Israel Blames Syria, Iran for Attacks on U.N. Troops in Lebanon

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, accused Syria and Iran before the Security Council on Monday of sponsoring Shia Muslim terrorist attacks on the U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon.

Netanyahu rejected last week’s report by U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar that blamed the presence of Israeli troops in the area for the threat to the U.N. force. The report called for the withdrawal of all Israelis and the Israeli-sponsored militia to permit the peacekeeping force to take up positions along Lebanon’s frontier with Israel.

Support for Netanyahu’s position came from British delegate John Thomson, who told the council that “it is not Israeli forces who are attacking and killing.” Thomson said, however, that Israel’s troops are illegally present in Lebanon and must be removed if peace is to be achieved there.

Israel maintains a six- to 10-mile-wide security zone north of its frontier with Lebanon to protect its northern settlements from guerrilla attacks. The zone is patrolled by the South Lebanon Army, an Israeli-backed, Christian-led Lebanese militia organization, with help from a small number of Israeli troops.

The Security Council met Monday for the second time since an initial session convened Friday at the request of France, whose 1,500-man contingent in the U.N. south Lebanon force has suffered five dead and a score of wounded in guerrilla attacks in the past two months. A draft resolution sponsored by France endorsed Perez de Cuellar’s report and called for Israel to abandon all Lebanese territory.

“Where are most of the recent attacks coming from?” the Israeli envoy asked. “Overwhelmingly, they originate from one source--the Shia terror organization known as Hezbollah (Party of God).

“And who stands behind this so-called Party of God, this organization whose name we first heard when it boasted of its responsibility for murdering American and French peacekeepers in Beirut, for bombing the American Embassy and kidnaping and executing the innocent nationals of half a dozen countries?” he continued. “Does anyone here have any doubts as to who finances, organizes, equips, inspires and motivates this group? The address is in Tehran. But this is not the only address. There is another one, and that second address is the . . . presidential palace in Damascus.”

Netanyahu recalled that Hezbollah leaders have proclaimed their enmity toward France and have vowed to dismantle the U.N. peacekeeping force and gain a bastion in southern Lebanon from which to attack Israel itself. Terrorist attacks from Lebanon prompted the original Israeli invasion of 1978, Netanyahu said, in the aftermath of which the U.N. force was created. Renewed terrorist attacks provoked the major Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

The Israeli diplomat said the security zone maintained by Israel today has kept peace on both the Lebanese and Israeli sides of the border. Israel will not permit the return of Hezbollah guerrillas to the area, he said, and the U.N. force alone cannot prevent this.

Syrian delegate Abdul Moumen Atassi denounced the “Zionist representative” for his distortion of the facts and hailed the “objective” report by Perez de Cuellar.

The council scheduled another meeting for today, and some members of the 15-nation panel said that a vote may be taken on the French proposal.