S/PV.1436 Security Council

By a letter dated 6 August 1968 addressed to the President of the Security Council [S/8730] the Permanent Representative of Syria has requested that he be invited to participate in the consideration of this question. I propose, if there is no objection, to invite the representative of Syria to participate without right of vote in the debate. In accordance with the decision previously taken by the Council, I shall now invite the representatives of Jordan, Israel, the United Arab Republic and Iraq to participate in the discussion. Since the space at the Council table is limited, I propose, in accordance with past practice in this respect, to invite the representatives of Jordan and Israel to take seats at the Council table and to invite the representatives of the United Arab Republic, Iraq and Syria to take the seats reserved for them at the side of the Council table, with the understanding that they will be invited to the Council table whenever they are called upon to make statements. At the invitation of the President, Mr. M. El-Farm (Jordan) and .Mr. Y. Tekoah (Israel) took places at the Security Council table, and Mr. A. Hilmy (United Arab Republic), Mr. A. Pachachi (Iraq) and Mr. G. Tomeh (Syria) took the places resewed for them at the side of the Council chamber.

The first speaker on my list is the representative of Jordan, on whom I now call.

The Security Council has been subjected during the last two days to many attempts by Mr. Tekoah to divert the Council’s attention from the Jordan complaint against Israel to other irrelevant issues. It is not difficult for my delegation to answer every Isrncli distortion and expose every pretext used ,to justify 1sr:u:li crimes against my people, but I think I can rend:r the Council a good service by not indulging in any irrelevnut material. The matter before the Council is an act of aggression committed by the Israeli armed forces against Jordan and arrogantly admitted by Israel both here and ii? Tel Aviv. Wasting more time listening to cheap Israeli tactics does not befit the dignity or the responsibility of the Security Council. 4. Mr. Tekoah spent some time speaking about so-called terrorism. I have had a chance in the past to state that military occupation and continued Israeli attacks to secure the continued presence of the Israeli armed forces in Arab territory are not expected to be met without resistance by the people, the victims of such an occupation. Certainly the military occupation of part of Jordan does not inspire peace and as long as the Israelis continue to be there, there will be resistance, there will be a struggle, and there will be sacrifices for liberty. That is only natural. Resistance against the Israeli forces of occupation has precedents in every single country which has experienced foreign military occupation be it in Europe, in Africa, in Asia, in Latin America or elsewhere. Indeed, what is happening today in Angola, Rhodesia and South Africa is not different from I 5. I have said in this Council that Israeli occupation conveys no rights. They should get out. It imposes a duty, a duty of the people to struggle for their liberation. When this domination involves the Holy City of Jerusalem, the mission is holier, the struggle greater and the cause more worthy. The Israelis cannot occupy other people’s homelands and expect peace. Before Mr. Tekoah speaks about terrorism he should answer this question: what is his army doing there? What is the Israeli Army doing in Jordanian territory? 6. Mr. Tekoah spoke a great deal about El-Fatah. El-Fatah is the name of an organization struggling for a cause, an organization dedicated to peace based on justice, but compelled to resort to national resistance because of the arrogance of the occupier and the inaction of the highest organ of the United Nations, this Security Council. El-Fatah stems from the Palestine people who are presently dispersed under every sky but who are determined to have their homes and homeland, and enjoy and live the great Charter values: dignity, freedom and self-determination. The Security Council is the guardian of all these values. Certainly the Security Council does not expect them to bow down to destructive Zionism. No matter how we look at it, is there any justification whatsoever for the large-scale Israeli operations against Jordan last Sunday and Israeli aggression last June? Do individual acts for which Jordan is not responsible-I repeat, for which the Government of Jordan is not responsible-justify the irresponsible behav. iour of a Member State created by the United Nations? Will this Council accept the continuous arrogance of this Member State? And if the Council is responsible for the presence of this Member, is not the Council not responsible for its misbehaviour as well? 7. If Mr. Tekoah alleges-and here I quote his words from a Jewish news bulletin, Jewish Telegraph Agency of 26 ~~~~ 1968-that “International law authorities question the ‘juridical validity’ of the United Nations resolutions” vis-a-vis Israel and therefore his Government refuses to 8. The charge before you is not denied by Mr. Tekoah. He simply raised the question of so-called organized terrorism. This, as we all know, is not a nc.w argument, and should not be taken seriously. It has been used before this Council on every single occasion for the last seventeen years. It was, however, overruled by the Council, and in seven different instances Israel was condemned by the Security Council. 9. The first Security Council resolution was taken on 18 May 1951 [93(1951)]. On 24 November 1953 in resolwtion 101 (1953) the Security Council censured Israel for committing the Qibya aggression. On 29 March 1955 in resolution 106 (1955) the Security Council condemned the attack that was made by Israeli regular armed forces against the Gaza Strip. On 19 January 1956 in resolution 111 (1956) Israel was condemned and warned that if its attacks were repeated the Council would have to consider what further measures would be required to maintain or restore peace. On 9 April 1962 in resolution I71 (1962) the Security Council adopted unanimously its fifth decision censuring Israeli military actions. On 25 November 1966 in resolution 228 (1966) the Council censured Israel for its large-scale military action on Es-Samu’, in Jordan. In that decision it emphasized to Israel that actions of military reprisal could not be tolerated and that if repeated the Security Council would have to consider’ further and more effective steps as envisaged in the Charter to ensure against the repetition of such acts. 10. On 24 March this year in resolution 248 (1968) the Security Council condemned the military action launched by Israel against Karameh refugee camp. Again the Council declared that acts of military reprisal could not be toiented and that if they are repeated the Security Council would have to consider further and more effoctivc steps as envisaged in the Charter to ensure against the repetition of such acts. 11. Now we are coming before the Council with a complaint involving the repetition of more serious acts of aggression-one against the civilian population of Irbid, and the other against the people of Salt, causing the death of 93, and injuring 203 Jordanians. 12. Of course, it was made clear time and again that the Security Council does not condone the idea of military reprisal. 13.. At the 635th meeting of the Security Council Israel faced a firm stand. I need not cite all statements made in that meeting. Suffice it to cite the statements of the two Permanent members of the Security Council who not only participated in the debate, not only supported the legitimate complaint of Jordan-and we are grateful to them for that-but went to the extent of co-sponsoring the resohr. “Her Majesty’s Government has, in any case, already stated that in its view there was no possible justification for such action and, ,through Her Majesty’s Ambassador in Tel Aviv, it has informed the Israel Government of its horror at this apparently calculated attack. The further information that has come to hand and the increased toll of life can only confirm my Government in condemning it and reinforce its opinion that it has constituted a threat to the security of the entire area. “ , , . The unfortunate thing is that this kind of wholesale and indiscriminate reprisal should be indulged in at all . . . ” [635th meeting, paras. 49 and SO]. 14. The British statement in the Security Council continued: “The trouble about such a reprisal raid as that at Qibya is that it will probably only result in a growth in the number of persons who decide to cross into Israel to revenge themselves by taking life for life. Thus this reprisal raid may bring upon Israel the very thing which it has hoped to stop [ibid., para. 531. 5‘ . . . But if the small liberal democracy which, we believe, the sons of Israel are seeking to establish in Palestine is to preserve the sympathy of its friends throughout the world, then we suggest that it would certainly be well advised not to try to show, as some of the Israel Press have sought to show, that the destruction of a village in Jordan territory and the slaughter of its inhabitants, most of whom were undoubtedly quite innocent was thoroughly justified, and indeed the logical and final result of a chain of incidents.” [Ibid., para. 59.j 15. The representative of the United States, a sponsor of the same draft resolution, stated: “We . . . subscribe to the statements in the speech of the representative of the United Kingdom bearing on this point. “We would expect the Security Council to take action only after the representatives of Israel and Jordan have been heard. . . .” [Ibid.,paras. 60 and 61.1 16. These are the eloquent, clear and able interpretations and the advice given by two permanent members of the Security Council to Israel. They involve a question of principle, and I am sure the same argument, the same appraisal and the same positions are valid today. What is needed are ways and means to put them into force in order to put an end to Israeli irresponsibility. What is needed is that Israel should hear more of such advice from its friends. It should know that it has become an embarrassment to its friends. Maybe through renewal of .this advice Israel would become clean of mind, clean of heart and clean of behaviour. Maybe it would put an end to its war crimes. 18. In emphasizing the importance of the Armistice Agreement, I am defending the United Nations machinery everywhere, not only in our area, because that machinery has been functioning effectively and successfully in many parts of the world. The following statement presented by the representative of the United States in defence of the Korean Armistice Agreement may be helpful. Justice Goldberg, in the discussion of the PuebZo case, had the following to say: “The Armistice Agreements must be restored to their full vigour, and the weight and influence of the Security Council must be exerted to this vitally important end.” [138&h meeting, para. 95.J 19. Jordan today is making the same appeal to the Council: we appeal that the Armistice Agreement be restored to its full vigour, and that the weight and influence of the Security Council be exerted to this vitally important end. 20. One final word on this question. The observers do not and cannot prevent the Israeli forces from attacking villages and civilian populations. Their presence did not prevent the Israeli attack against the Suez two weeks ago. Nor would their presence have prevented Israeli aircraft from bombing our towns and cities in June and August. 21. One other important point is worth mentioning before concluding my speech. Many members refer to the need to support the efforts of Ambassador Jarring. For our part we did not fail to offer every assistance to the distinguished Special Representative. We shall continue to do so. MY Government would like to emphasize, however, that we hear too much about helping the efforts of the Special Representative and too little about constructive steps in that direction. Certainly, checking continued Israeli violations is a constructive step and is helpful, indeed very helpful, to Ambassador Jarring. It is a step in the right direction. Let all those who speak of efforts to help 23. Suffice it to say at this stage that when the Security Council unanimously adopted the resolution of 22 November 1967 [2#2 (1967)/, it was the understanding of my Government that all members of the Security Council would act and work within the Council and outside the Council to bring about the implementation of that resolution. This includes, of course, putting an end to the contemptuous behaviour of Israel and its continued acts of aggression. If the Israelis continue their defiance, whether in Jerusalem or in the Gaza Strip, whether in the Suez area or in Golan, or in the bombing of innocent civilians, it is the duty of the Council to take action, because this would be helpful to Mr. Jarring and would promote the succcss of his mission. Without this, I do not see how we can move in the direction of peace in our unhappy land. 24, If the Security Council, after seeing its will challenged by Israel for the seventh time, does not take effective measures, its inaction will affect not only the peace of the Middle East, but the peace of Africa, Asia, and probably other parts of the world as well. Then the values enshrined in our Charter will be replaced by a policy of military occupation, blackmail, intimidation, destruction and famine. 25. You may recall that while the complaint I submitted in June about the attack on Irbid was still pending before you in the Security Council, the attack on Salt took place, last week, last Sunday. While this attack is being considered here now, the Israelis, only yesterday, have crossed Jordanian territory, using helicopters to chase people, to kill and murder, Five were killed yesterday, others injured. 26. Of course, unless action is taken, we expect more of these crimes. I hope the Security Council till take these happenings very seriously, because the situation is deteriosating more and more every day. 27. The Security Council has time and again warned lsrael that it would take further and rnore effective measures if the Israeli acts of aggression were repeated. Israel, by repeating its acts of aggression on a much larger scale, has left no choice to the Security Council but to take more effective measures. The challenge before the Security Council is great; its task and its reaction must be greater.

I now call upon the next speaker on my list, the representative of Israel. A’ Mr. TEKOAH (Israel): The thesis we have heard the Arab representatives propound in this Council is strikingly bizarre. Arab warfare against Israel will continue but Israel must not defend itself. Jordanian military positions cannot be stopped from shelling Israeli villages, but Israel must not try to silence them. Raiders will continue to kill and sabotage, but Israel should not reach out to smite them down. 31. The Jordanian representative would like us to concede fiat the cease-fire line, not recognized by him and his Government as barring r&Is from Jordan, should be recognized by the Israeli defenders as a screen protecting the attackers. That is an absurd idea. The cease-fire can be maintained only on the basis of complete reciprocity. The cease-fire line can be effective as a dividing line only if both sides respect it as such. 32. The Security Council cannot accept the thesis that the cease-fire does not bind one of the parties. The Security Council cannot accept that one of the parties should be free to consider the cease-fire a fiat for continued acts of aggression from its territory. 33. The present debate cannot but have a direct bearing on the maintenance of the cease-fire. The future of the cease-fire depends on whether the Arab States will be allowed to persist in their disregard for the cease-fire obligations or be called upon to abandon warfare by whatever means they pursue it. 34. Firing on Israeli villages from Jordanian military positions is a flagrant breach of the cease-fire. It must Cease. Terror and sabotage raids are and have always been considered violations of the cease-fire. They must be stopped. They can be stopped, especially in view of the extensive governmental involvement in them. In addition to the already known and recorded participation of the Egyptian, Iraqi, Syrian and Jordanian Governments in the organization, training and arming of terror commandos, I should like to submit to the Council the following information. 3.5. Ata Dawod Reis, a raider captured on 17 July near the Jordan River, gave the following evidence. On 1.5 July he arrived with his unit at Karameh and from there went to a Jordanian military post at Urn Shurt, where they found another raider unit. They spent that night in the army post. During the day of 16 July they were not allowed to leave their huts for fear that they might be seen by the Israelis. In the evening the two units advanced to the Jordan River, led by a Jordanian lieutenant. At 2300 hours they crossed the river, after the Jordanian officer had given them details of the way, gave them the password and promised covering fire by Jordanian Army positions in case of retreat under attack. 36. Nabil Hassan Qubabi was captured on 9 July. His unit was taken by a Jordanian military vehicle from Salt to a military post in the vicinity of the Damiyah Bridge. They crossed the river with the assistance of Jordanian soldiers, 38. Mahmud Ali Yorad crossed the cease-fire line on 7 June with a unit of Iraqi Commando Battalion No. 421. Before fording the river they met Jordanian soldiers who showed them where to cross. Another unit of five marauders was ordered to stay behind with the Jordanian soldiers in order to give cover in case of retreat. 39. Halif Husein Mustafa testified about Jordanian officers inspecting the raider training camps and about the incursions carried out by way of Jordanian military posts. The Palestinians in Jordan, he said, had one choice: to join the Jordanian Army or the terror organizations. The cliscrimination against, Palestinians which prevails in the army encourages them to, choose the terror organizations. Halif Husein Mustafa spent twelve days in the bases of Salt. He knew about 300 recruits who did not require any military training since they had served as soldiers in the Iraqi Army Battalion No. 421 or in the armies of Jordan and Syria. 40. It will also be recalled that on 25 April 1968 an Israeli patrol encountered a raider unit near Beer Qra, the children’s village on the Arava Road. In the exchange of fire all 6 saboteurs were killed. All of them wore Egyptian Army uniforms. Their commander had the rank of lieutenant in the Egyptian Army. Two soldiers had receipts in their pockets conr%ming that they had deposited their miIitary documents at the Egyptian Consultate in Amman. One soldier had a document issued in Cairo in 1967, and another was found to be a member of the Egyptian Commando Battalion No. 141. 41. The Security Council has been dealing with warfare by terror since March. None of the Arab Governments has denied during this period the evidence brought before the Council about their support for and participation in terror warfare. Israel awaits to see whether the Security Council wiIl take effective action to terminate this conspiracy of aggression or whether it will be left to Israel to deal with it by itself. 42. Again, we must have no misgivings regarding the nature and purpose of this conspiracy by terror warfare. I should like to reiterate that it is odd to find the Arab representatives and their supporters attempting to describe here, and even to justify, the armed attacks of Jordanian military positions on Israeli villages in terror operations conducted against Israel as resulting from the hostilities of June 1967. 43, Nothing could be further removed from the truth. The same methods had been used by the Arab States long before 1967. The same arguments to justify them have been voiced by Arab representatives in the Council for years. The allegation that Jordanian artillery shells Israeli villages and that armed raiders from Jordan attack Israel and Israeli citizens solely because they are reacting to the failure of 44. The leader of El-Fatah, Yasser Arafat, whose name I have already mentioned to the Council on a previous occasion, described on 5 June 1968 the objective of El-Fatah in the following concise terms: “the liquidation of Zionist existence. We shall not accept”, he added, “any thing less than an Arab Palestine and full victory”. 45. Yasser Arafat is not the only leader of the terror warfare waged against my people. Another is the former Mufti Mr. Husseini, the father of Arab terror against Jews in Palestine in the 1920s and the 1930s. Husseini spent the war years by Hitler’s side in Berlin, helping Eichmann to annihilate the Jewish people of Europe, helping to recruit Moslem Bosnians to fight on the Nazi side. Husseini, who was declared a war criminal by the allies, is today in Jordan heading the terror movement against Israel in the same spirit that animated him during his macabre activities in Hitler’s Berlin. 46. That is the kind of activity that the Jordan Government and other Arab Governments support and identify themselves with. Israel cannot be expected to acquiesce in these war operations designed to bring about its destruction. The Arab Governments can be expected to put an end to these operations. 47. A number of delegations have expressed justified concern about the possible effect of the aggravation of tension in the area on the efforts that are being made by Ambassador Jarring to promote agreement between the parties. We share this concern. Ambassador Jarring deserves the support and co-operation of all of us. However, continued Arab warfare against Israel cannot but undermine the prospects of peace. There can be no progress to peace while the cease-fire is being shattered by Arab aggression. 48. There can be no peace as long as the Arab States pursue war by terror. The cessation of this warfare is a prerequisite of any movement towards a just and lasting peace, It is essential for the prospects of peace in the Middle East that the Security Council take action to stop the grave cease-fire violations from Jordanian territory. Inaction on these violations will inevitably increase the dangers to peace in the region. We appeal to the %CUritY Council to act, to act at long last to put an end to Arab a,&-‘- of aggression against Israel.

I now call on the next speaker, the representative of Syria. 50. Mr, TOMEH (Syria): Mr. President, may 1, first of a& offer you our hearty congratulations both in your capacity as the new representative of Brazil and as the President of fie Security Council? You bring personally to your office a rich and varied experience, a vast knowledge of international affairs and tact to handle the thorny and difficult “The qualities required for this task are SO formidable that merely to list them is humbling: perception to understand the sensitive problems of other nations, both big and little; patience in a milieu where time is a central ingredient of every diplomatic solution and where undue haste may be self-defeating; imagination to discern the full potential of the instruments at hand; experience to teach their limitations.” 52. We also wish to welcome Under-Secretary-General Kutakov to his new task. Those of US who knew Mr. Kutakov as a member of the Soviet delegation are sure that he will bring to this new ,offce his known great qualifications, his sense of responsibility and, above all, his devotion to the great principles of the Charter. 53. The Council has before it a complaint submitted by the Ambassador of Jordan on 5 August 1968 concerning the new aggression by Israel against his country as grave as the one for which he had asked an urgent meeting of the Security Council on 5 June. The representative of Jordan, Ambassador El-Farra, as well as many other speakers, have dwelt at length on the various aspects of this new Israeli attack as well as the continued acts of aggression to which Jordan and its variant Arab peoples have been and are being subjected. 54. As we all listened very carefully to his moving presentation of the case and the details of those savage Israeli attacks, my attention was drawn in particular to a statement he quoted from General Dayan on 26 April of this year in which he warned that the Jordan Valley will turn into a battlefield and that, in the words of General Dayan : “there will not be room there for civilian life, for families, children, and agricultural cultivation” (1434th meeting, para. 361. 55. In the same statement, the representative of Jordan told us, Dayan boasted that “70,000 families had already left the upper Jordan valley settlements, while in Israel, border ldbutsim had been reinforced by , . . youthful volunteers” (ibid., para. 4.51. This devastation inflicted on Jordan is the same devastation that visited other occupied Arab territories in Syria and the United Arab Republic, wherein the mass expulsion of the civilian population after the Israeli aggressive wa.r of 5 June 1967 and their forcible eviction have taken place at gun-point, The same happened in Palestine following the Zionist-Israeli aggression of 1947, wherein a whole nation, the Arab people of Palestine, was arbitrarily deprived, by sheer brutal Zionist force, of their birthright, the aim being to empty the Arab land of its Arab inhabitants and to implement systematically the Zionist plan to drive the Arabs ,back, step by step, to the desert, 57. What the Arab world is witnessing today is a similar barbaric conquest, with the difference that Tamerlane and his hordes came from the innermost parts of Asia, whiIe Dayan and his hordes came primarily from the innermost parts of Europe. Although these conquests are separated by time, they are one by nature, and both are not unlike Hitler’s devastation of Europe. Thus in the short span of our lives we have seen the refugees of Hitler outdoing the “master race”, to face us today with the refugees of Dayan. 58. The present Israeli aggression against Jordan, which is the subject of the complaint under consideration, is not an isolated incident but a link in a long chain of violence perpetrated by Israel, world Zionism and their supporters. They have inherited all the savagery and inhumanity of all colonial movements in their ugliest manifestations against mankind. 59. This is the crux of the matter-that we are faced with an imperialist invasion of the area. Yet, as adequately remarked by many speakers, Mr. Tekoah, in his now all too familiar manner, constantly pleads innocence and love of peace. Now, I will not answer Mr. Tekoah, but I will let Mr. Tekoah’s leaders give him the appropriate answers to prove who is the aggressor, who is misleading the Security Council, and where intransigence comes from. Speaking in an interview broadcast in the weekly newsreel programme Kol-Israel on June 22, Mr. Eshkol declared that Israel would insist that the River Jordan remain the country’s security border. Israel distinguished between political borders, cease-fire lines and security borders, he stressed. He went on to say: “When agreed borders between Israel and her neighbours were finally decided upon, the historic rights of the people of Israel to the land of Israel would have to be taken into account, without ignoring the fact of Arab population concentrations.” That quote was from the Israel Digest. It continues: “As for the Security Council resolution of last November, Mr. Eshkol said: ‘Only after the United States had made it clear that it concerned new fixed borders, different from the 4 June lines, to be determined by agreement between Israel and its neighbours could we co-operate with the United Nations envoy’, he recalled.” Continuing in the same vein, he said: “Israel 61. I am sure it will not escape the attention of the members of the Council that in both statements emphasis by the Israeli leaders is put on the finality of the occupied territories as being the borders of Israel, as well as on the United States official stand as given in this Council Chamber. 62. On 2 January 1968, Menachem Begin, a cabinet member, stated, with respect to the occupied territories: “These are integral parts of the land of Israel, and there is no question of returning them.” 63. As a military strategist, General Dayan contributed his cheer to the picture, in the following terms: “From where we are now, crossing the Suez would mean our being on the approaches of Cairo. To cross the Jordan is tantamount to being in Amman. To continue from Kuneitra means to reach Damascus.” 64. I am sure these statements answer what we have just heard from the Israeli representative about the desire for peace. 65, Mr. Tekoah today, as in fact during the last meetings, gave a long list of what he terms “acts of terrorism committed by Arab saboteurs”. The following tales of horror and atrocities committed by the regular Israeli army have been given in the March issue of Imperial News. This publication is introduced by a dissident number of Israelis who left Israel after the conquest of Arab territories and exiled themselves to London. In their own words they describe this magazine as follows: ‘Ymperial News is an information bulletin about the Middle East in general, and about Israel with her newly created colonies in particular. It is edited and published by Israelis, the majority of them natives, living temporarily abroad. “They oppose the view held by the majority of the Hebrew-speaking population in Israel that keeping, temporarily or permanently, the territories taken from the neighbouring countries during the June war, is vital to the existence of Israel.” 66. In the same issue, that of 9 March 1968, there is the following about one massacre on the Jordan river: “Every evening Israeli soldiers lay ambushes along the Jordan. Every night they fire at everything moving in the dark. Every morning bodies litter the Jordan, men, women, children, whole families, massacred during their 67. In the same issue another story is given: “This is an eye-witness report of a soldier who wishes to remain anonymous about the massacres of refugees carried out after the war. His story has been corroborated by other soldiers whose names we have but cannot reveal for the same reasons. “The report concerns the sector on the Jordan River between the Yarmuk and the Allenby Bridge, The time is the end of July and the beginning of August. The report was given in Tel Aviv, September 10, 1967. “ ‘Every night Arabs cross the Jordan from East to West. We blocked the passages (i.e., the places where the river is shallow and can be crossed by foot) and were ordered to shoot to kill without warning. Indeed, we fired shots every night on men, women and children. Even during moonlit nights when we could identify the people, that is distinguished between men, women and children. In the mornings we searched the area and, by explicit order from the officer on the spot, shot the living, including those who hid or were wounded. After killing them we covered them with earth or sometimes left them lying there until a bulldozer came to bury them.’ ” 68. The Israeli representative has repeatedly referred to the Arab freedom fighters as terrorists and saboteurs, and once again-since my country was mentioned-we must rebuff this vulgar and repulsive description coming from an aggressor trying to cover up murderers and trying to cover up the crimes of his country. 69. Terror and kilhng with systematic planning to drive the Arabs out into the desert was part and parcel of the Zionist doctrine and plan. Indeed, they made of it not only a barbaric method to implement their heinous and sinister plans against the Arabs; they made of it a philosophy and an ideology as well. I could mention scores of books on this issue, but I shall be satisfied with recommending one of them only, written by a member of the present Israeli cabinet, Menachem Begin. The name of that book is The Revolt. 1 No similar or equivalent book exists, to the best of my knowledge, in the whole literature of mankind, to make of terrorism an ideal to be worshipped. 70. Long before Israel was established, this doctrine of terrorism as being the only way to drive the Arabs out of Palestine was formulated and inculcated into the minds of the Jewish immigrants to Palestine. The following is one Zionist version of this doctrine: “The only way that seems, to my mind, to be right is the way of .the Irgun Zvei Leumi, the way of courage and 1 Menachem Begin, TheRevolt (New York, &human, 1951). This letter was written to Menachem Begin by one of his soldiers on 16 April 1945. 71, Mr. Tekoah is extremely fond of repeating one phrase regularly in each of his statements: “the twenty years of Arab aggression against Israel”. 72. The rewriting of history is not unknown to aggressors and warmongers and usurpers of the right and property of people, and the Arabs can speak of a Zionist war against them for the last seventy-five years. Indeed, it started when the idea of Zionism was born in the mind of Herzl as a Western-colonial extension into and conquest of Palestine. To refresh the mind of Mr. Tekoah and to stop his flights of fancy, I will let no less a man than Mr. Ben-Gurlon himself answer Mr. Tekoah. 73. Only last week, on 31 July, Mr. C. L. Sulzberger, in a series of articles that appeared in The New York Times which concluded on 4 August, reported a conversation with Mr, Ben-Gurion in which Mr, Ben-Gurion said the following: “In 1920 Ben-Gurion publicly outlined his frontier ideas for the eventual State of Israel: northern-the Litani River in South Lebanon;“-that, in fairness I must comment, has not been annexed yet-“eastern-the Awage River in Syria and the Jordanian deserts,“-almost exactly where the Israeli armies are stopping on Syrian territory now-“southern-the Red Sea.” 74. Emphasis on the real facts of the history of the alleged twenty years of aggression is necessary to help in the assessment of Arab claims not in the light of a propagandized version but in the actual and historical context of what happened. 75. In an article entitled “For a new approach to the Israeli/Arab conflict”, published in the New York Review of Books of 3 August 1967, by Mr. I. F. Stone, a well-known American writer of the Jewish faith and well known previously for his Zionist affiliation, wrote: “ . . . Jewish terrorism, not only by the Irgun, in such savage massacres as Deir Yassin, but in milder form by the Haganah itself, ‘encouraged’ Arabs to leave areas the Jews wished to take over for strategic or demographic reasons. They tried to make as much of Israel as free of Arabs as possible.” 76. Let us take more specifically and accurately the words of Mr. Tekoah-“The twenty-years war of aggression against Israel by the Arabs”. We are now in 1968 and twenty years would take us back to 1948. 77. The partition resolution was passed on 29 November 1947 [General Assembly resolution 181 (II)], and Israel was declared a State on 14 May 1948. Here again, I will let But as we know, in accordance with the partition resolution, Jerusalem was to be a corpus separatum. Jaffa,was an all-Arab city and part of the ,1rab State to be. At a later stage of the same chapter, Begin tells of addressing his men as follows: “Men of the Irgun! We are going out to conquer Jaffa. We are going into one of the decisive battles for the independence of Israel.“3 After the conquest of Jaffa and the expulsion of the Arab population of Jaffa, he ends the chapter with this sentence: “The conquest of Jaffa was one of the fateful events in the Hebrew war of independence.“4 That was in April 1948-before the State of Israel was established and before any sort of Arab aggression had taken place. 78. Three important results must be emphasized which have a direct relation to the Jordanian complaint and the Palestine question. 79. First, if the Arabs of Palestine were not driven out by terrorism and massacre, Israel could not have been the exclusive Jewish racist State that its leaders wanted it to be; for the Arabs would have been in the Israeli State itself, equal in number to the Jewish population, and that would have defeated the purposes of Zionism. 80. Secondly, in accordance with the last report submitted by the mandatory Power to the United Nations in 1947,5 Jewish ownership in Palestine amounted only to 5.66 per cent. The Arab Palestine people are still the legal owners of the land of Palestine from which they were expelled by force. A conquest in international law does not termlnate a legal right as long as the owner of that right claims it. No better words could exist to establish this right than the words of a great American international jurist, Philip Marshall Brown, who says : “Military occupation . . . does not confer title or extinguish a nation. “ . . . so long as a people (of the occupied country] do not accept military conquest; so long as they can manifest, in one way or another, their inalterable will to regain freedom, their sovereignty, even though flouted, restricted, and sent in exile, still persists.“6 81. Thirdly, the term “belligerence” does not in any way apply to a people that is defending its legal right against a 2 Ibid., p. 348. 3 Ibid., p. 354. 4Ibid., p. 371. 6 American Journal of Interrratiorral Law, vol. 35, 1941, p. 667. . “The six-day war has brought about more co-operation between Arabs and Jews than the eighteen preceding years of Armistice Agreements. This co-operation has two channels: the link across the Jordan River and the daily experience of coexistence on the west bank.” 83. NOW, knowing that the six-day war was planned, started and executed by Israel, the only logical conclusion to be drawn from this attitude is that through two or three more wars, animated by blind hatred and hostility against the Arab people, Israel and world Zionism think they can solve all their outstanding disputes with the Arab countries. 84. That violence is preached as a doctrine by Zionist intellectuals and religious leaders has also been confirmed. The New York Times of 4 August 1968 reported from Israel: “For the last five days, thirty prominent American Jewish and Israeli intellectuals have animatedly debated the nettling problems affecting the relationship between the two communities. “ . . * “ . . . Rabbi Richard Rubenstein, an American Jewish theologian, of the ‘God is dead’ school, said that the reentry of the Jewish people into the realms of nationhood and territory, required ‘the intelligent use of violence’.” 85. We listened very carefully to the statement given by the representative of the United States, Ambassador Bali, on 5 August, in which he said: “While it is true that I am present here today as a very new member, the argument we have been listening to is, unhappily, anything but new. It is merely one more chapter in a lamentable chronicle.” (1434th meeting, para. 187.1 86. How true, but how sad. Such being the case, the question duly arises why and what are the underlying causes? Why is it that the United Nations for the last twenty years and, before it, the League of Nations, have continuously been seized with the question of Palestine and with its derivative: disputes and problems. If this question is valid then patience is an imperative necessity to go beyond the external manifestations of the problem to its innermost heart. There will we find one fact, and one fact only: the denial to the Arab people of Palestine, of their inalienable rights to their homeland. 87. Hence, it is totally unacceptable .to us to equate continuous wanton massacres of Arab civilians by the Israeli Army, such as form the subject of the complaints of fie representative of Jordan, and the struggle of the Arab 89. Furthermore, it must have been noticed from the statements of Mr. Eshkol and Mr, Eban that in their obduracy and intransigence in continuing the occupation of conquered Arab territories and insisting on not withdraw& to the 4 June armistice lines, they had relied on the official United States stand in the Security Council. To us, therefore, there is no question that the Israelis are finding their intransigence, rightly or wrongly, in the support of the United States Government. 90. As a matter of fact, all developments point in that direction. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency bulletin of 2 August 1968 tells us that: “A foreign aid Bill which made provision for the sale of supersonic jets to Israel passed the Senate today. The Bill stated that: ‘The President should take such steps as may be necessary, as soon as practicable after the date of enactment of this section, to negotiate an agreement with the Government of Israel providing for the sale by the United States of such number of supersonic planes as may be necessary , , .‘.” 91. A more ominous measure is the one reported in The New York Times of 21 July 1968, in these words: “Under terms of an amendment to the 1967 Foreign Aid Appropriations Bill-which took effect 2 January- President Johnson is directed to subtract from United States aid to all but seven under-developed nations the equivalent of what each country spends for such modern arms as jet aircraft and missile systems.” 92. Among the seven exempted nations, in accordance with this amendment which is already a law, is Israel. But Israel, by economic standards and because of the billions of dollars that have been poured into it from the United States and Western Europe, is considered to be a fully developed country. In fact, Israel boasts of its technical assistance programmes in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Should we not be surprised, then, when all. of a sudden Israel is converted by American legislation into an under-developed country to enable that State to procure supersonic jets, missiles and what-not, for use in devastating, conquering and killing the Arabs? The only conclusion left open to US, regrettable as it may be, is that what has been perpetrated since 5 June 1967 against the Arabs is not essentially different from the war conducted by the United States in Viet-Nam. 93. Since the Security Council resumed its deliberations on 5 August over the complaint by Jordan, Israeli aggres- “Peace is not pacifism; it does not mask a base and slothful concept of life, but it proclaims the highest and most universal values of life: truth, justice, freedom, love .”

Before calling on the next speaker on my list, I should like to inform the Council that I have received a note from the representative of Saudi Arabia asking to be allowed to participate in the debate, If there is no objection, I propose to invite the representative of Saudi Arabia to take part in the discussion, without the right to vote. At the invitation of the President, Mr. J. Baroody (Saudi Arabia) took the place reserved for him at the side of the Council chamber.

Before I turn to the item on our agenda, I wish, on behalf of the delegation of Denmark, to welcome you as the representative of Brazil in the Security Council and as the President of the Council for this month, and to assure you of our full co-operation. 97. I also wish to state that my delegation whole-heartedly joins in the words of welcome extended by you, on behalf of us all, to the new Permanent Representative of the United States, Ambassador George Ball, and to the new Under-Secretary-General for Political and Security Council Affairs, Mr. Leonid Kutakov; 98. In briefly stating the attitude of my Government towards the tragic events which are the subject of our present debate, allow me first of all to reiterate the main considerations which have guided my delegation throughout in questions relating to the Middle East since the establishment of the cease-fire in the summer of 1967 and the adoption of Security Council resolution 242 (1967) in the fall of that same year. 99. We consider that all violations of the cease-fire must be deplored, not only because of the irreparable loss of life, the human suffering and the material damage that they inflict, but ‘also because such violations can only impede progress towards peace in an area that has been tom by war and conflict for two decades. 100. We also consider that all concerned-the parties themselves as well as the members of this Council and, indeed, all Members of the United Nations-must support the mission of the Special Representative of the Secretary- 101. The recurrent flare-ups and acts of violence along and across the cease-fire line between Israel and Jordan, which culminated this time in the Israeli air raids against objet. tives in Jordan on 4 August, have given us cause for both great regret and great concern. We deplore such massive raids by the Israeli military forces, as well as all other acts of violence across the cease-fire line. 102. We are aware of the arguments put forward by the parties in defence and justification of their action cr inaction, as the case may be. But the case before us is net one likely to be solved unless we face the fact, painful as it may be, that certain actions by either party may well result in certain counteraction by the other party, all to the detriment of the cause of peace and reason and in contravention of the efforts of this Council and of tile Special Representative of the Secretary-General. Therefore it should be brought home to the parties, and in no uncertain terms, that the Security Council expects that from now on they will adhere scrupulously to the cease. fire, that there must be no violence because violence will breed violence, and if an end is not put to it the outcome will not be to the benefit of anyone in the Middle East and might well bring in its train disastrous consequences going far beyond the area and scope of the conflict now being considered by the Council.

The next speaker on my list is the representative of Iraq.

I have asked for the floor to voice once again our deep concern at the continued threat to peace and security in the Middle East resulting from increased Israeli military activities and belligerent policies. 105. Only yesterday, and while the Council was discussing the aerial bombardment of Salt and Irbid, Israel troops crossed the Jordan river and penetrated deep into Jordanian territory. This latest outrage must be considered against the background of threats and bellicose statements uttered with disturbing frequency by Israeli leaders, as well as the sabre-rattling speeches of the representative of Israel in this Council yesterday and today. Such statements by the gentleman on my right could normally be dismissed a~ another of the performances with which he periodically entertains the Council. But that is not the case now, and the Council must take these threats and warlike gestures at their face value. 106. This makes it imperative for the Council to take speedy and effective action before Israel’s rulers are encouraged by this Council’s apathy and silence to embark upon new military adventures; but in order to take action the Council must determine once and for all that the activities of the so-called infiltrators cannot be equated with those of the armed forces of Israel. On the one side We have individuals acting independently of any governmental 107. The Council has been unanimous in condemning such acts of military reprisal as flagrant violations of the United Nations Charter and the cease-fire resolution. The continu- ~IUX of such acts will have the most serious consequences for peace, not only in the Middle East but elsewhere in the world, particularly in the southern part of Africa, where Israel’s admirers and imitators are watching closely to see what this Council will do. They will not fail to draw the appropriate conclusions if Israel is again permitted to get away with no more than a verbal condemnation. 108. It is therefore not enough, as has been suggested, to express concern’ and lamentations for the loss of life and ask both sides to observe the cease-fire.’ It is not enough even to condemn Israel--necessary though this is. All this has been tried before without making the slightest impression on Israel’s war-lords. The Council cannot abdicate its responsibility for taking effective action by such palliative, irreIevant and entirely insufficient measures as the stationing of observers, for example. For nearly twenty years there have been observers under the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization. But this did not prevent Israel armed forces from crossing the Armistice Demarcation Lines thirteen times and inflicting great losses on the inhabitants of the neighbouring Arab countries. 109. The issue is whether acts of military reprisal can be tolerated under any circumstances, and whatever the alleged provocation. This is the crucial question before the Council, and until effective steps are taken to prevent the repetition of such acts it is futile to speak of observers. There are at present observers in the Suez Canal area and in the Syrian sector, but their presence has not prevented Israel from shelling civilian centres of population and expelling thousands from their homes. 110. So any attempt to equate individual and sporadic activities of Palestinians seeking justice and fighting for their rights with Israel’s military attacks against the Arab countries would be interpreted by Israel as a vindication of its stand and condonation of its dangerous and barbaric concept of military rep&& with all the serious consequences it will have for international peace and security. AS the representative of France correctly stated yesterday, “we have never considered the concept of military reprisals acceptable. It is condemned by our Organization and by the Charter.” [1435th meeting, para. 29.j I1 1, What is at stake, therefore, is not only peace in the Middle East but the whole fabric of relations among States and the civilized international order which the Charter and r-his Crganization are trying to establish in our troubled world. 112. The representative of Israel spoke of the threat to Israel’s survival, But which people’s survival is now threat- 113. This has not been a twenty-year war, as the representative of Israel never tires of repeating, but at least a fifty-year war. It is a war in which Zionists have always been attacking and advancing, while the Arab people of Palestine have constantly been on the defensive, trying desperately to stem the tide and save themselves and their country from this deadly onslaught. During this fifty-year war, the Arabs of Palestine have lost far more than the Israelis: thousands lost their ‘lives during the thirty-year period of the Mandate when they had to fight the Zionist invaders as well as their colonial protectors; thousands have lost their lives since the creation of Israel, and more than one million of them have beenmade refugees. But over and above all this, their country has been occupied in its entirety by an immigrant alien population, This is the price that the people of Palestine have paid and are stil1 paying for the invasion of their land by the Zionist aggressors. So when the representative of Israel speaks of wars of aggression and genocide, of killing and violence, Ict him remember for once what Israel has done to the people of Palestine and is still doing to them. Nothing said here by the representative of Israel can erase the crime that has been committed against a people which has done no wrong to the Jews, and in whose land his people have always found a haven and refuge. 114. The representative of Israel has stated that no one shall smite a Jew with impunity. But, Mr. Tekoah, you have been smiting the Arab people of Palestine for fifty years-and with relative impunity-and now they are exercising their God-given right of self-defence to resist your occupation and giving back to you just a fraction of what they have been receiving from you for half a century. In view of this, how can anyone but sympathize with the struggle of a people who have been victims of a savage and ruthless campaign to obliterate their national identity and drive them out of their ancestral homeland. It is an insult to the intelligence of the members of this Council and an offence against every decent impulse for the representative of Israel to call these fighters for freedom cowards or terroristic criminals. 115. We have seen here during the last three days a rare display of venomous invective and uncompromising hostility and hatred from the representative of Israel. I say this more in sorrow than in anger, for what we have heard from the representative of Israel in this and other debates during the last four months reflects-accurately, I am afraid-the present thinking and mood of Israel’s rulers: ‘intransigent, arrogant, aggressive, cruel, intoxicated with success and 116. Where will all this lead to? History provides the answer; it abounds with examples of leaders pushing their people through military adventures and conquests down the path of ruin and misery. Will the leaders of Israel ever learn? I doubt it.

First of all, I should like to associate myself with those who extend the congratulations and good wishes of their delegations to you in your capacity as President of the Security Council and as the new Permanent Representative of your country. 118. At the same time, I wish to express my delegation’s thanks and appreciation to Mr. Bouattoura, who, as President of our Council last month, has again showed his skill and talent during the private consultations he conducted. 119. Finally, on behalf of my delegation, I welcome Ambassador George Ball, as the new representative of the United States in the Security Council, and our new Under-Secretary-General for Political and Security Council Affain, Mr. Leonid Kutakov. 120. Turning now to the item on our agenda, I have to express my delegation’s deep concern over these new acts of aggression of Israeli armed forces against Jordan. All too often we have to deal with the numerous acts of aggression, violations of cease-tire and even invasions by Israel against a neighbouring State Member of the United Nations. Yet the serious violations of the Charter and specific resolutions of the Council continue to represent a grave threat to international peace and security. 121. The gravity of this situation compels us to make a few remarks. First, the fact is-and it is acknowledged overtly by the Permanent Representative of Israel-that Israel military airplanes and Israeli shells bombed the territory of Jordan. Secondly, there is no argument whatsoever that could justify such a grave violation of the letter and spirit of the Charter of the, United Nations, an Organization to which both Jordan’ and Israel belong. Thirdly, to give a pretext, at least, the representative of Israel tried to explain to us that the barbarous shelling and bombardment was a necessary measure of self-defence on behalf of Israel because of the continued terror raids by the Arab commandos against its citizens. However skilfully he tries to defend his country’s policy, he cannot distract our attention from the basic facts, namely: (n) that the socalled terror raids and sabotage actions are direct consequences of the continued and illegal Israeli occupation of Arab lands; (b) that there cannot be aggression on behalf of the indigenous population against an intruder-the case is rather the opposite; (c)that even resistance against the Israel occupation gives absolutely no right to Israel to attack its neighbours. 122. It is not only these latest acts of aggression which prove that the Israeli policy makers do not seek a relaxation 123. The Security Council should prevent the deteriocation of the situation by taking resolute action against the Israeli aggression. 124. As ,to the idea of having United Nations observers deployed in the region along a certain line, it seems to us that when Israel feels free to send its aircraft deep inside its neighbour’s territory they could not fulfil their mission, Furthermore, by sending observers now, in the present circumstances, the United Nations would only bless and prolong the Israel occupation of the territory.

Mr. President, it gives me great pleasure to welcome you to our Organization as Permanent Representative of Brazil, and to express the warm congratulations of the delegation of Senegal on your assumption of the Presidency of the Council. Undoubtedly your outstanding qualities as a statesman will enable you to guide our work with competence and tact, as did your predecessor as President of the Council, my friend Ambassador Bouattoura, who succeeded above all in establishing the Committee to supervise the application of sanctions against Rhodesia. 126. We also wish to express our best wishes to Ambassador George Ball, who comes to us here with the highest diplomatic qualifications, which enable us to give him our full confidence. 127. I also wish to congratulate our new Under-Secretary General, Mr. Kutakov, who will, we are certain, live up to the merits of his predecessor. 128. I should now like to turn to the problem which is the subject of our meeting. Once again the Council is meeting to take note of the fact that, despite its appeals for calm, despite its condemnations, the Middle East has just been the scene of bloody incidents. Once again, as on 4 June last, innocent victims have been killed while they were going about their daily work in their efforts to extract food for their families from an unyielding soil. I should like to ask Ambassad.or El-Farra of Jordan to convey the feelings of sorrow and friendly solidarity of the Government and people of Senegal to his Government and people. 129. We have heard the statements made by the parties concerned with great attention. 130. Why were the towns of Irbid and Salt bombed on 4 June and 4 August ? The only reason which has been invoked here is legitimate self-defence. 131. I think we should, once and for all, agree on the meaning of legitimate self-defence, since a mistaken idea of 0 132 As far as I am concerned, I should like to tell you, rte simply and dispassionately, what I understand by legitimate self-defence. The victim of aggression may, in order to protect and defend himself, respond immediately, without delay and at the actual site of the aggression, to the aggressor’s attack by means proportionate to those used by the aggressor. 133. What are the main factors in this definition? First, the aggression; second, the victim; third, the aggressor; fourth, the time and place of the response; and fifth, the means used for the response. In the light of these considerations, let us examine the two arguments before us : Jordan declares that its towns of Irbid and Salt have been subjected to air raids by Israel, causing dead and wounded among the Jordanian civilian population; Israel, in its reply, has admitted the air raids but has added that they were carried out in exercise of its right of legitimate self-defence against the commando attacks by Palestinians. I feel most sincerely that we must take a strong stand against this method, and we must say “no” to Israel whose action on 4 June and 4 August cannot be interpreted as the exercise of the right of legitimate self-defence. 134. In this particular case, Jordan was not the aggressor; it had not launched any attack against Israel. Yet it was Jordan’s territory and its towns that were bombed. These are the facts. 135. I must refer once again to the situation of the Palestinians, whose fate has still not been settled by the international community. They have taken refuge by the thousands, for better or for worse (rather worse than better) in the States which were able to shelter them-just as Senegal, Guinea, Congo (Kinshasa), Tanzania and Zambia have also had to provide asylum for refugees on their territories. In fact, the real problem is the settlement of the fate of these unfortunate Palestinians, and the evacuation by Israel of the territories it has occupied by force. 136. Senegal places great hopes in Ambassador Jarring’s mission for achieving strict compliance with the resolution of 22 November 1967 [242 (1967). 137. Senegal, true to its belief in the value of dialogue, is obliged formally to condemn raids and military operations of the kind we are considering at present, which can only compromise the efforts of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General. 138. It is high time that peace was established in that part of the world.

The next speaker is the representative of Saudi Arabia.

Mr. President, I thank you and the members of the Council for granting me this Organization. Suffice it to say that we indeed congratulate ourselves on having you among us. : 141. I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting personally the newly appointed representative of the United States but I have heard from various quarters many laudatory remarks concerning him, not only as a most capable diplomat but also as an astute financier and man of the world. Finance is very important in this Organization, because the policies of nations everywhere, it has been my experience, revolve around economics. So indeed it is an asset to have a financier among us here. I sincerely hope that as the representative of Saudi Arabia I shall be enabled to co-operate fruitfully with Ambassador Ball in the future. 142. My whole-hearted congratulations go to Mr. Kutakov, the newly appointed Under-Secretary- General. Apart from his being a most intelligent gentleman, he is one of the friendliest personalities I have ever met among our Russian colleagues. Of course, Ambassador Malik is an old friend whom I have known for about twenty years or so. He was always gracious to me, although he is a Communist and I happen to be a monarchist, It shows you that when there is a rapport between persons of different political persuasions ideologies do not count much in the personal relationships among United Nations colleagues. 143. Mr. President, you and other members of the Council may wonder why the representative of Saudi Arabia should ask to be allowed to speak time and again on the subject under discussion, or rather on the Palestine question. One may ask, what can one say that has not been repeatedly said about this question of Palestine, not only since the inception of the United Nations but as far back as 1919, the date of the Versailles Treaty? I believe we should always go to the genesis of this question before we address ourselves to various incidents that have been happening, not only since Israel was created by the United Nations but since 1920. I happened to be a contemporary of that era. The first trip I made to Palestine was as a pilgrim in 1925. I was still a student at the American University of Beirut. I remember that I had several Jewish friends, fellow students at that University. There was no barrier of religion or race that separated me from them. In fact two of them were among my best friends and still are. 144. I should not have asked for the floor had it not been that I heard certain deleterious remarks made about the Mufti of Jerusalem, whom I happened to meet in 1925 in Jerusalem. The Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin el Husseini, is not here to defend himself, but I am in duty bound, as a friend of the Mufti’s, to tell you something about him. You may rest assured that I will not cover anything in order to whitewash a personality or to blacken another personality in what I am going to say. I can picture him in front of me. Having visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, I went to the Mosque of the Rock. My brother, who had known the 145. I was barely twenty years old, but at that time I had been a pan-Arab and an Arab nationalist since I was fourteen. We spoke about the Balfour Declaration. If my memory still serves me well, he said, “There is no problem between us and our Jewish brethren of the Orient. Our problem is with the Jews of Eastern Europe who, under the banner of Zionism, want to expel the Arabs from their homeland”. 146. I smiled and thought that the Grand Mufti, as he was called, was exaggerating. Events have shown him to be right. Mr. Tekoah said that the Mufti went and sat by the side of Hitler as if Hitler had nothing to do but receive the Mufti of Jerusalem, Where did he want the Mufti of Jerusalem to take refuge, in London or in Washington? In fairness to the Mufti, the Mufti did not know what Hitler was doing to the Jews of Europe. I do not think that Hitler was duty bound to tell the Mufti what he was doing. I guess that many Germans-it was shown later after the war and in the Nuremberg trials whose proceedings I followed-did not know what was happening to the Jews in Eastern Europe under the Nazi regime. So I think that one should be fair not only to the Mufti, but also to any Palestinian patriot who tried to defend his country and his people. Such malicious statements will endear the Mufti more to the people and will not resolve any questions. Tendentious statements about personalities is of the nature of character assassination, and I think that the United Nations should rise above this method of vilification. I think that we sink to a lower level in resorting to it. 147. But I do not want to be too hard on Mr. Tekoah because my logic will probably convince him of what I am going to say about this question under discussion. He is a person and as a person I respect his dignity, as a human being. But I believe, as my colleague from Syria and others have mentioned here time and again, that what has been taking place since the creation of Israel by this Organization is a link in the long chain of events, and I can see no end to that chain. 148. I recall the last time that I spoke in this Council which was on 4 April. I said that we will hear of more incidents, that there will be charges and countercharges, incriminations and accusations and rebuttals. But this procedure will get us nowhere. 149. I shall go to the genesis of the question because, after all, if we lose sight of how Israel came to be established in Palestine, we will be building syllogisms on false premises and all our arguments will be invalid. If this is true of logic I would say that in human relationships, anything that does not have a solid foundation is like a house, built on sand: the structure may be sound to all appearances but it will totter before the storm because it is not built on solid rock. 150. No one can dispute the fact that sovereignty resides in the people of any country or any land. It did reside in the peoples of the colonies. That is my first point. Why do I make it? Because the people of Palestine consisted of 94 Jew in Europe on account of religious intolerance. But in fairness to the Europeans, religious intolerance was prevalent among the various Christian sects. Even the Catholics killed one another during the Inquisition. So no wonder the Jews were maltreated. I do not say it was right, but it happened that way. Then, when Protestantism arose, there were slaughters among the various sects. Then the Dreyfus Affair came, and I do not have to go into detail about what has happened since then. 151, Legislation was enacted in most Western countries to guarantee the rights of the Jews. In fact, SO much legislation was enacted in Western countries that finally many were questioning not only whether the Jews had equal rights but whether they were also enjoying privileges as a minority, perhaps to atone for the persecution of the past ages in Europe. 152. But in our part of the world there was no such thing as persecution of the Jew on account of his religion. There may have been isolated cases in any country. For that matter the Jews belonged to the Sacred Book, as the Arabic expression goes. ,153. Whom do the Zionists of Eastern Europe think they are fooling? Zionism did not spring from amongst the Semitic Jews, and I do not know whether some of our Israeli colleagues are of Semitic origin or not, but I know a Semite when I see one. They came from Eastern Europe. There is nothing wrong in coming from Eastern Europe. But they were not Semites; they had a Semitic religion, A Scotsman who is a Christian is not a Semite, but he has a Semitic religion. A Sudanese who is black and who may be a Moslem and Arab at the same time is not a Semite. But he has a Semitic religion and so have these people of Eastern Europe. 154. Nobody begrudges the fact that they are Jews. On the contrary, we all believe that Judaism is one of the three noble monotheistic religions. 155. Where did Zionism spring up? From Old Jerusalem? Did it spring from Baghdad, Damascus, or Cairo, or Yemen? And, incidentally, the Jews in Yemen are pure Arabs who embraced Judaism when Jewish settlers happened to live amongst them; they embraced Judaism. No, Zionism sprang up in Europe, and this is an incursion, a European incursion, a colonial incursion, into the Middle East; and this is not the first incursion, Our Semitic area was invaded by the ancient Persians, who were not Semites; the ancient Greeks, who were not Semites-Alexander the Great; by the Romans, who were not Semites; and by the hordes of Crusaders, who were not Semites; and even by our co-religionists, the Moslem Ottomans, who were not Semites. And the last chapter of incursions is that of the non-Semitic Jew of Eastern Europe who, under the banner of Zionism rationalizes his right to Palestine. I do not have to mention this time and again. He said, “God gave us Palestine.” All right. In the Koran there is no mention of it. The Koran is a holy book, like the Bible. There is no 156. I have mentioned time and again-and I have to go through the genesis of the problem-that many of those who had lived in Palestine before the Zionist movement may have been Semitic Jews and were converted to Christianity and Islam. So, in effect, those Eastern European Jews who came under the banner of Zionism have used Judaism as a motivation for a political end. What have they done? When they kill and are being killed, they may kill those who were originally Jews-Semitic Jews. This is the genesis of the question. Mr. Balfour had no right to give away land that did not belong to him. He is dead now. Nor did Mr. Truman have any right to give away land that did not belong to him on humanitarian grounds. I read it from the rostrum of the United Nations from the memoirs of Mr. Truman. He said-and I am paraphrasing-“The Zionists bothered me so much that I had to get rid of them and give them Palestine.” And they come here and say: “The Arabs are aggressing against us and killing us.” 160. But I think that Zionists forget Judaism when they come with a sword, with deceit and duplicity, to chase out the indigenous people of Palestine-forget that they happen to be Arabs, that they happen to have been Arabized. I would like, across this table, to remind the Israeli representative of Micah the Prophet. The Israelis claim that they are imbued with religious sentiment. Their Government is secular, I have no doubt. But many Jews of Eastern Europe had no choice after the Second World War but to find a place of refuge, and this was accorded to them by the British and by Mr. Truman. I would like to remind the representative of Israel of the words of Micah the Prophet. I 157. Oh, I have heard it said, “Well, this is a fait accompli.” Many of my friends have told me-1 do not want to mention names-prominent friends in this country and other countries-“So what can you do? Israel is here to stay.” That is one opinion. They could have stayed as our brothers, being European Jews, if they had come to Palestine and lived side by side as we thought they would live because of their religious sentiment for the Holy Land. Their arguments in the past since the twenties have been threefold: first, “on historical grounds we should have Palestine”. I mentioned, and I repeat again, that Abraham, the prophet of us all in the area, came from Ur of the Chaldees. What would prevent the Israelis in the future from saying, “Since Abraham came from Ur of the Chaldees”-Ur of the Chaldees is in Mesopotamia, which is Iraq today-“we should have Iraq as well”? You have only to read Leonard C. Wooley, the archaeologist. He was a great British archaeologist who first revealed that Abraham may have lived in Ur of the Chaldees. know them by heart, but I had better read them from the Bible. This is from the Book of Micah, chapter 6, verse 8: “He hath shewed thee, 0 man, what is good; and what dot11 the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? ” 161. Does this apply to Israeli history since the Jews of Eastern Europe came, under the banner of Zionism, to colonize Palestine? 162. God Almighty is invisible. God Almighty, no doubt, has revealed himself through reformers. Many of them are still called prophets. It so happened that rn0s.t of the prophets of the three monotheistic religions sprang from the land of Palestine. They were truly Semitic prophets. But neither Islam nor Christianity, nor, for that matter, Judaism, consider God a discriminator. There is one sentence that has been misinterpreted by many Jews-and in fairness to them I must say that many Christians and many Moslems have also misinterpreted certain phraseology of the New Testament and of the Koran. Many of the fundamentalist Jews think that they are the “Chosen People” of God and that God has given them Palestine. This is their genuine belief because they are fundamentalists. There are fundamentalists in all religions, even, I believe, in the religions that are outside the pale of the monotheistic religions. I happened to be a humble student of comparative religions in my younger days. The fundamentalists truly believe in the letter. The liberals tell them “the letter killeth”, but they say that when there is a word, you should 158. The name “Jew” goes back to the fourth son of Jacob. He is also one of our patriarchs, because he is the patriarch of the area-not from Eastern Europe. There is nothing wrong in naming a sect after the son of a patriarch, like Buddhist, with reference to Buddha, Jew, with reference to Judah, the fourth son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham-patriarchs of the land, of the Semitic land, the land which, although it had Canaanites and Arameans and Arabs and so-called Jews, with reference to Judah-they are all Semites and brothers-not cousins, brothers. 159. Here come the converted Jews of Eastern Europe, with the banner of Zionism, and say “The Arabs are aggressing against our land.” The Eastern European Jews were converted in the seventh century. Go and consult the 163. We hear a colleague hailing from Israel saying: “YOU are aggressing against my people. You Arabs are aggressing against my people.” Now I come to the core of the matter: the series of incidents. If anybody robs a person of his house, his orchard, his land, whether he be Jew or Gentile, should he remain passive? The Palestinian people are a people and have a personality, and they have decided not to yield to any counsel. In fact, they would kill-and I know this to be true-even Arabs who would advise them to accept a fait accompli. They would call those Arabs who accept the jhit accompli traitors, inasmuch as in Europe those who accepted the fait accompli in the Second World War-without naming countries-were called traitors. 164. No Arab who is in high position dare confront the Palestinians and tell them to submit. In fact, he has no right to tell them. After all, so far at least, the Jews-the Zionists, rather-have not invaded other Arab countries. They are far from Libya, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Iraq. But the Arab people in all those countries-and I forgot Sudan-none of these Arab people, although they belong to different nationalities, have the right to tell the Palestinian “Forgo your land”, because we started by saying that sovereignty resides in a people, and the Palestinians are a people. Most of them are living in camps, many of them are dispersed. 165. Those who are dispersed are more dangerous than those who are living in camps, because they have become desperadoes, and one cannot blame them. There is rancour in their hearts, not against the Jew as such, but against the one who usurped their homeland and robbed them of their homes and dispersed their families, scattered them to all four comers of the world. Wherever one goes one finds bitter Palestinians. 166. What right have we in the United Nations to tell them, “Oh, never mind. Forget about your homeland. Forget your land, and come on now, live amongst us”. Suppose they do not want to live amongst us? Where are the fundamental human rights? A person wants to live wherever he wants to live. 167. The second argument used by the Zionists was that Palestine was given to them on humanitarian grounds because they had suffered in Europe. That is a hackneyed argument. If every suffering people should displace another people, God help us. 168. Then comes the question of guerrilla bands, They are Palestinians and those who are not Palestinians have 169. Organizations have been instituted, here in this country, to collect funds for Israel. The Arabs should have no sympathy with their Palestinian brothers? They have na right? Only the Jews should have sympathy? I do not blame the Jews. The Zionists play on their sentiments. But many Jews are loyal to their country ofbirth and adoption, as they should be. The French Jews--and I know many French Jews-are among the best Frenchmen. So are the American Jews I know. I am sure our colleague, Mr. Malik, can cite many good Russians who happen to be Jews, 170. To make a nationality out of a religion-we say it a hundred times-is theocracy, something of the past. If so, religions should be the foundations of States. There is no one Moslem State. There is no one Christian State. For those who do not believe in the traditional God-the communists-there is no one communisf. State; there are others. Ideology is something which is tantamount to belief, creed, or religion. Only the Zionists want all the Jews to be banded under the Zionist State. That is the idea. And how do we know that, little by littie, they will not nibble into the Arab countries-the Zionists--nibble into the other Arab countries, in order to find refuge for the Jews. But the Jews are prosperous abroad; they do not want to go there. That is all rationalisation. It is PISS&, as the French say, but Zionists still insist that Palestine is the homeland of the Jews, 171. The third argument is that Palestine is holy to the Jews. What about the holiness of Palestine to the Christians and to the Moslems? In fact, there is only the Wall, which is a relic allegedly of Solomon’s Tcmplc. I believe it was part of the stables of Solomon’s Temple, because the Temple was destroyed by the Remans. Mr. Tekoah knows that. The Wall, at least I was told by archaeologists-they are not politicians-years ago, before the partition of Palestine, that what is called the Wailing Wall was part of Solomon’s Temple. It is good to have religious sentiment and to go and wail at the Wall-there is nothing wrong with it. The Christians go and visit the Holy Sepulchre, the Moslems go to the Mosque of Al Aqsa-the land is holy to all these faiths. 172. Now here in the United Nations we go by what are called democratic principles and take democratic procedures as a basis for our action in the United Nations. I am told there are 16 million Jews in the world. There are over 1 billion Christians, and there are 600 million or so Moslems. Why should the Zionists claim Palestine because of its holiness to them, and the Christians and the Moslems not claim it for its holiness to them? Really, the Christians 174. Of course this argument is invalid; it does not hold water. And, more particularly, I want to mention something about Jerusalem, and I know what the Saudi Arabian people think about what has happened about Jerusalem. Under no circumstances will the Saudi Arabians accept the Zionist domination of Jerusalem and-while I do not represent other Arab States, this is my understanding, and I am saying it informally-no Moslem State will ultimately give in to the domination of Jerusalem by the Zionists; I am not saying by the Jews, but by the Zionists, for Zionism is a political movement. 175. I come to the conclusion of my statement. What should we do? Have other meetings of the Security Council? Interminable meetings. This thing would go on. The Palestinians will come stealthily into, their homeland, because ‘they are weaker, and they will do what other weak People resort to: they have to kill. It is deplorable. Probably they are innocent, because they are frenzied with their love of their country, and the people whom they kill inside Palestine-to which Israel lays a claim which is invalid, as I have said many times-those so-called Israelis are probably innocent too. 176. One day there will be an upheaval-perhaps not in my lifetime, I do not know when it will happen although many things may occur to change the picture: balance of power, power politics, spheres of influence; I do not have to go into the interplay of forces that may sometimes destroy not only a region but the whole world in our era. 177. DO you know, the first people to give their heels to the air would be the politicians and the rulers. I have seen it time and again. They get off Scot-free and the people who suffer would be the Jews, the innocent Jewish people, and the innocent Arab people. The rulers will vanish. They did vanish, many of them I saw them in Western Europe in the thirties. I spoke to them when they left Germany, Who remained in Germany to be persecuted? The poor stayed there, the poor cobbler, the delicatessen man, who became victims of Hitler and the Nazis. 178. There are 100 million Arabs in the area, from the Atlantic to the frontiers of Iran, down deep into Africa to the Sudan. The whole fertile crescent is Arab. It so happens they were not born Arabs; they were “Arabized”, not by force or coercion, by choice. There is resiliency in Arabism. Empires have come and empires have gone. The Arabs had their own empire and it crumbled like other empires-and perhaps rightly so. 179. The Arab people multiplied because of their culture, because of their language, because of their poetry, because of their tradition, because of their customs, because of their chivalry. These are the qualities that make the Arab proud to be an Arab. No more his m&h!, although he talks of past glories, it is the culture, the language, things of the spirit. Arabs may fight amongst themselves but when one apostro- 181. Judaism is a religion, but it is diversified in cultures, otherwise there would not be Yiddish. I have seen Jews who have evolved a sort of European literature of their own, and we have Jews who recite Arab poetry, which is their own-Arab Jews. Arabism will never die so long as mankind does not commit suicide. 182. So I advise-and I should not use the word “advise”, because any advice that is proffered and is not asked for is usually rejected-but I, as a human being, warn the Israelis. I warn them as human beings, too, that there will be a day of reckoning, which will be deplorable. 183. The empires that were built in the Arab lands have crumbled into ashes. Archaeologists go and examine the strata of the fertile crescent to see to what civilization this stratum belongs and to what stratum another civilization belongs. But where are they now? Where are the Greeks of Alexander the Great? Where are the Romans? Where are the Crusaders? Where are the Ottomans? They do not exist any more. 184. Is there not a lesson for those Zionists of Eastern Europe, that their fate is written on the wall? Unless mankind commits suicide, then we are all in the same boat. 185, I have craved the indulgence again of the President of the Security Council, as well as the members sitting around this table, with no other motive other than humanitarian. The only solution to this question is not by submitting new resolutions. It is, I hope, not in the near future, but some time in the future, that the Eastern European Zionists will come to their senses and not be enamored of their military prowess, which is in contravention of the highest principles of Judaism, whose God is a God of mercy, of love and of compassion, leave aside the quotation I have cited from the Prophet Micah. 186. I could cite no end from the Bible to show that Judaism does not thrive, except on mercy, love and compassion. The Eastern European Zionists come with the sword to chase the indigenous people-who may originally even have been Jews-out of the land, and we sit here dabbling in words, stringing together all kinds of phrases, hoping that a solution can ultimately be found. 187. There is no solution to that question unless the Zionists finally come to their senses and live in the State of 188. Before ending, I should like to quote from Exodus 20:.17-and this I address to the Israelis around this table. I shall not quote the whole thing, but its essence will become evident. These are the words of Moses. Incidentally, the wife of Moses was a Midianite-a Semite-and the word from which the word Jehovah is derived is the name of the God of the Midianites, which symbolized the one God. So even Jehovah happens to be a word of Semitic origin and did not come out or ,..e Balkans. “Thou shalt not covet thy Litho in United Nations, New York Erice: $U.S. 0.50 (or equivalent in other currencies) 35639-October 1972-2.0~:

I wish to thank the representntkza of Syria, Denmark, Hungary, Senegal and Saudi Arabia TV: the kind and generous words of welcome they exte&? to me. The meeting rose at 6.45 p.m.