New York Post

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1948


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.