Security Council considers settlements in occupied territories.

• Position: Immigrants to Israel from the USSR being settled in occupied Arab territories

SR had requested

SI21139) that the Council

convene to consider what it

called "unlawful Israeli moves to settle the occupied territories". It said the Israeli actions ran counter to the fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 1949 and obstructed Middle East peace efforts.

Council President Abdalla Saleh Al-Ashtal of the Democratic Yemen said that the matter would be considered further by the Council at a later date. No draft resolution had been tabled by the end of March.

Aleksandr Belonogov of the USSR, who brought the issue to the Council, in debate pointed out that the Security Council had previously called on Israel to halt establishment, construction and planning of settlements in the territories occupied since 1967.

The evolution of the situation in the Middle East had recently been viewed with some hope. Unfortunately the settlement of immigrants in the occupied territories was a new and serious obstacle to peace in the region. Certain circles in Israel were deliberately creating such obstacles, the USSR said. Johanan Bein of Israel commended the determination of the USSR to grant freedom of movement to its citizens. At the same time, "an ugly campaign" was being waged by Arab States to halt the immigration of jews to Israel altogether. It was implied that Israel intended to displace Palestinians with jewish immigrants, and that was "preposterous", he said.

There were no grounds for allegations that Israel, as a matter of policy, was directing jewish immigrants to the territories. More than 99 per cent of the immigrants had settled in Israel's main urban centres, Mr. Bein stated.

Far from displacing Palestinians, Israel had been the only party actively engaged in rehabilitating them. Since 1967, it had enabled, he said, "tens of thousands of Palestinians to return to judea, Samaria and Gaza under the family reunification plan" Since 1971, it had rehabilitated more than 150,000 Palestinian refugees in Gaza in the face of strong opposition by the Arab States.

Farouq Qaddoumi, representing Palestine, said that Israel continued to usurp Palestinian land. Settlement and land expropriation remained its dominant policy. Since 1967, more than 200 settlements had been built on the West Bank and in Gaza. Millions of Palestinians remained homeless. The massive organized jewish emigration from the USSR to Palestine was "a continuation of the Zionist invasion" of the Palestinian lands, and...