Attack in Israel – Letter from Israel

LETTER DATED 29 JANUARY 1979 FROM THE PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF

ISRAEL TO THE UNITED NATIONS ADDRESSED TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE

SECURITY COUNCIL

On instructions from my Government, I have the honour to draw your urgent attention to a terrorist atrocity perpetrated on 28 January 1979 by the so-called PLO in the town of Netanya on the coast between Tel-Aviv and Haifa.

At about 1130 hours (local time), an explosive device went off in the heart of the town, resulting in the deaths of a man and a woman and in the injury of 32 others, some of them seriously. In accordance with its cowardly practice, the terrorist PLO deliberately left the device in a busy mid-town street set to explode at a time when the crowds of shoppers were at their largest. Among those seriously injured were an infant aged ten months, a two-year old boy and five women.

On the same day, the news agency of the murder organization concerned indicated in Beirut its responsibility for this outrage. This open admission of the crime was also quoted by the Iraqi News Agency later in the day.

This latest terrorist atrocity follows the pattern reflected in the series of criminal activities to which I have referred in my letters of 23 November 1978 (A/33/388), 21 December 1978 (S/12978 and S/12979), 14 January 1979 (S/13028*), 17 January 1979 (S/13037), 18 January 1979 (S/13041) and 24 January 1979 (S/13053).  All these crimes have one thing in common: they aim at the mass murder of civilians.

This has been the basic characteristic of the PLO's barbaric activities throughout its existence. This is not the work of a "national liberation organization", as the PLO incongruously purports to be. It is the work of international criminals of the worst kind, bent on the indiscriminate murder of civilians while masquerading under the banner of a national liberation movement.

These latest outrages serve as violent and unconscionable reminders of the PLO's continued commitment to its aim, grotesquely described in its "covenant" as a "national duty", to eliminate the State of Israel – in flagrant violation of the Charter of the United Nations.

Despite the obvious danger which the terrorist PLO constitutes to international peace and security, it enjoys observer status in the United Nations and has been accorded irregular privileges as well as opportunities to participate in the deliberations of various organs of the United Nations, in violation of the United Nations Charter and of the Rules of Procedure of the organs concerned.

Given the true character of the organization in question, the Government of Israel is duty-bound, as I have indicated in previous letters, to take all measures necessary to protect the lives and safety of its citizens.

I have the honour to request that this letter be circulated as a document of the Security Council.

(Signed) Yehuda Z. BLUM

Ambassador

Permanent Representative of Israel

to the United Nations

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