

“Of course, if the aggressor does not come to his senses, and particularly if he becomes even crazier, the Security Council will have to take additional, more severe measures,” he said. Meanwhile, the Israelis must not be allowed to do to Beirut what Nazi Germany did to Warsaw, Lidice, and Coventry, he said. Calling Mr Ovinikov vulgar and his statement obscene and perverse, the Israeli delegate, Yehuda Blum, said he would not be intimidated by bullying tactics.

“The Soviet Union is the foremost violator of international law in contempor-

ary life." he said. "Ambassador Ovinikov, you represent the gravest threat to international peace and security since 1945."

The Soviet delegate claimed to represent a workers’ State, but everyone knew it was a sham, Mr Blum said.

As delegates assembled for the debate, the Secretary General (Mr Javier Perez de Cuellar) issued a report containing Mr Blum’s formal response to the earlier resolutions.

Repeating the Israeli Cabinet’s statement, Mr Blum said that United Nations observers could in no feasible and practical way monitor the activities of “the terrorist organisations,” Israel’s customary term for the Palestinian fighters, in Beirut and its environs.

“The presence of such observers in Beirut would signal to the terrorist organisations that they are under no obligation to leave Beirut and Lebanon despite the demand of the Lebanese Government and the explicit and urgent demands of the President of the United States that they do so as speedily as possible.” As Israel yesterday rejected the United Nations plan to monitor the ceasefire, it in effect turned down

American appeals for an end to hostilities and a pull ; back of forces- in the besieged Lebanese capital. On President Ronald Reagan’s appeal for a halt to the fighting and the American call for an Israeli withdrawal to Sunday’s cease-fire lines, the Cabinet announce-

ment was less explicit. It said: "Arrangement of the deployment of Israeli forces will be determined following the departure of the terrorists in Beirut be-

yond the Lebanese border on the basis of the principle that all foreign forces will leave the sovereign territory of Lebanon."

Israel radio interpreted this statement as a rejection of the American call for Israel to pull back its forces

to Sunday’s cease-fire lines in Beirut. The Ministers accused the

Palestinian guerrillas of breaking repeated cease-fires in Beirut and said Israel had agreed to end the fighting on the axiomatic condition that it be absolute and mutual." “Without mutuality Israel’s response to violations by the terrorists is inevitable,” the announcement said.

The radio said that this statement "in effect was a polite rejection of President Reagan's appeal for Israel to accept a one-sided cessation of hostilities.”

Yesterday's decisions were expected to sharpen the differences between Israel and its chief ally, the United States, over how to defuse

the Lebanese crisis. The White House withheld immediate comment on Israel’s reply.

A State Department spokesman, Alan Romberg, gave no reason for the

American request. “It's a judgment that the Government, the President has reached." But ABC television news reported that the move was in response to a personal appeal from King Fahd of Saudi Arabia. The White House confirmed an official Saudi press agency report that the monarch had contacted Mr Reagan on Thursday on the Lebanon crisis.

Later, the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Charles Percy, sounded a warning of possible severe economic retaliation against the United States by Arab countries.

After an in camera briefing from the Secretary of State (Mr George Shultz), Mr Percy said that America’s friends in the Arab world had told Washington that if

the Israelis launched an alkL out invasion of west Beirut: • they would hold the United v States accountable because it-J had supplied Israel with weapons.

“They are talking about..; very severe retaliation, es-.-i sentially economic, that,., would cost the American public billions and billions of dollars” Mr Percy told re-, porters. _

An Israeli drive into west Beirut would fundamentally change United States-Israeli, relations, he said. ..

In Beirut. Israeli gunners shelled Palestinian positions yesterday after a day of relative calm in which the guerrilla leaders were reported to be nearing agreement on an American plan to get them out of west Beirut