War of Words

Repeating a familiar, futile ritual, the U.N. Security Council was called into session last week in response to the Israeli commando attacks on Beirut. Even Arab diplomats acknowledged that they did not expect the meeting to find a solution to the Middle East crisis. In fact, said Algerian Ambassador Abdellatif Rahal, "it is not my intention to propose one." Instead, he and other Middle Eastern emissaries planned to spend the session condemning both Israel and the U.S., which, in the view of Arab leaders, promotes Israel's military aggressiveness.

Rahal charged that it was "curious that the U.S. should recognize no responsibility for the use that is made of the arms and financial aid that it furnishes Israel, or that it should express astonishment at the suspicion shown toward it when events such as those in Lebanon take place."

Squabble. Before U.S. Ambassador John Scali had a chance to reply to the Arab charges, a squabble broke out between the Russian and Chinese ambassadors. Yakov Malik insisted that any resolution on the Middle East make reference to the nonuse of force in international relations. Chinese Ambassador Huang Hua denounced the Soviet proposal as "downright fraud," since "along the northern frontier of China it [the Soviet Union] has stationed a million troops to threaten China." Could this, asked Huang, "be called nonuse of force in international relations?"

Malik later set off another brisk diplomatic exchange when he noted that the Israelis felt "nearer than any other people to God." He added: "I am an atheist but I do not believe God would be so partial." Rapping the table with his pipe, the Israeli Ambassador, Yosef Tekoah, shouted: "I do not believe that the Security Council should be a forum for the kind of slander and abuses of any people's faith we heard just now from Ambassador Malik!" Tekoah then proceeded to bring up the Soviet Union's prewar pact with Nazi Germany, which drew a sharp protest from Malik.

After that, Scali was content to make a brief speech, in which he asked for an evenhanded resolution condemning "violence and terror from whatever source and of whatever kind." He told Arab diplomats privately that he would veto any resolution on Israel that he considered too one-sided.

Scali managed to sidestep a veto. The Security Council voted 11-0, with the U.S. and three other nations abstaining, to adopt a resolution that condemned Israel's raids on Lebanon and also deplored "all recent acts of violence"--a phrase that could be interpreted to include Arab terrorism. The compromise did not please the Arabs. Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohammed el-Zayyat declared that "if the situation in the Middle East defies any solution today it is because of United States support for Israel."

Meanwhile, the first suspected act of violence by Black September terrorists within the U.S. took place in Washington, D.C., last week. A shot was fired into a bedroom of the home of the New Zealand charge d'affaires. Luckily, no one was hurt. Apparently it was a ludicrous case of mistaken identity: the attackers were after the Jordanian ambassador--who had moved away two years earlier. "The terrorists may have been using a very old diplomatic directory," said the understandably nervous New Zealand charge, Gerald Hensley, adding: "It is most unlikely that the shot was intended for us. We have a very low profile on Middle East matters."

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