1968_4_arabisraelwar

UNITED STATES AND UNITED NATIONS / 183
day that the administrative measures adopted by Israel were not intended
to create new political facts, but were required to restore normal services to
a city that had been united throughout history and artificially divided since
the 1948 war. He noted that Jordan had not safeguarded universal religious
interests in the Holy Places when they were under its control: Jewish synagogues
and cemeteries were desecrated; Jews were not allowed to pray at the
Western Wall; Israeli Moslem Arabs were excluded from their mosques;
pilgrimages of Israeli Christian Arabs were severely restricted. Eban pledged
free access to the Holy Places to all, and said that his government was prepared
to discuss arrangements for the safeguarding of the Holy Places with
those concerned, in Israel and elsewhere.
However, many countries were not satisfied with these assurances. At the
General Assembly emergency session, Pakistan introduced a resolution, cosponsored
by Guinea, Iran, Niger, and Turkey, declaring invalid Israeli measures
"to change the status of Jerusalem" and calling upon Israel "to rescind
all measures already taken" and to desist from future action changing the
city's status. The resolution was adopted on July 4, by a vote of 99 to 0,
with 20 abstentions. The United States abstained. A follow-up resolution, on
July 14, deplored Israel's failure to implement the earlier resolution and
reiterated its call to do so. The United States again abstained. Israel did not
vote on either resolution, considering them outside the Assembly's competence.
Ambassador Goldberg explained that the United States had been prepared
to support a resolution declaring that the UN would not accept any permanent
unilateral action affecting the status of Jerusalem and calling on
Israel "to desist" from such action. The United States did not support the
final text because Washington refused to endorse its implication that Israel's
administrative measures in fact constituted annexation. The United States
also considered it unrealistic and unfruitful, he said, to deal with "one aspect
of the problem of Jerusalem as an isolated issue," and not as part of "the
broader arrangements that must be made to restore a just and durable peace."
In line with its opposition to unilateral actions that might prejudice an
overall settlement, the United States, on September 26, asked Israel for
"clarification" of reports that Israel was setting up permanent Jewish settlement
in the occupied areas. Israeli spokesmen replied that the establishment
of Nahal (para-military, agricultural) outposts in occupied areas "does not
imply a decision by the government of Israel with regard to the future of
the area under its control."
Refugee Problem
The basic position of the United States (pp. 176-177) was that the problem
of the persons displaced by war must be dealt with in the framework of
a general peace settlement. President Johnson noted that both sides had resisted
outside mediation efforts "to restore the victims of conflict to their