Mideast situation – Letter from Israel

Letter dated 8 July 1975 from the Acting Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General

On instructions of my Government I have the honour to refer to the letter addressed to you by the Permanent Representative of Lebanon on 7 July 1975 (A/10131-S/11747) and to state the following.

As usual, the Lebanese letter misrepresents the facts and is intended to mislead public opinion by pretending that peaceful villages had been attacked and innocent people hurt.

In fact, action was taken in the early morning hours of 7 July 1975 against a number of PLO terrorist bases in the areas of Rashadiya and Tzur.

It is from these bases that the terrorists have set out by sea and by land on their murder missions in Nahariya, Rosh Hanikra, Idmit, Kfar Yuval, the Savoy Hotel in Tel Aviv and other localities in Israel.

Even "Wafa", the PLO news agency, admitted that four terrorists were killed and seven wounded in the course of the said action, but the Permament Representative of Lebanon prefers to ignore this information.

The Lebanese letter also conveniently overlooks the fact that on 7 July 1975, at approximately 0630 hours local time, Katyusha rockets were fired from PLO terrorist positions in Lebanon on the town of Safed.  On the same day, at 0700 hours local time, several shells were fired by PLO terrorists in Lebanon against Kibbutz Yaron.

As pointed out in previous letters of this Mission, it is common knowledge -which is reported and confirmed by both the Arab and international media of information – that the PLO and the terror organizations under its umbrella are in virtual control of parts of Lebanese territory and act therein as if they constituted a separate regime.

It is also well known that the close co-operation between the Government of! Lebanon and the PLO murder organizations is based on formal agreements concluded between the two parties, beginning with the Cairo Agreement of 1969.

The PLO terrorists have recently begun to claim that the United Nations General Assembly had given its advance approval to their murderous attacks again civilian objectives in Israel.

It should be emphasized again that in these circumstances the Government of Israel has no choice and is duty bound to exercise its inherent right of self-defence and take all the necessary measures to protect its citizens and its territory.

I have the honour to request that this letter be circulated as an official document of the General Assembly and of the Security Council.