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November 3, 1973 - UN Protest Card
Generally UN Protest cards are issued by various groups to exert pressure on the United Nations. This particular anti-Syria/Egypt protest card sent to the Secretary General of the U.N. in the United Nations Building in New York requests the US and Russia to ensure that Syria and Egypt apply the Geneva Convention to Israeli prisoners of war captured during the Yom Kippur War in October 1973.
On October 6, 1973 the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur (thus "Yom Kippur War"), Israel was attacked by Egypt across the Suez Canal and by Syria on the Golan Heights. In this war the Arab armies showed greater aggressiveness and fighting ability than in the previous war of 1967 (the Six-Day-War). The Israeli forces suffered heavy material and personel casualties. The Israeli army, however, pushed its way into Syrian territory and encircled the Egyptian Third Army by crossing the Suez Canal and establishing forces on its west bank.
Israel and Egypt signed a cease-fire agreement in November and, on January 18, 1974, peace agreements. On May 31, 1974, Israel and Syria signed a cease-fire agreement. The agreement covered the exchange of prisoners of war. On March 26, 1979, Israel and Egypt signed the Camp David Accords, which formally ended the state of war that had existed between the two countries for 30 years.
In 1973 - as the protest card was sent - Kurt Waldheim was Secretary General of the U.N. Ironically Waldheim was later linked to Nazi activities during WW2. In 1986 he ran as the People's Party candidate for president of Austria. In the same year a controversy arose when rediscovered documents pointed to his being an interpreter and intelligence officer for a German army unit, that had been engaged in brutal reprisals against Yugoslav partisans and civilians and that had deported most of the Jewish population of Salonika (Thessaloníki), Greece, to Nazi death camps in 1943.
Yet he won the election to the Austrian presidency in June 1986 for a six-year term. Owing to the controversy over his wartime past, however, he became a somewhat isolated figure on the international scene.
(Source concerning the Arab-Israeli Wars: Encyclopædia Britannica).
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