S/PV.1705 Security Council

This meeting of the Security Council has been convened on the request made by the representative of Lebanon in a letter dated I2 April 1973 addressed to the President of the Security Council [S/10913/. I should also like to draw the attention of members of the Council to the following documents dealing with the item on the agenda for today’s meeting: letter dated 11 April 1973 from the representative of Lebanon, document S/10911; and letter dated 11 April 1973 from the representative of Israel,‘document S/10912. The agenda was adopted, The situation in the Middle East: Letter dated 12 April 1973 from the Permanent Representative of Lebanon to the United Nations addressed to the President of the Security Council (S/10913)

I wish to inform the members of the Council that 1 have received a letter, dated 12 April 1973, from the representative of Lebanon in which he asks to be allowed to participate, without the right to vote, in the Council’s consideration of the item on its agenda. 8. The first name on the list of speakers is that of the representative of Lebanon, on whom I now call.

Mr. President, although we are not members of the Council, it seems that we are permanent clients and I should like to address to you my congratulations on your assumption of the presidency of the Council for the month of April. We see in you a noble figure representing Peru, a progressive and forward-looking nation, and at the same time the people and the continent of Latin America, with which Lebanon has strong ties of friendship and human relationship. 2. In accordance with the practice of the Council, and with its consent, I propose now to invite the representative of Lebanon to take a place at the Council table in order to participate in the consideration of the item on our agenda without the right to vote. At the invitation. of the President, Mr, E Ghorra (Lebanon) took a place at the Council table. 10. First of all, on behalf of my delegation 1 wish 10 express to you, Mr. President, and to the members of the Council, our gratitude for having convened this urgent meeting &+-the Council at such short notice. Yesterday afternoon I had the privilege of visiting you in your office and handing you a letter, contained in document S/l091 1, in which I described the perfidious act of aggression

I have also received a letter, dated 12 April 1973, from the representative of Israel, in which he asks to be allowed to participate, without the right to vote, in the council’s consideration of the item on its agenda. 11. At 1 a.m., 10 April 1973-that is, at an hour when practically everybody is asleep-Israeli naval units landed on the shores of El-Ouzai, the the southern outskirts of Beirut, capital of Lebanon, a squad of Israeli terrorists numbering about 35 persons. For the information of the Council, El-Ouzai is an area of beaches where people go to swim and for leisure. At night the area is naturally deserted. These beaches are defenceless. They are open to those who come in peace to Lebanon to enjoy our sunshine and the beauty of those beaches. 12. The raiders were disguised in civilian clothing. Civilian Lebanese cars with Lebanese registration plates were waiting for them in the vicinity of the landing area. They had been put there by Israeli agents who had infiltrated into the country with false passports. The Lebanese Government has proof that elements did come from outside with falsified foreign passports in or’der to prepare the ground for that Israeli criminal act. 13. The Israeli marauders drove away in those cars towards predetermined objectives. One group went to Rue Verdun, a peaceful residential area in Beirut. They burst into one apartment building with their guns blazing and murdered, in gangster styIe, Mr. Yussef El-Najjar, known as Abou Yussef, and his wife, who attempted to shield him from the attackers. Mr. El-Najjar was a member of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). In .thc same building, they attacked the apartment of Mr. Kamal Nasser, a poet and intellectual who acted as the spokesman for the Palestine Liberation Organization, and assassinated him, also in cold-blooded fashion. 14. It may interest the Council to hear about one aspect of the barbaric way in which Mr. Kamal Nasser was murdered. Since he had been the spokesman for the PLO, his mouth was riddled with bullets, which demonstrates not only a spirit ‘of hatred but a symbolic intent to silence the voice speaking on behalf of the Palestinian people. The murderers wanted to silence a mouth that had spoken in defence of the rights of the Palestinian people in a country which cherishes and respects freedom, and which is considered to be one of the countries most attached to fundamental freedoms. 15. Another group of Israelis attacked and blew up a building in the street of El-Fikany, while another attacked and blew up a garage belonging to a Palestinian, situated in the northern district of Beirut, called Al-Dawrah. In the vicinity of the residence of Yussef El-Najjar lived Mr. Kamal Adwan, another leader of the Palestinian liberation movement. He too was killed, in the same way as Ymsef 16. AS a result of all those criminal operations, 12 people were killed: two Lebanese policemen, two Lebanese &vilians, three Syrian labourers, four Palestinians, and an Italian woman; 29 persons, all Lebanese, were wounded. The invaders also attacked a refugee camp in the vicinity of the Beirut Airport; many people were killed there, I do not have, at this stage, the exact figures; I will communicate them to the Council at a later stage. 17. In my letter of 11 April I stressed, and wish to stress again today, that Lebanon, in the face of repeated Israeli aggression, has always depended, and depends, on the Charter of the United Nations and on the Security Council for its protection. The Council assumes, under the Charter, prime responsibility for the maintenance of peace and security in the world, and definitely in one of the nlost unsettled areas of the world. It has an obligation not only to find solutions to problems and conflicts, but also to offer protection for the States which are victims of aggression. 18. With the attack by Israeli commandos on the International Airport of Beirut on 28 December 1968, Israel set in motion a cycle of violence which has persistently intensified since then. Its armed forces have mounted several assaults against our peaceful towns and villages in southern Lebanon; hundreds of innocent people, including women and children, have been murdered or wounded; several hundred homes and buildings have been destroyed; the peace of the country has been disturbed. 19. Last February, Israeli armed forces raided two refugee camps in northern Lebanon in a surprise attack at night. Those camps were situated at Badawi and Nahr El-Bared. Scores of Palestinians were murdered in cold blood in their beds. 20. The Council has on several occasions strongly condemned Israel for its actions in Lebanon and warned it not to repeat them. In resolution 280 (1970) the Council went so far as to declare that Israeli armed attacks “can no longer be tolerated” and in that resolution the Council repeated its solemn warning to Israel that “if they were to be repeated the Security Council would, in accordance with resolution 262 (1968) and the present resolution, consider taking adequate and effective steps or measures in accordance with the relevant Articles of the Charter to implement its resolutions”. 21. The various resolutions of the Council regarding Israeli aggression against Lebanon, as well as other resolutions about Israeli aggression against Arab States which were passed by the Security Council or the General Assembly, were met persistently with contempt and defiance by Israeli officials and representatives. Israel, which owes its existence to the United Nations, has become the spoiled child of this 27. If I were to remind the Council of the entire history of Israeli terrorism in the Middle East, I could easily recite hundreds of examples, but I am not going to abuse the time and the patience of members of the Council. I only want to refresh their memories by citing the King David and Dir Yassein massacres, where hundreds of men, women and children were killed and butchered in 1946 and 1948. 28. Nobody, perhaps, has described the nature of Israeli terrorism more aptly than Mr. Herbert Morrison, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons of the British Government, when he said, on 31 July 1946, after the King David massacre: 23. Here at the United Nations we often speak of strengthening international peace and security, of enhancing the role of the Security Council and of making the United Nations a more effective instrument for the preservation of peace in the world. To that effect we have adopted numerous and lengthy resolutions, most of which, unfortunately, remain unimplemented. We have maintained before, and we continue to maintain, that the United Nations faces a crisis of confidence, for the people of the world, and especially those victims of acts of aggression, are despairing at the failure of the United Nations to protect them. This situation has come about because the United Nations has neglected to take the appropriate measures in due course of time to enforce its resolutions and to command respect for them. “The curse of Hitler is not yet fully removed. Some of his victims fleeing from the ravaged ghettos of Europe have carried with them the germs of those very plagues from which they sought escape-intolerance, racial pride, intimidation, terrorism and the worship of force.“r 29. It is a mere coincidence that I am drawing on some British statements, for I could cite hundreds of French, American, Russian or other statements about lsraeli terrorism. But I should like also to state that the evils of Zionist-inspired policy applied by Israel are so reminiscent of Nazi practices as to have made the well known-British historian, Arnold Toynbee, remark “. . . it was their [the Zionists’] supreme tragedy that the lesson learnt by them from their encounter with the Nazi German Gentiles should have been not to eschew but to imitate some of the evil deeds that the Nazis had committed against the Jews.“* 24. Indeed, the United Nations faces that crisis vis-$-vis the public opinion of the world-it is a crisis of the implementation of United Nations resolutions. Israel has set an example of how a militaristic State, contemptuous of the United Nations and contemptuous of international law and order, can destroy the trust of the world in this Organization and can scuttle all the efforts deployed by it to achieve peace in the world. 30. Lord Russell dedicated his entire life to the search for truth and the promotion of peace in the world. He culminated that life with a message dated 3 1 January 1970 to the Conference of Parliamentarians-it was like his last will and testament-in which he said: 25. The’ letter of yesterday from the representative of Israel was, like many of his previous letters, based on three fallacious arguments. The first is that Israel is conducting warfare against terrorism and terrorist organizations. The second is that Israel is undertaking actions to prevent future terrorist acts. The third is that these terrorist organizations are harboured in Lebanon and that the Lebanese Government is conniving with them to launch their acts of terrorism abroad. ‘&We are frequently told that we must sympathize with Israel because of the suffering of the Jews in Europe at the hands of the Nazis. I see in this suggestion no reason to perpetuate any suffering, What Israel is doing today cannot be condoned, and to invoke the horrors of the past to justify those of the present is gross hypocrisy.” 26. First of all, Israel is the least qualified country in the world to invoke arguments regarding terrorism. It is a State born out of terrorism, by which it has preserved its existence for the last 25 years. It has maintained itself and continues to maintain itself on what has become known as a State-organized terrorism-a terrorism planned, organized 1 See F’ar:i~irnentarj~ Dehates (Ifansard), House oj’ C’rnmon% Official Reporf Fifth Serb, vol. 426 (London, Her Majesty’s Stationery Oflice), COI. 960. 2. Arnold Toynbce, A Study of History, vol. VIII, (London, Oxford University Press, 1954), p. 290. 32. The end to the agony of the Palestinian people does not appear to be in sight, for what has the United Nations done except provide the Palestinians with those meagre rations and adopt resolution after resolution reiterating their right to repatriation, compensation or self-determination-resolutions they fail to implement? What has the United Nations done recently in the face of the new policy being pursued by Israel to strike at the Palestinians wherever they may be, at any time and by whatever measures it thinks fit? That newly declared policy of Israel is an evil tactic designed either to exterminate the Palestinian people or to reduce them to incapacity, thereby nullifying their legitimate claim to their homes and homeland. What hope does the United Nations and the international community offer the Palestinian people to end their exile and their agony and to channel their lives toward the building of peace in the Middle East and their participation in the economic, social and cultural development of the area? What options do we present to the Palestinians to end their bitterness and their misery? Forgetting those Palestinians, neglecting them and denying their very existence-as Mrs. Meir once did, as reported in ne Times of London of 15 June 1969-will not lead to the solution of their problem. 33. The United Nations must come to grips with this problem in a boId, imaginative and decisive manner, with a view to finding a just and permanent solution to it. Of the 1.5 million Palestinian refugees, 300,000 live on our land, in Lebanon. Is Lebanon responsible for their plight? Is it responsible for their continued existence in misery, despair and frustration? Is it responsible for their yearning to return to their homelands and for the spirit of resistance with which they are imbued against the aggressor who has deprived them of their homes, their land and their beautiful ancestral cities-Nazareth, Jerusalem, Jaffa, Haifa and the rest? Is Lebanon responsible for so many thousands of Palestinians being refugees twice or three times in their lifetimes-expelled even from their refugee camps on the West Bank, after the aggression of 1967, and thrown into the East Bank, or into Syria? 34. Lebanon cannot solve the problem of the Palestinian people; it can only contribute to its solution. The Lebanese Government has, during the last few years, deployed every effort to promote peaceful conditions not only in Lebanon but also in the overall area. It cannot bear the responsjbility 36. The repeated acts of aggression against Lebanon by Israel cannot go unpunished. We do not have the force to administer punishment to Israel. But you, as a Council entrusted with a certain responsibility by the Charter, have that force. You have the moral force; you have the political force; you have the legal force; you have the hstrumentality of the Charter to enforce the decisions of the Council. Condemnation alone of Israel is not sufficient. Condemnation of its acts in the past has not helped to stop its aggression. At this stage what we ask of the Council is more meaningful action in order to put an end to the Israeli aggression against Lebanon. 37. I shall conclude at this point. I reserve my right to speak again at a later stage.

I have taken the unusual action of asking to be allowed to speak at this time because of a development of grave concern to my Government and to all those who seek to calm tempers and restore conditions in which the search for peace in the Middle East can go forward. 39. The tragic events in Lebanon have been followed by an attempt to spread a big lie around the world-namely, a charge that my Government connived, colluded and in some way participated in the Lebanon events, and the allegation that the American Embassy at Beirut is harbouring persons who were involved. 40. This qualifies, by any definition conceivable, as a massive untruth-a big lie. The big lie became a standard weapon of psychological warfare before and during the Second World War. It is an art form of the totalitarian mentality. It seeks to deceive the unwary public by resorting to a falsehood of gigantic dimensions. By its enormity, it succeeds in deluding the innocent because no one would believe that such a massive untruth could be invented. The monstrous accusation that the United States somehow helped carry out the events in Lebanon atld is acting as a shield for those involved originated with those who oppose, at all costs and by any means, a peaceful settlement, who preach and practise wanton terrorism and who, for their own purposes, seek to place the blame on others-the blame for their failures and crimes. Not only is it being spread by clandestine means and by rumour mongering, it is also being repeated in recognized information media in several countries, which, in many cases, have 51. We come to charge that Lebanon has convened the Security Council to ask licence for the continuation of terrorism. The Government of Israel is duty-bound atid has pledged to protect the lives of its citizens and to do al! in its power to put an end to the sanguinary assaults deliberately directed against guiltless men, women and children. 42. Yet another tragic aspect is that many, when emotions ride over reason, become the victims of such a bold and monstrous lie-just as many became victims of the false charge of American participation in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, a charge they later came to recognize and acknowledge as false but which at the time led to consequences that are still with us today. 52. This was the objective of Israel’s action on the night of 9-10 April against terrorist bases, headquarters and hideouts in the Beirut area, and in particular the El Fatah headquarters in the southern part of Beirut, responsible for terror operations in the Gaza region, the central headquarters of the terrorist Democratic Popular Front, also situated in the southern part of Beirut-this murder group had assumed responsibility for planting and detonating explosives in Jerusalem and l-ladera on 30 March 1973-two workshops in Beirut in which explosives and weapons used in attacks by El Fat&Black September are prepared, and a repair garage north of Sidon (Saida) servicing vehicles of terrorists who operate in southern Lebanon. Casualties were inflicted on the terrorists. The Israeli losses were two soldiers killed and two wounded. Official statements issued in Beirut, communiqu& by terror organizations and international news agencies’ reports from Lebanon have confirmed that the targets struck were terrorist centres and that the casualties were members of the murder groups. Among them was Mohammed Yussef El Najjar (Abou Yussef’), the El Fatah-Black September commander in Lebanon since 1970; Kamal Nasser, spokesman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the umbrella organization of the terrorist groups; and Kamal Adwan (Abu Wael) one of El Fatah’s founders who was in charge of the El F&ah-Black September activities in Israel-controlled areas. 43. The views of my Government on the broad principles are well known. They have been stated an many occasions by my predecessors-most recently in the Council on 10 September 1972 [I 661st meeting]. We deplore violence wherever it occurs and from whatever source it comes. We deeply regret the mounting toll in innocent lives. I shall reserve further comment on these aspects of the matter for later in the debate. 44. Today, however, I want to make it categorically clear that neither the United States Government nor any representative thereof had any part whatsoever in or knowledge of the Israeli raid on Lebanon on 10 April. All Governments concerned have a responsibility to disassociate themselves from this outrageous lie and to take steps to prevent the spread of such slander whose consequences, if it is not checked, can do grave harm to the cause of peace and incite new destruction and more deaths of innocent people.

The next speaker on my list is the representative of Israel, on whom I now call. 53. Under the leadership of such men, the terrorist Black September carried out 105 murder attacks in the last two years. Of these, 68 were directed against Israel, 6 against individual Jews in various parts of the world, 17 against Western air companies and 14 against Jordan. Until the attacks at Nicosia last Monday, the Black September operations had resulted in 228 casualties, including 116 deaths.

Mr. President, I should like to express my delegation’s deep respect for you and for your country and our very best wishes for your success in your high office. 47. We do not come before the Security Council to explain the facts, They need no explanation. The scourge of Arab terrorism, wanton slaughter and barbaric atrocities is a menace to all mankind and all are aware of it, 54. Muhamad Dawud Awdeh, known as Abu Dawud, an El Fatah leader arrested several weeks ago in Amman for plotting against the Jordanian r&me, declared in his testimony: 48, We do not come to the Council to justify our actions. They need no justification. All are conscious of the necessity to stamp out outrages such as the Lad massacre and the Munich murders, the assassination of diplomats at Khartoum or the attacks of 9 April 1973 on the residence of Israel’s Ambassador and on an El Al plane in Nicosia. “Operations by Abou Yussef: the killing of Wasfi at-Tall-he personally assigned the men through Yahya Ashur, he transported them to Cairo, and subsequently he himself transported the weapons to Cairo (he carried an Algerian diplomatic passport); “The Sabena plane operation at Lod airport-the Lod operation was a failure; 49. We come to accuse. 55. Abou Yussef is the man who, according to reports from Beirut, was a close personal friend of Lebanon’s Prime Minister. The world still remembers how the murderers, dispatched by this same Abou Yussef to Cairo to kill Jordan’s Prime Minister, bent over Wasfi at-Tall’s corpse, dipped their hands in his blood and drank it in front of onlookers. The world still remembers how the defenceless American and Belgian diplomats in Khartoum were first brutally assaulted and then shot dead in cold blood, after being held hostage for long hours by Arab terrorists. These are the men that the Lebanese representative portrays as leaders and men of letters. These are the barbarians that he eulogizes. It is these international criminals that his Government harbours and protects. 56. It is common knowledge that Lebanon is a centre for the planning and execution of terrorist attacks against civilians in Israel and elsewhere and provides refuge to the perpetrators of these dastardly crimes. The terrorist groups maintain their headquarters, workshops for the manufacture of weapons, recruitment and information offices and other installations in Lebanon’s capital. With the consent of the Lebanese authorities they use refugee camps and individual houses to train and prepare murder squads. 57. Most of the attacks carried out by El Fatah-Black September and other terrorist organizations have originated at Beirut. It is from that city that terrorists are dispatched on their missions of death to different parts of the world. In the last few weeks alone, the following operations were launched from Beirut: On 1 March three diplomats were savagely murdered at Khartoum. On 3 March the Cyprus passenger steamer Sania, on its way to Haifa with 250 Christian pilgrimsefrom the United States, was blown up in the Beirut harbour. On G March attempts were made to bomb an El Al office and two Israeli banks in New York. Three automobiles with explosives and timing devices were discovered next to these offices. Had the charges exploded, Fifth Avenue would have been strewn with hundreds of dead and injured. On 12 March an Israeli merchant was assassinated in Cyprus. On 15 March an attempt was made against the Israeli Embassy in Paris but was foiled when an automobile loaded with high explosives was discovered by the French authorities. On 20 March four suitcases filled with arms and explosives intended for terrorist attacks were discovered at the Rome airport. On 21 March a letter bomb was intercepted in Singapore. On 4 april three Arab terrorists carrying pistols and hand grenades were arrested at Rome airport. On 9 April an attempt was made tg blow up the residence of the Israeli Ambassador in Cyprus. At ‘. the same time a terrorist squad attacked an El AJ airliner at Nicosia airport. The terrorists killed a Cypriot policeman. TWO of the attackers were slain and others arrested. All of these assaults originated in Lebanon’s capitaI. 5X. Beirut’s sinister role was particularly evident in the seizure and murder of the diplomats at Khartoum. Throughout the entire course of the operation, the ter- 59. In preceding months almost all Arab terror squads involved in murder attacks, including the Lod airport massacre and the killing of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Games, had come from Beirut. Representatives of the terror organizations at Beirut collected $US 5 million from Lufthansa for the release of its plane hijacked by members of the terrorist “Popular Front,” and forced to land in Aden in February 1972. ‘The hijacking of the Sabena plane in May 1972 was carried out by four terrorists who had arrived in Europe from Beirut. The communiquB assuming responsibility for that act was issued by terrorist organizations in Beirut. 60. It was in Lebanon that the mass murderer Kozo Okamoto and his two accomplices were trained and it was from Beirut that they set out in May 1972 on their barbaric assignment at Lad. In August 1972, two terrorists, who had come from Lebanon, were detained at Rome after an explosion aboard an El Al aircraft in flight, caused by dynamite charges concealed in a record player, which they had persuaded two British girls to take with them on tllc plane. In September 1972 it was established that the terrorists who had carried out the slaughter at Munich had come from Lebanon. In October 1972 an emissary of El Fatah, travelling on an Algerian diplomatic passport, was detained at Amsterdam airport on his way from Beirut to South America, carrying with him arms, sabotage materials and letter bombs, which were to have been mailed from Latin America. 61. In December 1972, a terror squad of the “Popular Front” left Beirut with instructions to reach Haifa by ship with a view to perpetrating terrorist attacks or, if unsuccessful, to commit suicide. The squad was discovered in Greece and its members were returned to Lebanon. In December 1972 an Arab terrorist was apprehended at London airport on his arrival from Beirut. Arms and explosives were found in his possession destined for an attack against an Israeli Embassy in Scandinavia. Also in December 1972 an attack was carried out against the Israeli Embassy at Bangkok by terrorists who had come from Beirut. 111 January 1973 an assassination squad planning to carry out an attack in the port of Haifa was discovered in Cyprus. The terrorists flew back from there to Beirut. In January 1973, three terrorists were apprehended at Vienna. Three others were detained at the Austrian-Italian border. The intention of the six was to execute a murderous attack on Jewish emigrants from the Soviet Union in a transit camp in Vienna. All six terrorists had set out on their bloodthirsty mission from Lebanon. 62. The international community is weary of the sanctimonious protestations of innocence and of the sterile falsehoods with which the Lebanese Government and its representatives try to cover up Lebanon’s grave responsibility for turning Beirut into the capital of internationai terrorism, Lebanon is like one who consorts with murderers 68. Israel’s action against the terrorist centres in Beirut has saved the lives of many, in the Middle East and in other regions, who would have fallen victim to futuie attacks planned and organized in those centres under the direction of murderers such as the three men hunted down by the Israel Defence Forces. If there is room for criticism, it is that such action had not been taken earlier. It might have spared many innocent lives. Jews and non-Jews alike, and especially Europeans, must ask themselves what would have been preferable historically: the elimination of Nazi leaders in the early years of their rule of terror and barbarism, or their trials after the World War and after the holocaust? The heinous nature of the Arab terror operations, the menace they constitute to humanity, is obvious. This menace must be ended before it spreads any further. 64. Nothing can justify Lebanon’s agreement to the maintenance of terror centres and bases on its territory and in particular in its capital. Nothing can justify attempts to whitewash organizers and perpetrators of savage atrocities against defenceless civilians all over the world. As long as the Lebanese Government and its representatives choose to do so, as long as they find it possible to refer to murder squads simply as Palestinian organizations, and the bases where weapons and explosives are prepared and assassins of men, women and children trained as innocent locations, Lebanon must be considered an accomplice in Ihe campaign of bloodshed waged by the Arab terrorist groups. 69. By permitting the exploitation and abuse of its territory by murder organizations, the Lebanese Government abandons in fact its responsibilities towards its citizens and exposes them to constant danger. Whoever permits his house to be used by criminals must surely understand that he creates insecurity for himself. Yet Israel has directed its action solely against the terrorists. Previous Israeli actions against terrorist bases in Lebanon, and in particular in the southern part of the country, have had a salutary effect on the situation along the Israel-Lebanese frontier in recent months. However, with the full connivance of its Government, Lebanon remains the principal base for terror operations abroad and a haven for all terrorists. 65. International public opinion is weary also of the ridiculous claim that the presence of Palestinian refugees, resulting from the Arab aggression against Israel in 1948, justifies Lebanon’s role as a base for international murder operations or makes such operations on and from within Lebanon inevitable. There are areas in the Middle East with larger concentrations of Palestinian Arabs and refugees than in Lebanon, and yet terrorist organizations do not find in them refuge, freedom of action and protection. Moreover, for years and years there had been no terrorist operations out of hbanon despite the existence of its refugee population. 70. Those who arc defending themselves against these criminals and are determined to end their loathsome activities cannot acquiesce in the continuation of this situation, which constitutes a grave threat not only to Israel but to other countries as well. The only way for Lebanon to extricate itself from this situation is by fully observing its international obligations and eliminating completely the presence of the terrorist groups and their activities on and from Lebanese soil. 66. In any event, the terrorist organizations are wellsfed and well-paid establishment. If Arab Governments which finance them were to devote l per cent of’their oil income to the settlement of the refugees instead of to violence and bloodshed, there would be no refugees today in Lebanon or elsewhere. 67. It. is also a matter of general knowledge that Arab terrorism is not a development of the post-1967 period. Israel has confronted it throughout the years of its independence, and the beginnings of this bestial method of bloodshed reach as far back as the 192Os, when the Jewish community of Hebron was massacred and Jews were slaughtered in Jerusalem, Motza and Safad by Arab terrorists organized by the infamous Haj Amin El-Husseini, who in later years served as Hitler’s and Eichmann’s adviser in the annihilation of 6 million Jews. The Abou Yussefs, the Kamal Nassers, the Adwans are following in his footsteps. Their aim as well is to murder Jews, td destroy a People, to deprive it of its right to live and to be independent. The use by them of the term “liberation” brings to mind the cynidal Nazi slogan at the entrance co the death camps in which millions were slaughtered: “Work 71. Today the Lebanese Government has called on the Security Council to act against steps combatting international terrorism. It has asked the Council to take a position in support of Lebanon’s remaining a base for murderous outrages in the Middle East and outside the region, in flagrant violation of international law and morality and of the Charter of the United Nations. The interests of international peace and security require that responsible Governments and the Security Council refuse to do so.

I should like to inform the members of the Council that I have received a letter, dated 12 April 1973, from the representative of Saudi Arabia in which he asks to be At the invitation of the President, Mr. J, Baroody (Saudi Arabia) took a place at the Council table.

I call on the representative of Saudi Arabia.

Mr. President, I feel privileged indeed to address the Council while you are presiding. Indeed I really feel at home when I see you in the Chair because of the fact that I have had the privilege of knowing you for so many years. Furthermore, I must thank the members of the Council-Mrs. Jeanne Martin Cisse of Guinea and all my other colleagues-for not having objected to my request to speak. 75. I do not want it to appear as if every time the representative of Israel takes the floor I must forthwith rebut certain of his statements. I have grown accustomed to so many of the remarks made by none other than the representative of Israel, Mr. Tekoah, but many of you here are new and I have been addressing myself to this question for the past 25 years or, I should say, since the partition of Palestine at Lake Success in 1947. 76. What I have said is on the record. “Why repeat it? “, somebody might ask. For no reason other than that certain accusations are repeated by the representative of Israel, none other than Mr. Tekoah, without being scrutinized by anyone. They are taken at their face value sometimes by the international press, which to a large extent in the Western world-l do not know about the socialist world because I do not read Russian, or Bulgarian, or Romanianthey control by acquisition, or by propaganda or by many other means. I am not going into the freedom of the press and its distortion. 77. Needless to say, Lebanon has never been an aggressor in its six millenia of history. It has never encroached on its neighbours. I challenge anyone to cite a period in history when Lebanon was the aggressor. On the other hand, terrorism is not the monopoly of any one people, regardless of race, religion or political persuasion. In fact, terrorists are considered heroes by those who support them. Why go back into ancient history? I shall go back to the days of Jeanne d’Arc. She was considered a critninal by the British, but she was a heroine to the French. The maquis were considered terrorists by the Nazis, but they were heroes because they were fighting for their homeland. And this applies to the Palestinians, regardless of whether they are Arabs. Mr. Tekoah does not call them by their name in his letter dated 11 April. He refers to “Arab terrorist organizations”. 78. As my colleague from Lebanon said, Mrs. Meir, the Prime Minister of Israel, has repeatedly said that there is no such thing as a Palestinian people, that there are no 79. But by force you have established a State there, and that is nothing unusual. You are not the only people who have established a State by force. Throughout history it’s have seen peoples establish States by force. It is nothing unusual. I want to be very objective and not engage in recriminations and accusations, having listened to the catalogue of allegations of what the so-called Arab-I shall call them Palestinian-terrorists have done in Palestine. No doubt there were Palestinians in Palestine who, during ttle British Mandate, reacted to the invasion-or shall I say the inflow, because it was not an invasion-of Jews who were indoctrinated in political zionism. And we do not have to go back to the Balfour Declaration, to see why Balfour, who needed the United States to join in the war of 1917. gave away something that did not belong to the British- Palestine. But in that Declaration he gave it away equivocally. 80. Anyway it was then called a national home. And I have to repeat this, time and again. Some of the Zionists wanted the word “State’‘-they wanted to estabrish a Jewish State in Palestine. None other than the Rothschilds were afraid of the word “State”: they opted for the words “national home”, because they were afraid that should, one day, Jews from all over the world come there and establish a State for themselves, the Rothschilds would be tnld b!; the British: “Now you get out of there.” They wanted to protect their interests. I did research on that in England in the late twenties and thirties; I am not talking off the top of my head, and historians have borne me out. 81. But what did the Balfour Declaration say? It said: provided the establishment of a national home for the Jc\vs was not prejudicial, or did not jeopardize-I am paraphrasing-the civil, political and religious rights of Ihe indigenous people of Palestine. And the tragedy is that tile indigenous people of Palestine-many of them-had been the original Jews. The Canaanites, the Amorites and ttle Moabites-all one family. The Hebrews of yore were OUT brothers, not our cousins. But they were tribal, and mally of those people who lived in tribes warred against cacll other, as tribes have warred in various periods of history. 82. And then, when Jesus emerged in that area, many of those Jews embraced Christianity. Later, many embraced Islam. But, originally, ethnologically, many of those people who were chased out of Palestine in the forties, fifties alld sixties had been Jews. And then who came? The Khazars, who had been converted to Judaism in the eighth century in what today is southern Russia. And what did they do’! They organized themselves into a sort of political orgaxlization and played the big Powers one against the other. They were the friends of the Germans-of the Kaiser. Wllcn the Kaiser could not help them with Sultan Abdul Hamid 83. I have mentioned time and time again how propaganda was rife in the United States against the Germans. I am no German; I can be more objective than anyone here who hails from Europe. 84. And what happened? The British promisedsecretly-Palestine, a territory that did not belong to them, to a people that was alien to the area. And here Mr. Tekoah refers to the land as being “their” land. It is the land of the people who have lived on it for centuries. 85. Mr. Tekoah, you should know about the two diasporas: the diaspora in the time of Nebuchadnezzar. Who left Palestine in the time of Nebuchadnezzar? If you have not taken the time to do research yourself, ask your scholars. And I have a great deal of respect for your scholars, because they are scholars; they forget that they are Jews when they are scholars-or Gentiles for that matter. Scholars are scholars; otherwise they are publicists and polemicists and politicians. Those who left at the time of the first diaspora, during the days of Nebuchadnezzar, were the influential people and the wealthy people. Their king did not heed Jeremiah, one of the prophets of Judaism. And that is why we have the Lamentations of 3eremiah in the Bible. He told them: “Go and make peace with Nebuchadnezzar.” And who was Nebuchadnezzar? He was a Semite; he was not an antiSemite-because the Assyrians, the Chaldeans, the Hebrews, the Samaritans, who were a small group, the Moabites and the Aramcans-all those tribes constituted the Semitic family. Incidentally, the Jews spoke Aramaic 2000 years ago; they did not speak Hebrew. You know that, do you not? 88. You bad no business to come, except in peace. If you had come in peace and had been driven by religious sentiments, I bet you anything you would have been received with open arms by the indigenous people of Palestine. I am not going to call them Arabs, because they are the indigenous people of Palestine. They are Palestinians, just as you call those from Lebanon Lebanese and those from Syria Syrians. They happened to have acquired Arab culture, but they are the indigenous people of Palestine, whether you like it or not. And, as I said, the irony of it was that many of them had been the original Jews of the country-not the very, very original ones, because the original indigenous people of Palestine were the Canaanites who lived in Jericho and Jerusalem and who were invaded by the Hebrew tribes that came from the north, from Ur of the Chaldees which is west of Iraq, and moved in search of pasturage, like many tribes do. But YOU were our brothers, our cousins-not youI of course, but the Hebrews of those days-and we fought one another. It does not matter that we fought one another. Everybody fought everybody else in those days. But you came from eastern Europe and central Europe where your movement was initiated by non-Sephardic and non-oriental Jews, and YOU used that religion as a motivation for your political and economic ends. All right, if you want to do that do it-but not at the expense of the indigenous people of Palestinc. That is what i want to tell you. 86. And then came big political Zionism-although, 1 must say, Zion is a mountain, as you know. There is a spiritual Zionism mentioned in the Psalms of David: “I will lift Up mine eyes to the hills”. You know that psalm, do YOU not? -and Mount Zion. But you took Mount Zion as the core of a political movement that was bred and nurtured in eastern Europe, because you thought, and perhaps rightly at that time, that the Jews had no life, no future, in Europe. But after the French Revolution and after the enfranchisement of the Jews by Germany in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, you became prosperous in Europe, little by little. Of course there have been persecutions, and we deplore persecutions in any age. Anyway, when the Christians were not of many sects-you remember, before Protestantism there was the Inquisition; sometimes Catholic burnt Catholic on account of dogma. So why should they not sometimes persecute the Jews, if the Christians persecuted Christians? The Moslems persecuted one another; we have people who persecute others witltin the same sect. Do not forget, Mr. Tekoah, the historical facts which should be the genesis of any discussion of this question. 89. Now it is a hrit accompli. What can we do? We are told “You Arabs are weak, you cannot fight”. Of course we are weak. But if we are weak does that give you an escuse to treat the indigenous people of Palestine and their neighbours with injustice ? Terrorism should not be condoned--Should never be condoned. But I shall not cite examples from the 192Os, although I am a contemporary of that era and I have been seized of the Palestine question since 1922, when I was 17 years old. Again I am not talking from books, and I want to come here to some remarks which you, Mr. Tekoab, repeated umpteen times about Haj Amin el-Husseini. I knew him in 1925 in Jerusalem. The first time I was in Jerusalem was in 1925 when I was 20 years old, and he took me to the Mosque of the Rock. He had known of my family and 1 had an introduction. He was 90. Well, you may say that I may be making this up, but people know me. I do not make things up. I have seen Haj Amin el-Husseini, and I once asked him why he went to Germany and hc replied, “I went to Germany because I would have been killed had I gone to London, Paris or to the United States where the Zionists were on the rampage.” They would have killed him. He went to Germany because he had no other place to go. You say that he was the adviser of Eichmann and Hitler. Of course he was received by Hitler. I knew several people who were received by Hitler. That does not mean that they were with Hitler. Mr, Chamberlain was received by Hitler. Mr. Daladier was received by Hitler, And they were conniving how to beat Hitler. Mr. Molotov went to see Hitler, and there are pictures of them together. Does that make the Russians pro Hitler? Does that make the French pro Hitler? Of course he was photographed with Hitler. You do not have to show me that. But who, Mr. Tekoah, wrote the racist book of Hitler? Rosenberg-who turned Christian. Actually, I do not know whether he turned Christian or dissimulated, but why do you not mention Mr. Rosenberg, the racist author, who said that the blond people-you are blond-are the superior race? Thank God I am not blond. What are you talking about, bringing pictures like that to show to the Council. Haj Amin el-Husseini had no choice but to go to the people who were fighting his enemies. 91, I knew Rashid Al Kilani of Iraq. IHe had to flee because be thought that the British had deceived him, and he was working with the Germans. That does not mean that he was pro German. He took refuge in Saudi Arabia, and the late Mr. Churchill asked King Ibn Saud, the founder of the kingdom, to surrender him, but he would not, He said “I would surrender my own children, but not Rasllid Al Kilani, because we have traditions”. All those things do not make a case. 92. The core of the case is that you came to Palestine in order to expropriate it for political and economic reasons, and you played on the religious sentiments of Jews, I respect their sentiments. And you rallied them all over the world so that they would support your movement. 93. And then what about the memoirs---[*do not have the names here-that were written by the leaders of the Irgun Leumi and the Stern Gang, and so many other terrorist movements? I do not say that the Arabs did nothave their terrorists. You started terrorism there. You killed Count Bernadotte. You killed Lord Moyne. I do not want to remind you of that+ is very sad. And you do not have to remind us of those who killed some Jews. It is very sad, by the same token. I do not want to raise now the question of who blew up the King David Hotel, who hanged British tommies from the branches of trees, who killed Arabs, and which Arabs killed Jews? It was all deplorable. You are trying to disinter bones of tragedy, which will not help your case. 95. What do you want the Lebanese Government to do? Do you want the Lebanese Government to go into the camps and find out who is conniving? There are 300,000 Palestinian refugees there. Do you want them to play the intelligence game that you are playing? Suppose they find out and there are people in Lebanon with the Palestinians, there are people who want to be neutral and there are people who favour fighting Israel. Do you want Lebanon to get into an internal struggle and to have anarchy prevail? 96. Lebanon is predicated on a balance of sects-a very delicate balance. The President of the Republic of Lebanon is a Christian Maronite; the Premier is a Moslem; the Foreign Minister is a Melchite. We have Druses. We happen to have many sects of every religion, and they are all living together in peace. And you want to disrupt that peace by telling Lebanon “Go and find out who is conniving to perpetrate any action against Israel and chastise them”? There will be civil war. Is that what you want? Lebanon will not engage in any action that will divide it in two. Well, who will do that, then? Who is going to be responsible? 97. The United Nations is responsible. Who created Israel? I was sitting at Lake Success when the major POWerS unanimously voted for the creation of Israel. They did that for their ulterior motives. And when the British were bankrupt after the Second World War, who took over, Mr. Scali, my dear Sir? You have known that for many years, You know the answer; you are a journalistambassador-it was the late Mr. Truman. 98. What have we done to the British or to the United States, which took over later, that they should create that problem for us? 99. We are not against the Jews, my dear Sir, You mentioned the lie and so forth. I knew Senator Austin; I was sitting at Lake Success and we discussed with him the suggestion-made not by us but by the State Departmentthat Palestine be placed under the Trusteeship Council pending the finding of a solution satisfactory to all concerned. And do not think that at that time, at Lake Success, Mr. Gromyko was very happy about it. He asked for partition, allegedly because the Soviet Union then thought the best solution would be to partition the land. 101. Mr. dear Mr. Scali, this is, I think, your first time in the Security Council in New York, though you appeared in Panama. I must tell you-but you know this, because you are not only a mere journalist; you have been engaged in surveys of the diplomatic field since, no doubt, your early days, and you should perhaps know this better than I-in 1919, 94 per cent of the population was indigenous and 6 per cent Jewish. Until 1939, the Jewish population-most of it had come from Europe on account of Hitleramounted to less than one third. And who was the one who brandished the 14 points’? None other than one of your illustrious Presidents, President Wilson. And who spoke about the four freedoms but Mr. Roosevelt? And by what yardstick do you call yourself a democracy and a free nation? Could you pass by the wayside the principle of self-determination, which has been ennobled in many pronouncements since you fought your war of independence in 1776? By what yardstick? Tell me, my dear Ambassador and colleague. “Well,” you might say, “we made mistakes. All nations make mistakes. What should we do? This is now a fait accompli.” And many of the Zionists say the Arabs want to drive the Jews into the sea. The Arabs cannot push one of themselves into the sea. How can they push that strong State into the sea? And today, in your statement, you rightly said-1 paid attention-that no one had the right to attribute to the United States any mischief in the recent sad happenings in Lebanon. Wrsonally, I do not believe’the United States had any part in them. I may be wrong, but I do not think it had. 105. Let us be frank, for heaven’s sake. I have been here 27 years, It is up to you-you and the Soviet Union-not to tiny Lebanon. Why the Soviet Union? After all, the Middle East is not very far from its borders. It seems to consider that it is an interested party-and why not? And YOU have economic interests in that area too. Look how your newspapers dramatize the oil situation, saying that the Arabs are going to throttle the United States in the 1980s. Seers, prophets. All these made-up stories about the Arabs and the monetary crisis. The monetary crisis you have is the result of the fact that you Western Powers, after two world wars, spent your patrimony almost to the point of bankruptcy. 1 saw how the mark dwindled in the l92Os in Europe-and the franc and the pound sterling, We are tied to you here. We sell you oil and we trade with you. 102. Why should you do that? You do better things. You give them Phantoms; you give them all kinds of sophisticated weapons; you give them money. And now my good friend Mr. MaIik, my friend since 1948, when we first met, what do you do? You send immigrants. Their number is legion. 1 do not know which is more dangerous, the Phantoms or the immigrants, to tell you the truth. 106. The dollar today is worth 20 cents compared to the dollar of 1947 at Lake Success. If you do not beware, five years from now it will be worth 10 cents. You will have to reissue the money, as our French friends did. This is not a laughing matter. We, in the middle class, are being impoverished everywhere-because money seems to be everything these days. 103. I am talking objectively. We are the victims, and OUI area is a checkerboard on which power politics is being played not with wooden pieces but with the destiny of nations, with the destiny of the Arabs-not the Arabs as such, but the Palestinians. And the Palestinians are the core of the problem. 107. You representatives of the big Powers, tell those who are behind you, who issue instructions to you, that it is IIO longer moral to keep on picking on a small State like Lebanon that has never encroached on anyone. 1 am not going into the catalogue of the terrorist acts, whether perpetrated at one time by the Zionists in Palestine, or subsequently-or concurrently at that time, to be fair-by the indigenous people of Palestine; or, for that matter, into 104. Here I come to some final remarks, hoping that Mr. Tekoah will take them into consideration. This is nat the first time I have made such remarks. As long as there are Palestinian refugees dispersed all over the Arab land and the wortd at large, there will be no peace-not only in the Middle East but in many parts of the world. For there are activists and activists are sometimes financed by friend and 109. “Oh,” the Zionists say, “Palestine was given to us by God.” The first time I heard that was from Mr. Eban. And I believe it was at that time that I made the remark, “Since when has God been in the real estate business?” And if God gave Palestine to the Jews, or the Gentiles for that matter, we want to see the title deed and the seal. 110. And by the same token, if you are a student of the Bible, and if you take something from the Bible out of context and use it as the basis for your statement that “God gave us Palestine”, why do you not take what King David said in the Psalms: “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof,” He did not say the earth belongs to the Jews or to the Gentiles. He did not sy, for that matter, that China should belong to the Indians because Buddha was, after all, born in what was then part of India, near Nepal. Nor have I heard the Indians laid a claim on China because Buddha was born in their country. There are more Buddhists now in China, 1 think--unless they are now atheists. But China does not lay a claim on India because Buddha was born in India. This is a fallacious argument. 11 1. And because some of the prophets of Judaism happened to emerge from Palestine-and they are our prophets too, they are Semitic prophets, not Ukrainian or Polish prophets, with all due respect to the Ukraine and to Poland--it does not mean that those political Zionists who came from abroad could claim Palestine on the grounds of religion. 112. With all due regard to the fundamentalists in religion, WC should not be carried away by such things when we know that you cannot make a people out of a religion. A people is determined by culture, by language, by way of life, by common interests. The Jews are many peoples, like the Christians are many peoples, like the Buddhists are many peoples. This is also true, for that matter, of political ideologies. Many peoples belong to one or more ideologies, 113. 1 could go on and on. But I had to make this position clear because it is not fair that Lebanon should become the whipping boy of a State that the erstwhile representatives 115. I feel sorry for those who are getting indoctrinated. I am saying this honestly, on my word of honour. I say it with compassion to human beings regardless of their religion-or political persuasion, for that matter, if they have no religion, After all, we are all human beings; guesls in this world. Each one of us is like a grain of sand on the shore of eternity. And before long, where will you all be? In the ditch. Nobody is going to survive, Why make life SO miserable on the basis of religion-Jew and Gentile. It is not worth it, believe me. There is too much contention in the world. 116. And what about this idea of spending 1 per cent of the oil revenue to resettle people in other lands, especially Arab lands? Suppose the Palestinians do not want to be resettled, Suppose they insist that they want to go back home. How can we coerce them? You cannot buy everything with money. Money is the curse of humanity iIf our days. Nothing but money-consumerism-money. 117. You cannot buy some people with money. They want to go back to their homes and orchards. Live with them in peace. Have a bi-national State or something else- 1 do not know what you should have; you should ask them. YOU came from outside. All right, you will one day become people of the land-1 mean that in the sense that after a long time has passed you will be able to live together. 118. But what is the alternative? Every time something happens 6,000 miles away from Palestine, or from dat you now call Israel, you say that Lebanon is responsible for it or Egypt is responsible for it-just as at one time YOU said that Jordan was responsible for it. These frustrated Palestinians are not accountable to Lebanon or to Egypt or to Jordan. They are frustrated and they have developed a psychosis like your psychosis. When you put two psychoses one against the other you see fireworks. Every one of IIS is in danger nowadays because of violence. 119. It is a long time since I have adressed myself to this question. I am sorry that I have had to make a rather protracted statement, but I had to go into the background of the situation so that some of my colleagues who arc 110t familiar with it should know its genesis. I shall finish nl) statement by expressing the hope that what I have said will not be taken lightly by Mr. Tekoah. He uses rhetoric and rubrics. Many of us do that-1 am not singling him out-to cover up the truth. There is no absolute truth, but there is truth based on history, based on equity, based on justice. If 125. Mr. Tekoah said in his statement that Lebanon cannot claim impunity. in his letter to the Council Mr. Tekoah said: “Lebanon forfeits the right to claim respect for its territory” [seeS/109.22]. Here we have a State which is claiming for itself the right to interfere in our internal affairs, to breach our territorial integrity and sovereignty and to foment trouble in our midst. How? As a self-appointed gendarme of the United Nations. The Israeli representative claims: “1 am coming to you to ask you for a licence to legalize acts of terrorism against Lebanon.” What in fact he is asking the Council to do is to appoint Israel, that spoilt child of the United Nations, as the United Nations gendarme in the world to establish peacesomething the Security Council cannot do by establishing a peace-keeping force, although Israel is claiming that right for itself. All the Council has to do is pass a resolution appointing Israel the grand marshal of the United Nations for the preservation of peace in the world. That is the sanction that Mr. Tekoah has come here to ask for. Why do they want this licence’? They want it to kill more people. Statements by the Chief of the Israeli Armed Forces, General Eleazar, are reported daily in the press. He is reported to have said that what happened in Lebanon the day before yesterday is not the end and that there are other actions which may be taken in Lebanon and Lebanon cannot claim for itself any shield of protection.

I now call on the representative of Lebanon,

I listened with great interest to the statement made earlier in this meeting by Mr. Scali. One point impressed me very much: it had to do with what he described as “massive lies”. This evening we have been treated in the Council to a repetition of the Israeli massive lies against Lebanon, It was done with intent to denigrate, to defame, to calumniate Lebanon and its reputation in the world, 122. What we heard tonight was not new; we have heard it many times before, Even Mr. Tekoah’s Foreign Minister, Mr. Abba Eban, made the world laugh recently when in a statement in Vienna he said that Lebanon was the least civilized country in the world, It is really a matter for laughter to hear such a statement, such a description of Lebanon from Mr. Abba Eban, who is supposed to be an articulate, scholarly, learned and cultural man. Mr. Tekoah read out a long catalogue of all the conceivable acts of terrorism that had taken place in the world during the last few years, and said that all those acts had originated in Lebanon. Really, after that description, I wonder whether 1 do not constitute a danger to my colleagues here, as a terrorist coming from Beirut, Lebanon. 126. They want to kill more people. They have killed a few Palestinians, They think that by eliminating hbou Yussef and Kamal Nasser they are putting an end to the claims of the Palestinian people. We have an Arab saying: “Every time a leader dies there is a new leader born to take his place.” Are they going to kill everyone who assumes leadership among the Palestinian people’! Are they going to exterminate all the Palestinian people? Do they want us to be their accomplices in the extermination of the Palestinian people? 123. Mr. Tekoah referred to some of the matters he brought out in his letter of 11 April. He referred, for instance, to an incident on 3 March affecting the passenger steamer Sania. He said that that steamer “on its way to Haifa with 2.50 Christian pilgrims from the United States was blown up in the Beirut harbour”. I am not singling out this particular incident for any other purpose than to point out that Mr. Tekoah is attempting to use the platform of the Security Council to spread here in the United States the falsehood, the big lie, that 250 Christian pilgrims who were on the steamer Sania in Beirut were the subjects of an act of terrorism. There is not the slightest proof that the explosion which really did take place on the steamer was an act of terrorism or sabotage. 127. When they say that a certain person went from Beirut, it does not mean that he really did go from Beirut. Most of the claims that Mr. Tekoah has made are not substantiated, They are hearsay, they are rumours-that this group went from Beirut or that that group took an aircraft from Beirut. We had to face the Security Council in 1968, when a group of Israeli commandos landed and destroyed 13 of our aircraft, on the pretext that two Palestinians had left Beirut for Athens, and there had attempted an attack on an Israeli El Al aircraft, That was enough justification for Israel to bomb the airport of Beirut and destroy most of our civilian air fleet. 124. We see Mr. Tekoah or other representatives of Israel here in the Security Council when there is a complaint about acts of aggression and acts of organized terrorism Perpetrated by the State of Israel. They come here and they use the platform of the United Nations for propaganda. We know that Mr. Tekoah and his colleagues have said about the United Nations Security Council: that it is bankrupt morally, politically and legally. We know the attitude of Israel towards the United Nations and towards the Security Council. After the adoption of the resolution by the General Assembly last December [resolution 128. Not only could I cite the whole record of Israel’s acts of terrorism in the Middle East and elsewhere in the past, but I could ask the following: Who killed Mr. Wahel Zuaiter at Rome on 16 October 1977? Who killed Mahmoud El-Ilamsheri in Paris in October 1972? Who killed BCchir 129. When we speak about terrorism we must remember one thing-that Israel is the head and soul of Stateorganized terrorism. This is the only State in the world which has and pursues a declared policy of organized State terrorism. As a matter of fact, Israel is the only country, Member or non-Member of the United Nations, condemned by this Security Council for one of the greatest acts of terrorism-the destruction of the Lebanese civilian air fleet, to which I have referred. Israel is the only country in the world which has been condemned by this Council for kidnapping Lebanese and Syr@ officers and soldiers on Lebanese territory in June 1972. 130. Mr. Tekoah has cited the Lod, the Khartoum and the Munich massacres. We dealt here in the Security Council in June 1972 with the massive Israeli attack, a reprisal for the Lod incident, The Israelis pretended that they were following Palestinian guerrillas into Lebanon-Palestinian terrorists, as they call them. But the guerrillas they killed at that time were peaceful civilians, the people of the towns of Deir al-Ashayer and Hasbya. Later on they mounted another attack against Lebanon. The terrorists they killed were terrorists such as a family which was crushed to death in its own car by an Israeli tank. 131. We have deplored here in the Council the massacre of Lod and that of Munich. We are not insensitive to human tragedies. We feel with people; we feel with our friends in the world, with our American friends, our Puerto Rican friends, our Belgian friends. Are we happy about what happened in Khartoum? Definitely not. But those were acts undertaken by individuals, and here WC are dealing with an official complaint by Lebanon against an admitted act of aggression perpetrated by a State called Israel against a State Member of the United Nations called Lebanon. And to achieve that attack Israel has resorted, against all norms of international law and morality, to the most perfidious method of warfare. The Israeli attackers werq dressed in civilian clothes; they were disguised. They came as thieves, as marauders, to commit their abominable crime. 132. We could go on speaking about terrorism indefinitely, but we must remember that this item was inscribed on the agenda of the twenty-seventh session of the General Assembly. And let me read out again the title of that item in order to remind people of one basic fact which is usually forgotten when we speak of terrorism. The title is as follows-- it is an official title of the United Nations: “Measures to prevent international terrorism which endangers or takes innocent human Iives or jeopardizes fundamentat freedoms, and study of the underlying causes of those forms of terrorism and acts of violence which lie in misery, frustration, grievance and despair and which cause some people to sacrifice human lives, including their own, in an attempt to effect radical changes”.

The next name on the list of speakers is that of the rept,. sentative of Egypt. 13.5. Mr. ABDEL MEGUID (Egypt) (interpretation fro,,, French): 1 should like to inform the members of tile Council that the statement Egypt intends to make on the item which is on the Council’s agenda today will be delivered by the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Egypt, Mr. El-Zayyat, who is on his way to New York. 136. The PRESIDENT (interpretation jbr~ SpanishJ: Th, next and last name on the list of speakers is that of the representative of Israel, on whom I now call.

The hour is late, and I shall limit myself to three brief observations, First of ali, I should like to draw the attention of the Council to Lebanon’s incorrigible attitude and to the fact that the Lebanese representative continued in his second statement this evening to defend the Abou Yussefs and the Anis Saighs and the Hamsharis and the Abu-Khairs, whom terrorist organizations based in Beirut have acknowledged as their agents on missions of murder directed against innocent civilians, especially in capitals of Europe. The world w~H follow our deliberations with interest and will want to know how the Security Council reacts to this proclamation of defiance of the elementary laws of civilized mankind and to the announcement that Lebanon does not intend to change its attitudes towards terrorist activities on and from its soil. 138. Secondly, the use of Lebanese territory for acts of murder is not an internal Lebanese matter: it is of concern to the entire world-to all those, whether in the Middle East or outside the region, who are exposed to the danger of atrocities of the kind witnessed by mankind in recent months and perpetrated by terrorists who set out froln Beirut. Lebanon can in no way deprive Israel of its right to defend itself and to protect its citizens from this kind Of outrage. 139. Finally, I shall let the head of the Lebanese Church respond to the fundamental argument in the statement of the representative of Lebanon. His Beatitude Cardinal Maushi, the Patriarch of Antioch and the Entire I!@# declared in an interview granted to the Lebanese newspsPe’ El Bairuk and reprinted by another Beirut paper, E~:‘IJ~&~’ on 28 September 1972: “The Israelis do not want to destroy Lebanon. I kfi”:’ them well. No one knows them better than I do. 1 was:; contact with them over a tong period when I was head 142. Although I know full well that 1 should not mix my own personal feelings of admiration and affection for the noble and brave Panamanian nation with the high functions that I am called upon to exercise at this moment, I still think that 1 can declare what I might term an informal but very sincere consensus of warmth on the part of all members of the Council and express today our deep appreciation for the generous hospitality of the Government and people of Panama during our meetings held in Panama City from I5 to 21 March. 140. Members of the Security Council could help by reading to Lebanon the psalm of peace-of ending violence, OF terminating terrorist activities and restoring the tranquillity which the peoples of Lebanon and Israel alike need so much. Expression of thanks to the retiring President

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