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Barter of Votes
Egypt to Security Council, Franco’s Spain
to United Nations
By OBSERVER
On October 2, the United Press Correspondent in
Paris sent the following dispatch to American newspapers:
“Arab delegations to the United Nations appointed
a committee to seek support from other delegations in forming a solid
pro-Arab voting bloc. The committee. . . will concentrate in recruiting
Latin-American delegations to support the Arab view regarding Palestine.
In return the Arabs would sponsor Spain’s admission to United Nations.”
The Arabs have six votes in the United Nations,
constantly supported by two Moslem, non-Arab countries. (Pakistan and
Iran). Israel has no vote to cast. A tribunal in which one party in dispute
votes and the other party has no right to vote is unfair. A tribunal in
which one party has eight votes and the other none is very unfair. But
a tribunal in which a part of the jury buys the votes of other members
of the jury by overtly selling its own votes is a court of Sodom.
If the hope of mankind is placed in the United
Nations, and the United Nations countenances such practices, then in what
has mankind placed its hope?
* * *
During the month of June, when fighting was going
on in Palestine, Mr. El-Khouri, the Syrian delegate to the eleven-member
Security Council, sat as chairman of the Council. An elementary sense
of propriety should have led him to surrender this position, but he did
not. He also conferred by long distance calls with Count Bernadotte and
instructed him that he might disregard the decision of the General Assembly
on partition.
Syria also voted on Palestine in the Security
Council, though Article 27 of the Charter, dealing with the vote in that
body, forbids such practice: “A party to a dispute shall abstain
from voting.”
Is Article 27 not clear? Or is it not clear that
Syria is a party in the dispute about Palestine? I cannot figure out which
of the two is unclear.
Syria voted in spite of the Charter and even sat
as chairman. I have not found a similar incident in the annals of any
tribunal. Thus the Security Council established a precedent in international
law. However, possibly it was not a precedent.. I had no chance to investigate
the practices in Sodom. That place, as you know, was burned by fire and
brimstone raining from the sky, and the city was overturned and covered
by the waters of the Dead Sea, and all its court records were destroyed.
The Security Council may therefore boast of being the first to introduce
these practices, but it must explain why its practices violate its own
rules, the provisions of the Charter.
* * *
The term of Syria as a member of the Security
Council, with that of two other members, expired and worthy recipients
of this honored position were selected from among the nations of the world
for the next two-year term.
Article 23 of the United Nations Charter provides
that the Security Council shall consist of eleven members, which shall
include the Big Five as permanent members. The Article says: “The
General Assembly shall elect other members of the U. N. to be non-permanent
members of the Security Council, due regard being specially paid, in the
first instance, to the contribution of members of the United Nations to
the maintenance of international peace and security.”
On Oct. 8 the General Assembly elected three new
members to take the places of those retiring. Together with Norway and
Cuba, Egypt was chosen. It follows that the General Assembly of the U.N.
made this choice with due regard being specially paid to the contribution
of Egypt to the maintenance of international peace and security.
I ask myself: Is Article 23 of the Charter unclear?
Or are not Egyptian troops present on the soil of Palestine to obstruct
by force the decision of the same General Assembly of the U. N. voted
on Nov. 29, 1947? Have I alone read of bombs dropped by Egyptian planes
on Tel Aviv and Rishon-le-Zion? Do not Egyptian field guns at this very
hour shell Israeli settlements in the Negev?
* * *
On the same day, Oct. 8, the Herald Tribune carried
the following dispatch from its correspondent in Paris:
“Fifteen of the 20 Latin American republics
have organized a bloc in the U. N. General Assembly to support admission
of Franco’s Spain as a United Nations member.”
How beautifully done! Egypt became a member of
the Security Council. Now watch the Arab votes on the admission of Franco’s
Spain to the conclave of peace-loving nations.
It seems to me that the delegates at the Paris
General Assembly are not aware that historians will record all this in
their books, and the school children of the future will learn the names
of the states and their deeds in the U. N. But if the delegates are aware
of this, they do not care. What is history? Just so much bunk.
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