S/PV.1438 Security Council

In accordance with decisions previously taken by the Security Council, I propose to invite the representatives of Jordan, Israel, the United Arab Republic, Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia to participate in the discussion without the right to vote. At the invitation of the President, Mr. M. El-Farra (Jordan) and Mr. Y. Tekoah (Israel) took places at the Security Council table, and Mr. M. El Kony (United Arab Republic), Mr. A, Pachachi (Iraq), Mr. G. Tomeh (Syria) and Mr. J. Baroody (Saudi Arabia) took the places reserved for them at the side of the Couixil chamber.

I call on the representative of Jordan.

The Israeli representative has repeatedly alleged that their military operations and air attacks were aimed at and confined to what he called “the terrorist bases” and that “our forces did not bomb civilian installations”. But no matter how ‘many times Mr. Tekoah repeats the same allegations, he is not,able to conceal the truth. Both attacks, on Irbid and Salt, were aimed at the civilian population, their farms and farming equipment. The attacks on the civilians were not accidental; the motives of the Israelis can be ascertained from their own utterances. The following are bui some examples. 4. Ha Tsofeh, an Israeli newspaper, reported on 5 August 1968 that “the leaders of Jordan must understand that unless they bring about a drastic change in their policies, tragedies and calamities will be brought upon Jordan and upon its people.” 5, Ha Aretz, another Israeli newspaper, stated on 5 August 1968-that is, one day after the Israeli attack on Salt: “Israel did not attack the Jordanian military positions in the raid of yesterday. However, the Jordanian authorities, who must 1,earn the truth of Israel’s pronouncements, should take the raids as a warning and an ultimatum,” 6. According to The New York Times of 6 August 1968, an Israeli official was reported as saying: “We realize that the saboteurs themselves are nearly all Syrians and Egyptians”-which is not true-“but what puzzles us is why Hussein gives them the support he does, He must know by now that he will be the one to pay the consequences.” 7. The following day, 7 August, Mr. Eshkol warned the Arabs: “the enemy will be made to pay the price in full.” This was also quoted yesterday in The New York Times. 8. The Christian Science Monitor of 14 June reported the following: “Israel Defence Minister Moshe Dayan was quoted by news agencies as having told the Israel Knesset, or Parliament, on 12 June, ‘we will do everything possible to destroy the influence of the Hashemite King of Transjordan.’ ” Mr. Dayan certainly knows that Jordannot Transjordan-is the name which comprises both the west and the east Bank, 9. Describing what happened to the Jordan Valley after the Israeli attack on the city of Irbid, Mr. John Cooley, “Since last winter’s fighting in the Valley and especially since the nine-hour artillery duel and Israeli air attacks on June 4, Shunah is a desolate, nearly deserted place. Like the Jordan Valley towns and hamlets, its peoples have contributed to the flow of about 35,000 additional refugees driven east. Every building in Shunah appears to have suffered hits from shelling and air strafing. On June 4, anti-personnel bombs landed, throwing steel fragments in all directions. They caused casualties here and in the larger city of Irbid.” 10. Mr. Dayan, only thirty-eight days before bombing Irbid, said: “The Jordan Valley will turn into a battlefield and there will not be room there for civilian life.” Sure enough, after the bombing of Irbid and the burning of the crops in the Jordan Valley, Mr. Dayan’s sinister statement to end farming in the Jordan Valley was fulfilled. 11. When Mr, Dayan visited the towns of Ramallah and El-Bira only last Wednesday-Wednesday of last week, 7 August-the Mayor of El-Bira asked him permission for the villagers of Zeita, Beit Nuba and Yalu to go back to their lands and rebuild their villages, which had been razed to the ground immediately after your cease-fire resolution. This was the subject of my letter of 18 June 1968 [S/8642]. Mr. Dayan said : No. We will resettle them elsewhere if they want, but to rebuild their villages on their original lands in Latrun, never. He then added that if they chose to adopt the position of refugees-which of course they did not-then their problem would be the affair of the United Nations. I am quoting from Z%e Jerusalem Post of 9 August 1968. 12. These are but some quotations. One cannot now but wonder at how Mr. Tekoah will explain to the Council the following details of the air attacks of 4 August 1968: (a) The bombing of a public works camp, causing serious injuries to the laborers in the camp; (b) The bombing of coffee shops in the Wadi Sho’aib area; (c) The bombing of the workers of the Ministry of Communications engaged in repairing the telephone lines, injuring seven of them; (d) The bombing of farmers and the burning of their crops and over 1,000 olive trees by napalm bombs; (e) The bombing of trucks carrying crops from the fields; (f) The bombing of men, women and children in the suburbs of Salt, causing the death of many. I will mention just a few names of those innocent victims of the Israeli raids: Mr. Thafir Said Dawood, who is a member of the Salt municipal council; Mr. Hashim Fareed Ja’afran Hadidi, (h) How does he justify and explain the use of napalm bombs in most of these attacks? 13. These are but a few examples of what our civilians were subjected to as a result of the Israeli air attacks against our farmers and innocent civilians. The pictures presented in document S/8739 of 9 August show beyond doubt that Mr. Tekoah, through his statements, intended with malice to mislead the Council. His contemptuous attitude is very clear, He has not said anything so far about the use of napalm against innocent men, women and children, However, and in order to put an end to Israeli distortions and allegations, the President of the Red Crescent in Jordan has already invited the International Red Cross in Geneva to send representatives to Amman to see for themselves the brutality of the Israeli crimes. Right now, while I am speaking here, a representative of the Red Cross in Amman is visiting fields and hospitals, talking to victims and seeing for himself the extent of the casualties and damage caused by the destructive weapons and napalm bombs. 14. I now turn to the Israeli allegations about El-Fatah and the so-called role of Jordan and other Arab countries vis-a-vis this Organization. On 5 August, Mr. Tekoah said: “Jordan became the principal base for continued Arab aggression against Israel. Special military camps were established to train saboteurs. Recruiting centres were opened in Amman. Officers and men of regular Egyptian and Syrian army units were transferred to Jordan and assigned to terror operations. Iraqi troops, openly supporting and participating in the continuation of warfare against Israel, were given the free run of the country.” [1434th meeting, para. 65.1 15. I am instructed by my Government to state the following points in regard to these malicious Israeli allegations: first, no centres for recruitment were ever opened in Amman; secondly, the Jordanian Government does not know of any bases of fedaveen, and the Israeli allegations that there are special training camps have no foundation whatsoever; thirdly, the Iraqi army units are in Jordan for defensive purposes against any Israeli aggression, and they do not help or train fedayeen; fourthly, the Jordanian Government categorically denies the Israeli allegation that there is a co-ordination among the Governments of Jordan, the United Arab Republic, Syria and Iraq, on the one hand, and the fedayeen, on the other, 16. In an attempt to confuse the issue further, Mr. Tekoah alleged that an Iraqi officer of El-Fatah was killed and buried in Iraq. This again is not true, There are no Iraqi officers in El-Fatah. The one buried in Iraq is a Palestinian engineer. His name is Oman Ali ElSaratawi; he is the son of Ah Saratawi, a well-known Palestinian educator who was expelled from Palestine in 1948 and who resided in Iraq. 18. During the last meeting, Mr. Tekoah said that the Arab States have disregarded the United Nations resolutions and world opinion. It is common knowledge now that it was Israel that defied every United Nations resolution for the last twenty years. Today it is Israel which is refusing to heed the’ General Assembly and Security Council resolutions vis-a-vis Jerusalem, the last of which was taken by this Council in May [resolution 252(19&t?)], with thirteen votes in favour and only the United States and Canada abstaining. It is Israel which is refusing to implement Security Council resolution 237 (1967), requesting the return of the inhabitants expelled or having fled as a result of last June’s hostilities. Only last Wednesday, Mr. Dayan said that they would not accept the inhabitants and that Israel would not permit the return of war refugees because the Israeli Government’s position was that this was a matter to be discussed at a Conference table. Above all, it is Israel which is, to this very minute, refusing to announce without reservation the acceptance of the November resolution and its implementation. 19. There is a new generation, especially among intellectuals in Israel, who feel that they were born to be the victims of the arrogance of the Zionists for the last twenty years. This generation wants genuine peace in a world of “togetherness”. They have had enough of the Zionist blind dogma aiming at wars and expansions. They are fed up with being taught hatred every day ‘and with discrimination between Jews and Gentiles. They are people of a new generation who want peace, genuine peace, but their voice is still not heard. Eventually their voice of reason will prevail over Mr. Tekoah’s voice of hatred, the voice with which he has repeatedly preached in this Council. Mr. Tekoah’s reasoning and Hitlerite utterances fit into the era of racism, of the supremacy of certain races. His voice here in the Council is identical with those of South Africa and Rhodesia. Those voices, whether from Africa cr from West Asia, do not fit into the spirit of today, and surely not the world of tomorrow. 20. I have taken a great deal of the Council’s time in explaining Israel’s aggression. In the present case, I wish to underline that there are two aggressions: one against Irbid in June, and one against Salt in August, and we expect a remedy applying to both aggressions, not one. 21. It is over a week now since I brought this question before the Security Council. We hope therefore that adequate action will be taken by the Council with no further delay. We agree that the bigger the Power the bigger the responsibility. We want the big Powers-all of them-to play their parts, their constructive parts, guided by the Charter, We expect them-all of them-to take a firm stand on the contemptuous attitude of Israel. We appeal to

I call on the representative of Israel.

There are many truths which the ancients recognized. Tacitus said: “It is human to hate those whom we have injured.” Again the Security Council has been treated to the same spectacle. The aggressor comes before the Council to complain about the consequences of his aggression, The United Nations cannot serve as an insurance company, reimbursing States for damage they incur in waging war in contravention of the Charter. Indeed war brings about suffering, damage and casualties. There is one way, and one way only, to put an end to this tragedy. The war must stop, not be pursued in defiance of the entire world. 24. I see no reason why one should give more credence to the partisan fabrications of the Jordanian representative concerning the action of 4 August than to eye-witness accounts. At the previous meeting I brought evidence from such Arab eye-witnesses and from other Arab sources proving that of the thirty-four killed in the action, as reported by Mr. El-Farra himself, all were either El-Fatah members or military personnel. Today I should like to add the following description dispatched from Beirut and published in The Daily Telegraph of 8 August: “British university students, including girls, watched unharmed as Jordanian anti-aircraft guns Bred at the Israeli planes over the east bank of the river Jordan.” Surely t!le airplanes were not instructed to draw a distinction between civilians of different nationalities on the ground. They were ordered not to strike at civilians in general, whether Jordanians or others. The report in The Daily Telegraph from Beirut continues: “The Israeli planes bombed two bases said to be used by the El-Fatah. One base was believed to be the guerrillas’ main training camp, the other their headquarters.” 25. Rarely have controversy and acrimony raged with greater frenzy than during our present deliberations. Rarely has Arab intransigence been so dramatically underscored and implacability of disagreement so overwhelmingly expressed. Yet not even the wildest flights of hatred, not even the most extreme dialectical distortions, have obscured or questioned the central element of the present situation-the cease-fire. In fact the only agreement visible at present is the agreement on the existence of the cease-fire. It is with special care that we must all address ourselves to this element, the sole mutually accepted and binding common denominator without which there would be nothing left but chaos, 26. The cease-fire was meant to bring the hostilities between the parties to an end, It is clear that the continuation of hostilities, under any guise whatever, is a violation of the cease-fire, It is clear that the Security Council cannot countenance such violations, as it could not have countenanced violations of the armistice or the truce in the past. 28. How directly and how deeply the Jordanian ,Government is involved in the terror warfare ‘against Israel is illustrated in the following confidential information which my Government has decided to release. 29. The Jordanian authorities do not limit themselves to general support of the terror operations. The Jordanian authorities participate directly in the terror operations. There is full operationalco-ordination between the Jordanian Army and the raider commandos to prevent clashes as a result of mistaken identity. For that purpose the commandos are given special guidance concerning the location of Jordanian minefields on the east bank and of Jordanian Army ambushes: The Jordanian Army command has issued instructions to its forces to assist the ‘raider units in determining the best timing and route for crossing the cease-fire line. The raider units receive from the Jordanian Army military intelligence information about Israeli minefields, defence installations, patrols and posts. It is from Jordanian military observation posts that they reconnoitre the area into which they plan to penetrate. They are given passwords to be,used by them and by the Jordanian Army patrols in the area. In case of encounters with Israeli forces, they are given covering fire by Jordanian regular forces. In certain parts of Jordan road-blocks are manned jointly by soldiers and armed members of the terror organizations. Such road-blocks can be traversed only by holders of El-Fatah permits. 30. It is to be observed that the Syrian-Jordanian frontier is now open to all who possess El-Fatah cards. These are officially recognized as entry permits by Jordanian border guards. 31. A supreme co-ordination committee of the Jordanian Army and the terror organizations has been recently established. 32. ,It is interesting that the El-Fatah commander of the Salt area, Faiz Mahmoud Hamdan, known also as Riad Khaled, killed in the air action of 4 August, was an officer of the Jordanian Army and served as a liaison official between the Fatah command and the Headquarters of the Jordanian Army. Major Hamdan was the deputy of the Fatah commander, Yasser Arafat. He assisted the commandos while still an officer in the Jordanian Army, from which he was transferred to the Fatah. In September 1967 he was responsible for training saboteurs in their Al-Hamma central camp near Damascus. In January 1968 he went to Aqaba with a group of saboteurs and organized actions in the Eilat area in co-operation with soldiers of the 14Ist Egyptian Commando Battalion. The following month he went to Karameh, which was then the central base, and 33. He planned sabotage actions and when the Fatal-r commander was absent made decisions in his place. Arms and explosive materials were distributed under his direction, 34. Together with Arafat, the Fatah commander, he briefed the saboteurs before they went on a raid. In incursions which were considered especially important, he accompanied the commandos to the River Jordan, waiting there until morning for their return. 35. He left Karameh a day before the Israel Army action there last 21 March. 36. In the light of this reality the fantasies about the nature of the terror operations to which Arab representatives and their supporters have subjected the Security Council are utterly ridiculous. 37. The raiders are well-trained military commandos, sometimes of Egyptian, Syrian and Iraqi origin, frequently transferred to terror operations from the regular armies of the Arab States. They do not operate from within the territories under Israel control but come from the outside. They never venture far from the cease-fire line so as to be able to return immediately and to take refuge in Arabcontrolled territory. 38. These organizations are artificially maintained and encouraged by the Arab Governments, an expression of the unabated belligerency of these Governments, a creation that would crumble the moment the Arab Governments take one simple step-abide by their cease-fire obligations. 39. Try it and let the world know. Observe the cease-fire; just stop organizing, training, arming, financing the terror organizations in defiance of the cease-fire and terror warfare will end, It will end because the people do not want it, they are weary of war, they want peace. The ones who want war are the Arab Governments. To them the people do not matter, their interests do not count. To them continued bloodshed is of no consequence. To them, it is of no significance that the relations between Israelis and Arabs on the west bank, for instance, have brought us the closest to understanding and co-operation between the two peoples since 1948. To them it is still war for war’s sake, not the search for peace but the justification of war and the exaltation of murder. 40. Murder it is-cowardly, contemptible. The entire world knows it and stands aghast. With so much responsibility for the tragedies that have befalIen the Arab peoples, will the Arab Governments now bring about the spiritual catastrophe of their nations by glorifying the kiher in the dark, the thug who places button-shaped mines in school-yards, the murderer who opens fire on sleeping villages and lays mines without knowing or caring who his victims might be? Is this what the Arab Governments want to be known as patriotism, as heroism? 43. The venerable Rene Cassin, an authority on international law, one of the world’s greatest figures in the fight for human rights and France’s representative in the Human Rights Commission, wrote on 8 August 1968 in the Nice Matin about our present deliberations: “Since the cease-fire order issued by the Security Council in June 1967 to all the belligerent parties in the Middle East, the political world has forgotten or pretends to have forgotten one of the surest principles of international law-namely, that the obligation of one party to observe the cease-fire is reciprocal to, and inseparable from, the other party’s obligation to do the same. Clearly, when the Jordanian Government assumed the obligation to cease-fire-after being the first to open fire at Jerusalem-it did so not only in respect of its regular forces but for all the irregular non-Jordanian forces which it had allowed to settle on its territory not far from the capital. Is it not obviously failing to fulfil this obligation when it gives the members of El-Fatab all kinds of facilities for crossing the cease-fire lines, and also provides them with military support instead of using its regular forces to prevent expeditions into Israel? “The question which arises, not only for the members of the Security Council but also for the conscience of all men and all peoples, is this: when a cease-fire is ordered by the international authority, is it right to ask only one party to observe the cease-fire, and to let the other party violate it with impunity? Can we confine the blame to the party which takes reprisals, and exonerate the party which struck the first blow? “No! There is no obligation to keep faith with some one who breaks his own. It is this principle of the indivisibility of joint commitments and bilateral agreements which is upheld by the laws and courts of all countries in disputes between private parties. The international Conference which met at Vienna this year to codify the law of treaties also upholds this tradition. “What can we conclude from all this? That the cease-fire obligation binding Israel is void, since its neighbours have violated it. It is suspended to the extent necessary to put an end to the undeniable violations committed by Israel’s neighbours: violent reactions are legitimate, Israel has a right to the same treatment as the other belligerents. “A unilateral condemnation of the party against which the cease-fire is frequently violated would be iniquitous. It must be remembered that when Israel-which had not retaliated-complained in November 1966 that its farmers had been shelled by the artillery at Golan, the Security Council, by its failure to take action, precipitated the events which led to the war of June 1967. It should now 45. When Jordanian policies and actions become compatible with the cease-fire, warfare by terror,will end and the parties will be able to devote their efforts to the search for peaceful agreement.

I call on the representative of Jordan in exercise of his right of reply. 47. Mr. EL-FARRA: Certain points raised this afternoon by Mr. Tekoah call for an answer. Mr. Tekoah referred to a cease-fire agreement. He said that the cease-fire is the only agreement visible. I do not know of any agreement between Jordan and Israel called a cease-fire. I know that there is a decision that was taken by the Security Council, We are abiding by the letter and the spirit of the decision calling for a cease-fire. 48. But I know of one international agreement-which is still valid and which continues to be legal and bindingrejected by Israel: it is the Mixed Armistice Agreement which created the armistice machinery. This is the only agreement which is binding on Israel and on Jordan, and it is defied and violated by Israel, despite the fact that United Nations jurisprudence continues to reiterate that this international agreement is binding. 49. Mr, Tekoah referred to confidential information. This is something to attract the’ attention of the Security Council-“confidential information”, Then he started citing the very same argument, the very same claims which were mentioned earlier without this headline “confidential information”. One of the points raised was that of the British students who are now working in the Jordan Valley. We have 150 students from Western Europe trying to help in reconstructing what the Israelis destroyed. He said that the British students-I do not have his exact words-watched unharmed the Israeli action against the terrorist bases. If that is part of the confidential information, it is false. I can prove this by referring to Mr. Tekosh’s source, the Jewish Chronicle. This is what it said: “Seventy-four British students are among the 150 students from Western Europe working during their vacation in the Jordan Valley. According to Agency reports, they heard”-they did not watch; they heard; and this is a Jewish source, the Jewish Chronicle of London-“they heard Israel’s attacks on El-Fatah bases on Sunday but did not see them.” That was the information quoted-I should say misquoted-in the Council. 50. I need not dwell on any point referred to as coming under “confidential information”, because the Israelis, with their history, their past, are not in a position to claim that 1 Quoted in French by the speaker. 51. Referen,ce was made to El-Fatah and to the obligation of Jordan under the cease-fire. I say, and repeat and reiterate: we are bound by the cease-fire; we are not violating the cease-fire; we shall continue to abide by the resolution calling for a cease-fire. But, with all due respect, we cannot be held responsible for the security of Israel; we cannot be held responsible for the rise of liberation movements, be it El-Fatal-i, El-Jabha, or otherwise. Nor is it the responsibility of Jordan-let me make this very clear-to protect the Israeli aggression and continued occupation of our Arab territo,ries. This is not the responsibility of Jordan under the cease-fire resolution, 52. Mr. Tekoah has deemed fit, at almost every single meeting you have been kind enough to convene, Mr. President, to refer to the organizations carrying out resistance as “terrorists”. He was able to have three members make that reference: the United States, China, and I will be in a position later to verify the third member in the Council. Out of fifteen he was able to have three members use that term. But Israel, the United States and China have an ,authority which disagrees with all three of them. I am referring to Mr. Dayan himself, the Minister of Defence of Israel. Mr. Dayan, on 28 June 1968, drew a comparison-I regret to quote this, but Mr. Tekoah asked for it-between the conflict in Vietnam and the conflict in our area. 53. I need not say that Mr. Dayan himself is the one who was inspired to bomb the north of Jordan; it was Mr. Dayan’s idea; to kill and murder by bombing was Mr. Dayan’s idea, and his specific instruction. But the point I.am driving at now at this stage is that Mr. Dayan made a comparison between Vietnam and what is going on in the area. He referred to the guerrilla warfare ln our area as “a war of liberation”, 54. Need I remind Mr. Tekoah of the attempt by the Director of the Israeli Radio-and the radio station there is government controlled-to censure and suppress that part of the speech of Mr. Dayan on the grounds that it was a revolt against the definition they wanted to convey to the world, the definition Mr. Tekoah keeps repeating? But after the objection of Dayan the same definition went on the air. 5.5. I hate to detain the Council, but these fabrications and distortions should be answered. When the Israeli representative speaks about violation of the cease-fire, who is violating it-the one who is bulldozing houses and shrines in the Old City of Jerusalem, or the one who is reacting? The one who is arbitrarily arresting people, putting them in jail, torturing them, or the one who is reacting? I think it will

I now recognize the representative of Algeria on a point of order.

As you know, Mr. President, consultations have beer going on simultaneously with the public debate in this Council. I am certain that, in expressing the feelings of the Algerian delegation I am also to a great extent expressing those of most, if not all, members of the Council who hope our work will lead to the desired results as soon as possible, 59. My delegation therefore considers it advisable and appropriate that the members of the Council should be given time to enable them to resume these consultations as actively as possible. To this end my delegation would Iike to propose to the Council, through you, Mr. President, that the meeting be suspended so that these consultations may be continued.

The representative of Algeria has proposed that this meeting be suspended, and, according to rule 33 of the provisional rules of procedure, any motion for the suspension of a meeting will be decided without debate. 61. Is there any objection to the suspension of the meeting for, say, half an hour? Would the representative of Algeria agree to a suspension for half an hour?

I did not specify the length of the suspension because, as we all know, half-hour suspensions in the Security Council may last longer than thirty minutes.

As I hear no objection, the meeting is therefore suspended for at least half an hour. The meeting was suspended at 4.35p.m. and resumed at 6.5 p.m.

The representative of Saudi Arabia has expressed his desire to address the Council.

Thank you, Mr. President, for giving me permission to speak at this late hour, and I can assure you that I will not take more time than the consultations have already taken. 66. Although most representatives at the United Nations are not policy-makers and must ultimately wear the strait jacket of instructions issued by their respective Govern. ments, the diplomats of this Organization are not required O~Y to be a sounding-board of Member States serving their 67. It is such hackneyed phrases as “Politics is the art of compromise” which may work for a while, perhaps on the domestic scene. But in international affairs we have found that there can be no compromise with justice. Solutions in the United Nations should not be based on compromise whenever the Charter is compromised. Once we corn. promise the Charter, we are bound to fail in our purpose of achieving world peace. 68. As an observer of the activities of the League of Nations in Western Europe in the decade before the Second World War-more precisely, between 1929 and 1939-I can vouch, like many others who lived in that era, that the League of Nations, in opting for the slogan of politics as being the art of compromise, failed to preserve world peace. I am afraid that we may be repeating the same mistake here in the Council. We should not attempt to compromise the Charter time and again with impunity. 69. Many of those sitting around this table who have not known me might say, “What does this have to do with the item before us? ” I mentioned in my last statement that without going to the genesis of the problem we can get nowhere. Any argument that is based on a false premise is bound to totter in the long run. 70. I have been addressing myself to this Palestine question since 1947, and, as I said the last time I addressed the Council, were I to repeat what others and I have said we would find that we are-to use an American phraserehashing the same old arguments. But I will not cite from speeches as far back as 1947. I have to be considerate to the members of the Council as the hour is late and many of them must have engagements for the evening. However, it was on 4 April 1968 in this very Council that I said the following : “ . . * what is the use of coming here and quibbling over texts and interpretations? Is there no way out of this difficulty? Shall we spend another twenty years-if this Organization survives-in such meetings, listening to incriminations and accusations which would be difficult to substantiate in fairness to one side or the other in all objectivity? Shall we go on arguing over who is to blame and who is not to blame, over what is a terrorist and who is a freedom-fighter, and giving definitions, each one subjectively interpreting certain words in accordance with the policy of his Government or whatever his desires may be? If so, there will be no end to it, This thing will be under review, I am sure, till the end of the year, and then there will be other meetings and other incidents”. [1412th meeting, para. 101.1 71. I hope I will not tax the patience of the Council if I read a quotation from what I said on 24 March in this Council : “But time and again here in this Council-and the whole resolution revolves around this question as being a I also stated at that same meeting: “I do not speak from hatred. The Arabs do not hate the Jews, and we will repeat this a thousand times. Jews fared well in Arab lands when Arabs were in their glory. Even when the Arabs were trodden down they never molested the Jews. It is you Westerri people now-perhaps out of a guilty conscience, I do not know-who are trying to say, let us boost Israel. At whose expense? At your expense? At somebody else’s expense? What right have you to establish an enclave there? “-meaning in Palestine.-“It is just for your economic rights”-or for what other reason. “You do not fool us . . .“[ibid., para. 2011. 72, Israel is a wedge in the heart of the Arab world. Far be it from me to tell this Council now “I told you so” and this is what is happening. But 1 could not remain silent as an Arab when I heard Mr. Tekoah say that all along the Arabs have been aggressors. Again, need I tell you that before the Balfour Declaration the Palestinians comprised 94 per cent Arabs and only 6 per cent Jews? What happened in Versailles when the late Mr. Wilson, the then President of the United States, enunciated the principle of the selfdetermination of peoples and nations? He was molested by the then so-called allies and he was asked notwithstanding the sacrifices of the United States, to go back home empty-handed. It was not because an uncle of our erstwhile colleague, Henry Cabot Lodge, who served the United Nations, was not, as has been mentioned by some historians, taken along by Mr. Wilson to the Versailles Conference that the United States did not join the League of Nations. It was because it dawned upon the United States of that era that instead of liberating the countries and the lands that were under the domination of the enemy they were partitioned into mandates which were colonies in disguise-and Palestine was one of those mandates. 73. Mr, Wilson returned to the United States a broken man and the United States kept aloof from the League of Nations, Here we come to the crux of the question and I am answering Mr, Tekoah across the table. The principle of self-determination was thrust to the wind. Why? There are many factors that make up the picture, but I am not going to enumerate all of them. It was because of the pressure that the Zionists brought to bear on the United Kingdom, by which they obtained the Balfour Declaration. The price was the entry into the First World War of the United States, brought about by the influential Zionists in the United States. That is one of the causes, inter al/a. 74. Where was the principle of self-determination? Was it observed? No, Sir. One would say that Governments big and small can make mistakes. Then we come to 1945. I happened to be in San Francisco when the Charter was finalized. I do not have a copy of the Charter with me, but you know that in the preamble the principle of self- 75. The Supreme Court in Member States is the guardian of the Constitution-not the politicians. The trouble with the world nowadays is that we have too many politicans and very few statesmen. 76. Then, how can the Palestinian people be considered as having aggressed against the Eastern European Jews who held the banner of Zionism? As I have mentioned time and again, Zionism was not Eastern-or rather, not Oriental, so as not to have any confusion between the Jews of Eastern Europe and the Jews of our area. The Zionist movement was not initiated by any Oriental Jew. 77. Why do I go as far back as the Versailles Treaty? Well, without saying it, all the premises of Mr. Tekoah are based on biblical grounds going back thousands of years; so I may be permitted to say that if I go back to the Versailles Treaty or to the Versailles Conference it is to show YOU that the Charter was infringed upon and that the Palestinian people cannot be deemed aggressors, but as having been aggressed against-by the Allies, to begin with, and subscquently, by the Eastern European Zionists. 78. As I said during my last statement any syllogism based on a false premise falls down. But I would not have spoken today had it not been that I was deeply touched, and I regret to say in an adverse manner, by the quotation taken by Mr. Tekoah from a French newspaper, from an article by none other than Mr. Rend Cassin, with whom I worked in the United Nations from its inception, or more precisely from 1947, at Lake Success. Mr. Cassin is still active, still being sent here once in a while to conferences like the one held in Teheran, which I was supposed to attend, and would have attended were it not for an ailment that kept me from it. I have known Mr. Cassin since 1947, and when some of my colleagues and myself found how the United Nations Charter was infringed upon in that the principle of self-determination was cast to the four winds, we got together and began to think about how we could enunciate the principle of the self-determination of peoples and nations into a right. That was immediately after the partition of Palestine and the proclamation of Israel in 1948. It took us eight years to elaborate that right because of the opposition we encountered in the United Nations, None other than Mr. Cassin in the Third Committee at that time-and, I remember, in 195 1, during the session we had at the Palais de Chaillot in Paris, that he, with another friend of mine, Sir Samuel Hoare of the United Kingdom, as illustrious as Mr. Cassin and Mrs. Roosevelt in the Third Committee of the United Nations declared that you cannot evolve this principle into a right. They claimed it was a vague principle. In fairness to France, France watched from the sidelines; and I had a colleague, who happened to be a 79. But in fairness to the French, at the height of the Algerian war, when armies, like any other army for that matter, were going into excesses, the voice of the French was raised high against their own Government for the maltreatment of the so-called terrorists. The Algerians are represented today by one of the illustrious young men of that country, none other than Mr. Bouattoura. They were terrorists then, but it took a great man like de Gaulle finally to recognize that they were patriots fighting for their country. 80. What is the difference between the Palestinians and the Algerians, for that matter? Are they a different breed of people? They are fighting for their freedom. What right have we representatives of Arab Governments to tell them, “No, you have no right to fight to retrieve your homeland”? 81. AS I have said time and again, we would be considered traitors and those of us who counsel too much patience and peace might be shot. I know what I am talking about, and I tell you we might be shot. 82. In order to suit the State of Israel, the leaders of the countries contiguous to Israel should sign away the right of the Palestinian people to their land, and their right to self-determination, elaborated and enunciated as a right and enshrined in the Charter, should be neglected. 83. Who is the aggressor? When we go back to the genesis of the whole question, we know who the aggressor is. Time and again, I say, we felt, all of us, sorry for the persecution of the Jews in Europe, especially during the Second World War. We deplored it. Many of us wrote ‘articles about it-and I do not want to take credit for what I said about it. But that did not mean that a people who had been persecuted should replace another people.,For the Charter happened to be compromised, and we, here in the United Nations-not in our collectivity but in our contrived majority-abetted this in order to pave the way for the creation of a usurper State. 84. On almost every occasion when I met a Zionist in prewar days I told him, “You will not have a chance in the 85. Palestine, by the way, is not my country. Some people here have thought I am a Palestinian. I think Sam Brewer of The New York Times thought I was a Palestinian. But every Arab becomes a Palestinian when he finds that his fellow Arabs are being trodden underfoot. We may fight amongst ourselves, just as many other people fight. You sometimes fight, brothers under the same roof sometimes fight each other. However, this is not a question of Arab solidarity against the Jews; this is Arab solidarity against an incursion of Eastern European nationals. They were nationals of States who, under the banner of Zionism, established themselves in Palestine by force when they were a minority. By what yardstick of justice can we, here in the United Nations repeat the errors of the League of Nations? And the tragedy of it all is that the Zionists ‘are being pampered by certain States, and protected and helped and assisted. Why? Because there happen to be Zionists in the bodies political and social of certain States sitting around this table. 86. I am sure Mr. Cassin is not speaking on behalf of his Government. I would be surprised if he were. I know Mr. Cassin. I know his antecedents also. He held many important posts, and we all know, those of us who are familiar with Mr. Cassin’s career, that during the Second World War he was Commissioner of Education in the French Government in Exile in London. Did he write articles then, basing his arguments on international law as he seems to have done in the newspaper from Nice? 87. When the Arabs asked the United Nations to refer the question of self-determination to the International Court of Justice and the United Nations turned down that request, where was Mr. Cassin? He was around, and this was a question of international law, or at least for the International Court of Justice, the problem of judging whether the Zionists could claim Palestine. Of course, the Arabs were refused. But no judge in the International Court of Justice could, in fairness to his conscience, say that the indigenous people of Palestine had no right to their land. 88. Why did not Mr. Cassin support the thesis at that time? He was writing. He is a gentleman who is over eighty years old. I have known him for twenty-one years. He never changes, he stays young. But he gets younger when the Zionists come and play on his sentim.ents as a Jew. Many of those Zionists are secular. No doubt there are pious and devout Jews inside Israel. As my colleague from Jordan said, we should give them a chance; they will outwear this aura surrounding a State built on theocracy. They are human beings, they will come to their senses. 89. But those representing Israel claim Israel not on the principle of self-determination but on the ground that it 91. Mr. Tekoah spoke of the Palestinians who are doing business, so to speak, with the Israeli authorities on the west bank of the Jordan, I lived under Ottoman rule and I witnessed one of the worst famines in the world. They talk of the famine of Biafra. One third of the Lebanese people perished between 1916 and 1918. We found some Lebanese co-operating with the Ottomanswith Jamal Pasha in fact, because the Ottomans did not know what was going on. Jamsl Pasha, the Commander of the Fourth Army in the First World War, who had authority between the Taurus Mountains and the Suez Canal, was a dictator. He was given authority. Anyway, the Sultan in Turkey could not restrain him. This was before the so-called quislings. There were quislings in Lebanon. There are quislings everywhere. There are quislings in this country. There are quislings in every country. Sometimes they try them for treason. For the information of members of the Council, I would state that many of those collaborators were shot later by the Lebanese. Always when a State or an authority dominates a region there are apt to be a few people who collaborate with them, That is not strange. It is not only in Norway, I must say in fairness to the Scandinavian countries. In Germany itself there were people collaborating with the enemy. Those who were fighting the Germans also had people collaborating with them in Germany against the Germans. So Mr. Tekoah should not try to deceive the Council by saying, “Everything is fine in the Holy Land; the Palestinian Arabs are collaborating with us.” All he has to do is produce the musical score and let the orchestra of Arab-Israeli collaboration play. It sounds like a symphony when Mr. Tekoah talks about Arab-Israeli collaboration. I personally like music, I like symphonies, but it has strident notes. It is not even cacophony, not even modern electronic music. 92. I am here to tell the United Nations, after having spent twenty-one years of my life in this Organization, that the deliberations of this Council will be abortive unless something radical is pursued and we do not find ourselves in the rut of the League of Nations-and of the United Nations so far too. Is there no solution to the problem? Of course there is a solution. I said that we here are sounding-boards, most of us, for our respective Governments; but at the same time we should reflect what basically derives from the Charter of the United Nations. In other words, while we are not policy-makers, we should in our collectivity influence the policy-makers. I am saying this after pondering not only the Palestine question but many other questions vis-a-vis our work in the United Nations. Why do we have five major _ _ _ - Powers exercising the veto’! Because they exercise world power. Could the representatives perhaps advise their 93. What is the alternative? The alternative is for the States that exercise world power to send an ultimatum to those who conquered a land which does not belong to them to evacuate it. However, the leaders of those countries should rise above balance of power and spheres of influence, the outmoded policy of the League of Nations and to a large extent of our Organization. This is why we are not achieving world peace but only devising palliatives, trying to cure the fever by, as we say in Arabic, watermelon poultices in the age of penicillin. Instead of injecting into the body what should cure it we are only trying to cure the fever with watermelon poultices. This is a primitive way of dealing with the situation. 94. On 4 April I cited the fact that both Russia and the United Kingdom sent an ultimatum to Mohammed Ali to evacuate the territories he had taken from the Sultan. Of course each of them was acting on the basis of its national .interest of those days. Nowadays we say that action should be taken not on the basis of national interest but for preserving world peace. Gne might say that that is all very well, and it may work if the big nations that exercise power agree to such a joint action. We find them coexisting beautifully these days; so I do not see why they should not work out such an action. I hope that this coexistence era will yield better fruits, but on the basis of justice, not on the basis of any national interest; on the basis of the provisions of the Charter, not to serve the policies of balance of power or the policies deriving from spheres of influence. If in turn we as diplomats tried to impress our Governments by suggestion-we cannot give instructions to our Governments-that this might be a solution to the problem, we would not have had so many resolutions. 95. I have witnessed the work of this Council on this question since 1947, and things are getting worse from day to day. It used to be from year to year; now it is from day to day. Every day there are incidents, and this is going to continue, and any flash may set off the powder kegs in the area, and who knows what might happen. 96. Is it not enough to be engaged in warfare and conflict in the Far East? And we have it in the Middle East too, or the Near East as some still call it. Both sides of Asia go into flames, and the whole world goes into flames. This is a possibility as long as the Zionists have the influence in many States to drive them, because those States until now could not take the question of Zionism or of Israel out of their domestic policies. The whole world, and they themselves, the poor, innocent Jews who fled from Hitler-or their fathers-and the new generation will also be engulfed in the flames with the Arabs and others. What a sorry sight to see when we have an Organization which could set aside national interests and work on the basis of the Charter. Otherwise, I am reminded of a verse in the New Testament which says, “They have eyes and do not see. They have ears and do not hear.” 97. The portents are before us. Time may be running short. The Zionists are strong in every country-I do not 98. The invisible power of Zionism. They do not have to be 100 million or 200 million to wield power. They are resourceful in wielding power invisibly. The invisible influence that the Zionists are wielding, especially in Western Europe, should not be underestimated, and I assure the Council that I say all this without hatred, rancour or dislike, although Mr. Tekoah tries to imagine that we Arabs have nothing to do in the world but to hate the Jews. 99. We have countries which we would like to develop, but we do not want them to be exploited by an alien force from Eastern Europe. We want to develop them the way we think they should be developed. We want to evolve our own customs into better customs, our own traditions as the foundation, perhaps, of better traditions in the distant future. We want to live our own life. We consider Israel a foreign body in the Arab world. 100. But forget about this. What about the Palestinian people? What should we do with them, 2 million of them? I will bet anything that, had it not been for what Mr. Tekoah called “Transjordan”, which is Jordan, Zionists would have taken Transjordan. They had the capacity to do it; but then world public opinion would have been aroused because they would have had to throw the Palestinian people into the desert, there to perish. They will not perish. Anyone with an indomitable spirit will not perish-unless, as I said, the world commits suicide. 101. These incidents I predicted-23 and 24 March. There will be more incidents this year; there will be more incidents next year. The Zionists may be irked, so much upset that they will have another round with the Arabsnot the Arabs another round with Israel, It is the other way round. What will happen? How can we protect Western interests there, or any other interests, for that matter, when the people are aroused and anarchy prevails? Do you think there will be any oil left? Do you think there will be any buildings left? 102. Here the Arab students, who number in the host country of the United Nations and in Canada-and I want my Canadian colleague to note this, as well as Ambassador Finger-about 12,000, have an executive board, Very few people know that they came on a sit-in strike to many of our delegations. It so happened that I was working on the Feast of Aladha, the Feast of Sacrifice, in my office. The executive board, fifteen unannounced Arab students, came, and, as if I had handed Palestine to Israel, they gave mc an ultimatum : “If you do not take the Zionists out of Palestine we will settle with you”. I am paraphrasing, of course. This organization is tied with organizations of students in Moscow, Rome, London, wherever there are Arab students. Maybe they number 50,000, 60,000. These 103. Tltis is no secret, but I have to tell you, to drive home what is happening in the Arab world, while we deliberate here about what words we should use in order not to offend the Israelis and what words we should use not to offend the Arabs, and with what result? Zero. There will be no implementation; not even sanctions will be implemented. During the First World War it is known that the steel cartels sold to both sides. 104. It is well known that in South Africa-were it not for the South Africans I do not know what would have happened to the arrangement with them for a gold price of $35 an ounce-people are purchasing diamonds; the ladies make the men buy them, if they do not. Gold is being purchased from South Africa. Where are the sanctions? Whom are we fooling about sanctions? 105. Only the Governments of the United States, the Soviet Union, France and the United Kingdom-and I would say morally the Government of China, because it wields no power-wield such power that they can make things happen on the basis of justice and not on the basis of the national interest of each State, predicated on the balance of power, predicated on a policy that stems from spheres of influence. 106. You, Sir, have assumed high posts in your country. You were the Foreign Minister of a great country, Brazil. You know what I am talking about when I say spheres of influence, balance of power and national interests, which are at play now in our area. I hope, Sir, it augurs well that you are the President during this month, at least as the representative of Brazil, a Power that is respected and 108. But what do we find, Sir? The Zionists of Eastern Europe have played on the sentiments of even Rene Cassin, a noted Frenchman, to help them by writing articles in a French newspaper citing international law. Why did he not cite international law when it came to the selfdetermination of the people of Palestine? Jacques Kayser was a French Jew, but he forgot that he was a Jew. His religion was between him and his God. He was free to have any religion, but he was a Frenchman, a real Frenchman. Here Zionists come to a man about eighty years old, and play on his sentiments, so that he elicits a reply from me, a friend of his, who worked with him for twenty years. 109. When shall we rise above religion, above national interests in the United Nations? Shall we remain in that strait jacket of instructions, crippled, or shall we, perhaps in statements we make in this Council, by the interchange of views, weigh things in the light of the Charter, so that maybe we will influence those who issue the instructions to think that, after all, our representatives at the United Nations are not stooges for instructions, but also dynamic in shaping the course of history. 110. Sir, I think I have taken less time than the consulta- .tions you have had, and I thank you. The meeting rose at 7.5 p.m. HOW TO OBTAIN UNITED NATIONS PUBLICATIONS United Nations publications may be obtained from bookstores and distributors throughout the world. Consult your bookstore or write to: United Notions, Soles Section, New York or Geneva. COMMENT SE PROCURER LES PUBLICATIONS DES NATIONS UNIES Ler publications der Notions Unies sont en vente dons les libroirier et ler ogencer d&poritaires du monde entier. 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