S/PV.1412 Security Council

In accordance with the decision previously taken by the Council, I propose to invite the representatives of Jordan and Israel to take places at the Council table to participate, without the right to ibte, in the Council’s discussion. At the invitation of the President, Mr. M. .H; ELFarra (Jordort) arld Mr. Y. Tekoah (Israel) too’: places at the Senrrity Council table. 2, The PKESlDENT {translated from Russian): In accordance with the decision previously taken by the Council, I propose to invite also the representatives of Syria, the United Arab Republic and Iraq to take the places reserved for them at the side of the Council Chamber, on the understanding that when they wish to address the Council they will be invited to take places at the Council table. At the invitation of the President, Mr. A. J. Tomeh (Syria), Mr. M. A. El Kony (United Arab Republic) and Mr. A. Pachachi (Iraq) took the places reserved for them at the side of the Security Council Chamber.

The first name on the list of speakers is that of the representative of Jordan, on whom I now call.

I am taking the floor again to make a few observations on behalf of my Government. 5. Last Friday, 29 March, we brought an urgent complaint IV85161 to the Security Council. We presented facts and emphasized the need for action. Howevx, attempts were made to inject irrelevant matters into our deliberations. The emphasis in our complaint was shifted, therefore, from the crhne committed to whether or not we should have observers in tne so-called Jordan-Israel cease-fire sector. The Israeli representative took advantage of this to present still other irrelevant issues, such as the question of the Jews in Iraq and Syria, their welfare and security and so on, in order further to divert the attention of the Council from the Israeli act of aggression. Thus, at our last meeting, we witnessed this diversion taking place and a clear attempt being made to widen the scope of the debate. I therefore find it my duty once again to remind the Council that what is before it is a specific complaint. 6. Much has been said about the observers. I have already spent much time reminding the Council that this is not the question before the Council. I have stated, and I will reiterate, that we are not agicinst observers as such, but we are definitely and unequivocally against any idea which is intended to create or which may lead to creating a new situation not envisaged by the cease-fire resolution. 7. The cease-fire resolution was never intended to consolidate the Israeli aggression, nor to create a new line, with observers stationed thereon, to be used as a shield for such consolidation. And, as I said earlier, a cease-fire is never a permanent arrangement: it is conceived of as a temporary stage to enable the Security Council to take steps to bring about the complete liquidation of the consequences of the act of aggression so that no fruits can be gained through force. 8, I submit that if it is really the intention of some members to help the Security Council bring tranquillity and peace to the area, there are prerequisites to peace. The United Nations has adopted many resolutions intended to cultivate and prepare the ground for peace. It was witi that 9. The Security Council has received a report on this matter and the question arises: what has the Council done to make the Israelis abide by its will? What have the members who today call for observers done to help in that respect? What is more, did not the Security Council in resolution 237 (1967) request Israel to ensure the safety, welfare and security of the inhabitants who remained in the occupied territories, be it in Sinai, the Caza Strip, the west bank or Golan? What was the Israeli answer to that? 10. I have brought to your attention on previous occasions and in official letters cases of expulsion, such as that of the Nuwaseirat tribe, consisting of 294 Jordanians who had lived for ages in the Jericho area. The way to their expulsion was paved by an Israeli army raid on their village.1 I brought to your attention the deportation of the President of the Islamic Supreme Court in Jerusalem, Sheikh Abd Al-Hamid Al-Sayeh, the leading Muslim personaIity.2 I brought to your attention the expulsion of Ibrahim Bakir and Kamal Nasser from the west bank of the Jordan.3 I brought to your attention the arbitrary expulsion of the leader of the Christian Arab community in Jerusalem, the former Foreign Minister of Jordan, Mr. A. Atalla. He was deported simply because he said: “We cannot accept that Israel should place us under its sovereignty with a mere stroke of the pen.“4 I brought to your attention in document S/8445 the deportation last month of Mr. Rouhi El-Khatib, the Mayor of Jerusalem, for similar reasons. 11. Last week, during their aggression against the Karameh camp, the Israelis kidnapped around 150 refugees and Jordanian citizens-from the Karameh camp, from the east bank of the Jordan. Those innocent people are still subjected to various forms of torture and oppression. What has the Council done to bring about the release of those Jordanian citizens? 12. Moreover, the United Arab Republic wrote to this Council on 19 January 1968 [S/8344/ about military operations in the.Gaza Strip. The scope and nature of those operations are identical to military operations, resorted to only during actual hostilities. 13. In another letter of 31 January 1968 [S/8373], it was stated that 100 to 300 persons a day from the Gaza Strip cross from the west bank to the east bank of the Jordan. Today we have 450,000 refugees who have been expelled by the Israelis. Those who had been expelled told our people in the east bank that they had been coerced by the Israelis into leaving their homes and dwellings. Intimida- 14. Thus the question arises: what has the Security Council done to help the Secretary-General achieve the implementation of resolution 237 (1967)? What has the Security Council said on this question? Today, why single out observers on a so-called cease-fire line and ignore the crimes that challenge your own authority and your own resolutions? 15. With the above-mentioned background which is familiar to the Council, does the Israeli representative really believe that he can persuade the Security Council that everything is rosy in the occupied territories and that there is an understanding between the occupier and the occupied? Do not all these inhuman Israeli acts belie such Israeli claims? For, if things were quiet in those territories, why those acts of repression? 16. In resolution 237 (1967), the Security Council also requested the Secretary-General to follow the effective implementation of the said resolution and to report thereon to the Security Council. The Secretary-General, I am suw, in this case also regrets his inability to submit to the Security Council a helpful report on all the abovementioned Israeli crimes simply because the Israelis would not permit the Secretary-General to have observers stationed within the occupied territories so as to be on the spot and able to report on all acts of destruction and oppression. Why does not the Council call on Israel to have the Secretary-General station such observers? What is the Security Council doing to help the Secretary-General follow the effective implementation of its resolution? 17. Surely, the executive organ of the United Nations cannot act above the wishes of the United Nations Members, simply because in most cases, you, the Council, can make the stand of the Security Council weak or strong and your decisions effective or ineffective. Your resolution 237 (1967) refers to the Geneva Convention of 12 August 1949.5 Article 53 of that Convention expressly prohibits destruction of movable or immovable property, and other articles prohibit acts of oppression. Your resolution empha. sizes the same doctrine. 18. Here is what an American visitor, Mr. Joel Lieber, had to say on what the Israelis did in Golan, Syria, in violation of that Convention and of your resolution. This is what he said on 28 March 1968, which is last week, concerning Golan: “We passed quietly through the rubble of a razed village . . . The village had been crushed as though by a giant foot; every building was down , . , except the mosque and minaret, so they won’t be accused of desecrating holy places.” 5 C&nova Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 12 August 1949. See United Nations, Treat) Series, vol. 75 (19501, NO. 973. 19. Mr. Ben Zvi, an Israeli guide, said: “It gives me a sick feeling in my stomach to see these villages.” He then continued, according to Mr. Lieber: “Go look for yourself. Maybe you will find them interesting. I have been there before and my memories make me sick.” 20. In Golan, even dogs, man’s most faithful friends, had not been spared. Mr. Lieber had this to say last week: “The shooting of dogs was horrible. The Israeli guide Ben Zvi answered: ‘What else could we do with these dogs? We shot them by the dozens, the hundreds, the thousands.’ ” Thus even dogs could not escape the cruelty of Zionism. 21, I need not refer to other villages on the west bank that suffered the same fate. And the same question, the very same question, arises: what is the Cauncil doing to help the SecretaryGeneral” 22. In this respect, do you not think that the United Nations presence in the occupied territories would be the first step to stopping such Israeli crimes and reporting to the Council thereon? You do not need United Nations people to observe on so-called cease-fire lines, but United Nations action to stop active aggression, The Israelis are complaining in this Council because they are suffering the consequences of their aggression, and you are not helping the area by not effectively emphasizing to Israel that the answer to aggression is withdrawal, not observation on so&led cease-fire lines. 23. It is upsetting, it is indeed unfortunate, that so many efforts were exerted to secure observation of what is happening across the cease-fire line, while too little or nothing at ail is being done to stop what is going on and to work for the elimination of the causes of tension through immediate and complete withdrawal. Through withdrawal you would be reactivating, giving force to and reviving the only valid machinery in the area, that: is the Armistice machinery. Then the observers could certainly function more effectively on the armistice demarcation line, which is the only line recognized by the United Nations. And that line is indivisible; I am referring to an indivisible line incorporated in an Armistice Agreement. 24. 1 have so far been speaking about United Nations resolutions adopted after the Israeli aggression of 5 June. Let us now turn ,to two other resolutions on the question of Jerusalem. 25. What did the Security Council do to protect the Holy City of Jerusalem? In defiance of United Nations authority, Israel annexed the Arab city of Jerusalem. The General Assembly adopted a resolution /2253 (ES-Vj] in which it considered-by 99 votes in favour, with only 2 abstentions, those of the United States and Israel-the measures taken by Israel invalid and called upon Israel to rescind them and to take no action which would alter the status of Jerusalem. Israel refused to heed the injunction of the Assembly, and 26. Certainly it was largely because there is no United Nations presence within Jerusalem during this illegal and forcible Israeli occupation to observe and report on the non-implementation and on the other Israeli steps taken to alter the status of Jerusalem, including the bulldozing of Moslem shrines, the dynamiting of houses belonging to Jerusalem Jordanian citizens, and the expelling of Jerusalem leaders, that the Secretary-General has been unable better to serve your resolution. 27. I submit, it does not need a report or a reminder to have the Council face up to its responsibility and work for a more effective and helpful solution to secure Charter values, Geneva Conventions and Security Council resolutions. 28. It is perfectly well known that the Israelis do not want United Nations observers to report on their crimes, But is not a United Nations presence within the occupied territories essential to peace? We have witnessed many efforts and manoeuvres in various shapes and forms that have been made to make this idea of observers on a cease-fire line the basic theme in the Security Council. 29. We reject observers in the cease-fire area because we see what the Israelis are after, and we do not want the Council to take any steps which would eventually accommodate Israeli designs. The designs should be obvious. On the one hand, the Israelis have refused to implement each and. every one of the Council’s resolutions, including the resolution of 22 November 1967. On the other hand, the Israelis, through their everyday acts, deeds and behaviour, are planning ‘to stay. Members of the Security Council, put these two together and then you will have the answer clear and simple. When you add this to your refusal to take action ensuring the implementation of your resolutions YOU can see where the area is heading. SO. Israeli bombing of food-producing and populated areas in the east bank of Jordan, together with irrigation projects, is not an invitation to peace. It does not bring peace but exposes the motives of the Israelis. It strengthens the determination of the people of Jordan now under Israeli occupation to resist the invaders and to fight for freedom irrespective of the price. 31. Mr. Tekoah should not come here and allege that the Arabs resist the Jews as Jews. The resistance movement of Palestine is not struggling against the Israeli invaders because they are Jews. The Palestine people’s Position and struggle would have been equally vehement and unequivocal if the crimes committed against them, their homes and their people had been perpetrated by any other race, religion or ideology. This is simply because these people, like all peace-loving and freedom-loving peoples, feel that foreign invaders should be expelled. Their struggle iS not different from the liberation struggles in Angola, Rhodesia, South Africa; nor,’ for that matter, is it different from the 32. The Palestine people are presently dispersed under every sky, but they are determined to have their homes and their homeland, to live in dignity, freedom and self-determination. No one expects them to submit to destructive Zionism. Those who keep hearing the Hitlerite-style threats from Mr, Tekoah understand why the Arabs are determined to resist. 33. My Government is shocked to see that some responsible members in this Council find it fit to raise the argument that there was no evidence to warrant the Jordanian charge. This Council is converted at times into a court of law, with all its technicalities and legal formalities, and at other times is used as a political and practical organ primarily responsible for peace and security. Why is it that while the crime is clear some members insist that the evidence is not sufficient? Some here maintain that there is no evidence showing who started the firing. But cannot this be the case in every situation if the Council wants to be that legal minded? 34. If this Council wants to be a court of law, then there is something called deduction from assertions and motives, behaviour and Surrounding circumstances. I have cited the admission of Israeli leaders and other statements. This week even Time magazine, of 5 April, reported, on the subject of our complaint, that Israel had massed troops, tanks and artillery in the Beisan valley awaiting an excuse to renew the offensive. A mine exploded and thus the “Israelis got the provocation they were looking for. . . . Three hours later, the Israeli army opened . , , fire. , , . The Jordanians fired back, and the battle was on.” 35. However, neither statements of the press, nor statements of the Israeli leaders, nor evidence adduced, nor surrounding circumstances, nor pieces of fragmentation bombs have convinced the Council of the need to consider the seriousness of the charge and to adopt an adequate remedy for the situation. 36. Even if some members feel that they should not accept the clear and conclusive evidence adduced by Jordan but want to argue that the Israelis acted in reprisal-which is not the case-did not the Council in its previous condemnations of Israel determine that military reprisals could not be tolerated, and that if they were repeated the Council would have to consider more effective steps as envisaged in the Charter? 37. Moreover, is not bombing more than a dozen villages, food-producing areas and civilian population and extending the bombing to villages far beyond the cease-fire area, something that should warrant censure and sanctions? Is not the act of bombing civilians by itself an act of genocide that constitutes a crime? When the country attacked does not possess an air force to defend itself, that makes it more of a crime. Those who insist on proof have witnessed through their experienced embassy personnel the extent of the damage and human suffering resulting from the 39. In this connexion, I should like to refer to the letter of 2 April 1968 [S/8528/ of the Permanent Representative of Italy, Ambassador Vinci, in which he states that the Italian Government has not granted any licence for the sale of milit‘ary supplies to Israel. We are grateful to the Government of Italy for this information. I certainly did not imply that Israel was now acquiring arms and military supplies from Italy. I referred to an Israeli conference at Tel Aviv in which, according to the Israeli radio, the State radio, the Israeli military mission in Rome participated. The Israeli military missions in the United States and in many European capitals are now preparing the 1968 plans for acquiring arms and military supplies from the United States and certain other Western countries. That was the informa. tion announced on the radio. Israel wants to achieve its goal and purpose for 1968. Whether all the Western Powers will help Israel achieve its goal and purpose for 1968 remains to be seen. 40. Indeed, why does not the Council call for sanctions against Israel? The act of bombing alone warrants such an injunction. We honestly and sincerely cannot understand why the Security Council did not treat with more concern this act of genocide, which even provocation-assuming that there was such provocation, which is not the case-would not justify. The adoption of an adequate resolution continues to face strong resistance in this Council despite all these facts, Is not the indiscriminate bombing enough to stir the conscience of those who refuse to take positive action? We submit that the effects of ill-advised political expediency-a curse which has made this body what it is, weak and ineffective-are again being felt on the interna. tional scene. One wonders why all these unhealthy attitudes exist. Is it the morality of the question? Is it the precedent involved? Is it because Jordan is a small country, its influence limited, its power limited, and therefore its legitimate complaint can be exploited to serve other purposes? 41. Jordan is a small country but its duty vis-&vis its citizens is great. We shall not surrender to Israeli whims. We shall not give up our legitimate rights nor shall we accommodate aggression. By adopting no adequate resolu. tion you are calling for more resistance. That is only logical since you are accommodating the Israeli military occupa, tion of the west bank of my country. You do not expect the people to be indifferent to the occupation of the west bank of Jordan, Everyone has a cousin or a brother or a nephew or children there. This is our people, the family of Jordan. They refuse to be divided. They refuse to be a divided family and will reject any attempt to have a line separate them and observers to ensure such separation, That is what the people will not permit. We appeal to the 43, Mr, TEKOAH (Israel): As the Security Council proceeds with its deliberations, Arab aggression against Israel goes on. Warlike pronouncements are made daily in the Arab capitals. The terrorist machine is being openly geared far further operations. Armed attacks and incursions continue. 44. Last night at 2045 hours Jordanian military positions again attacked. with mortar fire kibbutz Tirat Zvi. Approximately ten minutes later mortar fire was opened by the Jordanian army on the Israeli village of I(efar Ruppin. Israeli forces returned fire. 45. I have just received an additional report. Last night at 2300 hours local time an Israel vehicle was blown up by a mine on a track near Beer Ora in the Negev, where the school bus was attacked on 18 March. Today at 1245 hours fire was opened from Jordanian military positions on the east bank of the Jordan on a jeep travelling east of Newe Ur, north of the Beit She’an valley. Israeli forces returned fire, I shall keep the Security Council informed of any further information as soon as it becomes available. 46, I cannot stress too strongly the urgency of measures that the Jordanian authorities must no longer delay to put a final and total end to acts of aggression perpetrated from their territory against Israel. 47. I should like to reiterate Israel’s policy. It remains to abide fully by its obligations under the cease-fire on the basis of reciprocity. However, we expect the Arab States to act accordingly. 48, Mr. President, I regret that the representative of Jordan compels me to exercise my right of reply. Listening to the words of venom, distortion and slander heaped by him on this Council, one cannot but repeat the ancient Jewish prayer: “May the wicked forsake his way, and the man of iniquity his thoughts.” 49, Who are they that come before the Security Council to speak of the rights of peoples? Those who razed Jewish villages to the ground in 1948, those who attacked and indiscriminately shelled Jerusalem in 1948 and again in 1967, those who destroyed the Jewish quarter in the old city of Jerusalem with all its synagogues and houses 0f learning, those who did not leave a single tomb standing in the cemetery on the Mount of Olives, those who did not leave a single Jew alive in the Jordanian-occupied west bank, those who have tortured Jewish captives for years, those who still victimize their Jewish citizens in ghettos and concentration camps. 50. Who are they that try to appear as defenders of self-determination? Those who have waged a war against the Kurdish nation, a war of extermination, those who have kept the Druzes in suppression, those who have used gas and napalm against Yemenite tribesmen, those who deny 51. The representative of Jordan has joined the chorus of those who express unhappiness about the relations between Israelis and Arabs in Israel-controlled areas. The object of his particular interest is the west bank, an area occupied by Jordan in 1948 in defiance of the United Nations, an area kept under occupation for nineteen years without the world, including the Arab States, recognizing Jordan’s rights to it. For nineteen years this was a hotbed of political ferment, of social unrest and resistance to the Amman authorities. Riots, strikes and military repressive measures against the local population, and arrests were a daily Occurrence, 52. It is sufficient to recall the record of public clisturbantes and the drastic measures adopted by the Jordanian authorities to suppress them during 1966. 53. In January 1966 the Jordanian authorities arrested 200 persons in Jericho; in April they arrested 2,000 persons in the west bank. In May mass demonstrations took place in east Jerusalem, Hebron and Ramallah. The police used force, closed down schools and arrested hundreds of persons. 54. In July disturbances and mass demonstrations broke out in Nablus. The Jordanian police used tear gas; twelve persons were wounded and 250 arrested. 55. That November saw a series of stormy disturbances and clashes between civilians, police and army forces, with numerous casuaiities. On 21 November, shop and business strikes broke out in the Ramallah area. The Army was called in to intervene and employed tanks. The Jordanian authorities imposed a curfew and closed all schools. Similar events reoccurred through November and December in most other towns. On 24 November the Jordanian Army again employed tanks and tear gas. Twenty demonstrators were killed and many more wounded. On 8 December 1966 a general business strike was put down by force by the police and the Jordanian Army. 56. On 13 January 1967 the population of Nablus rose up and barricades were put up in the streets. The Jordanian Army had to surround the city and suppress resistance by force. 57. With an army composed mainly of Bedouin from the east bank, the Jordanian Government succeeded in retaining its military hold over the west bank. The Jordanian authorities knew, however, that’the west bank was at best only a stepchild, not a member of the family; they knew well,that the heart of the Arab inhabitants of the west bank was not with them, The Amman Government treated the west bank accordingly. 58. The area had almost half of Jordan’s population but it accounted for only one third, of the output. Per capita average income on the east bank was $335 annually; in the 59. In the light of this, it is not surprising at all that the Jordanian representative, like certain other Arab representatives who preceded him, voiced unhappiness with Israel’s efforts to encourage and assist west bank development. I can well understand that he would have preferred the present situation there to be one of chaos as in the days of Jordanian rule-one of economic deterioration or at least stagnation, as before June 1967. 60. One thing must be clear. Whatever the political views and desires of the Jordanian representative, the Arab population on the west bank does not want war and conflict with Israel. It wants peace and coexistence, In the same manner as thousands and thousands of Arab inhabitants began to frequent Israeli hospitals when the doors were opened to them after the cease-fire, so did scores of thousands of Arab farmers ask for Israeli machinery and Israeli instruction in agriculture. When Israeli authorities helped recently the farmers in the Jenin area to increase by three times the land under tobacco growth, it was, of course, not expected that this would please the rulers in Amman. They in the last eight years had gradually limited the area under tobacco growth on the west bank from 7,000 dunams to only 2,000, while at the same time extending tobacco cultivation on the east bank. 61. No; what concerns the Arab rulers today is perhaps less the fact that Israel has successfully repelled their aggression than the fact that in areas under Israel control it has been proven that Israelis and Arabs can live together, work together and understand each other, Those who want the war to continue cannot be happy with this situation, They cannot find much pleasure in the fact that local Arab authorities have continued to function uninterruptedly, that schools, courts, public services are operating normally, that hundreds of trucks with vegetables, fruit and other produce are crossing daily the Jordan bridges, that trade between the east and west banks is today at the same level as before June last, that Arabs are free to move in all parts of Israel, that thousands of them are visiting their families and friends and calling on Jordanian cabinet members and the King himself and then returning peacefully to their homes on the west bank. 62. The Foreign Editor of The Financial Times of London, Mr. J. D. E. Jones, has the following to say on the situation in the 28 February issue of that newspaper: “Some 30,000 people have already taken advantage of this, and presumably they can and do report to the east bank that they are not being slaughtered by the Israelis, that the west bank is prospering agriculturally, that the El Fatah terrorists are making no serious impact on the life of the west bank.” 63. I believe that this testimony must be regarded as somewhat more authoritative than the partisan presentation we heard from Mr. El-Farra. No verbal acrobatics will succeed in distorting this picture; no semantic fantasy will controvert the fact that those who want war, those who sow hatred, those who murder and sabotage, come from the outside. It is too late for the representative of Jordan to try to draw a different picture. The world knows the truth, The Security Council has received the evidence. If the information submitted by me at the meeting of 1 April 1968 /141&h meeting] still does not deter the Jordanian representative from attempting to question established facts, let King Hussein himself speak for the facts. 64. I read from a report by George de Carvalho in Life magazine of this week: “ . , . I visited Karameh and became the first Western journalist to interview the Arab ‘storm’ troops”-1 repeat, “the Arab ‘storm’ troops”-“who are waging the growing campaign of terrorist and guerrilla action against IsraeI and her outposts on the land she occupies. With an escort of Jordanian soldiers, I witnessed the marshaling of terrorist raids and extensively inspected the training and outfitting of those who take part in them. , . , “ . . . One of the Jordanian officers put in his comment: ‘These commandos are the vanguard of the Arab battle against Israel. We give them all the help we can with covering fire across the river’ . . . “ . . . Armed terrorists were everywhere. Since fall the storm troops have moved arms depots, training camps and headquarters from Syria to Karameh and other Jordan valley bases. They showed me practice firing ranges, stacks of Russian ammunition boxes stashed outside town, crates of new Soviet arms still packed in grease, even a kitchen where tiger-suited terrorist KPs peeled vegetables , . , “ . . . Many veterans talked about terror raids they had gone on. My section leader named Abdullah told me: ‘Once the Israelis spotted a group in daytime and nearly cut us off with armored cars, but Jordanian guns opened tire to help us escape’ . . . “ . . . King Hussein now says: ‘We are all commandos now’. “ . . . But for all his show of militancy, I found him close to despair: ‘Last June’, he said, ‘I was forced into a 65. King Hussein seems to have more understanding of the gravity of the situation and Jordan’s responsibility for it than the representative of Jordan at the United Nations. 66. As for the desperate attempt made at this table to glorify this type of warfare, I should like to repeat what I said at a previous meeting: ‘&One cannot say the same of the terrorist raiders that the Arab Governments have been sending against Israel. Look at them and their activities. To steal across the border in the security of the night; to plant a mine on a truck near a childien’s camp used by children only, so as to blow up a children’s bus; to throw a grenade into a house where a family is asleep; to fire a mortar blindly into a village and to run away into the darkness; to murder a lonely Druze watchman guarding tractors in a forlorn field; to shoot a policeman in the back in a crowded market place: there is no bravery, no valour, no honour in these acts. Those who perpetrate them are cowardly, miserable creatures who deserve no respect from anyone. If the Arab Governments wish to stoop to glorifying these marauders, the world can have nothing but disdain for such Governments.” [1410fh meeting, para. 45.1 67. Have words lost all meaning in the Arab language? Have principles and ideals become completely warped in Arab thinking? After twenty years of teaching school children, in history, language, even arithmetic classes, that it is a virtue to kill Jews do the Arab Government, now want to teach them that one wages war by planting button-shaped mines in playgrounds, by blowing up school buses, by throwing grenades into bedrooms? Is this how conflicts are settled? Is this how nations are moulded? Is this how the future is shaped? 68. Mr. President, while the twenty-year war goes on in the Middle East, supreme efforts are being made to attain peace in other parts of the world. We live in momentous times, when great leaders spare no pain, cast aside all personal considerations, and devote themselves with all their heart and all their soul and all their might to the cause of peace, They do it because they know that this is what the people .want, that this is what the entire world yearns for. 69. From this rostrum we challenge the Arab leaders to show the same degree of responsibility and love for their peoples. Turn to your people. Ask them whether they want peace or war. Do not play with the lives of nations. Ask the Jordanian people, the Egyptian people, the Syrian people: do they want to continue killing, hating, destroying themselves and others? Or do they want, like people everywhere, peace, peace and tranquillity, happiness and progress? When you do ask them, when you do fulfil their hopes and prayers, come back and we shall have peace, and understanding and bliss in our region. 72. Mr. Tekoah started his speech the way he started his statement the day before yesterday and the way he started his statement three days earlier-with a charge. In every single statement, at the very beginning, he starts making a charge against Jordan or claiming a mine here or there. Although we have denied time and again having anything to do with the resistance of the people within the occupied territories, the surprising thing is that Mr. Tekosh is complaining about the consequences, of Israeli aggression. Israeli armed forces, through aggression, in defiance of every value in the invaded lands, occupied areas through surprise attack, sneak attack, occupied the west bank, occupied Sinai, occupied the Gaza Strip, occupied the Golan of Syria, The people are resisting and Mr. Tekosh comes here to shout with emotion: “They are attacking us”. 73. The Council has heard this charge before, and my question was: what are they doing in the occupied areas? If they are suffering the consequences of their aggression, they should get out. Any resistance calls for getting rid of the occupier. Occupation calls for resistance. Conquest calls for liberation. It is only logical. 74. Therefore, Mr. Tekoah should not come and complain here with emotion. All that he has to do is just to remember that there is something in the Charter which says aggression should give no fruits. If he could ponder this and think of these resistance movements within the occupied territories and the reasons behind them, then he would come to the same conclusion every invader reached in past history. 75. Mr. Tekoah spoke of how beautiful it is on the west bank, in Gaza, in Golan, in Sinai, and said that it is the fault of the neighbouring areas which do not want peace-people are happy. If this is true, why are people in gaol? Why are people expelled? Why are villages destroyed, houses bulldozed? Why are there all these crimes? I do not have to refer just to names, I have here a statement by an Englishman, Michael Adams of The Guardian, written on 26 January of this year. What did he say? I do not want to burden the Council with the whole article, but I shall read the conclusion. Mr. Adams said: “I had my ups and downs during four years as a prisoner of war in Nazi Germany but the Germans never’ treated me as harshly as the Israelis are treating the Arabs of the Gaza Strip, the majority of whom are women and children”6 6 See official Records of the Security Council, Twenty-third Year, Supplement for January, February and March 1968, dam* ment S/8380, annex I. 78. But these distortions are made for obvious reasons and I do not need to take the time to answer them. Neither shall I dwell on the statement about the people of the west bank and how they have been treated. This is an old trick-the divide and rule trick. Mr. Tekoah is not speaking to the Council; he is trying to exploit the Council in order to convey messages to people across the ocean. But the people are determined to live in freedom and full determination. They are determined to breathe the spirit of liberty, not the spirit of foreign invasion and occupation. 79. Mr. Tekoah spoke about napalm. I think that those who committed the crime of using napalm are not competent to discuss napalm. We had the opportunity to present pictures to the Council of the victims of napalmmen, women and innocent children. Those pictures are incorporated in an official document which can be obtained from the booth by anyone who wishes to see it. The victims of napalm are still in the memory of every Member of the United Nations. Those who committed that crime are not competent to mention the name of napalm. But to Zionists everything is possible. 80. We have heard a great deal here about peace, Peace: of course we are for peace. No one likes war except those whose thinking is vicious and destructive; those who practise invasion, expansion, expulsion, acquiring more land and displacing more people. 8 1. In conclusion, I would say that the problem is not one of words, but of deeds, of behaviour. Mr. Tekoah referred to a proverb from Jewish history. He spoke about the wicked: Let the wicked forsake his way. I shall not quote from any source other than the first President of Israel, Mr. Weizmann. On his deathbed Mr. Weizmann’s last words were : “We, the Israelis, are a small people, but a great people; a creative and a destructive people; a people in whom genius and folly are equally co-mingled. We are an impetuous people who have time and again repudiated and wrecked what our ancestors built.” He appealed to his people to see the positive side rather than the negative.

I have just received a letter from the Permanent Representative of Saudi Arabia, asking to be allowed to take part in the work of the Security Council and in the discussion of the item on our agenda. 84. If there is no objection I shall invite the representative of Saudi Arabia to take a place at the Council table and to participate, without the right to vote, in the discussion. At the invitation of the President, Mr. J. M. Baroody (Saudi Arabia) took a place at the Council table.

I call on the representative of Saudi Arabia. 86. Mr, BAROODY (Saudi Arabia): I thank you, Mr. President, and through you the members of the Council, for granting me the opportunity to speak. 87. Some of you may question why the representative of Saudi Arabia should, at this stage, participate in the discussion of the item now before the Council. Many statements were made by the representative of Israel during the last few meetings of the Council which I thought should be corrected. I found that his assertions were made with such vehemence and credulity that if they were not corrected they might pass as historical facts before world public opinion. 88. Furthermore, there was a reference to the Arab conquest of Palestine giving the impression that the Arabs of the peninsula flooded the Holy Land-or the fertile crescent-with men and displaced the Jews of the area. 89. The representative of Israel knows very well that one of the major diasporas took place when the Romans destroyed the temple in Jerusalem. I referred during my last intervention to Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians, and I do not have to take up that historical fact again. But I was taken aback when the representative of Israel asserted that the Jews-I am glad he did not say “the Zionists” because 1 do not think they existed as such at that time as a political entity-fought the Crusaders. Saladin the Chivalrous has been erased from the history books. Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn-Ayyub-and the Israeli representative knows this well, because he is a learned gentleman-was an Arabized Kurd. That shows you what the Arabs have been able to accomplish through their culture. 90. He also said that the Jews fought the Ottomans. I am a humble student of the history of the area. I am not aware of any Jewish resistance to the Ottoman rule. There were Pleadings to Kaiser Wilhelm when he visited Istanbul, for a Jewish enclave in Jerusalem, and Sultan Abdul-Hamid said at that time: “I have so many sects, religions and peoples that I Cannot accommodate a Jewish enclave. They are welcome as Jews, like the followers of other religions,” 96. Are we to take it for granted that there is no Palestinian people? As I said before, the whole argument here and at previous meetings proceeds on the assumption that the dispute is between Jordan as such, and Israel as such. But, whether they like it or not, there is still a Palestinian people, and that people is pursuing its struggle and no Arab Government has the right to tell them, “You cannot struggle to regain your homeland.” 92. The indigenous people of a country cannot be assessed or defined by blood. It has been proven that there is no such thing as Jewish blood or Muslim blood, or any national blood for that matter. Blood is typed for transfusions, but not for ethnological reasons. There is a common saying: “We are of the same blood.” It might be journalistic, but it is not scholarly in its interpretation. When the indigenous people of Palestine were Arabized they remained in Palestine. When Mo’awiyah went to Damascus from the peninsula, and Omar Ibn al-Khattab, also from the peninsula, went to Jerusalem, of course they had troops with them. But many of the women and children of the Arabs from the peninsula were left there, so there was an entity that had a personality; the people of Palestine. To set the record straight, we know very well that the word “Palestine” is derived from the Philistines who came from the island of Crete and who lived in the region of Gaza and we know that the Cretan civilization even preceded the history of the Jews, You only have to refer to English scholars to read this. I think it was Evans who wrote a book on the Cretans-a fascinating work on that civilization which was contemporary with the ancient civilizations. Like all islanders, many of them emigrated, and they settled in the region of what was called Palestine afterwards. They were the Philistines of the Bible. 97. On the other hand, we find Eastern European Jews who use Judaism-and I always say Judaism is a noble religion; it has produced Prophets in many of whom we too believe as a motivation for political and economic ends. I dare say most of the leaders of Israel-the leaders who really hold the power and I am not talking about the religious leaders because there are fundamentalists among them as there are fundamentalists in other religions-are as secular as those of any other country. 98. Here they say that the United Nations voted in 1947 for the partition; that there is an Israel and it is there to stay. I do not have to go into details about the reaction of the Arab peoples as ,such-and not only the Palestinian people. The Arab people thought these were Europeans just as the British were Europeans when they had the Mandate and just as the French were Europeans when they had the Mandate over Syria and Lebanon. The Arab people reacted against them. It was not because they were Christians, but because they were aliens and they came from Europe. 99. Among the people I see sitting in this room I sometimes see the physiognomy of an oriental Jew who probably had to become a Zionist because he had to live in Palestine. But the Jews we are talking about belong, ethnologically and culturally, to Eastern Europe and to those tribes that populated what is now southern Russia, before Rurik began the movement that resulted in the Russian nation, Later came the Romanovs, and then we come down to the Revolution. Those Jews were converted to Judaism. 93. Then here comes the representative of Israel to try to impress the Council, and the world at large through the Council-because the press and the media of information seem to be at the command of many Zionists, not only in this country but in many Western countries-by stating that Palestine was given to the Jews. And by whom was it given to the Jews? By God. 94. Again I would remind the representative of Israel of one passage in the Psalms attributed to the Prophet David, which says: “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof.” I asked in a Committee of the General Assembly for the representatives of Israel to produce any type of deed signed by God Almighty giving them Israel. 100. I assert that in 1947 the United Nations committed an error because there was pressure applied, Self-determination was not respected. It was enshrined in the Charter, but it was neglected and ignored, Forcibly, thanks to two or three votes that were mustered by Mr. Truman by means of direct telephone calls and without the knowledge of even the State Department, they established Israel. But they did them a disservice, because after all the Palestinians are human beings and they are going to continue this conflict until doomsday. I say doomsday because perhaps some day there will be a miscalculation and the world will commit suicide. But till doomsday there is going to be a conflict there. Whether we are Jews, Christians or Muslims, we deplore this fact as much as anyone. We deplore it whether 9.5. Unfortunately, the late Mr. Balfour paved the way for the establishment of an alien people in Palestine. I say “alien” not because they are Jews, but because they come from Eastern Europe, I ask my colleagues in the Council and on other Committees to see where in the archives of the United Kingdom the imperialist United Kingdom had a power of attorney from God Almighty to transfer the 102. There is a way out of this impasse. I mentioned it in the General Assembly during the last special session and also in certain Committees. Anyone who cares to can read the suggestions I made about asking many of those who are in Israel whether they would like to emigrate to Western countries, provided certain Western countries opened their doors to them. The United States opened its doors to immigration, and many would like to come and find opportunities here, Many Western countries supported these Eastern European Jews who called themselves Zionists. If the Arab refugees were asked to find out how many of them would like to go back to their homelandand some of them may not want to go back to their homeland, they are free to choose-then we begin to see the light. 103. On the other hand, all the discussions in the Council, with all due respect to you, Mr. President, and to members of the Council, are getting to be purely academic. At one time the veto was really useful. Now consensus has taken the place of the veto. We applaud the coexistence of the great Powers because it may pave the way for world peace. But we small Powers, weak Powers, we pay a stiff price when there is a consensus of the Council-you will permit me to be frank with you here, after all, I have been in the United Nations too long to keep silent-on certain questions and what should be done to resolve them. 104. Before I make a suggestion, I should like to go back to the year 1840 when Ibrahim Pasha, the son of Muhammad Aly invaded not only Palestine but Lebanon and Syria, and was on his way to seize Istanbul. I am talking of the days of imperialism-not on the part of Muhammad Aly, because he was later made a Khedive over Egypt by the Sultan of Turkey. In those days Tsarist Russia had its eye on what was known in Europe as Constantinople-Istanbul today. The British, before the Suez Canal was built, were afraid that if a strong man like Muhammad Aly took over the Ottoman Empire their route to India would be jeopardized. So both Tsarist Russia and monarchist Great Britain sent an ultimatum to Muhammad Aly to withdraw his troops because they were not interested in a strong Turkey then. They wanted a weak Turkey so that the overland route to the Red Sea via the Suez could ensured. Also our friends, the Russians of those days, had 106. Since there is coexistence now between the major Powers, what prevents both Powers, if they mean to help the weaker States, from issuing an ultimatum, as they did in the days of yore, and saying to Israel: “Withdraw, or we mean business,” But it seems nobody means business. 107. Here we find two major Powers. We respect them and we benefit from their technology, culture, science and universities. But unfortunately, with few exceptions, they seem to have clients and that is why the Council is divided into two camps. For heavens sake, clear it up with your Governments, you major Powers, and if you want peace in the Middle East do not keep meeting here to bicker about legal terms and how we should enunciate this phrase or spell out that paragraph in a resolution. For heavens sake, we are all happy that you are coexisting. If you think that the Palestine people have been wronged, what prevents your leaders from issuing a joint declaration, as you did to Muhammad Aly, and telling the Israelis: “Withdraw from those occupied lands.” 108. But, as I said, we find that we and the poor innocent Jews that happen to be in Israel-there are many innocent Jews there as not everyone in Israel is a leader-will suffer. The Palestinians will suffer. There will be interminable bickering and we will become the prey of power politics, neither more nor less. 109. If only the President of the United States and Mr. Kosygin or Mr. Brezhnev, or whoever is the leader, would issue an ultimatum. If they condemn here and do nothing about it, it is all academic. Our colleague here from Israel knows all about it. He uses oratory. He is a learned man and he sometimes distorts historical facts too much, as he did in the case of the Crusades, 110. That is the only solution, Nobody denies that your Government, Mr. President, and the Government of the United States wield world power. They are responsible. Anyone who exercises world power has responsibilities. Nothing will come out of mediating here and mediating there and trying to make something out of a jigsaw puzzle. I am old enough to say that nothing will come out of this policy of protracting this issue indefinitely. 111. I may have been unorthodox in participating in the item before you. But if I have used this method it is because I felt that otherwise I would be failing in my duty towards my own conscience as a human being, without taking into account that I am an Arab, if we go on as we have been doing lately in the Council and the whole United Nations-not only the Council; do not think I am throwing any aspersions on the Council, though it has lost a lot of 113. I regret that the other day I did not have the document I wished to cite, a document I received from a knowledgeable source, to show you that Israel was established in Palestine not for religious motives, nor for the gathering together of all the Jews of the world. There are many Jews in the world who are loyal citizens of their countries of birth or adoption; loyal Americans, loyal Soviet Jews, I would even say we have loyal Arab Jews. They come to me and complain about what they call those Ashkenazis, meaning the European Zionists, ‘Lwho are spoiling it for us”. After the Dreyfus affair the Zionists of Eastern Europe thought that there could be no peace for them until they were gathered together in some land. At one time they thought of Uganda but they decided that the motivation should be religious and therefore Palestine, tied in with the Bible, should be the location, However, after the Dreyfus affair, legislation was adopted in almost every country whereby the Jews were given not only equal rights, but sometimes also privileges-perhaps because certain Western Powers felt guilty about the persecution of the Jews in their midst. So there was no longer any raison d’&tre for the gathering together of the Jews. HOW could they gather 16 million Jews in Palestine? I think that Belgium is a highly populated country of about 7 million. But Palestine is even smaller than Belgium and there were 16 million Jews. But suppose some Jews did not want to leave their countries of birth or adoption. 114. This is an adventure which started with a dream of Theodore Herzl and which had a raison d’etre at that time because they thought they would like to lead their own lives, as they were being persecuted in Europe. Then when there was no longer any reason, although the motivation was religious, the end became political and economic, Here I should like to read an excerpt from a French Canadian newspaper, L’Unitd Nationale, Nov. 4, 1953, published in Montreal. It states: “The President of the World Jewish Congress, Doctor Nahum Goldman, declared at Montreal in 1947: ‘The Jews might have had Uganda, Madagascar and other places for the establishment of a Jewish Fatherland but they want absolutely nothing except Palestine’ “- It is a good thing he called it Palestine and not Israel; that was in 1947. The excerpt continues: “ . . . ‘not because of the biblical or religious significance of Palestine, not because the Dead Sea waters, by evaporation can produce $5 trillion worth metalloids and powdered metals, not because the sub-soil of Palestine contains twenty times more petroleum than all the combined reserves of the two Americas, but because Palestine is the crossroads of Europe, Asia and Africa, “The Jewish people as a whole will be its own Messiah. It will attain world domination by the dissolution of other races, by the abolition of frontiers, by the annihilation of monarchy which has always been the support of individualism, and by the establishment of a world republic in which the Jews will everywhere exercise the privilege of citizenship. In this new world order, the children of Israel who are scattered over the world will furnish all the leaders without encountering opposition. This will more particularly be the case if they succeed in getting the working masses under their control. The government of the different peoples forming the world republic will, through the victory of the proletariat, fall without difficulty into the hands of the Jews. It will then be possible for the Jewish rulers to abolish private property and everywhere to make use of the resources of the State. Thus will the promise of the Talmud be fulfilled, in which it is said that when the messianic time has come the Jews will have the property of the whole world in their hands.” That was written and addressed to Baruch Levy. I do not want to take too much time by reading exerpts, but I thought that I should like to let our colleagues who are sitting there behind the sign of Israel, which has usurped Palestine, know this. 116. This is from a book written by Maurice Samuel. I do not know whether he was the son of Herbert Samuel; I am not sure. I shall have to do some research on it. I believe that Herbert Samuel was the High Commissioner in Palestine in the twenties. Of course he was a Jew but he was a good Britisher, I believe; I do not know. He had what you might call the fanatic Zionist spirit. 1 should not call it spirit; it was a fanatic Zionism which had to do with territory than with the spirit. As I interpret it in the Bible Zionism of the spirit is something noble. He said: “Look, we Jews, we the destroyers, will remain destroyers forever. Nothing that you will do will meet our needs and demands. We will forever destroy because we need a world of our own.” That was from page 155 of a book by Maurice Samuel,7 published by Harcourt Brace and Company of New York, United States, 1924. If I am not mistaken, that publishing firm is still in business. 117. I have many other excerpts but I do not wish to read them. If all Jews thought like that, God help the Jews and God help himanity. But the Jews are human beings like 7 You Gentiles. 118, There is no problem between the Arabs as such and the Jews. The problem is simply due to a conflict between the people of Palestine who happen to be Arabs, and the Zionists. Zionism is a political movement. They talk of “per capita”. This is all Western: you earn so much per capita. Supposing we earn $10 per capita per year, that is our privilege; leave us alone. If that is going to be the yardstick, any country that has a high per capita income should occupy another land in order to raise its standard of living. We do not always talk in economic terms. We have our family ties, we have our affections and we have a social system which suits us. This does not mean that we are static. We welcome many good things from others and sometimes bad things, I dare say. But they do not leave us alone. The West has not left us alone for a long time-since the time of the Crusades. They will not leave us alone. They had a religious war in China, you remember; the Boxer Rebellion They will not leave us alone; the colonialists, the vested interests in the hands of Western Powers. If you want certain economic advantages, we are willing to trade with you, to co-operate with you, to participate with you. But to displace a people, to chase people out of their homes, under the banner of Zionism, because it is mentioned in the Bible that God, according to certain texts, gave Israel or Judea that land-if we go by that standard, God help us. Anyone could be the follower of a god of his own and by inspiration or by intuition say, “God gave me this land,” and if he could gather followers he could occupy another land. Leave God in the heavens. Leave Him alone. Do not drag God into our political bickerings here, This is a question of exploitation. 120. Forgive me for taking up so much of your time at this late hour but, although my intervention may have rambled into the recesses of history and other lanes, I hope that at least the world will be untrammelled by prejudice and will think clearly and ponder this question. I hope that you, Mr. President, as the representative of a great Power, and the United States Ambassador will not continue in this manner but that in your wisdom-and we place great hope in you because of the responsibility and power you exercise-you will issue an ultimatum to those who, I regret to say, happen to be aggressors, taking a land and considering it their own, to withdraw. Otherwise, this situation will continue, and both Arabs and Jews, as human beings, will be the victims, and the price will be very high. Such conflicts may one day-1 hope not, but they may one day-lead to a world conflict.

The list of speakers has been exhausted. I should like to make the following statement. 122. As a result of consultations which have taken place on this item, if falls to me, as President of the Security Council, to make the following statement on the results of those consultations. “Having heard the statements of the parties in regard to the renewal of the hostilities, the members of the Security Council are deeply concerned at the deteriorating situation in the area. They therefore consider that the Council should remain seized of the situation and keep it under close review.” 123. If there are no further speakers, we shall adjourn today’s meeting. The meeting rose at 7.45 p. m. HOW TO OBTAIN UNITED NATIONS PUBLICATIONS United Notions publications moy be obtained from bookstores and distributors throughout the world. Consult your bookstore or write to: United~Notionr, Soles Section, New York or Genevc. COMMENT SE PROCURER LES PUBLlCATtONS DES NATIONS UNIES Les publications des Notions Unier sent en vente dans les libroiries et 1.1 ogsncar diporitoires du monde entier, Informez-vous auprCs de votre librairie ou odrerrer-vous b: Nations Unies, Section des venter, New York ou Gen&ve. KAK IlOJlYqMTb M3AAHIIR OPrAHH3AuHH OGbEAHHEHHblX HAIJMA ~h~l~llllll Opr~~llll:l2Il~IIII O?LC~IIllClllll~lS Ihp~ ~IOitillO KyUIlTb II HIIIIXlll~IS StWKIll11aX II :Il'CIITI'TIILlS 110 IlVl'X ~MilOllaS JIII~XL hlO~llTC NI~lllll:ll 06 ll:\#lllIlllS II IltllllCJl I~llllXillOM ~awniic II.111 I.IllUIllTC 110 n;(pccy: Opranmaqw Ohe,q~~iiciiiIhix Ilni(llii. CClillllH uo IlpO~MiC lI:I~Ulllil, IIhWllOl)li II.lll SR.?llOll~. COMO CONSEGUIR PUBLICACIONES DE LAS NACIONES UNIDAS tar publicocioner de las Nacioner Unidor estdn en vento en librerlar y cosos distribuidaror en todas porter de1 mundo. Conrulle o su librero o dirfjose a: N&ones Unidar, Secci6n de Ventas, Nuevo York o Ginebro. Litho in United Nations, New York Price: $U.S. 0.50 (or equivalent in other currencies) 35377-September 1972-2.100