Raflk Asha, chief of the Syrian delegation at the United Nations, lashed out at the "jungle law of the Zionist experiment" in a speech last night to 200 members of the U.N. Council's foreign affairs conference.
Decrying what he termed "slander by remote control," Asha attacked those Americans who have never been in the Near East but have furnished the American people with "unbalanced information" on his area of the world.
Specifically, Asha attacked Israel for expelling Arab refugees, plotting to expand into neighboring Arab territories, and failing to live up to the United Nations agreement for partition of Palestine.
"One million Arabs were terrorized and finally expelled in the establishment of Israel," Asha asserted. "The refugees," he continued, "remain the most important. single problem arising out of Zionism in Palestine."
Furthermore, said Asha, the Israelis treat those Arabs who remain as second class citizens, denying them equal wages for equal work. "These people," claimed Asha, "are transplanted at will to make room for newly arrived Jewish immigrants." And Israel, he went on, is luring unlimited amounts of immigrants into the country beyond Israel's limited capacity--a situation, he said, pointing to inevitable territorial expansion.
In addition to these things, said the Syrian delegate, the Israelis have been infringing on Arab water rights and applying unfair economic pressure in an attempt to maintain a form on "non-conspicuous aggression."
The Israeli side of the question will be presented today at 2 p.m. in Sever 11 by Israel's U.N. delegate, Arthur Liveran, who countered many of Asha's points last night in a preview of today's speech. Among other points, Liveran criticized the Arabs with a "distortion of history," and claimed that most of the present Near Eastern tensions, including the refugee problem, are the result of the war the Arabs started against Israel.
"The Arabs who left Palestine," Liveran explained, "did so because the leaders of the Arab states themselves forced them out as part of a war maneuver to block the roads by packing civilians into the path of the Jewish army, following the example of Hitler in World War II. This is the origin of the refugee problem."
Liveran denied that the Arab leaders had any concern for the welfare of the refugees as human beings, and asserted that they were only using the issue as "a club with which to beat Israel over the head" after failing to subdue Israel by aggressive means.
"It would be entertaining to compare their demand for return of refugees," said the Israeli delegate, "with their claim that those Arabs now in Israel are mistreated.
