The United Nations Security Council today, for the third time, failed to reach a decision on the adoption of its agenda on the Lebanese complaint against Israel, submitted on behalf of Jordan, concerning the Nahalin incident, the four-point Israeli complaint against Jordan, and the method of dealing with those two matters. The meeting was adjourned until Tuesday afternoon.
A compromise proposal formally introduced by Brazil, and supported by Colombia, could easily have obtained the necessary majority of seven votes at today’s meeting of the Council. However, Soviet delegate Andrei Vishinsky–who is president of the Security Council for this month–and Dr. Charles Malik, Lebanese delegate who speaks for the Arab countries, strongly warned the members of the Council against taking the proposal to a vote today.
Dr. Malik threatened he “may have something to say” if the proposal is adopted, implying that he may leave the Security Council.
The Brazilian proposal, which also has the support of the United States, Britain, France, New Zealand and Denmark, provides that the Security Council: 1. Adopt its provisional agenda which lists the Lebanese complaint first and the Israeli complaints second; 2. Hold general discussions in which reference can be made to both items; 3. Does not judge at this time whether, as a result of the general discussion, a joint resolution or several separate resolutions are to be adopted.
VISHINSKY INSISTS ON DISCUSSING COMPLAINTS SEPARATELY
Speaking as the delegate of the Soviet Union, Mr. Vishinsky insisted that the Arab and Israel complaints should be considered separately because “Israel’s complaint is fundamentally different from the Lebanese complaint. ” He summarized the Soviet position as follows:
1. The Palestine question as a whole should not be considered within the frame-work of the present agenda, whether the two items are discussed jointly or separately.
2. The two items must be considered separately.
3. References to issues of a more general nature would be permissible in the discussion of each item.
4. As to the passage of resolutions, the Security Council could decide this question at the appropriate time.
Then speaking as president of the Council, Mr. Vishinsky said that he would have great difficulty in guiding a debate conducted in accordance with the Brazilian proposal. Speaking again as Soviet representative, he stated he understood the Brazilian motion as not proposing a debate on the Palestine question as a whole. Thus, he said, such a debate would not be in order. However, he could not agree to a joint consideration of both complaints.
In opening today’s meeting, Mr. Vishinsky reported that he had received a letter from the representative of Israel, Ambassador Abba Eban, asking that “for religious reasons” the Security Council meeting scheduled for April 19 be postponed as he would not be able to attend. However, Mr. Vishinsky did not mention the fact that he had rejected Mr. Eban’s request and postponed the meeting only after the Lebanese delegate informed him that he was ill and could not attend.
Leslie Knox Munro, delegate of New Zealand, in announcing that he would support the Brazilian-Colombian proposal assured Dr. Malik that it was “far from our intention to smother or evade” the Nahalin incident; however he thought that the discussion of the present Arab-Israel border problem should not be confined to “symptoms.” He was joined in his view by William Borberg, delegate of Denmark.
Dr. Malik, in opposing the Brazilian proposal, argued that he failed to see “any difference whatsoever” between this proposal and what Sir Pierson Dixon of the United Kingdom had proposed at the very first Council meeting devoted to this issue. The United Kingdom idea, from the very beginning, had been to put aside the examination of the individual complaints and to proceed to a general debate, he said.
In view of the “exceeding gravity of the situation” and of the decision to be taken, Dr. Malik urged the Security Council not to adopt a decision which would only show that the Council “had not moved one step” from the original position of the United Kingdom. The Security Council should show that the “ten hours of procedural wrangle have not been in vain as regards budging some honorable members from their original position, ” he concluded.
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