A/34/PV.81 General Assembly

When we consider the spectacular growth of this Organization’s memb«.ship, of which the admission of Saint Lucia is the latest instance, when we consider the .increasing array of territories large and small which have been emancipated from alien domination during the last two decades and are now represénted among us as sovereign and equal Members, can we fail to ask when the peoples of Palestine will be rid of that incubus of alien domination and so be enabled at long last to join the society of free nations? 2. Of all the cases we know of self-determination promised and long denied, few seem more offensive to our sense of justice than that cf the Palestinian Arabs. Originally, the promise of liberation from Ottoman rule in return for an uprising against it was expressly held out to all Arabs in that Empire, except those living in the coastal regions of Syria and Lebanon. Of the League of Nations Mandates which were eventually substituted for the promised liberation, all, including Syria and Lebanon, have ended in the freedom of the Mandated Territories—all, that is, except the Mandate for Palestine', the one territory marked out for Jewish immigration. When at the instance of the Mandatory Power the General Assembly took over the question in 1947, and rightly so as the legal successor of the League of Nations, it created the State of Israel by means of a partition at the expense of the long-resident Arab population. Yet it provided also by the same act for the creation of an Arab State in Palestine, recognizing in unmistakable terms and going some way towards ensuring the exercise at last of the inalienable right of the Palestinian Arabs to self-determination within their own homeland, Palestine.? It seems to us one of the most bizarre ironies of international politics today that the issue now should be no longer whether a Jewish State should be created in Palestine, but whether an Arab State should be allowed to exist there. 2 See the Plan of Partition with Economic Union, annexed to General Assembly resolution 181 (11) of 29 November 1947. at 3:15 p.m. 3. In our view, there are at least two basic requirements for peace in the Middle East which should be recognized as non-negotiable in any circumstances: first, the unfettered exercise by the Palestinian Arab people of their right to self-determination, a right recognized by the General Assembly in the same resolution that called for the creation of the Israeli State, and in any case a right as inalienable for the people of Palestine as it is for any other people; secondly, the nonadmissibility of the use of force to alter boundaries and, following from that, the need for Israeli withdrawal, total and unconditional, from all occupied Arab territories. 4. If we accept these two conditions as nonnegotiable—and the resolutions of the General Assembly, the Conference of Non-Aligned Countries and the Organization of African Unity [OAU] do so—it follows, first, that Security Council resolution 242 (1967) is inadequate if not actually inequitable as a basis for peace, because, while it concedes the right of Israel to exist in security as a State within Palestine, it remains silent on what is on the other side of the same coin, the right of the Palestinian Arabs to self-determination and independence, aiso in security, and also within Palestine. It follows that the Camp David agreements? and the Egypt-Israeli Peace Treaty‘ in their present form are both still inadequate as the basis of any durable settlement, inasmuch as they in effect trade in major concessions for something short of the non-negotiable prereq-’ uisites; for the mere possibility, not even the promise, still less the certainty, of Israel’s future withdrawal from occupied Arab lands other than the Sinai, for an immediate status worse than that of bantustans for the Palestinian Arabs, and for what looks like a veto by Israel on even the eventual exercise by Palestinian Arabs of their right to self-determination. In this tradeoff, Israel not only gains the recognition of the right to exist within what are termed secure and recognized boundaries, by which some mean, presumably, its boundaries before the 1967 war; it also acquires by virtue of the peace on its southern frontier a considerable increase in its relative military strength and in the relative strength of its bargaining position vis-a-vis its neighbours. It can co as it likes in its neighbourhood toa far greater extent than before. It can attack Lebanon. It can, if it chooses, choke the entire West Bank and Gaza with Israeli settlers on Arab lands. It can reject the very principle, indeed the very mention, of Palestinian selfdetermination as a requirement or condition of peace. Nowadays it appears to be doing just that. 5. When we speak thus, let it not be imagined that we are insensible to the cruel sufferings of the Jewish people throughout the centuries of the Diaspora, and even before. But those sufferings were not at the hands 3 A Framework for Peace in the Middle East, Agreed at Camp David, and Framework for the Conclusion ofa Peace Treaty between Egypt and Israel, signed at Washington on 17 September 1978. + Peace Treaty between the Arab Republic of Egypt and the State of Israel, signed at Washington on 26 March 1979. 6. Tous, then, the pre-conditions of lasting peace are clear, and resolution 242 (1967) dees not cover them ali. There must be a Palestinian Arab State in Palestine if the Arabs of Palestine so desire—and they do. And, as we see it, far more pressure than has been used so far needs to be brought to bear on Israel by the international community to make it concede this point— pressure, particularly, by those Powers which have so far supported Israel and stiffened its resistance. Furthermore, both the exercise of self-determination by the Palestinians and the principle that ferce is inadmissible under the Charter for the valid alteration of boundaries demand the total and unconditional withdrawal of Israel from all Arab territories occ..:pied by force, including east Jerusalem. They also demand that Israel should desist from the policy of establishing Israeli settlements in those territories and from all policies likely to tamper with their demographic composition. 7. Elementary justice and humanity demand that the three and a half million Palestinians now retdered homeless should enjoy the option of return or compensation. And common sense demands that the Palestine Liberation Organization [PLO], as the authentic representative of the Palestinian people, should participate on an equal footing in all negotiations on the question of Palestine, if there is to be a lasting peace in the Middle East. Israel insists that the condition of this should be recognition by the PLO of Israel’s right to statehood in Palestine. Clearly, however, and equitably, the proper and equivalent concession to make for the acceptance, as in resolution 242 (1967}, of Israel’s right to secure statehood in Palestine is the acceptance of the Palestinian people’s right to equally secure statehood also in Palestine, and not merely the PLO’s right to negotiate on their behalf. For that, anyway, cannot be regarded as reaily negotiable by any one genuinely looking for realistic approaches to peace in the Middle East. 8. These brief reflections set out the considerations which will guide the Ghana delegation in making its decision concerning the draft resolutions to be submitted on this itern. 9. I cannot conclude without paying a tribute to the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People and to its Chairman, Ambassador Médoune Fall of Senegal. Under his leadership, the Committee has over the years made an invaluable contribution to the work of the General Assembly by the thoroughness and objectivity with which it has at all times pursued its difficult assignment. It has continued to inform our deliberations by its useful studies, reliable findings and sound recommendations. Our best wishes go to Ambassador Fall in his future assignments.

In dealing with the question of Palestine, a question which has continued to threaten world peace during the lifetime of the United Nations, the world Organization has established appropriate principles and devised just and practical measures for the peaceful resolution of this issue in accordance with the principles of the Charter and those of international law. It is in this context that my Government tc fully caramitted ta the nacitinn that the 11. This question, which is the core of the Middle East conflict, remains unresolved because of Israel’s intransigence, its contempt for international conventions to which it is a party and its defiance of resolutions of the General Assembly and the Security Council. 12. My delegation deeply deplores the fact that each day brings additional evidence of Israel’s annexationist and inhuman policies aimed at expanding the Zionist State at the expense of the Palestinian people and of their inalienable right to nationhood in Palestine. 13. The facts of this situation are not in doubt. They have repeatedly been attested tu and examined in this body and in the Security Council. It has been established, in the first place, that Israel’s continued occupation of Arab territory is in defiance of Security Council resolutions which confirm the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force. Secondly, Israel’s attempts to change the political, demographic, religious, cultural and geographic character of occttpied Palestine, including Jerusalem, through settlement and other policies, are in gross violation of the fourth Geneva Convention, of 1949.° 14, If the uncontested reports of the international press were not sufficient to confirm Israel’s violations of international law, the findings of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, and of the Security Council Commission established under resolution 446 (1979) to examine the situation relating to settlements in the occupied Arab territories would certainly do so. As the Security Council Commission states, **...the Israeli Government is engaged in a wilful, systematic and large-scale process of establishing settlements in the occupied territories for which it should bear full responsibility’’.® This policy has been universally condemned, even by Israel’s closest supporters, as a serious obstacle to the achievement of a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East. 15. The Commission also expressed its concern about Israel’s disregard of human rights—-a concern shared by the Commission on Human Rights, which has condemned Israel’s repressive occupation policies. These policies are characterized by the systematic torture of Palestinian detainees and the imposition of collective punishment. Member States are of course aware that the charge of Israel’s use of torture as part of its occupation policy has been substantiated beyond any doubt. 16. Unfortunately, we are able to do little in the General Assembly to advance the cause of Palestinian rights besides taking note of the steady increase in the _ 3 Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 12 August 1949. 17. The increasingly oppressive and authoritarian nature of the Israeli occupation is clearly illustrated by the detention and threatened deportation of the Mayor of Nablus because of his expressed support for Palestinian rights. 18. It is obvious that Israel is prepared to go to any lengths to deprive the Palestinian people of their right to nationhood in Palestine. The repeated attacks by land, air and sea against Palestinian refugees in Lebanon not only are intolerable violations of Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, but also show clearly the calculating and ruthless nature of the Zionist attempt to eliminate the Palestinians as a people, and to ensure that the just solutions to the Palestinian problem formulated by the United Nations will not be impiemented. 19. My delegation trusts that the vast majority of Member States will continue to act in solidarity with the oppressed and dispossessed Palestinian people. Unrelenting pressure should be brought to bear on Israel within the United Nations system, and States should refrain from economic, military and other forms of cooperation with the Zionists until they end their inhuman, unjust and illegal policies. 20. The gravest responsibility in this matter lies with the Security Council, which has seemed prepared to accept from Israel any degree of contempt for the Council’s resolutions, any number of violations of international law, however grave their nature, and any degree of aggression against a people engaged ina legitimate struggle to regain its inalienable rights. 21. Obviously mere condemnations, either by the General Assembly or by the Security Council, will not have a greater effect on Israel at the present time than they have had in the past. My delegation hopes that the General Assembly will call on the Security Council to take up its unfinished business on the question of Palestine. First of all, my delegation believes that the time has long passed for the Council to endorse and strengthen the international consensus on the national rights of the Palestinian people, expressed in General Assembly resolution 3236 (XXIX). The Palestinian question will not fade away. The Palestinians, whose just struggle is supported by the majority of the people of the world, will not end their valiant struggie until victory is achieved. 22. Secondly, no political judgement is more familiar than the often-repeated one that there can be no lasting peace in the Middle East unless account is taken of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian neonle. In this sitiua- 23. In conclusion, my delegation would like to express its support for the proposal of the non-aligned countries’ that an emergency special session of the General Assembly should be called if the Security Council fails once again to act because of the bias in favour of Israel customarily shown by some permanent members of the Council.

The report of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People [A/ 34/35 and Corr. 1] gives such a clear picture of the developments in the question of Palestine since the last session of the General Assembly that I shall confine myself to stressing briefly its principal points; that will give me an opportunity to express, at the same time, my delegation’s views on the matter. 25. The first fact noted in the report is that no progress has been made in the last 12 months towards the realization of the legitimate aspiration of the Palestinian people to obtain its own homeland. But that is a sacred right, a right of all peoples, recognized since the dawn of history. The negation of that right has led for centuries to bloody conflicts whose result has never left any room for doubt. The same will be true of the struggle of the Palestinian people. 26. The solution of the Palestinian problem should be simple. It lies in respect for two basic principles of the Charter: self-determination and the non-acquisition of territory by force. Those two principles, on which the new international order that is the noble ambition of the Charter is based—or, at least, should be based— continue to be violated in the case of Palestine. The -responsibility for that rests with the Power occupying the land of the Palestinian people, or, more precisely, the colonizing Power. For Israel’s policy towards the territories occupied since the 1967 war is in fact a policy of colonization. Proof of that—if indeed any proof is necessary—is to be found in the establishment of new settlements, which has been condemned by almost the entire international community in, among other things, Security Council resolution 452 (1979). It is a policy of faits accomplis, whose purpose is to compel tne inhabitants of the territories in question to seek refuge far from their homes, to join the hundreds of thousands of their brothers who have already fled war and foreign conquest. Another people of the region was the victim of the same kind of policy not too long ago, when its land was also invaded and occupied. 27. Another fact noted in the Committee’s report and confirmed by the conclusion of the Security Council Commission established under resolution 446 (1979) is that human rights are being systematically violated in Palestine, in contravention of the fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, That has created a particularly disturbing situation, the most recent episode of which has been 7 Adopted by the Sixth Conference of Heads of State or Government of Non-Aligned Countries, held at Havana from 3 to 9 September 1979 (see A/34/542, annex, sect. VI A, resolution No. 2, nara 123 28. <A third point made in the report concerns the city of Jerusalem. Its historical and religious importance makes international public opinion particularly sensitive to any acts which could unilaterally modify the status of that city and therefore could be prejudicial to the age-old rights of the hundreds of millions of Christians, Muslims and Jews. 29. Finally, I should like to recall the statement made in the first part of paragraph 34 of the Committee’s report, concerning the PLO. Indeed the support the PLO enjoys among the Palestinian people and also among the Arab countries is an element which must be seriously taken into account in any effort to find a solution to the Palestinian problem. 30. The position of the Hellenic Government in regard to this problem has always been made very clear. It was reaffirmed recently by the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Greece, Mr. George Rallis, when he spoke from this very rostrum. Allow me to quote a part of his statement: ‘We have always been in favour of the complete application of Security Council resolution 242 (1967) and of the other relevant resolutions of that body and of the General Assembly that call for the withdrawal of israeli troops from all the Arab territories occupied in 1967, as well as the right of all the countries of the region to live in peace within secure and recognized . boundaries. At the same time, we believe that the legitimate rights of the Palestinian Arab people, including .their right to self-determination and to a country must be recognized within the framework of a global settlement.”’ [8th meeting, para. 192.} 31. A solution of the Palestinian problem that would take into account the provisions of the Charter would certainly be in the interest of all the parties to the conflict. Suffice it to recall that the peoples of that region without exception have wasted a whole generation on wars and acts of violence under the corrosive influence of hatred. The young people of 1948, who now are close to the threshold of old age, have spent a major part of their lives on the battlefield or in manoeuvres, and they have been deprived of comfort, tranquillity and the joy of life. It would be a real pity if the same fate were to befall their sons.

The question of Palestine has been before the United Nations in one form or another for over three decades. Since 1974 it has been on the agenda of the General Assembly each year. Yet, despite its continued consideration, this question has eluded solution. The causes of the lack of solution or of movement towards genuine solution are clear. 33. As part of its efforts in seeking a solution to the question of Palestine, the General Assembly in 1975 set up the Committee on tke Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People [resolution 3376 (XXX)]. This Committee has now once again submitted its report to the General Assembly. My delegation first of all wishes to commend the Committee and its able and dynamic Chairman, Mr. Fall of Senegal, for the clear and comprehensive report. The mandate of the Committee has been precisely spelied out by the Genaral Acecambhlhiy namalky ta cancidar tha Dalactina situa. 34. Those recommendations spell out the fact that the question of Palestine is the crux of the Middle East problem. Unfortunately, this reality seems to be ignored by certain States. Injustices have been committed and perpetuated against the Palestinian people since the beginning of this century. The Palestinians have been victims of unfair historical circumstances which have been imposed on them. For example, in 1917, when the Balfour Declaration was promulgated,® they were never consulted. The ensuing Mandate for Palestine? entrusted to it under the Covenant of the League of Nations was abused by the Mandatory Power, which, contrary to the Mandates System, did not adminster Palestine as a ‘‘sacred trust of civilization’’. The partition resolution of 1947 [resolution 181 (11)\, now generally considered a centerpiéce of the existing problem, was itself an issue on which the Palestinian people, to say the least, were never fully consulted. Throughout that period there have been urgent demands by all who seek justice and peace in the Middle East for a solution to the Palestinian problem that would set it in its proper perspective. However, when as late as 1967 the question of Palestine was still being treated out of context as a ‘‘refugee problem’’ by no less a body than the Security Council, it became clear that the General Assembly had to take practical measures to address itself to the redressing of this injustice. 35. Ithas thus been incumbent upon this Assembly to recognize and endorse the inalienable rights to selfdetermination, national independence and sovereignty of the Palestinians. The United Nations cannot give credence to the fiction of the question of Palestine being a mere refugee problem. The valiant Palestinians cannot be confined to refugee camps in order that they may receive a pittance fron’ UNRWA. We have to ensure their rights by implementing the recommendations of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. 36. Among the first urgent actions we are called upon to take is to put an end to Israel’s violation of the human rights of the Palestinian people by the acquisition of territory by force, by illegal settlements, by expulsions, by deportations and by the denial of the right of return of Palestinians. Israel continues to carry out these violations in defiance of world public opinion and in contravention of the Charter of the United Nations, the 1949 Geneva Conventions and the resolutions of the General Assembly and the Security Council. 37. Thus it is imperative that this Organization should now squarely face the continued contempt for and disregard of international opinion exhibited by Israel on this issue and act to bring it to an end. In this respect we must particularly call upon those Powers which have traditionally supported Israel to use their influence to dissuade it from its path of continued defiance of the United Nations. 39. It might be hoped that those who have been victims of some of the most inhuman treatment would be the last to persecute others. Yet, tragically, Israel has embarked upon a systematic policy of encroachment and expansion against the Palestinian people. It continues illegally to occupy their land as well as to strengthen its military repression of Palestinians. One of the most flagrant manifestations of this repression is the establishment of settlements in occupied territories. One report of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, Israeli authe statement that Israel has engaged in a wilful and large-scale process of establishing settlements, in disregard of Palestinian basic human rights, and that it also continues purchasing land in the illegally occupied ‘erritories, in flagrant violation of international law. We urge Israel to desist from puxsuing this policy and to rescind any measures adopted unilaterally and unlawfully against Palestinian rights. 40. The recent incarceration and threatened deportation of the Mayor of Nablus, Mr. Bassam Shaka’a, is a clear indication of how far Israel will go in its attempts to deny the Palestinian people their inalienable rights. As is pointed out by Mr. Yasser Arafat, Chairman of the PLO, in a letter to the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, Israeli authorities have over the past years deported more than 1,560 Palestinian leaders, including mayors and municipal council members. This deportation policy is an ominous signal of worse things to come. We are left ata loss as to where Israel expects these deportees to go when they are uprooted from their own homeland. Ii is an unprecedented situation when people are expelled from their own country, for normally it is foreigners that are deported to their countries. Are we to conclude that Israel regards Palestinians as foreigners in Palestine? This defies the imagination. 41. Asanexpression of its disapproval of the deportation act, at its current session, the Gene-al Assembly, with Israel as the only dissenting voice, has called upon the Israeli authorities to rescind the deportation order against the Mayor of Nablus [resolution 34/29). Furthermore, prominent personalities in Israel! itself have deplored the impending deportation of the Mayor. More important, the resignation en masse of the mayors of occupied Palestinian cities and towns is clear proof of Palestinian resistance to repression. We hail the valour displayed by these civic leaders in spite of Israeli intimidation. Nevertheless, we are concerned that the Israeli military authorities aim at nullifyin~ even the rudimentary structures of Palestinian leczx control. The intention seems to be to exercise military control of day-to-day affairs of Palestinian life, for the deportation policy is aimed at stemming the tide of popular support y Palestinians for the PLO, their sole and authentic representative. It is indeed tragic that those who suf- 42. As an initial step in restoring Palestinian rights, the Committee whose report is now before us has recommended two phases of return of the Palestinian people. We support this position as fair and realistic. The first phase would involve the return of Palestinians displaced as a result of the June 1967 war. The second phase would resettle those displaced between 1948 and 1967. If implemented, these two phases would ease the plight of countless homeless Palestinians. But so far israel has ignored and refused to honour these recommendations. Instead it is entrenching itself through the settlements policy, which has changed the geographic and demographic nature of the Palestinian territories illegally occupied by Israel. We urge Israel to respect and carry o. t the Committee’s recommendations, including the recognition of the applicability of the 1949 Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. 43. But, above ail, it must be realized that the Middle East problem cannot be solved wihout giving the Palestinians their rights, including the right to a homeland. In this regard we wish to recall the resolutions of the Sixth Conference of Heads of State or Government of Non- Aligned Countries, held last September at Havana. That Conference reaffirmed: **its full support of the struggle. of the Palestinian people, under the leadership of its sole legitimate representative, the Palestine Liberation Organization, to attain fully its inalienable national rights by all means, including armed struggle”’ [A/34/542, annex, sect. VIA, resolution No. 2, para. 5]. The Conference also called upon the Security Council to consider and take action on the recommendations of the General Assembly to enable the Palestinian people to exercise their inalienable rights [ibid., para. 9]. So far " action has not been possible owing to the negative vote of a permanent member of the Security Council. This has contributed to the situation of stalemate on. the question of Palestine. The world has a right to call on the Security Council, which is primarily responsible for the maintenance of international peace and security and which has already accorded the nations in the Middle East the right to secure and recognized boundaries, to discharge its primordial duty to the Palestinians. Such positive action, as the report notes, could create the necessary conditions for a just and lasting peace in the Middle East. 44, My President, Julius Nyerere, in a statement on the question of Palestine at the non-aligned Conference at Havana said: “It is not in accordance with justice, nor is it rational or realistic, to call for genuine peace in the Middle East without satisfying the natural yearning of the people of Palestine for a home of their own.”” 45. Nosolution of the Middle East problem is possible without satisfying the legitimate Palestinian claim for self-determination. This will be possible only if we all exert our efforts to overcome decades of injustice tcwards the Palestinians. There is no better way of starting than by implementing the recommendations of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of Mr. Ibrahim (Ethiopia), Vice-Chairman, tock the chair.

With respect to agenda item 24, entitled “‘Question of Palestine”’, which is now before the General Assembly, my delegation would like first and foremost to express its appreciation of the work which it has been doing to the Committee on the Exercise of the {nalienable Rights of the Palestinian People for year after year, especially this past year. We believe that in the future the activities of the Committee will acquire even greater importance. 47. At the Sixth Conference of Heads of State or Government of Non-Aligned Countries, held at Havana last September, in which our country was represented for the first time at an international gathering by representatives worthy of our people, we clearly gave our overt and direct support to the just cause of the Palestinian people. 48. Like practically all the peoples throughout the world, the Nicaraguan people understand in a very special way and support the struggle of the Palestinian resistance against the Israeli Zionist occupation army, because we have had the bitter experience of something very like an occupying army: the Somozan guard. It was conceived, organized and programmed to act as an occupation army by imperialism, and consequently that is how it acted in the heroic struggle of our people for liberation. 49. We identify with and support the struggle of the Palestinian people because the weapons which are systematically used to suppress and murder them—as proved by the Committee to which I have referred—are the very same weapons that murdered our people; they were supplied by {srael to the Somozan genocide ré- gime. The guns, bullets, planes and bombs which repressed and bombarded the Palestine refugee centres in reprisal are the same as those which repressed and bombed, in the same spirit of revenge and disregard of human life, the populated centres of our country and devastated many of our cities. 50. Israeli Zionism has been acting as the enemy of the people of Central America by carrying out a systematic policy of supporting and selling weapons to the repressive régimes which have existed in that area. 51. The people and Government of Nicaragua condemn the continuing of the establishment of illegal settlements by Israel in the occupied Arab and Palestinian territories. We condemn the systematic repression of even ideas expressed against the settlements—that we have seen recently—and any attempt or manoeuvre by Israel to introduce geopolitical and demographic changes in the occupied Arab and Palestinian territories with a view to making irreversible changes which would perpetuate its illegal occupation. 52. We denounce Israel and the imperialism which supports it for the systematic contempt which it has displayed towards the resolutions adopted by the General Assemhlv at its thirty-first. thirtv-second and 53. We support the right of the Palestinian people to return to their homeland, which is militarily occupied today; we support their right to self-determination, independence and national sovereignty; we support the right of the Palestinian people to a homeland. 54. The delegation of Nicaragua supports all efforts towards peace which are being made by the international community through the United Nations, particularly the efforts of the Security Council Commission established under resolution 446 (1979) to examine the situation relating to settlements in the occupied Arab territories, and the systematic efforts which are being carried out by the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. We believe that to secure just, true and lasting peace in the Middle East it is necessary to take account of the interests of the Palestinian people and, consequently, for that people to participate in negotiations on an equal footing with the other parties involved in the conflict through the PLO, the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.

At the outset of my statement, i should like, on behalf of the delegation of Kuwait, to extend our most sincere appreciation to Mr. Médoune Fall, Chairman of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, and to the members of that Committee for their untiring efforts to serve the purposes and objectives of the Charter of the United Nations and to ensure the implementation of General Assembly resolutions, particularly those in the sphere of the mandate of that Committee, as defined in General Assembly resolutions 32/40 and 33/28; those resolutions provide, inter alia, that in the event of the Security Council failing to consider or to take a decision on those recommendations by 1 June 1979, the Committee is authorized to consider the situation and to make the suggestions it deems appropriate. 356. As explained to us by the Chairman of the Committee—the Ambassador of Senegal—as well as by the Rapporteur—the Permanent Representative of Malta—the Security Council has not succeeded during the last three years in adopting a resolution based on the recommendations of the Committee. Nor has the Security Council succeeded during the last three decades in making any progress towards redressing the injustice suffered by the Palestinian people. In fact, despite all the resolutions of the General Assembly, and in particular resolution 3236 (XXIX), which clearly defines the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, - this injustice, which is practised by the Zionist entity, has become more barbaric and ferocious. The clearest proof of this are the Israeli practices in the occupied Arab territories, such as the dispersal of the native Palestinians and their replacement by foreign Jewish immigrants, the violation of human rights and an odious form of racial discrimination. What happened to the tablished under resolution 446 (1979) to examine the situation relating to settlements in the Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem, have clearly shown the Zionist intentions, leaving no excuse for those who were still doubtful or for those who tried to conceal those intentions from the international community and public opinion. The report of the Committee in fact brought to light the continuing violation of Palestinian rights. 57. It is regrettable and, indeed, strange that the United States of America, with all the concern that country has always shown for human rights, continues to be the main partisan of Israel and the main opponent of the attainment of these-rights by the Palestinian people. The United States unreservedly continues to support Israel, impeding any measures that the Security Council could take to recognize the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people. All this has contributed to increasing the tensions in the region and has undermined international peace and security. One of the most dangerous acts of the United States in tue Middle East is embodied in the conclusion of a separate Peace Treaty between Israel and Egypt and the nonrecognition of the national legitimate rights of the Palestinian people. The Arab countries, the Islamic countries, the African countries and the countries of the non-aligned movement have rejected and conden:ned this Treaty, for it cannot lead to a just and lasting peace. 58. The Tenth Arab Summit Conference affirmed once again at its last rneeting at Tunis’® that the Palestinian question is in fact an Arab question which affects the destiny of the Arab nation and that it is at the heart of the struggle against the Zionist entity. The sons of all Arab nations are concerned, and are committed to participate in this struggle and to make every moral and material sacrifice that is called for. The Summit Conference reaffirmed its adherence to the principle of the restoration of the national rights of the Palestinian people, including the right to return to their homeland, their right to self-determination and to the creation of an independent Palestinian State in their national territory, under the aegis of the PLO, the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. 59. Kuwait adheres to these resolutions and believes in the legitimacy of the rights of the Palestinian people, a people who will not submit to having their rights disregarded. Peace cannot be achieved in this region of the world unless these sacred rights are recognized and implemented. 60. The General Assembly at this session should reaffirm the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, and it should adopt the recommendations suggested by the Committee in paragraphs 52 to 55 of its report [4/34/35 and Corr. 1]. It should also urge the Security Council to adopt a resolution recognizing the rights of the Palestinian people reaffirmed by the General Assembly in its resolutions 31/20, 32/40 A and 33/28 A. The General Assembly should, moreover, declare null and void the 61. The courageous Palestinian people continue to face a war of extermination and dispersion. They continue to be prisoners of occupation and to live in refugee camps. They cannot withstand such treatment for ever. The Middle East can no longer tolerate this situation. Because of their creative potential and great capacity, the Palestinian people will continue their struggle and the Arab countries, by virtue of the rights of these people, are compelled to participate. No country can ignore this obligation or seek unilateral solutions to the problem. The Arab countries must devote their political and economic potential to the task of recovering the usurped rights of the Palestinian people and of the Arab nation. The General Assembly should recognize the fact that this region is a powder keg and a hotbed of tensions and that confrontations that will persist so long as Israel has not withdrawn from the occupied Arab territories and the Palestinian people have not acquired their inalienable rights to self-determination, independence and national sovereignty.

The General Assembly at this session and at previous sessions has heard full accounts of the tragedy of the Palestinian people and the tragedy of Arabs in the Middle East. I must admit that I shall not have anything new to add to what has been said from this rostrum since the creation of the United Nations until today. However, it is regrettable _ and strange to see that we are still at the starting-point from the practical point of view. The Palestinian people are still scattered and living in turmoil; they are still prevented from living in their own country like other people in the world. Israel continues to be a real threat to the independence of the Arab States and their sovereignty to the security and stability in our region and consequently in the world as a whole. 63. It is true that we enjoy international support from most of the countries throughout the world. It is also true to say that, while world public opinior, by an overwhelming majority, supports our legitima:e rights and views the Palestinian cause favourably, the United Nations as an international Organization has not yet managed to restore their rights to their rightful owners nor to eliminate this injustice that it has itself inflicted on the Palestinian people and the Arab peoples. 64. Itis our belief that today in the Middle East we are threatened with extermination and dispersion. We in Syria, and those in all Arab countries, seriously fear that what happened to the Palestinian people might happen to us, that we might also experience their fate of dispersion, oppression and injustice. Before I give the Assembly our concept of a just and comprehensive solution in accordance with the resolutions of our international Organization, allow me to point out the chief asnects of the nrnhlam ac ure cas them thranah ane 65. First, if we set aside everything that has been and is being said on the juridical, legal and moral aspects of this problem, and if we consider it objectively, then it would appear to us to be a problem of colonial conquest. Israeli colonialism is not satisfied with occupying territories and oppressing their inhabitants, as ccionizers did in the nineteenth century and even before, but has gone beyond that to uproot an entire people, to move them out of their lands and to throw them into refugee camps. This has now been going on for more than three decades. 66. This uprooting operation has not been limited to the people of Palestine. On the contrary, several countries have suffered from it at different times, particularly Syria, Jordan, Egypt and, currently, Lebanon, and this goes on in full view of the whole world. Israeli colonialism, in its savagery and criminality, has surpassed all normal limits of colonialist behaviour and assumed the aspect of a crime against humanity, the only modern parallels being the practices of Hitler before and during the Second World War and those of the white racists in southern Africa. 67. Secondly, in an attempt to justify its actions, Israeli colonialism employs the traditional colonialist pretexts, saying that it is civilizing the Asian and African peoples, irrigating the desert or creating sophisticated industries in a backward country and so on. But this Israeli colonialism has not been limited to these fallacious claims. On the contrary, it has gone beyond the allegations and theories of the Nazis and racists by trying to give itself a missionary image. 68. Just as Hitler proclaimed the superiority of the Germanic race, used this hypothesis as a justification for the occupation of foreign territory and tried to transplant part of the population of Germany to those countries while practising barbaric genocide, particularly against the Jewish minorities in Europe, so Israeli colonialism has claimed a sacred right to Palestinian territory, a right which represents the dogma of the ‘“‘chosen people’’. It has used this claim to justify the dispersal of the inhabitants of the lands it occupied, so that they may be replaced by Jewish settlemerts. This Israeli colonialism was not only detrimental to religious ideals as a whole, but specifically damaging to the Jewish religion. The concept of the chosen people in the Jewish religion, as is skilfully outlined by the Jewish-_ American writer, Dr. Alfred Lilienthal, in his book entitled The Zionist Connection," is that they are the originators of unification and the belief in a single God. Of course, this idea spread throughout the world after Islam and Christianity adopted it. But Israeli colonialism through its Zionist doctrine has knowingly and deliberately distorted this religious concept and transformed it into an extension of the Nazi idea. It has been putting this policy into effect, basing itself on the superiority of the Jewish race and its Biblical right to Palestine, thus justifying its crimes, which no religion, and certainly not the Jewish religion, can ever accept. 69. Thirdly, the United Nations, from its inception until today, has been paralysed and, although repre- - position which runs counter to that of Israel—for instance, its refusal to recognize the annexation of Jerusaiemm or the legitimacy of Israeli settlements in occupied Arab territories—even on those rare occasions the United States is satisfied with merely registering its position just like any other country, forgetting that people are not as naive as it might think; forgetting also that » ‘he United States did not give its unlimited military, economic and political support to Israel that country would not be in a position to pursue its aggression and to continue to defy the Organization, despite all the resolutions adopted by it since its inception. 70. Fourthly, any responsible attempt to arrive at a practical solution of the Palestinian problem should be based on a serious effort to define the root causes, that is, to discover the motive behind the Israeli aggression and the resistance it begets. The essential motive that has made the victim an aggressor, that has made the victims of nazism neo-Nazis and has converted our region into one of the most dangerous hotbeds of tension in the world, has deprived and continues to deprive Palestine, the land of peace, of any possibility of peace in the foreseeable future. The main reason for this is the Zionist iteology, which is based on the principle of the superiority of one people over other peoples and which has made and continues to make its authors instruments of hatred and rancour. We consider that one of the major contributions made by our Organization has been its statement that it considered Zionism to be an aspect of racism and racist fanaticism. We believe that adoption by the international Organization in 1975 of its historic resolution [resolution 3379 (XXX) whichequated Zionism with racism and racial discrimination was not intended as a condemnation of the Israelis, their supporters in the West in geners! and the United States in particular, but rather a sincere invitation to the Israelis and their supporters to re-examine the principles of Zionist ideology, because without a meaningful examination of Zionist ideology it will not be pessible to 71. Allow me now te turn to the report of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. I should like to express my gratitude to the Chairman of that Committee and to its members for the unswerving and untiring efforts they have made over the past year, as well as for all the efforts that they have depleyed in the past in order to make progress along the path to a solution of the Palestinian problem which would enable the Palestinian people to exercise such inalienable national rights as the right to return to their homes, the right to selfdetermination, the right to create an independent national State on their own territory and also their right to live in peace in their homeland. The last is a sine qua non condition for peace to be established in the Middle East as a whole. The work of the Committee as set forth in the report deserves our respect and the respect of this international Organization, and we invite the Security Council to support the recommendations of the Committee, as the General Assembly, has done over the past three years. On behalf of the Syrian Arab Republic, I should like officially to put on record our appreciation and our profound respect for the Committee and particularly for Mr. Fall, in view of the untiring efforts e has made in presiding over the Committee so as to allow it to attain its objectives. 72. But it is a regrettable fact that all the efforts of the Committee, as well as all the resolutions of the United Nations, whether adopted by the General Assembly or by the Security Council, have not managed to lead us closer to a just peace in the region or to the security and stability to which we aspire. On the contrary, certain activities concluded outside the framework of the United Nations and in total defiance of the Organization have contributed and still contribute to complicating the situation, increasing tension and further reducing the possibility of attaining a just and lasting solution to the question of Palestine, which is at the heart of the Middle East conflict. I should like briefly to review these activities and thes= policies which further aggravate the situation in the Middle East and threaten our peoples with more pain, bitterness and dispersion. 73. The Camp David agreements represent the most flagrant example of what is being done outside the United Nations. Those accords have had an adverse effect on the fate of the Palestinian people and also on the future of our region as a whole. They have given the criminal Israelis free rein to expand their occupation of the Palestinian and Arab territories, and shamefully to defy the Security Council resolutions on Lebanon. There they have openly created a pocket, with the aid of Major Haddad, in order to maintain their occupation of Southern Lebanon, where UNIFIL is prevented from functioning and where the Security Council and all its resolutions relatiiig to Southern Lebanon are turned to ridicule. 75. Fifthly and lastly—and we say this in full responsibility—for peace to be possible it musi be comprehensive, lasting and just, because we cannot establish peace in that region without the participation of all the parties concerned, including the PLO, which is the sole legitimate répresentative of the Palestinian people and which is recognized by our international Organization. Similarly, we cannot establish peace in that region behind the back of the United Nations and in defiance of its resolutions. That is why we believe that peace must be based on the principle of total and unconditional withdrawal of the Israeli occupying forces from ail occupied Palestinian and Arab territories, so that the Palestinian people, under the leadership of the PLO, may be enabled to exercise their inalienable rights, rights which have been recognized in the Charter and various resolutions of the United Nations, such as the right to se‘f-determination, the right of return and the right to create an independent State on one’s own national territory. All negotiations tending to establish such a just and lasting peace should be carried out within the framework of tne United Nations, with the participation of all. parties concerned, including the PLO, and on an equal footing. We, more than anybody else, have placed great hopes in this peace, a just and lasting peace, because we have suffered much more than any others from the scourge of war, destruction, dispersion and land plundering, and we continue to be subjected to all this. Like our brothers, the Palestinian people, we aspire this peace, and we should like to appeal <o the world at large, through this Organization, to come to our assistance, to help us to achieve this peace, so that we may avoid more war and destruction in our region and, consequently, in the world. 76. Mr. ALBORNOZ (Ecuador) (interpretation from . Spanish). The reason for dealing separately with the uestion of the Palestinian people and the situation in the Middle East has from the very beginning been to indicate to international opinion the absolutely crucial importance of the former for any solution to be found to the Arab-Israeli conflict, which has been going on for so long now and which causes great concern on account of the possibility of its affecting world peace. It is thus that the destiny of the Palestinian people has become an essential consideration in any activities that aim to seek a just peace in the Middle East. 77. Ecuador maintains cordial relations with the Governments and peoples of the Arab States and Israel and finds no contradiction in this, in its general policy of maintaining relations with all countries or in conducting its affairs in accordance with principles such as that of the peaceful solution of disputes and that of the fact that might does not mean right and that territories occupied by force must be returned. 78. In any discussion of this subject, Ecuador has reaffirmed its recognition of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination, independence and sovereignty. Consequently, therefore, it has recognized the right of the Palestinians to return to their homes and recover their property from which they have heen dislnodsed and nnranted For this reacan wo. can. would have to be the territorial equivalent of a Palestinian homeland. 79. In the consideration of this problem, the way of negotiation is open for the search for a peaceful solution. However, all countries must be present at the negotiating table, and obviously the PLO must attend on ar equal footing with the rest, because it is the representative of the Palestinian people. 80. Likewise, the people of Israel, who have a legally recognized existence stemming from the historic res- “lution of the United Nations, now deserve full respect from the countries of the region for their right to live in peace, within secure and recognized boundaries. 8i. Ecuador therefore viewed favourably the first agreements reached between Egypt and Israel, which are a clear example of the aforementioned principle of the peaceful settlement of disputes, evinced by the strength of the peace between peoples which formerly spent all their forces on war, as well as by the return of certain territories. We should like to applaud this move and the fact that certain natural resources, including energy resources, have been returned, a fact that is of overriding importance for the development of the — whole region. 82. Itis only by the peaceful settlement of conflicts or international disputes that we can achieve the non-use of force and perhaps also disarmament, thereby liberating resources which should be devoted ts the well-being of peoples. That is why, if draft resolutions were to be submitted involving negative condemnations of such a peace process, my country would feel obliged to abstain in any vote that might be taken on them. We would, however, support any activity within the United Nations aimed at strengthening the system of the peaceful settlement of disputes, which has been enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations. 83. In the general debate, the Minister for External Relations of Ecuador, Mr. Alfrede Pareja Diezcanseco, said: ‘Consistent with the wishes for peaceful coexistence professed by the Government and people of Ecuador, I express th« «:cne that tensions will be reduced in the Middle East so thai Israelis and Arabs, with whose countries Ecuador maintains cordial relations, may share in exemplary accord in the urgent task of peacefully developing the region. To this end, my country believes that it is indispensable to recognize the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including the restitution of the territories occupied by force, and to reaffirm the legal existence of the State of Israel, which was brought into being by the United Nations.”” [12th meeting, para. 218.] 84. Ata time when it is more than ever necessary to promote world peace and to seek to preserve the human species, we believe that anything which would encourage countries to fight between themselves is out of place. We believe that all these efforts would be better spent on seeking peaceful solutions to disputes. It is for thic reason that the delegation of Ecuador expresses

The situation of the Palestinian people continues to be a subject of serious concern for the international community. Every year, the debate which the General Assembly devotes to the question lays bare the unacceptable indignity inflicted on the Palestinian people, who have been dispersed, hounded and deprived of their country. 86. It would be redundant here to recount the history of the tragedy of a people who have fallen victim to a glaring denial of justice of which the international community was the author, immediately after the proclamation in the Charter of the United Nations of a world intended. to be more peaceful and more fraternal. But it is eminently opportune to scrutinize the threatening horizon of the Middle East, where developments running counter to the course of history have been able neither to give an impetus for the search for a just and lasting peace in the region nor in any way to mitigate the aggression and intransigence of Israel. 87. None the less, the international community has finally taken cognizance of the martyrdom of the Palestinian people and, as if to lighten the burden of its historical responsibility, the General Assembly, by its resolutions 3236 (XXIX) and 3237 (XXiX) of 22 November 1974, has restored to the Palestinian pecple, who had been reduced to wanderers, the recognition of their inalienable national rights and has admitted, in the capacity of observer, the PLO, which embodies the aspirations of the Pal-stinians and which guides their struggle. This sancticaing of the struggle for national liberation has not, howe zr, discouraged the permanent conspiracy of imperialism and its tool, Zionism. which attempts to distort this problem, from drawing the attention of the world away from the substance of the question of the Middle East, so as to focus it on the effects and the sequels of the Israeli aggressions against the Arab States bordering on occupied Palestine. In order to weaken the vigilance of the international community and to give permanent expression to their denial of the national existence of the Palestiriian people, imperialism and Zionism have been able to bring over to their side a brotherly State of the front line, whose defection has been cruelly felt. However, this defection has also stiffened the resolve of the Arab ranks in upholding the just cause of the Palestinian people, which more than ever enjoys the active solidarity of Africa, of the Islamic world, of the non-aligned countries, of the socialist countries, and of other peoples and States, including, at this juncture, even some States in the Western world. The Camp David agreements and the separate Peace Treaty, signed at Washington, are fundamentally defective because they did not take into account the Palestinian question and have, because of the broad current of censure which they have engendered throughout the world, made apparent the danger and the futility of any approach oriented towards a partial solution. 88. Finally, it has become clearly evident that nothing can be achieved without the Palestinian people or, a fortiori, against the Palestinian people, in any quest for 89. The Algerian delegation would like also to express its congratulations to the members of the Commitiee for praiseworthy action on behalf of a noble cause and to pay a particular tribute to the Chairman of the Committee, Mr. Médoune Fall, as well as to other officers of the Committee for the dedication and the perseverance which they have shown in discharging so difficult a mandate. 90. My delegation agrees completely with the views and conclusions reflected in the report of the Committee, and in particular with the practical measures suggested to promote the implementation of the recommendations of the Committee and of the General Assembly. 91. The important and useful activity of the Committee for the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People would, however, be limited in its scope and in its results, if it failed to find in the Security Council the indispensable agreement and riecessary support to strengthen the effectiveness and to enhance the impact of these recommendations. 92. Such acontribution is not outside the power of the Security Council, since the Charter of our Organization has invested it with the principal responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, which are gravely jeopardized by the aggressive and repressive acts of Israel, which are daily repeated and which constitute so many acts of defiance against the international community as a whole. 93. The Algerian delegation is therefore concerned about the attitude of ‘‘wait and see’’ which has been adopted by the Security Council, whose immobility is tragic for a people and certainly dangerous for the security of the region. The most recent illustration of this attitude of mellow resignation by the Security Council in its consideration of the Palestinian question is fresh in everyone’s mind. In July and August of this year, when it had before it a draft resolution'? ‘‘sober in form and moderate in content’’, in the words of Mr. Fall, aimed at reaffirming the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, the Security Council felt that it had to defer its verdict, thus prolonging the suffering which already has been endured for more than 30 years by this afflicted people as a result of the twin effects of repression and exile. 94. The international community is entitled to expect a unanimous decision from the Security Council, considering the question of Palestine as the essential element in the Middle East conflict and drawing from that all the implications for its future action, in keeping with the relevant recommendations of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. Nothing should induce that body to show an 95. Israel’s blind attitude in styling the PLO ‘‘terrorist’’ although it enjoys a remarkable measure of international recognition, its ceaseless violations of the sovereignty and integrity of Lebanon, its systematic persecution of the Palestinian population of Lebanon, and its treacherous determination to deprive the Arab population of occupied Palestine by increasing the number of settlements proceed from an evident urge for domination and expansion which find their source in the fusion of zionism and the imperialist interests in the region. 96. The occupation of Arab lands, methodically pursued despite the pressing appeal of the Security Council, contained in its resolution 452 (1979) of 20 July 1979, is in itself eloquent proof of a systematic venture of spoliation which, over and above the injustice inflicted on the Palestinian Arabs, reflects the contempt of Israel for human rights and fundamental freedom in the occupied territories. 97. In the face of all these challenges, the heroic Palestine resistance is developing, keeping in check the infernal war machine of the Zionist entity. This resistance, which is inseparable from the historic process of the rehabilitation of peoples, acts as a catalyst for the energies latent in the Arab masses. On this score it is assured of a perpetual renewal of its in-built capabilities which, together with the active solidarity of other peace-loving and justice-seeking peoples, guarantee it final victory. 98. The moral and political responsibility of the United lations remains fundamental and complete. It is a fact that the international community has reached the conclusion that the restoration of the national rights of the Palestinian people is a condition for any final solution of the Middle East conflict. But there is another stubborn fact that teaches that those who dominate come to terms only under compulsion. Israel is no exception to that rule—rebel Israel, Israel which has the sad privilege of having merited more condemnation and blame than any other State and which persists in ignoring the unanimous will of the international community that justice should finally be afforded to the Palestinian people. $9. Will the Security Council at last put its authority at the service of the rights of the Palestinians and of a genuine peace in the Middle East? We still hope that it will. ?00. Mr. KOSTOV (Bulgaria): The General Assembly is compelled yet again to take up the question of Palestine. The aspect of repetitiveness in our consideration of this problem has been with us for several sessions now. The reason for this is but one—namely. the non-observance of clear-cut and categorical decisions of the world Organization. This is what led the Special Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, whose report has been submitted to the Assembly, **_,..to reiterate the validity of the recommendations it had made to the thirty-first session of the General Assembly, which the Assembly had repeatedly enthese recommendations remains undiminished by the passage of time, their urgency highlighted by events. Indeed, the repetitious insistence encountered both in the discussions and in the General Assembly recommendations highlights more categorically two conclusions. 101. First, that the question of Palestine lies at the core of the Middle East crisis, and that without its comprehensive and just resolution it is not possible to defuse the explosiveness of the tensions in the area, as it is not possible to expect the establishment ofa lasting and just peace in the Middle East. 102. Secondly, Israel stubbornly persists in its disregard of United Nations decisions concerning the fulfilment of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, and refuses to listen to the voice of the international community. The statement made yesterday by the Israeli representative [78th meeting] removed any shadow of doubt that Israel has no intention of giving up its aggressive policies, and proved that Israel continues to rear the whole world as wrong and itself uniquely as right. 103. All this perpetuates a rather odd paradox. On the one hand, Israel exerts a great deal of effort to obtain de jure recognition from the Arab states, while atthe same . time it denies the rights of millions of Palestinians to set up a national state of their own. . 104. During the past few years, the United Nations has endorsed many important decisions on the question of Palestine. Among them I should like to recall the ranting of United Nations permanent observer status to the PLO and the recognition of the PLO as the sole, legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. 105. Alli this notwithstanding, Israel and its sponsors continue to withhold recognition of the PLO and refuse to talk to its representatives. The question naturally arises: Who should determine the representatives of the Palestinian people if not the Palestinian people itself? Each and every people elects its representatives itself and supports those representatives who are genuine spokesmen of its yearnings and aspirations. Such a representative of the Palestinian people—and the sole and legitimate representative, at that—is the PLO. And the reason for that is very simple: the PLO is the only one because the Palestinian people has so decided, and it is legitimate because it is recognized by the world Organization. That is why no amount of labelling heaped on the PLO by certain quarters can diminish its representative character or suppress its right to participate on an equal footing with the other concerned parties in the settlement of the conflict. 106. The just struggle of the Palestinian people for national self-determination has won the sympathies of the whole world. The support which this struggle has received over past years not only has not diminished, but continues steadily to increase. 107. _ The right of the people of Palestine to national self-determination and the creation of its own State has been reaffirmed once again at the Sixth Conference of Hlande af Ctatea ar (Cinvernment af Norn-Alioned 108. There is an urgent necessity speedily to resolve the Middle East question, including the question of the rights of the Palestinian people. The General Assembly and the Security Council in particular are in duty-bound to undertake immediate action to ensure the implementation of resolutions and decisions adopted on this matter. 109. The Bulgarian delegation would like to express its full support for the work and recommendations of the Special Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. 110. The People’s Republic of Bulgaria has stated more than once that a just settlement of the Palestinian issue cannot be achieved outside the framework of a comprehensive settlement of the Middle East problem. Neither can this goal be reached through the plans for the so-called administrative autonomy of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, plans which in our view are directed not only against the Arab national liberation movement but also against the vital interests of the Arab people of Palestine and threaten to undermine international détente. 111. In his message of 27 November this year to Yasser Arafat, Chairman of the PLO, on the occasion of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, Todor Zhivkov, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party and President of the State Council, stated: ‘*You may rest assured that the People’s Republic of Bulgaria, true to its internationalist duty, will continue to render active support to the courageous struggle of the heroic people of Palestine for the triumph of their just cause.”” 112. In conclusion, my delegation firmly believes that the draft resolution which the General Assembly adopts on the question of Palestine should breathe new vigour into the efforts of the international community to bring about a just settlement of the Middle East crisis.

Once.again, as we review the report of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, we pause here to discuss the usurped rights of the Palestinian people and their restoration to those to whom they rightfully belong, as there is no alternative to the restoration of legitimate rights. 114. On behalf of my Government, I wish here to thank the Chairman and members of the Committee for their tireless efforts in portraying the truth, despite the impediments placed in the way by Israel. I also wish to express our very sincere thanks to Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim and his aides, who extended to the Committee their full co-operation in accordance with the United Nations resolutions which define the Committee’s terms of reference. The Committee, which has submitted to us a balanced report and has attempted to 115. The United Nations has increasingly become, in many respects, a source of inspiration to the peoples of the world as it has been transformed from an association where political terrorism played a major role—as it was in 1947—into an Organization reflecting the world conscience whose resolutions are founded on justice, the Charter and international norms. Ir 1947, as a result of political pressure and blackmail from world zionism and certain States, 33 of the then 50 Member States voted in favour of giving part of Palestine, which had been the homeland of the Palestinian Arabs for thousands of years, to a group of alien Zionist immigrants. 116. The problem of Arab Palestine and the Zionist entity established therein is the product of 30 years of foreign colonial rule which, under its protective umbrella and military administration, opened the door to immigration by hordes of Zionist settlers, providing them with military capability and enabling them to establish fortified settlements using every colonial method of repression against the Arabs, who were the original inhabitants of the country. Having accomplished that, the colonial Power withdrew and placed the question in the lap of the United Nations. At that time, the United Nations represented no more than a third of the countries of the world, since more than 100 of the current Member States had been barred from the international community by foreign colonialism on their soil. Thirty-three out of 50 Member States, most of which were under extreme political pressure, voted to grant the Zionist colonizers part of Arab Palestine, which they named Israel. What has occurred in Palestine is similar to what would happen in Rhodesia and South Africa if the African populations of those two countries were to be driven out, leaving behind the settlers. 117. The question arises why Israel and zionism do not implement even some of the resolutions of the United Nations and thus save themselves the embarrassment of world wrath and international scandals involving all aspects of Israel’s internal and international behaviour. The answer is clear, since the Israeli entity is a product of behaviour and practices which have violated all established statutes and laws and which are totally rejected by the international community as being null and void ab initio. Israel realizes that its entity, which has been established on aggression and usurpation, is not based on international legitimacy, and therefore it sees no bar to the further extension cf land occupation, the establishment of settlements, the expulsion of the original inhabitants of the country and the threatening of the security of neighbouring countries and the region as a whole. This, it believes, is the way to compel the international community to recognize a fait accompli, irrespective of its remoteness from legitimacy. Israel is encouraged in this open defiance by the belief that those countries which supported its illegitimate creation 32 years ago will overlook all its crimes and will compel the international community to accept it with its indefinite boundaries. 118. Prior to 1947, zionism misled the world by stating that Palestine was ‘‘a land without people for a people without land’’. Thereafter the world realized that, as is 119. I wish here to address myself to those who heed this Zionist terrorism and hesitate to recognize the PLO and the people it represents. The PLO is the product of _the firm determination of the Palestinian people to liberate their homeland and to exercise unequivocally their rights, irrespective of the acceptance or rejection by others. If the PLO finds the door closed to political activity for the regaining of these usurped rights, it is bound to resort to other than political activity. 120. On the advent of the Zionist -invasion of Palestine, the Palestinian people were not on the way to extinction, as desired and claimed by world zionism in its efforts to deceive the world and to deceive the Jews themselves. On the contrary, the Arab people in Palestine enjoyed a national awareness and were taking part in the Arab national struggle to advance in the field of education and civilization and to partake in the achievements of advanced nations in all fields. 121. Zionism has miscalculated in its perception of the PLO, for the PLO, which is the product of the will and determination of the Palestinian people to persevere in their struggle for their rights, does not ask Israel for recognition. It is incumbent upon others to evaluate their interests and draw up their policies on the basis of justice and the interest of their peoples rather than accommodate the ambitions of Israel. I should like to ask, in this connexion, whether those States had in fact expected the Palestinian people to stand with folded arms, doing nothing in the face of Israeli invasion of their country, their land and their resources. Would any other country keep quiet when its nationals were the object of aggression? What, then, should the answer be when the aggression is affecting a country and a nation: as a whole? The answer to this is the PLO, representing the will of the Palestinian people. 122. What has the Committee done to warrant the attack by Israel and the wrath of racist zionism? The Committee has recognized the inadmissibility of acquiring land by force and consequently called for Israel’s total and immediate withdrawal from all occupied lands. The Committee also recognized the inalienable national rights of the Palestinian people, ona par with all other peoples. The Committee confirmed the rights of the Palestinian people to return to their homeland, to exercise self-determination without outside interference and to decide the form of government they desired. 123. What has been recognized by the Committee coincides with the letter and spirit of the United Nations Charter, its principles and repeated resolutions, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the fourth Geneva Convention of 1949. What the Committee has recognized in fact paves the way for peace 124. The Government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia views with serious concern the deterioration of the situation of Palestine and, consequently, in the Middie East and places full responsibility for that and for its grave consequences on the Zionist entity and its supporters or those who condone its actions. I refer in particular, in the strongest terms, to the Zionist aggression against Jerusalem and against the Islamic Holy Places in Palestine. [ also draw the attention of the international community and in particular the non- Moslem States to the sentiment in the Moslem world with regard to the Zionist aggression against Jerusalem and against Palestine, which includes the city of Jerusalem, and the desecration of Islamic Holy Places, which is more serious than they might believe. Every support given to zionism and to its practices and criminal actions establishes a link in the eyes of the Moslem world between those who lend their support and the crime of Zionist aggression. 125. Yesteraay, at the 78th meeting, we listened to the representative of the Israeli entity audaciously distorting every right stipulated in the articles of the Charter. He had the nerve to claim that Israel had come into existence as a result of the exercise of the right of self-determination by the Jews. I cannot visualize what right he had in mind and what determination he was referring to. Just imagine that a Jew residing in Poland can exercise his right of self-determination by expelling the Palestinian people from their homeland and replacing them by force of arms. Would this be a determination of his own destiny or the misuse of a determination of the destiny of another people? As for the British Mandate, to which he referred, this was unacceptable on the basis of the causes which led to it, on the basis of its practices and ofits consequences—and what terrible consequences. Among those consequences have been the Zionist crimes in the land of Palestine since the beginning of colonialism in Palestine in 1919 and the stream of inaccuracies and distortions to which we have been listening and which have become the specialty of the representative of Israel. What can they offer other than this, for they know that truth will take its course leading to implementation regardiess of the extent of distortion and regardless of time? 126. As I have already stated, [sraeli violations of resolutions, provisions of the Charter and rights have continued to accumulate. We are required to implement all the resolutions of the United Nations which were adopted to rectify the crooked path created by the Balfour Declaration and confirmed by the partition resolution. Without a just and equitable solution to the problem of Palestine, the Middle East will never gain tranquillity and peace will not prevail despite all the efforts that we make, for it is essential in the first place to deal with the causes of the disease and not its symptoms. We have before us a tragedy caused by the worst type of injustice, and the consequences of injustice are indeed very ominous. Nevertheless, victory will be for truth regardless of any forgery of facts. 128. Both in view of its responsibility for the partition of Palestine and in accordance with Article 77 of the Charter, the United Nations remains the trustee of the rights of the Palestinian people, including their right to self-determination and to a nation-State of their own. The failure to resolve the question of Palestine threatens international peace and security. This is another overriding reason why the United Nations must resolve the question of Palestine in a just, equitable and peaceful manner. 129. The recent deterioration of the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories and in Southern Lebanon lends even greater urgency to the need for effective United Nations action. The report of the Security Council Commission established under resolution 446 (1979), !4 which was endorsed by Council resolution 452 (1979) in July this year, has confirmed the worst fears of the international community regarding the policies pursued by Israel in the occupied territories. That report describes in a factual and impartial manner the wilful, systematic and large-scale violation by Israel of the most fundamental rights of the Palestinian people. The continued escalation of Israeli acts of aggression in Southern Lebanon bears testimony to the belligerent intentions of the Government of Israel in total disregard of the most elementary norms of international behaviour. 130. Much has been said in favour of and against the Camp David agreements both in this Assembly and in other forums. I wish briefly to clarify the position of India on this matter. The sovereign right of any State to enter into treaties ‘and agreements on bilateral matters is not in question. However, the agreements cannot. presume to settle matters affecting others who are not contracting parties. In regard to the people of Palestine, there is general international recognition of the PLO as being their only genuine representative. It is for that reason that the PLO is here among us with the status of observer. We cannot agree that any agreement to which the PLO is not a party should seek to impose on the Palestinian people a predetermined settlement. 131. Whether we condemn, deplore or merely express regret at the conclusion of the Camp David agreements is peripheral to the central issue. The central issue is that the agreements, far from bringing peace to western Asia and fulfilling the national rights and aspirations of the Palestinian people, have willy-nilly exacerbated the situation. The continued policy of annexation by Israel of land and water resources in the occupied Palestinian areas and its continued acts of aggression against Lebanon clearly suggest that the situation has deteriorated since the signing of the agreements. 132. In this context we should like to reiterate our position that the United Nations remains responsible for securing the free exercise of the national rights of 133. As a member of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, India is a party to the recommendations of the Committee which were submitted to the Security Council and which are again before the Assembly. I shall not go into the substance of these recommendations, which contain a phased and time-bound programme for the resolution of the question of Palestine. The Chairman of the Committee has on several occasions made convincing presentations of these recommendations. We should like to say, however, that these recommendations were forwarded to the Security Council with the sincere objective of peacefully resolving a complex problem which has defied several attempts to arrive at a solution through the application of force. The Security Council alone has the authority and power to implement them. It is, therefore, incumbent upon the Security Council to examine these recommendations objectively and to act upon them in order to maintain international peace and security. Till that happens, the vicious cycle of violence will continue to the detriment not only of the interests of the Palestinian people but, ultimately, also of the interests of Israel. 134. There are probably few other items on the agenda of this session of the General Assembly which are of more direct concern to the international community than the question of Palestine. What is called the question of the Middle East is inseparably linked to the question of Palestine. It is the root cause of four wars in western Asia. So long as there is no just settlement of this problem, the international community cannot be certain from day to day whether the morrow will not bring the news of yet another conflagration in this area. People who have been uprooted from their homes, brutally driven from their country, forced to make homes in refugee camps and live on international dole for three decades will not rest content until their basic human rights and their legitimate national rights have been restored to them. No people should find it easier to understand this basic fact than the people of Israel.

The General Assembly is discussing the question of Palestine this year in a unique framework, which is different from that in which our debates took place during preceding years, before the establishment of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People and the presentation of its reports and recommendations. Even though some people though that we were getting closer to peace, the situation in the Middle East has again become inflamed’and international peace and security are more threatened than ever before. As for the question of Palestine, which some people thought would be settled by a peace arrived at elsewhere, it has reappeared in wider perspectives of Arab and international solidarity, which give it historical dimensions that are rere in the history of any revolution. 137. In view of this background, we must apologize to the Assembly because some of the things that we shall say may be beyond the framework of the report of the Committee which is submitted for our consideration and which preceding speakers have discussed at length. We should like to submit to the members of this Assembly some observations which have been inspired by the Lebanese experience and by relations between the Palestinians and the Lebanese during the last 30 years, which have been the most tragic and the most delicate years in our modern hsitory for both the Lebanese and the Palestinian peoples. 138. First, I should like to say that, since the Palestinian cause is at the heart of the Middle East problem, there can be no peace in the Middle East without a Palestinian peace. But peace in Lebanon, although it is is linked to the solution of the Palestinian question, cannot in its turn wait for the settlement of the crisis in the Middle East. Furthermore, we simply cannot achieve peace in the Middle East if the war in Lebanon continues. There will be no peace in the Middle East if Lebanon remains a continuous battlefield as a price for peace. 139. The experience that both peoples have had, Palestinians and Lebanese, has led us to this bitter conclusion: as peace in Lebanon fell victim to the Palestinain wars, we are afraid that peace in Palestine, which is today within reach, will in turn fall victim to the war or even wars in Lebanon. 146. Secondly, the Palestinian peace cannot be genuine if it is not peace in the territory and peace for the people at the same time, in other words the return of the people to their land. Thus, any attempt to establish peace in the territory in the absence of that people would be useless. The same will be true of any peace imposed on the Palestinian people in exile and dispersed throughout the world, if it is not accompanied by affirmation of the right of return to their land and the exercise of their legitimate national rights in that land, including the right to establish an independent State that will express the national identity of Palestine and the attributes of political sovereignty. 141. Thirdly, all of us, Palestinians and Lebanese are required—not to speak of the obligations of our international Organization—to resist the Israeli conspiracy which represents an attempt to incite Palestinian migration to a substitute country and government. That conspiracy, through hypocrisy and subterfuge, assumes many aspects, sometimes even going so far as to express the very demands of the Palestinians themselves and to create the conditions they seek, without the participation of Palestinian authorities. This has happened in the secondary wars that have flared up in Lebanon, wars that are designed to divert the Palestinian command and the fighters in that country from their true objectives so as to sap their strength and separate them from their closest natural allies, while giving to their common enemies an excuse to shed crocodile 142. Fourthly, the Palestinian revolution, by adhering to the Security Council resolutions on Southern Lebanon and assuming the role of an international participant for the maintenance of peace, as reaffirmed here by its representative, Mr. Farouk Qaddoumi {77th meeting], in his analysis of the resolutions and decisions of the Tenth Arab Summit Conference. The Palestinian revolution has undertaken responsibilities which may be regarded as diplomatic. These responsibilities go hand in hand with the sympathy shown by many countries for the PLO, and reinforce that sympathy to the point where that organization has become not only the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, but also the government of the Palestinian cause, in exile as weil as in the occupied territoires, and the guardian liberation movement for the rights of Palestinians. It alone is responsible for Palestinian participation in the restoration of peace in the Middle East. 143. My fifth and last comment is that the character of the political struggle which we are now witnessing cannot change and will not change the revolutionary methods of the PLO, which must retain its essential nature as a liberation movement. For this, two closely related are indispensable: the fact that it is a liberation movement and the fact that it can liberate the territory from within, where the Israeli occupation exists. Consequently, peace in Lebanon would not mean a surrender but would rather allow it to transfer the revolution” to its true territory, to its historical homeland, where its roots are to be found. 144, These are some observations which have been inspired by the report of the Committee which is now before us. My remarks were also prompted by our own experience in our sorely tried country, Lebanon. We have finally understood as a result of that experience that the world has tried to remove one injustice by replacing it with another. From one tragedy another, indeed many tragedies are born. Ruin and expulsion have brought about more ruin and expulsion. 145. Therefore together and within the framework of Arab solidarity, excluding any derogations, we have a mission involving mutual rights and obligations, which is inspired by respect for the sacred chracter of Lebanese sovereignty over Lebanese territory and for freedom of decision for the Palestinians in regard to the future of the Palestinian cause. 146. The goal is clear and evident. On the one hand, a Palestinian peace must be established by the creation of a Palestinian State, and, on the other a total and unconditional Lebanese peace must also be established in conformity with Security Council resolutions. 147. Then and only then will Lebanon’s concern for its own preservation become a source of strength, trust and sympathy for the Palestinians, just as the support of the Palestinian cause is a source of strength trust and sympathy for the Arabs of Lebanon.

The peoples of the Middle East have ail too long had to live in uncertainty and anguish over the possibility of further acts of violence and new wars. These tensions continue to pose a 149. The Peace Treaty between Egypt and Israel'5 was therefore a welcome first step towards breaking the vicious circle of violence and hatred which has characterized the Middle East for the last 30 years. It seems obvious that peace between Israel and Egypt diminishes the immediate risks of war in the area. Furthermore, one should not underestimate the positive psychological effects of the fact that those two countries have been able to make peace with one another. The Peace Treaty also constitute, in our view, a corrected application of Security Council resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973) as regards the relationship between Egypt and Israel. 150. However, we are also aware that the Treaty between Egypt and Israel does no* represent a comprehensive solution to the conflict in ‘he Middle East. Such a solution will not be within reach unless the central issue in this whole conflict—the Palestinian question— is solved. 151. While those parts of the Treaty which concern bilateral relations between Egypt and Israel appear to be being implemented in a satisfactory manner, negotiations between Egypt, Israel and the United States on the establishment of self-rule in the West Bank and in Gaza have exposed deep differences of opinion between the parties. Egypt and the United States, for their part, seek to establish a form of self-rule for the Palestinians that would be as far-reaching as possible. Israel, on the other hand, seems primarily inclined to limit this self-rule to nothing more than the framework of the existing local administration in the West Bank and in aza. 152. It is therefore a serious matter indeed that the Israeli Government conti7ues to pursue its settlement . policy in the occupied territories, in violation of international laws. For a long time, the Swedish Government has repeatedly expressed its firm rejection of this policy. The recent decision to allow any acquisition of privately owned land in these areas causes deep concern. Moreover, Israel’s policy of gradually taking control over water resources in the West Bank is in conflict with the declared aim of giving the Palestinians full self-rule. Also, Israel’s apparent claims to supremacy in the occupied territories render a peaceful soltuion even more difficult. 153. Peace in the Middle East cannot be brought about by violence, a violence that breeds counterviolence. The civilians in Lebanon have this year been subjected to repeated and massive acts of violence leading to the deaths of more than 600 people, the wounding of ten times as many and the forced exodus of hundreds of thousands fleeing from their homes. 154. A settlement of the Middle East conflict must satisfy two central requirements. One is Israel’s right.to continued existence within secure and recognized borders. The other is the recognition of the Palestinians’ legitimate national rights. These include the right of the Palestinians, should they so wish, to establish a 155. Security Council resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973) must continue to be the foundation for a peaceful settlement. However, it has long been obvious that ‘these resolutions are not sufficient. They must be supplemented by the recognition of the legitimate national rights of the Palestinian people and of their right to determine their own future. We would welcome the Security Council’s taking a supplementary decision to this effect. 156. A final peace settlement can be comprehensive and lasting only if all parties concerend, including the PLO, participate in it. The Palestinians must therefore be represented in all negotiations concerning their own future. The fact that we consider the PLO to be representative of the Palestinians has nothing to do with our view of the organization’s political goals or its methods. We wish emphatically to emphasize that a settlement in the Middle East conflict must be reached not by force but by peaceful negotiations. All parties concerned must show responsibility and support efforts to move the peace process forward. A comprehensive ‘and lasting peace can only be achieved through farreaching compromises by all parties involved, including the PLO. 157. The Swedish Government is well aware that the history of the Jewish people is full of persecution and painful memories. This constitutes the background of the creation of the State of israel. Israel has given refuge and security to hundreds of thousands of Jews in distress, and it has become a living democracy. 158. At the same time, we consider that the Palestinians—a people that, like the Jewish people also have their historical roots in the area—likewise have a right to have their demands for self-determination met. The Palestinians too must, after many years of misery and uncertainty, now have a home of their own.

The Palestinian question is one of the most important items on the agenda of the General Assembly. The United Nations has studied this question for more than 30 years now, and during that time it has made continous efforts to find the best means of resolving this question by applying the many resolutions adopted by this Organization. But Israel, throughout this entire period, has raised one obstacle after another in order to prevent the implementation of these resolutions and has brought in Jews from various regions of the world and implanted them in Palestine. This policy of aggression and the intransigent positions which Israel has adopted have led to outbreaks of war in the region, resulting in the domination of Israel over all Palestinian territories and parts of neighbouring Arab territories. j 160. The Israelis, since the beginning of their aggression against the Palestinians in 1948, have done everything within their power to drive the Palestinians from the towns and villages where they were living in an orderly manner, to turn them into refugees in neighbouring Arab countries. Those who remained have en- 161. On 11 December 1948 the General Assembly adopted resolution 194 (III), in paragraph 11 of which it resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes should be permitted to do so and that compensation should be paid to those choosing not to return. But Israel has refused to act in conformity with this resolution and has done everything within its power to prevent the implementation of its provisions. At the same time, Israel has expropriated the possessions of these refugees, seized their farms and eliminated many villages, replacing them by Jewish settlements, despite the fact that it stated, upon becoming a Member of this Organization, that it would abide by the principles of the Charter. Israel aslo agreed to the implementation of General Assembly resolutions, in particular, resolution 181 (J), of 29 November 1947, pertaining to the partition of Palestine, and resolution 194 (III), in which the Assembly resolved that the refugees wishing to return to their homes should be permitted to do so, in order to promote a peacefu! adjustment of the future situation of Palestine. , 162. In this respect it should be mentioned that on 29 November 1948 the Security Council refused Israel’s first request to join the United Nations on the ground of its lack of co-operation in the implementation of United Nations resolutions pertaining to the question of Palestine. Subsequently, on 11 May 1949, Israel became a Member of the Organization [resolution 273 (11D}, largely as a result of the application of pressure applied by certain Western States on certain permanent members of the Security Council and Israel’s undertaking to respect the principles of the Charter and the resolutions of the United Nations. Israel is the only - country that has been established by a resolution of the United Nations on land that has been seized from its real owners. If at the time of its foundation Israel had applied those resolutions and allowed the refugees to return to their homes, the Palestinian issue would never have become so complicated. 163. For more than 30 years the Palestinian people have been enduring deprivation and dispersal. This is without precedent in the history of any other people. A people being humiliated and deprived of the exercise of their national and inalienable rights despite the clear stipulations in the resolutions of the General Assembly. The responsibility for these inhuman acts must be borne, first of all, by Israel. It is Israel that has waged repeated wars of aggression against the Palestinian people and against its Arab neighbours. Israel has also deceived international public opinion over the past 30 years and has made the Palestinians a scattered and displaced people. This responsibility must be borne also by certain Western countries that have supported and continue to support and uphold Israel in its expansionist and aggressive policies. This encourages Israel to continue its occupation of the Arab and Palestinian territories and to increase its barbaric acts. 164. Israel is continuing its occupation of Palestinian and Arab territories under the pretext that its securitv is 165. Israel is occupying territories of a surface area ten times greater than that of the territory allotted to it in 1947 when this Assembly adopted the decision on the partition of Palestine. And despite all this the Arab countries which are directly concerned, during the past 10 years, have invited all the peoples to find a just and peaceful solution that would guarantee the legitimate rights of the people in the region and the security of their territory, in accordance with Security Council resolution 242 (1967), which reaffirms, inter alia, the inadmissibility of the acquisition of land by force. 166. In actual fact, Israel approved the Security Council resolution, but has not implemented its provisions. It has waged war, carried out raids, and continues to do so against the Palestinian people and other Arab countries. The last of which is Lebanon. Israel ha: also refused to apply the resolutions and recommendations of the United Nations concerning the recognition of the national rights of the Palestinian people, including their right to self-determination and to the creation of their own independent state on their national territory. Indeed, the Israeli authorities continue knowingly to practise—-under the protection of military occupation—-a policy of colonization and annexation of those Arab territories which Israel has occupied since 1967. Israel has created and continues to create many Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, and in particular on the West Bank, in East Jerusalem and in the Gaza Strip, thereby pursuing its expansionist policy which is designed to annex those territories to Israel once and for all. 167. Despite Israeli intransigence and Israeli policy of aggression against the Palestinian people, the Palestinians have refused in the past and continue to refuse today—particularly those who live in the occupied territories—to accept that policy and the campaigns that being launched by the Israeli Government and its supporters. This people has reaffirmed its will to pursue its national struggle to achieve the liberation of its territory and its homeland, and recover its legitimate right to return to that homeland. The Palestinians are further strengthened in this by the international conviction that has emerged and crystallized regarding the importance of those rights. 168. More than ever before, activities over the past two years have confirmed the fact that the Palestinian question is at the very heart of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The events of the past two years have also reaffirmed the need for the international community to act swiftly in order that a just and equitable solution be found to the Palestinian question, so that this may lead to a real and lasting peace in the Middle East. 169. All previous and present attempts, however important, to find a partial solution to the problem of the Middle East, will never lead to a just and lasting peace in the region. Quite the contrary, they will lead to a further deterioration of the situation, will aggravate the problem and at the same time encourge the Israeli Government to continue its wilful and stubborn aggressive policy of futhering its expansionist designs. 171. Any recommendation or resolution adopted for the settlement of the Palestinian question without the active participation of the PLO cannot be recognized as a valid legal iastrument and will therefore never lead to a final solution to the conflict in the Middle east and the very heart of that conflict, which is the question of Palestine. 172. My delegation supports the results and the main recommendations that appear in the report of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. On this occasion I should like to convey my very sincere appreciation and thanks to the Chairman of the Committee, Ambassador Fall, for the remarkable work that has been carried out and for the efforts made. We would also thank the Vice-Chairman, the Rapporteur and all members of the Committee for their efforts in support of the Palestinian cause, aimed as these are to ensure respect for the Charter of the United Nations and its purposes.

The General Assembly is once again seized of the question of Palestine and the report of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. 174. I would at the outset take this opportunity of paying a heartfelt tribute to the Committee and to its ulustrious Chairman, Mr. Fall of Senegal, for the outstanding way in which the Committee has accomplished its most difficult task. 175. The Committee is working, as everyone is aware, in extremely difficult circumstances, first and foremost because of the lack of any co-operation whatsoever from one of the parties concerned and also because there is not now, in the present international situation, a sufficiently sincere political will to effect the changes necessary for the achievement of a just and lasting solution to the Palestinian problem. 176. The principal organ of the United Nations system responsible for guaranteeing international peace and security, namely the Security Council, still refuses to co-operate loyally with the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People in contravention of the repeated resolutions adopted by the Assembly. 177. But the Committee has been able, despite everything, to take up in a fully objective manner this question of Palestine, to analyse the basic facts of the situation and to present to the General Assembly a plan for a settlement that is both just and practical. That achievement compels the admiration of all men of good will in the international community. The General Assembly 178. It is quite obvious today that the international community is fully aware of the gravity of the situation in the Middle East region and the threat created by this situation for international peace and security. At the same time, the international community has gradually become convinced of the justice of the cause of the Palestinian people, which today enjoys almost unanimous support. 179. Everybody realizes today that, for the achievement of a just and viable solution of the Middle East crisis, it is essential that the Palestinian factor should be taken into account and recognized as decisive. No real peace can be established in that part of the world without the exercise by the Palestinian pecple of its inalienable rights: its right to return to its homeland, its right to self-determination and its right to the establishment of its own sovereign State on its national territory. 180. The PLO, the authentic representative of the Palestinian people, today enjoys the admiration and respect of the international community as a whole and the recognition that it is an essential and valid spokesman. It cannot be too often repeated that any attempt to attain a settlement of the question of Palestine which does not take this fact into account is doomed to failure. 181. These are real facts which cannot be ignored by any authorities. However, the General Assembly has had to take up consideration of this extremely important question again, a question which it has been discussing for the last three decades and more, because, unfortunately, anachronistic policies are still being pursued which ignore the obvious facts of the situation. 182. Israel persists in defying ail the rules of international law and all resolutions of the General Assembly concerning the legitimate and inalienable rights of the Palestinian people. After having tried in vain to destroy the national Palestinian entity and physically and politically liquidate the Palestinian people, Israel is trying desperately to impede by all means available to its any serious attempt to provide a just and lasting soluton to the Palestinian problem. 189. The terms of such a settlement are those recog- ’ nized by the various international bodies. The Islamic 183. Israel continues to disregard even the existence of the Palestinian people, who have a right to live in sovereignty and in peace and to establish an independent State on their national territory. In order to prevent the only possible settlement, Israel cynically and systematically proceeds to create new complications by expropriating lands in the occupied Arab territories and establishing new Israeli settlements there. 184. The gravity of these criminal practices led the Security Council, on the prompting of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights ofthe Palestinian People, to create a Commission to examine the situation relating to settlements in the Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem. 185. The Commission established that the Israeli Government had delibertely engaged in a wilful, systematic and large-scale policy of establishing settle- 186. Israeli practices in the occupied Arab territories confirm our conviction that Israel is currently implementing throughout Palestinian territory the designs of an unnatural, racist, anti-democratic State that is based on the superiority of one element of the population maintained to the detriment of the others, which are regarded as of no importance and, perhaps, destined to disappear owing to the constant influx of immigrants of the Jewish persuasion who automatically attain the status of citizens and at once enjoy all rights, including the right to seize Palestinian property. 187. We are now facing a very serious situation. It is quite obvious that the Israeli authorities are playing with fire. 188. World opinion, as we have seen, has become aware of the gravity of this situation. Both at the official level and within the field of activities of the nongovernmental organizations the cause of the Palestinian people is gaining ground and Israel is becoming more and more isolated. We can see, likewise, that the entire region of the Middle East could flare up in a new destructive war if a rapid solution of a just and equitable nature is not found to the Palestinian problem. Such a flare-up would undoubtedly represent a serious and genuine threat to international peace and security throughout the woild. Confernece, the OAU and the non-aligned movement have without exception reiterated, together with the League of Arab States and the United Nations General Assembly, that the solution lies in the withdrawal of Israel from occupied Arab territories, including Jerusalem, and the exercise by the Palestinian people of its inalienable right to return to its homeland, its right to self-determination and to establish its own sovereign independent State on its national territory. 19). The international community which, through its representatives in this Assembly, adopted a plan for a settlement bsed on these principles has a duty to spare no efforts to achieve the realizationof that plan. 191. The Security Council, having disregarded the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People and the appeals of the General Assembly, has made a first gesture, in establishing the Commission which I have mentioned and adopting its recommendations. 192. We believe, hoever, that the role of the Security Council is far more important. Its responsibilities for safeguarding international peace and security are much broader than this. The Charter of the United Nations 193. We whould like to take this opportunity to appeal urgently to all who may have an influence on the course of events in the region to take due account of the real elements of the problem and to make a sincere and effective contribution to a just settlement which would guarantee to the Palestinian people, as to all peoples of the world, its right to live in dignity in the framework of its own independent and sovereign State. 194. The peace and security of the entire Middle East region, and hence of the entire world, depends on it.

Once again, the General Assembly has to deal with the question of Palestine since it has become evident that, as long as there is no solution to the crucial question of the Middle East conflict-—namely, the implementation of the legitmate rights of the Arab people of Palestine—the world Organization will always be faced with a further aggravation of the situation in the region, despite the decisions it has adopted with a view to bringing about a lasting, comprehensive and just peace settlement in the Middle East. 196. As we ail know, during the last months events in the Middle East have taken a dramatic turn because attempts at enforcing one-sided interests have only encouraged the aggressor. The imperialist policy of concluding separate deals has erected new obstacles which impede a comprehensive solution of the Middle East conflict. The present situation in Southern Lebanon and in the Israeli-occupied Arab territories has resulted from Israel’s intensified policy of occupation and colonization which, in its expanding dimensions, poses an ever greater threat to world peace. 197. The terrorist act of arresting the Mayor of the town of Nablus, if looked at in the light of the actual circumstances, clearly shows the objective which Israel is pursuing with its concept of so-called autonomy for the population. This no doubt wili shatter even the remaining illusions about the character and purpose of the negotiations on the granting of a so-called autonomy in the Israeli-occupied Arab territories. This socalled autonomy is intended to preserve the colonial system practised in all Israeli-occupied Arab territories and to continue the exploitation of local resources. 198. Indefiance of the principles of the Charter of the United Nations and relevant United Nations decisions, Israel’s policy is aimed at forcing the Arab people of Palestine to continue to live in exile, incapacitating that eople politically and making them heipless and deenceless against Israel’s arbitrary rule. This is evidenced by, among others, the policy of the Israeli authorities to deprive about 1 million Palestinians living in the Israeli-occupied Arab territories of their means of existence. However, this calculation will not work out, as has often been the case with imperialist interests. 199. The Arab peoples dispose of all the necessary meanc tn defend their national rights. and the over- 700. A few days ago, at Tunis, the Tenth Arab Summit Conference reaffirmed the principles and decisions adopted at the ninth Arab Summit Conference, held at Baghdad in November 1978, and condemned and rejected imperialist manoeuvres to undermine Arab unity and split the Palestinian people and their liberation organization, the PLO. 201. The experiences that the Arab peoples gathered in their struggle underscore the necessity further to consolidate the unity of action between the Arab States and to wage a resolute struggle against the sell-out of the Arab peoples’ national interests. 202. The PLO plays a decisive role in this struggle. Its constructive and effective contributions and endeavours to achieve a just and durable peace settlement in the Middle East have considerably added to its international reputation. An ever greater number of Governments and an evergrowing proportion of the public, in Western countries as well, recognize that the PLO, as the sole and legitimate representative of the Arab people of Palestine, cannot be ignored in the process of solving the Middle East conflict. Ever more often, demands are being voiced for the participation, on an equal footing, of the PLO in a comprehensive, just and lasting peace settlement in the Middle East. Circles in .which people take a realistic view have increasingly come to normalize their relations with the PLO. International public opinion has, with growing clarity, identified the separate deals concluded as a dangerous obstacle to stable peace in the Middle East. To an ever growing extent, it is being recognized that the implementation of the legitimate rights of the Arab people of Palestine must indeed include the establishment of an independent Palestinian State. 203. Taking account of these developments,. imerialist quarters supporting Israel are taking pains to ook for a way out by indulging in a variety of manoeuvres. In an attempt to conceal their position, which is contrary to the interests of the Arab people of Palestine, and by denying them the right to selfdetermination and to the establishment of an independent State of their own, the Israelis speak in favour of a so-called autonomy for the population—an autonomy that would exclude the territory. The contradiction, however, between imperialist objectives, on the one hand, and the vital interests of the Arab people of Palestine, on the other, cannot be glossed over, let alone resolved, by any manoeuvres. 204. The policy of negating the crucial question underlying any Middle East settlement has long failed also in the United Nations. Since the twenty-ninth session of the General Assembly, attempts to look at the Palestinian question as a mere refugee problem had to be abandoned. The PLO has been recognized as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. Nevertheless, to date certain members of the Security. Council have not been able to make up their minds and agree that the PLO should participate on an equal footing in Security Council meetings dealing with issues of immediate concern to the Palestinian people. Their attitude reveals their true political goals. In addition, those very political motivations have, of necessity, led to certain events which we still recall quite vividly. 206. My delegation expresses the hope that the United Nations will further intensify its efforts to secure implementation of the rights of the Palestinian people. As a member of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, the German Democratic Republic makes a constructive contribution to this end. 207. The position of the German Democratic Republic regarding a comprehensive political solution of the Middle East conflict and the bringing about of a just and durable peace in the region is unequivocally clear. On the occasion of a visit to the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen, the Chairman of the Council of State of the German Democratic Republic, Erich Honecker, declared on 18 November 1979: ‘*We advocate a just settlement of the Middle East conflict. Israel must withdraw its troops from all Arab territories occupied in 1967. The Arab people of Palestine must be guaranteed their inalienable national rights, including the right to establish a State of their own. These two demands, which are organically inter-related, constitute the fundamental prerequisite for a just and durable peace, for the independent existence and the security of the States and peoples in the region. We support the efforts jointly undertaken by all Arab States which offer resistance to the imperialist policy of separate deals and which courageously, persistently and with far-sightedness defend the national interests of the Arab peoptes.”’ 208. Permit me, on the eve of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, to reaffirm to the Palestinian people and their legitimate representative, .the PLO, that the people and the Government of the German Democratic Republic stand firmly by their side.

Among the many problems with which our Organization is charged, the question of Palestine remains one of particular difficulty which requires unceasing and responsible efforts towards a just and lasting solution. Instability in the Middle East is a chronic source of tension and anxiety in the world. In any over-all settlement of the problems of the area a just solution of the Palestinian problem is an essential element. For their part, the nine countries members of the European Community, on whose behalf I speak today, reaffirm their commitment to assist, in every way appropriate, towards achievement of such a solution. 210. In his statement on behalf of the nine countries in the general debate on 25 September, the Foreign Minister of Ireland, Mr. Michael O’Kennedy, stressed once again the four principles of the London Declaration of 29 June 1977:! 16 Declaration on the Middle East adopted by the Heads of State or Government of the European Communities on 29 June 1977 in London at the meeting of the European Council. 211. Security Council resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973), together with the principles I have mentioned, taken as a whole, set the essential framework for a comprehensive peace settlement. In the view of the nine countries members of the European Community, it is necessary that they should be accepted by all those involved, including the PLO, as the basis for a comprehensive settlement in which all the parties will play their full part. The nine members also recognize that the Palestinian people are enti‘:ed, within the framework set by a peace settlement, to exercise their right to determine their own future as a people. 212. Rights are, of course, balanced by obligations. The nine countries emphasize that it is essential that all parties to the negotiation of a settlement accept the right of ali States in the area—Israel as well as-the Arab States—to live within secure and recognized boundaries with adequate guarantees. Equally, of course, it is essential that there should be respect for the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people. These include the right to a homeland and the right, through its representatives, to play its full part in the negotiation of a comprehensive settlement. 213. Recent heightened awareness of Palestinian aspirations and rights is en important development, and one which, handled constructively and responsibly, could make a positive contribution to the search for a peaceful solution. 214. The past year has seen some major developments in relation to, inter alia, the Palestinian question, to which the nine countries, in view of their close connexions with the region, are particularly sensitive. One of these was the signature last March of agreements between Egypt and Israel. In their declaration of 26 March last,'” the nine Community countries stated their position on these agreements. The nine countries will continue to follow the situation closely and will seek in every way they can to advance the aim of a comprehensive and lasting peace settlement involving all parties and meeting all the fundamental issues. 215. We express the hope that all concerned will refrain from placing obstacles in the way of a comprehensive settlement. Accordingly, the nine countries strongly deplore continued acts of violence or provocation by any of those involved. The nine countries are opposed to the Israeli Government’s policy of establishing settlements in occupied territories in contravention of international law, and they cannot accept claims by Israel to sovereiynty over occupied tertitories, since this would be incompatible with Security Council resolution 242 (1967). 3 3 Se Bulletin of the European Communities, March 1979, point 217. The use of force by any of the parties can only have a destructive effect on the search for a comprehensive settlement. The nine European countries urge on all concerned the renunciation of all acts of violence. 218. As the Secretary-General stated in his report on the work of the United Nations: “It is now more than ever necessary that all of the parties concerned review their position with the fuaa rather than the past in mind.” [See A/34/1, sect. 219, With regard to the report of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, I should like to recall once again the reservations made on this subject on previous occasions by the’ ntie members of the European Community. We reiterate our belief that the Committee’s recommendations suffer from the same fundameatal lack of balance as the resolution that created the Committee. 220. Inconclusion, as far as the Palestinian people are concerned, the nine members reaffirm thei: support for their legitimate rights within the framework of a just, lasting and comprehensive settlement in the Middle ast.

Since the General Assembly considered the question of Palestine at its thirty-third session, there have been some important developments regarding this question which require that the Assembly should not be satisfied at this sessicn merely with resolutions affirming the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people. It should face these events and take decisive and frank positions in regard to them. It should also recommend precise measures which would pave the way for decisive and effective action on the part of the international community to solve the Palestinian problem, on the basis of the resolutions previously adopied by the Assembly in that connexion. 222. It is normal that some of these developments should be characterized by positive aspects while . others are negative. We shall confine ourselves here to dealing with three of these developments, because of their interrelationship with one another and also because of their importance and their effect on the Palestinian cause. Those developments are: first, the signing of the Camp David agreements and the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty; secondly, the increasing Israeli measures aimed at the annexation of Palestinian territory; and, thirdly, the escalation and polarization of international sunnort for the people of Palestine. 224. The first of these principles is the absolute right of all peoples to exercise their right to selfdetermination and independence. These agreements deny that right and in fact replace it with the so-called autonomy, or self-rule. They have gone to the extent of subjecting the terms for the implementation of this false autonomy to an Israeli veto. We are all perfectly aware of the Israeli concept of autonomy, which it limits to jurisdiction over municipal, educational and health matters, while excluding any actual exercise of sovereignty over the Palestinian lands. 225. The second principle in which we believe is that the people of every territory have the absolute and sole right to sovereignty over that territory. The agreements have denied the Palestinian people that right and have left them hanging in mid-air, exposed them to Israeli claims of sovereignty over the remaining Palestinian territories, in addition to the fact that they have closed the question of Jerusalem and the restoration of Arab sovereignty over it. 226. The third principle in which we believe is the unity of all peoples and their indivisibility. These agreements have in fact divided the Palestinian people into several groups. A very minor group has the right to autonomy, while the majority is deprived even of that false autonomy. Another group is left at the mercy of the Israeli Government, which will decide whether to accept or reject their return to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, while there is another group that has no right to return to the Palestinian territory which Israel seized in 1948, There is even a fourth group which has not been mentioned in the agreements and which they ignore completely. That group is not composed of the refugees of 1948 or the displaced persons of 1967. In fact they are the inhabitants of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip who have temporarily left their homeland seeking employment in Arab and other countries. This fourth group, which is estimated to number tens of thousands of people, has no rights according to these agreements, as though it did not exist at all. 227. The fourth principle in which we believe is that the people of every territory have the sole and absolute right to negotiate regarding the future of their homeland, and this right is undisputed. The Camp David agreements have denied this right and ignored it. The negotiations were held between three parties without the participation or agreement of the Palestinian people. In fact they took place in spite of their firm rejection by the Palestinian people. 228. The fifth principle in which we believe is that each people alone has the right te choose its leaders and representatives. In spite of the unanimity of the Palestinian people in the occupied territories and outside them and the unanimity of the great majority of countries, Arab or foreign, as well as international and mass organizations, that the PLO is the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, we find that the agreements and the current negotiations under 229. The sixth principle in which we believe is that the question of Palestine is the very core of the Middle East problem and that therefore the Middle East problem cannct be solved, in part or as a whole, except on the basis of a settlement of the question of Palestine in a just manner and in accordance with the will of the Palestinian people. The agreements have tried to solve part of the Middle East problem without finding any solution to the Palestinian problem. 230. The seventh principle in which we believe is that the Palestinian cause is an Arab commitment and that no Arab country or Government can carry out any action individually to solve this problem. 231. The second development which has accompanied the Palestine cause is the increase in Israeli measures aimed at the annexation of Palestinian territory. In the course of this year, Israel has seized hundreds of thousands of dunums of Palestinian territory in order to establish settlements on those lands. This annexation is not limited to privately owned lands. Israel has gone to the extent of decreeing a law which allows Israelis to buy land in occupied Palestine. 232. Israel has set up dozens of settlements in the Palestinian territory. It has also planned to establish hundreds of other settlements. Its objective in this is very clear: to settle the largest number of Israelis in Palestine and to establish a fait accompli which in future would prevent the establishment of a Palestine Arab tate. Mr. Salim (United Republic of Tanzania) resumed the Chair. 233. Although, when setting up settlements in the past, Israel concealed its true inientions by using the pretext of security, we now find that the authorities in Israel overtly state and even publicize that settlement is the basic factor and the main objective of the establishment of these colonies. 234. There is in fact a dialogue taking place in Israel at the moment on the need to enact a law annexing the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to Israel and on the application of Israeli laws in those two areas. 235. The third development that accompanied the question of Palestine this year was the growth and polarization of international support for the Palestinian people. This support has been endorsed in the decisions adopted by the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of OAU, at its sixteenth ordinary session held at Monrovia last July, as well as by the resolutions of the Sixth Conference of Heads of State or Government of Non-Aligned Countries, held at Havana in September. We have also seen the polarization of this support in the growing commitment of mass organiza- ~ tions which have held many conferences for the purpose in all the continents of the world, particularly in Western Europe. This support has also been reflected in the fact that some countries of Western Europe, members of the Common Market, have intensified their dialogue with the PLO and have also 236. Also parallel with that support is the growing awareness and realization of the failure of the Camp David agreements and the current negotiations in connexion with those accords to solve the question of Palestine. ° 237. In this regard it is to be regretted that the United States has refused to follow those who are aware of and understand the rights of the Palestinian people and the need to allow that people to exercise its inalienable rights; instead it has continued to provide military, financial and diplomatic assistance to Israel. We are all perfectly aware that, had it not been for such assistance, Israel would not have been able to continue to defy the will of the international community. On this basis, the Tenth Arab Summit Conference, which last week convened at Tunis, stated that ‘‘the continuation of that policy will have an adverse effect on the mutual relations and interests of the Arab countries and the United States of America’’ [see A/34/763, annex]. 238. Those three developments to which I have referred make it incumbent on the General Assembly to condemn the Camp David agreements and call on the international community net to recognize those accords. They also make it incumbent upon the General Assembly to pave the way for taking deterrent measures to put an end to the Israeli actions aimed at Judaization of the rest of Palestine. The support given to the rights of the Palestinian people should also be translated into clear-cut action which the General Assembly would ask the international community to comply with and implement. 239. In conclusion, I should like to express my gratitude to Mr. Médoune Fall, the Chairman of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, and the other members of that Committee for the valuable report which they have submitted and the resolutions and recommendations contained therein which, if applied, could help us to achieve positive results in the search for a solution of the question of Palestine.

My delegation has on many occasions expressed its views on the problem before us today. None the less, that does not prevent us from briefly referring to the question, certain as we are of its importance with regard to the maintenance of peace and security in the Middle East and throughout the world. We maintain that an appropriate, just and lasting solution to the problems of the Middle East can be reached only if account is taken of the national political rights of the Palestinian people. The fate of that people is at the very heart of the questions of war or peace in the Middle East. We shall speak of this again when the item on the Middie East is considered next week. However, we should like now to stress that only respect for the rights of that people can restore peace to the region. 242. We were also able to analyse the policy of settlements conducted by the Israeli Government in the occupied territories. It seemed to us to fulfil the purpose of a political tool in action aimed at imposing the Israeli presence in those territories, in violation of international law. 243. We also feel that that policy is causing profound geographical and demographic changes in the occupied territories and at Jerusalem, in violation of the fourth Geneva Convention of 1949. 244. Furthermore, the announcement that this policy will continue makes the prospects for change in the situation even more gloomy. It could discourage efforts within our Organization that we hope will be successful, so that realistic and constructive views can prevail. - been restored was thereby tilted against the Palestinian Arabs. 245. We nevertheless believe that it is the path of conciliation that should be followed, in spite of all the painful reverses that might be mentioned. We believe that it is the patient search for a peaceful solution that should be supported, in spite of the long wait and the passage of time. We are aware that those words may arouse bitterness on the part of the victims of so many sacrifices and exile. But it will never be futile to advocate negotiation; and we shall not fail to do so while stressing that Israel must recognize the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people. It is our view that it is in this direction that our Organization should work. Negotiations on the future of the Palestinian people cannot take place without the direct participation of the legitimate representatives of that people, which our Organization and this Assembly have welcomed and recognized for many years. And in the last analysis it is that people alone which, in the exercise of its right to selfdetermination, will have the honour of deciding on its own destiny, its own freedom and its own dignity. No obstacle should be placed in the path of that quest for peace, a peace in which all the States of the region, including the State of Israel, will be able to live. Mr. Matane (Papua New Guinea), Vice-President, took the Chair.

The day before yesterday [77th meeting] the voice of Palestine was heard once more in this hall to reassert itself, to proclaim its unshakeable will to continue its liberation struggle and to underscore the urgent need for the establishment of peace in the Middle East. if that peace is not established, all of mankind may have a rude awakening and find itself faced with a generalized confrontation. 248. That people refuse to be cast into oblivion. It refuses to be reduced to an external wandering in quest of uncertain generosity in order to survive. 249. The Charter of the United Nations firmly sets forth the sacred and inalienable rights of peoples to self-determination. That right must be exercised by the Palestinians on the soil of their ancestors, a soil which the latter fashioned for their descendants. 250. The essential concern of the drafters of the Charter and their legitimate hope was that no people shculd ever again have to shed tears of blood to live in peace and dignity. The Jewish people, decimated by the most deadly madness ever known to mankind, were entitled to compensation for that crime against its conscience and its very existence—a just compensation, even though it could not erase the memory of millions of human beings summarily executed, the victims of concentration camps and gas chambers. The General Assembly reflected that international concern by adopting its well-known resolution on the partition of Palestine. 251. That point in history certainly should be recalled because the international balance which had apparently 252. That injustice bore the seeds of the first war to break out in the Middle East. As we know, that was followed by three other wars, the last of which caused the whole world to shudder because it could have led to an international conflagration. 253. The sole cause of those cataclysms remains the failure to recognize the Palestinian fact, the fact that we, the heirs to and guardians of the incomparable Charter of the United Nations, were not able to restore the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people. The Palestinian people, like any other veople committed to a struggle for the attainment of those rights, may face pitfalls but it will rise up once again, more inured to war than ever, each time widening the dual front of its political and military struggle. 254. In fact, those who in the past were still condescendingly described by some foreign ministries as refugees have become the spearhead of an ariny that ventured and succeeded by its courage to expand its battle front and which has unceasingly widened its circle of friends. 255. The sight of the olive branch offered by Mr. Arafat, Chairman of the PLO,'® is still too fresh in our minds for those in this hall to lose sight of it. 256. That is the reality of the Palestinian situation, which can also be summarized in the single minded determination of all Palestinians to live and die for the same cause. In the course of a recent session of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, the President of the World 257. The Government of Mali has for a long time recognized and accepted the Palestinian reality, which continues to assert itself throughout the world. 258. The PLO is being heard by an ever-widening audience. In this respect, we should like to recall the decision taken on 18 June 1979 by the European Community to recognize the Palestinian fact as a fundamental element of any lasting solution to the Middle East [see A/34/344-S/13423, annex]. 259. We also recall the decision of the OAU, which, last July at Monrovia, reiterated its esteem for the Palestinian people and assured them of its total support [A/34/552, annex I, CM/Res. 725 (XXXHD)\. 260. The Conference of Heads of State or Government of Non-Aligned Countries held at Havana in September also: **. , , stressed the need for concrete solidarity in every form—-political, cultural-and informational and in respect of programmes for military aid to the Palestinian people, led by the Palestine Liberation Organization—-so as to develop the struggle for the liberation of its homeland” [see A/34/542, annex, sect. I, para. 129}, 261. The Interparliamentary Conference, held at Caracas, also recognized the Palestinian fact and placed it at the heart of any settlement which could bring about a viable peace in the Middle East [see A/34/619, annex I, p. 10}. 262. The peoples who had long been subjected to malicious propaganda aimed at creating confusion about the true nature of the struggle of the Palestinian people are beginning to awaken to reality and to the justice of that struggle. 263. Today, many Israelis are among those peoples. It is towards them that we should direct our attention. We should support them in their courageous efforts to free themselves from the political delusions that are highly detrimental to their wish to live at last in peace with their neighbours and to devote their energies to goals other than those of providing weapons for another war, which in any event can never crush the resistance of the Palestinians. 264. The dynamiting of the homes of Palestinian Arabs, the systematic confiscation of their property, the savage establishment of Jewish settlements on expropriated Palestinian land, the preparation of mediumterm plans to expand those settlements and thus disfigure Palestine, including the Holy City of Jerusalem, the persistent refusal cf Israel to comply in particular with the General Assembly resolution which gave birth to it, are all serious acts of defiance against our Organization and are a constant threat to international peace and security. 266. The United Nations, however, has recognized the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to their homeland. The Committee established in General Assembly resolution 3376 (XXX) for the protection of those rights has just submitted its report [A/34/35 and Corr. 1] brilliantly introduced by the Committee’s chairman, Mr. Médoune Fall of Senegal, to whom my delegation again extends its congratulations on having devoted himself to so just and lofty a cause as that of the frustrated people of Palestine. 267. The report is unique in that it reflects the refusal of a permanent member of the Security Council to co-operate with that body in order to adapt it to the development of one of the most persistent problems of our time and to make it possible thereby to take the measures necessary for restoring peace in Palestine so that the population of that country too can lay down their arms and devote themselves to the rehabilitation of their mutilated homeland. 268. Doubts as to Israel’s will to live in peace with its neighbours were expressed by the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Mali in his statement to this Assembly on 10 October 1979. These doubts have continued to grow. Out of sympathy for the Israeli people and a love for peace, we thus have no other choice than to impose on ‘Tel Aviv conditions under which all the peoples of the Middle East will be able to live in renewed trust. These conditions, so often proclaimed by the Government of Mali, are basically: recognition of the Palestinian ’ people’s right to self-determination, including their right to the creation of a sovereign State; recognition of and support for the legitimate struggle of the Palestinian people under the leadership of its sole and unique representative, the PLO; unconditional withdrawal from the Arab territories occupied following the Israeli aggression of 1967; the preservation of the historic and religious heritage of the Holy City of Jerusalem; the maintenance and strengthening of Arab unity, ‘‘which alone can guarantee that peace will be true and comprehensive”’ [27th meeting, para. 73], as emphasized by the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Mali. 269. There are too many serious crises threatening the world at the present time. Let us increase our efforts to resolve the Palestinian crisis, which is an obstacle on our long journey towards the establishment of a new international order. In this connexion, my delegation is convinced that the international community will endorse the recommendations contained in paragraphs 52 to 55 of the report of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, and that it will take every step to bring about their full implementation. 270. Mr. SAHL (Democratic Yemen) (interpretation from Arabic). The tragedy of the Palestinian people, ~ establishment in the heart of the Arzb world, Israel has tried to obliterate the Palestinian cause and to deny the national and political rights of the Palestinian people. Today, it is facing the entire world community, which stands by the side of the Palestinian people for the restoration of their rights and for the establishment of their independent State in Palestine. This international support would not have come about had not the Palestinian people risen up and joined ranks under the PLO and struggled with all the means at their disposal to resist the Zionist occupation. Thus, the PLO today enjoys the support of the overwhelming majority of States, including regional group and the non-aligned countries. 271. The report of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People once again affirm the right of the Palestinian people to an independent political life along with other colonized peoples, most of whom have finally won their independence and sovereignty. The report also indicates in an integrated and comprehensive way the methods of reaching a solution to the Palestinian problem and how the Palestinian people can build their independent tate. 272. My delegation would like to express its gratitude to all the participants in the Committee, and especially to its Chairman, Mr. Fall, for the great and dedicated task they have so successfully carried out. 273. The fact that the Security Council refuses to adopt the report of the Committee and to take the necessary measures to implement its recommendations has disappointed us, and we have not been surprised to find the United States using the veto to prevent the application and implementation of the Committee’s report. The United States has once again proved that it is {srael’s foremost ally and that it is a party to the conflict. Without the American military and political assistance flowing into Israel, that country would not have been able to defy world public opinion and would not have been able to continue its usurpation of Palestine or to deny the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people. 274. Today, we are witnessing new attempts aimed at carrying out a pincer movement against the Palestine cause by means of a so-called autonomy, a pallid formula that emerged from the Camp David accords. What is this autonomy, compared to the inalienable national rights of the Palestinian people, and who has granted the United States and the Sadat régime the righi to decide on the rights of the Palestinian people and their future? Democratic Yemen strongly condemns the Camp David agreements and considers them a continuation of the policy that ignores the rights of the Palestinian people. We support the resolutions adopted at the Tenth Arab Summit Conference, which affirmed its denunciation of those agreements, without any reservations whatsoever. The resolutions of the Conference have demonstrated the failure of attempts to divide the Arab ranks united against the Camp David accords and the capitulationist Sadat régime. 276. The Security Council is asked today to take a decision on the report of the Committee before it is too late. ¥srael and its ally cannot ignore the international community and the resolutions of the General Assembly save at the expense of American interests. The Arab nation responds by supporting Palestinian rights, and is prepared to make any sacrifice—no matter how costly—in order to restore those rights. 277. The establishment of settlements by Israel, the expulsion of Arab citizens and the aggression against Southern Lebanon can only increase the determination of the Palestinian people to struggle until victory is achieved.

My delegation wishes to express its thanks to the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People for the recent booklets entitled The Question of Palestine and The Status of Jerusalem. The information contained therein is concise and exposes the Zionist conspiracy to obscure the historical rights of the Palestinian people. 279. We also wish to express our profound thanks to the Committee for its work in the United Nations and ’ internationally for keeping in focus the whole question of the people of Palestine. That heroic people has for the last 30 years been subjected to the most wicked manipulations of imperialism. That nation was carved up and a new State was created without regard to the principle of self-determination for the native people. Lands and other material possessions were seized, and the people were expelled to drift into poverty in refugee camps. To add to this insult, some promoted the idea that the people of Palestine had become stateless persons. Exploitation and repression never go unanswered, and this gave rise to the PLO, which is today the liberation army of the Palestinian people. 280. The United Nations and the non-aligned movement recognize the PLO as the sole and authentic representative of the Palestinian people. The PLO is today afforded greater recognition in the international community than the State of Israel. This fact, it is hoped, will not go unnoticed by the hard-liners in Tel Aviv. 281. Self-determination for the peoples of the world is. the corner-stone of my Government’s foreign and domestic policies. The promotion of peace and friendship is part of that corner-stone; hence our clear perspective on the Palestinian question. Prime Minister Bishop, on the occasion of the Sixth Conference of Heads of State or Government of Non-Aligned Countries, held at Havana recently, said that ‘tour Gov- -ermment is firm on the principle that there can be no peace in the Middle East without an acceptable settlement of the Palestinian question’’. 282. Four wars have been fought in the Middle East, but the heart and core of the problem remains the establishment of a home for the Palestinian people. There are those who claim that the Camp David agreements represent a step in that direction. This is a false premise, for those agreements were not concluded eeetth 4h mnetinimnntingn AF tha DIM andl hawrn bhann wo 283. The hostile and inhuman action taken by Israel against the Arab people in the occupied countries and Lebanon, in violation of their human rights, have justly aroused international censure. Torture, bombing, inhuman treatment, the establishment of settlements in the occupied territories, contrary to international law and in violation of the Charter of the United Nations, expose the true nature of zionism. These policies constantly remind us of the close relationship between the Zionists and that other arch-enemy of man, the apartheid régime of South Africa. The refusal of Israel to withdraw from occupied Arab lands in conformity with resolutions of the United Nations is yet another sign of its apartheid policy. We condemn the efforts of the Government of Israel to deport the Mayor of Nablus from his own country. 284. My Government welcomes the movement in the position of the countries of the European Community on the Palestinian question which was announced in the General Assembly this year. We regard this change asa break with the hard line of previous years. 285. We remain convinced that there can be no solution to this problem that does not take into account the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people and that that solution must provide for the implementation of the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to return to their homes and property and to exercise their right to self-determination, independence and national sovereignty. The representation of the Palestinian people on an equal footing with all other parties on the basis of General Assembly resolutions 3236 (XXTIX) and 3375 (XXX) is indispensable to all efforts under the umbrella of the United Nations. The principle of the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force and the consequent obligation for Israel to withdraw completely and quickly from all territory so occupied must be respected. 286. The United Nations, the non-aligned movement, the Arab nations, the PLO and the Palestinian people may be assured of the support of my Government, on the basis of principle, on this issue.

1 would at the outset congratulate the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People on the seriousness and competence that it has demonstrated throughout its work and, in particular, in the preparation of the working document we now have before us. 288. We should like in particular to commend our brother, Mr. Médoune Fall, for the impartiality, passion for truth and political courage which he showed in his tireless work in guiding the Committee. We wish him equal success in the discharge of his new duties. 289. ‘‘We shall be the outpost of civilization in the face of barbarism’’, promised the first Zionists to those who wanted to use them as a bridge-head in the heart of the Arab nation. The insolence of this statement sums up very clearly the blind irresponsibility of all forms of colonialism, the arrogance of all forts of imperialism, and the scorn which characterizes all forms of racism. 291. The British Mandate in Palestine was not only to permit that promise to be kept but, by a strange irony of fate, to enable those who escaped the pogroms, the future victims of nazism, to pursue a policy of intolerable racism with regard to the heirs of one of the finest and most brilliant civilizations of all time. 292. This is one of the many paradoxes of this problem of the Middle East which makes it difficult to understand. Another equally surprising paradox is the triumph of a colonial implantation at the end of the first half of the twentieth century. Everywhere else, colonialism had reached the twilight of its day and was fighting a rearguard action to hold on to what it had acquired. In Palestine, the colonial experience was in ull flux. . 293. However, there is no doubt that the most outrageous paradox in the general undertaking of the plundering of the land of Palestine and the usurpation of the rights of its people was the tacit complicity of this Assembly. Indeed, what can be said of the partition of Palestine, in complete disregard of the fundamental rights of its inhabitants and their desire to reject the dismemberment of their homeland? 294. Already 32 years have passed since the adoption of that resolution in May 1947 which arbitrarily decided on the partition of Palestine. Those 32 years have been dramatic ones in the history of the Middle East, that cradle of three great religions, the crossroads of three continents of the ancient world. 295. This colonization has produced, as it inevitably had to, the chain of horrors to which coercive systems give rise: domination, revolt, repression, more revolt and the final triumph of truth and freedom. 296. It is quite superfluous to enumerate before this Assembly the long list of all the damage done by Zionist settlement to the Palestinian people and other Arab peoples in the region. I shall confine myself to quoting certain essential dates in the plundering of Palestine, of Israeli expansionism and its role as watchdog for foreign interests in the Arab Middle East. 297. On 14 May 1948 there was a proclamation of the State of Israel accompanied by its simultaneous rec- Ognition by the great Powers and the outbreak of the first war in Palestine. The successive truces and periods of peace saw the annexation of a large part of the Arab **Palestine’’ initially provided for in the resolution on partition. 298. In October and November 1956, following the sovereign act of Egypt in nationalizing the Suez Canal 299. In May and June 1967, Israel threatened to parade in Damascus and undertook a treacherous conflict in June, occupying the rest of Arab Palestine, the Golan Heights and Sinai. To these prolonged conflicts we must add the permanent aggression against Lebanon, aimed at dragging that country into the conflict to prove the defeat of tolerance and multi-confessionalism and so justify, a contrario, the existence of a theocratic and racist State. 300. However, some would have us believe that Israel has suddenly become a lamb since the Camp David agreements. We would have been the first to welcome such a change. Unfortunately, the optimism is quite unjustified. . 301. The occupier still defies the consensus of our Organization and pursues a racist policy of settlements, refusing to consider the existence of a Palestine Arab State. General Assembly resolution 33/28A provided quite rightly that, ‘*. , , the validity of agreements purporting to solve the problem of Palestine requires that they be within the framework of the United Nations and its Charter and its resolutions on the basis of the full attainment and exercise of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including the right of return and the right to national independence and sovereignty in Palestine, and with the participation of the Palestine Liberation Organization’’. 302. Moreover, one great protector of Israel is unfortunately not using its influence to bring this country to a more realistic attitude. The sponsor of the Camp David agreements, the United States of America, on the contrary, last August prevented the convening of the Security Council which should have led to the correct formulation by our Organization of the national rights of the Arab people of Palestine. It is only right that the Organization should correct the hasty and outdated formulation of Security Council resolution 242 (1967), which only perceives the Palestinian problem in its limited aspect of refugees. 303. Onthe other hand, we welcome the realism of the European Community in the declaration of its Ministers for Foreign Affairs on 18 June last, assuring that any just and lasting peace in the Middle East must be on the basis of a global settlement. 304. Inany event, my country supports the resolution of the Sixth Conference of Heads of State or Government of Non-Aligned Countries, held at Havana in September 1979, which proposes the convening of a special session of the General Assembly on the Palestinian problem, should the Security Council not reach a decision on Palestinian rights, owing to a lack of unanimity on the part of its permanent members [see A/34/ 542, annex, sect. VI A, resolution Ne. 2}. 305. The Islamic Republic of Mauritania still believes that a solution to the provlem of the Middle East requires, essentially, free and sovereign exercise by the 306. Ofcourse, at one point, guile and brute force did bring off the sleight of hand of stripping a people of its rights, driving it from the land of its ancestors, trying to wipe out its name, curtail its history, steal its artistic heritage, mutilate its heritage, in short, snuff out its living flame. 307. But this was in vain. Only the blind can still raise the old question of sad fame: ‘‘Where is the people of Palestine?’’ It is everywhere, on the Mount of Olives, in the plains of Galilee, in the sands of the Negev, on the banks of the Dead Sea, on the banks of the Jordan, like that storm, that assifa, the symbol of struggle. 308. No miracle peace can develop from confusion and injustice, no partial peace which forgets the essential factor: the sovereign will cf the Arab people of Falestine. Only that can bring tranquillity to the Middle ast. 309. Let us not seek false miracles in the land of miracles, in the land of monotheism. Let us rather seek a living reality, a lasting reality. There exists a land with its admirable and age-old people which is at one with it. Let us now allow the olive branch to fall from the hands of that people which has suffered so much. . 310. Mr. AZAR (Pakistan): It is an undeniable fact that at the heart of the problem of the Middle East is the question of Palestine. Equally incontrovertible is the special responsibility—historical, political and juridical—that the United Nations bears for this problem, having been involved in the initial injustice which led to the yivisection of Palestine and the creation of Israel in 311. Nor can it be gainsaid that the question of Palestine will continue to defy solution unless and until the Palestinian people are allowed to exercise their basic inalienable rights, namely, the right to return to their homes and properties, the right of selfdetermination without external interference and the right to national independence and sovereignty. Because, by now, it is universally recognized that these are the irreducible demands of the world community as well as of the PLO, the sole representative of the Palestinian people. They are, therefore, central to a just and durable solution of the question of Palestine. 312. Notwithstanding the many resolutions of the General Assembly and the Security Council and the near unanimous condemnation of the international community, there is irrefutable evidence emanating from occupied Palestine that Israel has continued its acts of usurpation of occupied territories, the promotion of its sxpansionist designs and the execution of its settlement schemes. Palestinian lands have been expropriated, homes destroyed, water resources commandeered, and thousands of people driven into exile. 313. Under the guise of ‘‘security requirements’’, Israel has pushed ahead with its deeply laid design of converting the occupied territories into a part of Israel. The so-called settlements are quite obviously intended to be not temporary but permanent features of the new geosranhic and demographic picture of the occupied e *, . . the policies and practices of the Government of Israel vis-a-vis the civilians-as well as its defiant attitude towards the international community, has reached an intolerable level of non-compliance with the applicable international law and the resolutions of the relevant United Nations bodies that each Member of the United Nations must respect.”’ [Ibid., para, 393.] 314. As aresult of these policies, in 12 years, 27 per cent of the land in the occupied territories has been expropriated, with more to follow as existing settlements are ‘‘thickened’’ and new ones established. To justify these actions, Israel has relied on specious arguments and legal semantics. It has asserted that the right of Zionists to acquire land in occupied territory is based on ‘‘the rights of Jewish persons to buy lands which are historically considered to be the property of their people’ [ibid., para. 53]. These are strange claims in our day and age, making as they do a mockery of the recognized principle of the inviolability of recognized international frontiers. The whole rationale of the settlement policy is to be found in a different doctrine altogether, a doctrine that Israel has consistently espoused, namely the creation of a mono-religious Jewish State on all the territories under its control, including those occupied in June 1967. The denial of selfdetermination to the people of the area, the repressive measures concerning Arab educaticnal institutions, the policy of reprisals, of collective fines and penalties, and of letting loose armed zealots in the Palestinian community—these and other acts of brutality and terror practised by Israel have one and only one objective in view and that, as I have already stated, is to Judaize the captured territory and to incorporate it in the State of Israel. 315. These actions of Israel have far-reaching implications. They no longer concern only the Arab world. The Arab Palestinian cause has now become a global cause. Nothing better illustrates the added dimensions that the Palestine question has acquired than the outrage felt throughout the world over Israel’s actions designed to annex the Holy City of Jerusalem. With all the emphasis at my command, I should like to state that no agreement that fails to restore Jerusalem to Arab sovereignty will be recognized by the Government and people of Pakistan. The position of Pakistan in this matter was made explicit in those United Nations resolutions which were initiated by my country in 1967. One of those resolutions made specifically applicable to the Holy City of Jerusalem the inadmissability of the acquisition of territory by military conquest. The General Assembly, by its resolutions 2253 (ES-V) and 2254 316. Although the United Nations has been unable to take concrete and tangible action to alleviate the plight of the Palestinians and has failed to moderate Israeli hostility towards the Palestinian nation, my delegation nevertheless welcomes whatever limited actions and initiatives have been undertaken. Inter alia, the recent decisions of the General Assembly to condemn the deportation of the Mayor of Nablus and to extend UNDP assistance directly to the people of Palestine have considerably strengthened the international consensus against Israel. Nor is there any doubt, as evidenced by paragraph 34 of the report of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People [A/34/35 and Corr. 1), that the United Nations will not accept a separate or partial peace which serves only to legitimize illegal occupation or compromises in any way the inviolable rights of the people of occupied territories or the status of the Holy City of Jerusalem. Neither will it accept a peace that is concluded without the participation of the PLO, the sole representative of the people of Palestine. No other party has the right to negotiate on behalf of the Palestinlan people. As the representative of the PLO very correctly recalled in his statement of 26 November, the international community, barring some glaring exceptions, realizes only too well that ‘‘liberation is the spirit of our time’’ [77th meeting, para. 85] and that the concepts of imposed autonomy or partial freedom conferred as a gift by an aggressor have no place or relevance in the present epoch of liberation. 317. The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, in paragraph 52 of its report, reiterated the recommendations made by it in its three earlier reports. These recommendations remain as pertinent for an enduring solution of the Palestine question today as they were three years ago. My delegation fully supports them, and, as a member of the Committee, played an active role in their formulation and the principles on which they are based as set out in paragraph 12 of the same report. The United Nations must be enabled to act on these recommendations with determination and resolve, with a view to their full implementation. Compelling pressure must be brought to bear on Israel to end its aggression and its occupation. The need for effective action along these lines has already been emphasized by the Tenth Islamic Conference of Ministers for Foreign Affairs, held in Morocco in July this year [A/34/389 and Corr. 1, annex], and also in the Final Declaration of the Sixth Conference of non-aligned countries, held at Havana last September [A/34/542, annex]. 318. As the General Assembly is well aware, the Security Council bears primary responsibility under the Charter for the maintenance of international peace and security. On the question of Palestine, however, the Security Council has thus far failed to meet this obligation; as a result, the threat to peace has greatly increased. 320. The struggle of the Palestinian people for liberation has proceeded apace and gained strength against the most formidable odds. The eventual success of the movement is now beyond question. Pakistan’s support of the struggle of the Palestinian people has been strong, consistent and unflinching from its very inception. We take some pride in the fact that the people of Pakistan are closely identified with the saga of Palestine’s struggle and with the noble, righteous and principled resistance of the Palestinian people against conspiracy, injustice and aggression. 321. Before concluding, I wish on behalf of my delegation to record our deep appreciation for the valuable work of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People under the able chairmanship of Mr. Médoune Fall.

The Palestinian problem, which is the core of the Middle East issue, was inherited by our Organization in its first years of existence through the adoption by the General Assembly of resolution 181 (I}) in 1947, which sought the creation of two States in Palestine. Since then the tragic fate of the valiant people of Palestine has endured, on the one hand, and their resolute efforts to achieve selfdetermination have continued, on the other hand, for more than 30 years. The Palestinian issue, in spite of the many important developments achieved towards the international recognition of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, still remains an incessant source of sufferings and wrongs. There can certainly be no durable peace in the Middle East without justice, and justice requires the recognition and fulfilment of the national rights of the Palestinian people, including their right to self-determination and to establish a State of their own. 323. After many years, during which the issue of Paiestine was considered exclusively within the context of a refugee problem, its basic political dimension has finally been acknowledged and defined in various resolutions by the General Assembly. An overwhelming majority of the international community supports the legitimate rights of the Arab people of Palestine, including their right to establish an independent State. 325. With a view to translating into action the provisions of these resolutions and in order to draw up a programme for the implementation of the Palestinian rights enumerated in General Assembly resolution 3236 (XXIX), the General Assembly established the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, of which Turkey is pleased to be a member since its inception, contributing to the determined efforts undertaken by that Committee for the achievement of the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people. The Committee has already recommended a programme which has been endorsed'by the General Assembly since 1976, during its last three ordinary sessions. 326. Difficulties have been encountered in the implementation of the recommendations of the Committee. My delegation participated in the Security Council consideration of the question in August 19792° and urged positive action by the Security Council on those recommendations. In spite of the difficulties that still exist with regard to the implementation of those recommendations, we believe that they have made a significant impact in focusing attention on the necessity of a just solution of the Palestinian issue. It is in this context that tomorrow the General Assembly, for the second year in arow, will be observing the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People in a solemn meeting of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. That occasion will provide another opportunity for drawing the attention of the international community to the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people and for giving the widest possible publicity to the facts relating to the realization of those rights. It will also provide further evidence of the reaffirmation of international recognition of the fact that the Palestine problem is indeed the essence of the Middle East question and that the solution of one without the solution of the other is not possible. 327. It is a source of great satisfaction to my delegatien to see, especially over the last few months, a wider recognition of the PLO as the representative of the Palestinians in the Western world as a result of direct contacts which Yasser Arafat, Chairman of the Execu-_ tive Committee of the PLO, has had with some of the Western leaders in several capitals he has visited. Parallel to this development, we have witnessed, again with great satisfaction, an increased awareness of the Palestinian entity and the justified cause of the Palestinian people in the international arena. 329. As has been stated on several previous occasions in different organs of this Organization by the Turkish delegation, and as declared also before the General Assembly during this session by the then Foreign Minister of Turkey [2/st meeting], we firmly believe that a just and lasting solution to the Middle East question can be found only by taking into consideration the legitimate rights of the Palestinian Arab people, including their right to decide their own future and to establish a State of their own. 330. We recognize the PLO as the only legitimate representative of the people of Palestine and believe that it must participate actively in any meaningful negotiation on an equal footing with the other parties concerned for the achievement of a just and lasting settlement in the Middle East. In this connexion, I am pleased to announce here that the PLO has recently opened a permanent bureau in Ankara with full diplomatic status. We are convinced that this development will contribute to the further enhancement of the already ciose relations that exist between Turkey and the PLO. 331. The Turkish Government’s view regarding an over-all, comprehensive solution to the Middle East question also encompasses the principle of the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force. We believe that Israel must withdraw from the Arab territories, including Jerusalem, occupied since 1967. In this connexion, we reject the measures taken by Israel in the occupied territories, as well as the detentions, arrests and deportations of elected Palestinian leaders in the occupied territories by the Israeli authorities. We consider such moves on the part of Israel to be a major obstacle to the efforts at the establishment of a comprehensive peace in the area. . indicates to what extent that separate Treaty contradicts the United Nations resolutions on the Middle East and Palestine. 332. Furthermore, we believe that the independence, sovereignty and security of the recognized frontiers of all the countries in the region must be safeguarded. Turkey supports and will continue to support and welcome any peace initiative which conforms to these principles. 333. Before concluding, I should like to take this opportunity to pay a special tribute to Ambassador Fall of Senegal, the Chairman of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, who will shortly be leaving New York to assume his new duties, for his untiring, constructive and invaluable efforts in carrying out his most important and delicate task, as well as for the eloquent manner in which he explained once again to this Assembly the highlights of the report of the Committee and the difficulties encountered in the implementation of its recommendations. I should also like to commend here the praiseworthy work done by Ambassador Gauci of Malta, the Rapporteur of the Committee. As a member of the Committee, I should like to associate my delegation with its report, which emphasizes the importance 334. I should like to conclude my remarks by expressing the hope and wish that a constructive conclusion of the debate in the General Assembly on this important question will constitute a contribution to the search for a comprehensive solution to the Middle East question.

The situation in the Middle East continues to be unstable and explosive. As is known, the situation prevailing in that region has further deteriorated as a result of the conclusion ofa separate peace treaty between Egypt and Israel [ast spring. As the Secretary-General emphasized in his report on the work of the Organization: “The dramatic developments which led to the conclusion of a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel have created a new situation in the area. It is a measure of the complexities of the Middle East problem that this event has given rise to controversy and division.’ [See A/34/1, sect. III.] 336. It should be noted that all the progressive forces of the world and all Arab countries, with the exception of one or two, have condemned from the outset the Egyptian leadership’s policy of capitulation to the Israeli aggressor and have categorically rejected the Camp David agreements as an open plot against the cause of peace and national independénce. This socalled peace treaty concluded between Egypt and Israel with the encouragement and direct participation of the United States of America has been rejected likewise by the League of Arab States and the Islamic Conference, as well as by the Sixth Conference of Heads of State or Government of Non-Aligned Countries. The conclusion of the Egyptian-Israeli Treaty under the auspices of the United States has, in fact, created a tripartite military and political alliance in the Middle East and opened the door for the United States military presence and the escalation of tension in that region. All of this 337. The attitude of the Mongolian People’s Republic towards this Treaty stems from its consistent support of the just cause of the Arab peoples that are struggling against Israeli aggression for their freedom, independence and social progress. In its statement issued in connexion with the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli Treaty, the Government of the Mongolian People’s Republic stressed the following: **The Egyptian-Israeli treaty runs counter to the Vital interests of all the peoples of the Arab world. It does not solve the main issues of the Middle East: namely, it does not envisage the withdrawal of Israel from the occupied territories of Syria and Jordan, does not restore the full sovereignty of Egypt itself over its ancestral territory occupied by the aggressor, and completely disregards the crux of the problem— ensuring the legitimate right of the Arab people of Palestine to create its own State.” 338. The situation prevailing today in the Middle East and the events taking place in that region once again confirm that a just and lasting peace can be achieved there only through an over-all settlement. The world 339. As is known, these fundamental rights of the Arab people of Palestine have been recognized by the international community. The United Nations, in its numerous decisions, in particular in resolutions 3236 (XXIX) and 3375 (XXX), reaffirmed the inalienable national rights of the Arab people of Palestine, including their right to self-determination, without external interference, and to national independence and sovereignty, as well as the need for the participation of the PLO, the sole legitimate representative of the Arab people of Palestine, in all efforts, deliberations and conferences on the Middle East, on an equal footing with other parties, 340, In open defiance of these decisions of the United Nations relating to recognition of the legitimate rights of the Arab people of Palestine, the Israeli authorities continue to pursue the policy of aggression, occupation and expansion. Israeli military forces continue to commit acts of aggression against Lebanon and inflict sufferings upon the people of Southern Lebanon. The Zionist authorities are heavily engaged in establishing massive settlements on occupied Arab lands in order to perpetuate their occupation of the Arab territories. These criminal acts are very often accompanied by acts of mass repression against the indigenous Arab population and by gross violations of that population’s human rights. In this connexion, my delegation fully endorses the conclusions of the report of the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Population of the Occupied Territories [A/34/631, paras. 364-394]. 341. The talk about the so-called administrative autonomy of Palestinians in the occupied territories is nothing but 2n attempt to legalize the present status of the 3 million Palestinians deprived of their own nationhood and sovereign territory. 342. The position of principle of the Mongolian People’s Republic with respect to the Middle East problem is clear-cut and unequivocal. The delegation of the Mongolian People’s Republic considers that a just and lasting solution to the Middle East problem can be found only within the framework of a comprehensive settlemeni. It can be achieved only through the complete and unconditional withdrawal of the Israeli troops from all Arab territories occupied in 1967, the exercise of the legitimate national rights of the Arab people of Palestine, including their right to seif-determination, to create their own State and to return to their homeland, in accordance with the relevant United Nations decisions. In this regard my delegation fully supports the conclusions of the Sixth Conference of Heads of State or Government of Non-Aligned Countries on the Middle East and Palestine. 343. Inconclusion, I should like to express my delegation’s appreciation of the work carried out by the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Dalactinian Dannie cince the lact General Assemblv ses-

The question of Palestine is today one of the questions of greatest concern to the international community. It is clear in fact and universally recognized that the crucial problem of the Middle East cannot be solved without a just solution of the Palestinian problem. 345. Many United Nations resolutions have affirmed and reaffirmed what is now self-evident, that the Palestinian question is the crux of the Middle East problem. It is to the great credit of the United Nations, and in particular the General Assembly, that it has once again placed the quest for a settlement of the explosive situation prevailing in the Middle East in its trie context, disproving inter alia the reasoning and the claims of those who would represent the Palestinian conflict as a generalized racial war between Jews and Arabs. 346. It is impossible to resolve the problems of the entire Middle East region, problems of Arab and non- Arab countries alike, without giving the people of Palestine an opportunity to exercise their right to selfdetermination and independence. 347. The Palestinian problem, which is of course, first of all a problem of a colonial nature, also has a global, ' strategic dimension, and therefore it is increasingly urgent to bring about the just solution advecated by the General Assembly in its various resolutions, which reflect and endorse the conclusions in the report of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. 348. Tunisia is a member of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People and will not dwell on the Committee’s achievements, but we should like to point out that almost all the numerous speakers on this item have recognized the decisive role played by the Committee in shedding light on a basic problem which we have too often attempted to surround with racial and religious considerations that are really alien to it. The Chairman of the Committee, Mr. Médoune Fall of Senegal, certainly played a decisive role in the dynamic work carried out by the Committee. We wish to join all those who have paid a tribute to him as he prepares to leave New York. 349. It is now for the Security Council to shoulder all its responsibilities towards the Palestinian people and the cause of peace by unequivocally affirming recognition of the inalienable and fundamental rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination, freedom and independence on the territory which has always belonged to them. 350. Contrary to what he may believe, we listened carefully to the representative of Israel in this forum [77th meeting]. Once again we were disappointed by the completely negative attitude of his Government towards the Palestinian people, pitting against the language of law the language of what he calls reality, that is, the de facto situation imposed by the force of arms. 352. This movement of fraternal and total solidarity is clearer than ever today throughout the Islamic community of almost 1 billion people, surrounded and energetically supported by all the other peoples of Africa and Asia and increasingly by the peoples of Latin America, loyal to their traditions of justice and freedom, in standing up to the policy of the fait accompli, of aggression and of conquest by force of arms, aggression and conquest that have not even spared the Holy City of Jerusalem, whose sacred nature is defiled by the constant profaning of Islamic holy places and even the demolition of those sites with a view to feverish Judaization, thus affecting what is most sacred and most profound to hundreds of millions of Moslems and Christians: their faith and their spiritual heritage. 353. Moreover, the traditional support of all the socialist States for the Palestinian cause has been augmented today by the support of many countries of Western Europe, and we have seen dreflection of this in this very Assembly. , 354. In the face of this universal consensus for a just and lasting solution of the Middle East problem through which all the peoples of the region will be able to live side by side without disdain and without hatred, the Israeli Government had arrogantly issued a systematic refusal. We cannot fail to be startled at the fact that Israel still finds allies in this attitude of refusal and alibis in agreements such as those of Camp David which, because they ignore the Palestinians and the PLO, could resolve nothing. 355. The Tenth Arab Summit Conference, held at Tunis from 20 to 22 November 1979 under the chairmanship of President Bourguiba, stressed once more the fact that those agreements, because of their partial nature, cannot provide the solution of genuine and lasting peace to which all Arabs aspire, and to which above all, quite rightly, the Palestinian people aspire. 356. An essential fact must be accepted because it ‘arises out of a correct analysis of the situation and this fact is that the obstruction of Israel and its accomplices will directly lead us to further disorder and to upheavals even more threatening to international peace and security. 357. That fact cannot be skirted without impairing tne effectiveness of any step aimed at establishing peace. Unfortunately, the separate initiatives taken up to now have brought about unfavourable developments which have taken us farther away from lasting solutions rather than bringing us closer to them. 358. Israel’s self-delusion resides in its belief that armed expropriations can be perpeirated indefinitely, so long as the most expansionist of Zionist theses still triumph. It has also deluded itself in counting on the submission of a people which has taken the path of 359. We willaspire to peace and, more than any of us, so do the Palestinian people, who demand true peace based on justice and equity. However, the Palestinians cannot go on being the unfortunate victims of a situation which they did not create and for which the United Nations must assume a considerable share of responsibility. It would be tragic were we to allow latent resentment to explode, thus creating another situation whose consequences would be felt by the entire international community.

In considering the question of Palestine the Assembly is turning its attention to what is one of the most sordid tragedies of recorded history—a tragedy of uprooting, dispossession and exile. Paradoxically enough, this tragedy has been visited upon the Palestinians and is being perpetuated by a people which itself has been victim of a persecition of which this Assembly knows only too well. This Assembly must see to it that the Palestinian eople cease being made to expiate past injustices inicted elsewhere against those that dispossess them, and that action is taken instead to restore to them what has been taken away from them. 361. There is an almost universal consensus on the essential nature of such restoration if there is to be peace in the Middle East. The overwhelming majority of the speakers who preceded me on this podium have recognized it; the overwhelming majority of the Assembly has recognized it; the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting at Lusaka in August of this year have recognized it; and as recently as September last the heads of State or Government of non-aligned countries meeting at Havana also gave recognition to the centrality of the rights of the Palestinian people in any search for a just and lasting settlement of the Arab- Israeli conflict. 362. When in 1974 the General Assembly resumed substantive consideration of the question of Palestine, it was giving recognition that was long overdue to the fact that it had to address itself directly to the issue of Palestine if any meaningful progress was to be made towards a Middle East settlement. Despite this, there have still been determined efforts to hark back to traditional attitudes which sought to exclude the role of the Palestinians as the crucial factor in the search for a solution. These attempts have taken the form of stepby-step and bilateral approaches which have proved ineffective as the basis for an over-all settlement. Instead they have served to strengthen the conviction that a Middle East peace is unobtainable through partial measures and can be achieved only within the framework that enjoys almost universal acceptance in the internationai community. 364. But those principles will be of no value what- . soever to an eventual Middle East settlenient unless they are strictly and faithfully implemented by all concemed, While they continue to be ignored, international peace and security continue to be endangered by the perpetuation of a situation which, no cne denies, could easily degenerate into a conflict of global proportions. In this connexion Israel comes to mind immediately. Tie emphasis by that State on satisfying the exaggerated, almost grotesque definition of its security interests only serves to ensure continuing instability and tension in the Middle East and to move us farther away from a final, just and peaceful settlement. Wilful attacks against Lebanon, the strengthening of the presence of the occupier through the establishment of more and more settlements, the granting of permission to Israeli citizens tc buy land in the occupied territories, the continued persecution of the inhabitants of the terri-. tory under occupation, of which the latest example is the threatened deportation of the Aayor of Nablus— those are all actions that fly in the face of the international community and mock the framework for peace that enjoys such wide acceptance. 365. {t was only weeks ago that the Special Political Committee concluded consideration of the report of UNRWA [A/34/13 and Corr. I|. Next week it will be considering the report of the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Population of the Occupied Territories [A/34/ 613]. These discussions have served and will serve to focus the attention of the international community once again on Israel’s attitude of obstruction of the peace process and to reaffirm its concern at the effects of this attitude on the chances of peace in the region. 366. In the face of these negative factors I have just described, the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People deserves a special tribute for the excellent work it has been performing under the chairmanship of Ambassador Fall. This Comittee has set out a practical actionorient?d programme under which the Palestinians would be able to enjoy their long-denied inalienable rights to self-determination, national independence and sovereignty in their own Palestinian homeland. These recommendations have been endorsed by the General Assembly and are reaffirmed in the report at present 367. Unfortunately, the Security Council is being kept conspicuously out of step with this progressive march of iniernational opinion, and is prevented from lending the weight of its authority to the framework for peace in the Middle East that is so widely recognized as constituting the basis for a final settlement. The adoption °f the Committee’s recommendations by the Security Council wouid represent a positive development in the search for the just and permanent solution that we all so ardently seek. 368. My delegation sincerely hopes that the Security Council will very soon be allowed to seize the opportunities at hand for advancing the cause of peace in the Middle East. It seems high time for us to start being less sentimental about solutions to the problems of the Middle East and/or approaches to these solutions. The answer to the Palestinian problem certainly does not lie in vague, loose promises of autonomy of varying sorts or limited sovereignty or self-determination after five years, any more than it lies in the preponderance of arms. The existence of Palestine as an iudependent nation was recognized by the League of Nations in the grant of the Mandate for Palestine on 24 July 1922, even before there was any recognition of a Zionist State. The people of Palestine are a proud indomitable people whose will and whose resistance will not be broken by force of arms. 369. We need accelerated movement towards a solution to the Palestinian problem that will satisfy the just aspirations and expectations of the Palestinian people. History’s judgement will be immeasurably kinder if, proceeding from a sober appreciation of where the interests of peace in the Middle East truly lie, we were to discourage instead of encourage Zionist intransigence and bring our undisputed influence to bear on the side of justice.

We have just heard the last speaker in the debate on this item. Several representatives have expressed their desire to speak in exercise of their right of reply. In view of the lateness of the hour, they will be given the opportunity to do so before the vote on draft resolutions A/34/L.43 and A/34/L.44 tomorrow afternoon at 3 o’clock. The meeting rose at 8.40 p.m.