S/PV.2334 Security Council

I should like to inform the Council that I have received a letter dated 23 March from the representative of Jordan ]S/14Y20] which reads as follows: “I have the honour to request the Security Council to extend an invitation to the representative of the Palestine Liberation Organization, to participate in the deliberations of the Security Council on the item ‘The situation in the occupied Arab territories’ in accordance with the Council’s usual practice.” 3. The proposal by Jordan is not made pursuant to rule 37 or rule 39 of the provisional rules of procedure, but if approved by the Council the invitation to participate in the debate would confer on the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) the same rights of participation as those conferred on a Member State pursuant to rule 37. 5. Since no other member of the Council wishes to speak at this stage, I shall make the following statement in my capacity as the representative of the UNITED STATES. In,firl*cH//‘: Chin;,, Guyana, Ireland, Jordan, Panama, Polirnd, Spain. Togo, Uganda, Union of Soviet So&llist Republics, Zaire ,.lgtritl.st: United States of America ,.l/>,tr~/it~ill,y: France, Japan, United Kingdom of Cjreat Britain and Northern Ireland y. The PRESIDENT: I should like to inform members of the Council that I have received a letter dated 23 March [S//4Y2/ ] from the representative of Jordan, which reads as follows: *‘I have the honour to request the Security Council to invite Mr. Clovis Maksoud, Permanent Observer of the League of Arab States, to participate in the consideration by the Council of the item ‘The situation in the occupied Arab territories’, in accordance with rule 39 of the provisional rules of procedure.” IO. If I hear no objection, I shall take it that the Council agrees to accede to this request. I I. The PRESIDENT: The Council is meeting today in response to the request contained in a letter dated 22 March from the representative of Jordan to the President of the Council [S//49/7]. Members of the Council also have before them documents S/14912 and S/14916, which contain the text of two letters dated 19 and 22 March. respectively, from the representative of Jordan to the President of the Council.

As this is the first occasion I have had to speak in a formal debate before the Council this month of March, I wish to extend to Mrs. Jeane Kirkpatrick my most sincere congram tulntions on her assumption of the presidency. She has already conducted the work on the informal and no 1~s important variety of issues of which the council has been seized with pragmatic wisdom, expedition and detachment. I am confident that her diplomatic skills will stand her in good stead. 13. I should also like to express the deep apprecia- IiOn Of mY delegation to her predecessor in the presidew. Sir Anthony Parsons, for his wisdom, extended 14. we ;lre meeting tod;iy in the Shi\doM’ of ;I d;ll’k. hideous and uncharted destination which confl‘0nth and truly portrays the syStem;ltiC m:ll’tyI.d()fn Of the occirpied territories and their Pdcstiniatl illld t)thcl’ Arktb victims. As 1 hnve stated WpCUtedly bCfi)I*C tllc Security Council and elsewhere, 1 c;\Il think of IIO issllLL in the entire broad spectrum of Middle Lnst conflict which is more loaded with potential and itlCVitat~l~ disaster than the subject of the pITWIll cl~nlplitiI~t and debate. 15. Ugly and brutal as the present situation is in occupied Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Gaza StI’iP and the Syrian Golan Heights, the mnnifestatiW1~ which I have underscored in the letter addreSSed to the President on behalf of the Group of Arilb StLllch members of the League of Arab States are hut the tip of the iceberg, the tremors which precede i1 v&.xlnil: eruption, For the victimized Palestinian inhabit:mts of the occupied territories are more convinced th;in :tt any time before that their demonstrations, with thtil chests bare-in the face of the wanton, inhuman :lnd indiscriminate use of firearms and other lethal ilnd sadistic devices by heavily armed Islacli troops. police forces and hate-mongering intruding settlersare symbols both of adversity and of defiance, of despair and of unshaken determination, whntcver’ may be the cost or the sacrifices which the Israeli racist Fascists have been inflicting upon them and upcjn their bretheren in dispersal for almost IS years. 16. The Israeli invaders can only seize and hold on to the occupied Palestinian territories and reduce the proud Palestinians to slavery and to eventual tcrrc>- ristic massacres and expulsion over the people’s dead bodies, even though the only arms the Pulestinians possess are an indomitable spirit, individuwl and collective self-reliance and stones. In this resolve they will be joined by their Palestinian brethren in dispersal and by their Arab brethren everywhere. 17. It is at present an uneven fight, which only it people hardened by colossal adversity and the will to survive can even countenance with resolve and eyuanimitY. The battle for occupied Arab Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights :md their people has begun-or more appropriately h:~s intensified-and will not end until the y&e of one of the longest and worst occupations in history is terminated. One would have thought that solemn Coun- Cil resdutiOns 242 ( 1967) and 338 ( l973), which mandated Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territor-ies a decade and a half ago, should have been enforced long agO. Instead, the Israeli occupiers have been given the time needed to colonize and dig their heels in deePer and deeper every day, thereby foreclosing any meaningful options for a feasible peace. 19. The eruption of the situation in the West Bank was, on the face of it, triggered by a reckless and lawless act in which the military and so-called civilian Israeli apparatus of Fascist-like oppression forced its way into the municipality of AI-Bireh town and forcibly ejected the duly elected mayor and the councillors from their premises, replacing them by an Israeli colonel. How can an Israeli colonel become a mayor? That is something which gives food for thought, This totally unprovoked act of brutality and illegality was naturally responded to by peaceful demonstrations and sit-ins, largely by teen-agers, elderly women and even children of only 10 to 12 years of age. Substantial portions of the adult population between the ages of 17 and 45 have been, over the past 15 years of occupation, incarcerated at varying intervals in Israeli gaols or torture chambers-a quarter of a million people in all, according to Israeli sources: and this was published in the Israeli newspaper A/ Hunzishnzar and is substantiated by our own figures. 20. The professional classes, with no opportunities for practising their professions, and the farmers, whose lands and water were ruthlessly and systematically expropriated, were compelled to seek gainful employment abroad to support their families and offspring at home. But even that family assistance has been barred by the occupation authorities, as has Jordanian, Palestinian and collective Arab assistance-even to the municipalities. This has resulted in one of the most massive and cruel separations of families in the contemporary era. An Austrian lady who is closely familiar with the situation told me a few days ago that wives are living like widows and children’ like orphans because their breadwinners are away toiling to sustain them. The rate of infant mortality .due to malnutrition and lack of medical care is an appalling 160 per 1,000 as against 40 per 1,000 in Israel, and possibly less in Jordan. Medical experts, in two published bo,>ks, have also disclosed that long-term endemic diseases have afflicted our people in the occupied territories, who before occupation had a record of which they could be proud. 21. The complaint contained in document S/l4917 of 22 March describes the turmoil which has today entered its sixth day-and, regrettably, today also claimed dead and wounded in various parts of the occupied Palestinian territories-and the strikes, the curfews and the indiscriminate use of firearms against civilian and unarmed demonstrators, even at funerals and burial places, resulting in scores of dead and injured. But no less sinister are the acts of deliberate provocation, including abduction and torture unto death-as in the case of the teen-ager from Sinjel village-by armed intruding settlers who built an illegal Israeli settlement on the confiscated lands of those 22. The intensification of Israeli State terrorism and its instrument-armed settlers’ terrorism-are not being perpetrated in a vacuum. The objective of the Israeli authorities in instituting a reign of terror is to subdue and paralyse the will to resistance and the steadfastness of our people under occupation as a prelude to imposing their version of administrative self-rule and emptying the territories of their lawful inhabitants as a final step in Israel’s officially declared objective of annexing the rest of the occupied territories--they have already annexed Arab Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. That they have not as yet enacted annexation of all the territories is not out of respect for anybody but because they want all the land but not the people who inhabit the land. Thus, the Israeli occupation is tightening the screws to speed up the process by striving to strangulate the inhabitants militarily. economically and psychologically by savage means. This is an ordeal which every citizen who lives in the West Bank and the other occupied territories has to undergo day in and day out. The bitter fruits of the Camp David accords pertaining to the rights and very existence of the Palestinian people are now all too clear for all to see-as we have all along maintained, totally convinced that this would come to fruition. 23. What is happening in the occupied territories is resistance by our valiant and unarmed people to thwart Israel’s determination to annex their territories and squeeze them out by all means at its disposal. Israel certainly has a timetable and is following that timetable meticulously and in accordance with a plan of implementation. This is an act of genocide by other means. One can commit acts of genocide by starving people, by depriving them of water, by subjecting them to intolerable terrorism, by a variety of means. But the ultimate objective of obliterating the national existence of the remnants of the Palestinian people on their national soil is being pursued notwithstanding world public opinion and all the resolutions which the General Assembly and the Security Council have adopted over the years if not over decades. 24. The masterly inaction and complacency of the highest executive organ of the United Nations have already created an untenable and impossible situation which inevitably will pose in the not too distant future a grave threat to peace and security and renders any talk about a peaceful resolution to the overall conflict chimerical, meaningless and, I would say, outright deceptive-in spite of the Arab world’s declared commitment, as expressed at the Bhagdad Arab 25. It is imperative to understand, before the point of no return is reached, that it is futile to talk about Security Council and General Assembly resolutions in the abstract when the Israeli occupation has over the past I5 years been pre-empting and torpedoing them, and delineating its own racist solution on the ground. The Israelis are undisguisedly determined -and our people see it with their own eyes every dayto seize the Palestinians’ territories and resources, including water almost to the extent of 95 per cent of underground springs and other sources, and to dispose of the Palestinian people when nothing is left for them to survive on. 26. When we look again at the magnitude of the Israeli occupation’s cannibalization, erosion and dismantling of the Palestinian people’s dwarfed remaining enclaves in their ancestral homeland, we see that this has indeed reached terrifying-even terminal-dimensions: it amounts at present to between 35 and 40 per cent of the total area and still continues unabated. That is a jump of 10 per cent over the most recent findings, those in the report of 1980 [S/f42681 of the Security Council Commission established under resolution 446 (1979), a report which we hope will be taken up by the Council and updated. 27. We request the Council to shoulder its solemn responsibilities towards the Palestinian people and their territories, which have been a trust in the hands of the community of nations passed on to the United Nations from the League of Nations. 28. The duly elected municipal council of Al-Rireh should be reinstated, and Israel should cease forthwith its brutal acts of oppression, confiscation and bloodshed, which are continuing to this day in violation Of h%latiOnal law, the inalienable political and human rights of the indigenous people, and the fourth Geneva Convention of 1949,’ which is categorical in providing for the safeguarding of the rights of the civilian population under occupation. 29. Above all, hwver, the Council should ensure by all means at its disposal the termination of Israeli occupation, which in some two months will have lasted 15 long years: to the suffering people, an eternity.

The next speaker is the representative of the Palestine Liberation Organization, on whom I now call. 32. Madam President, I am sure that the Council. under your leadership, will assume its reSpOnSibi1itie.S and respond positively to this momentous SitLliltiOn. 33. It gives me great pleasure to address the Council at such a very critical moment, when scores of 0111 children and women-our entire people under military occupation-are being subjected to acts of State terrorism and vandalism, Repressive measures are applied and escalated against our people: the rattle of machine-guns, paratroopers, barbed wire. tear gas grenades, curfews, breaking into stores, rape, arrests -you name it. 34. What is more serious is the loss of life, the flow of blood of innocent people of all ages, as a result of Israeli atrocities and criminal acts. 35. As the representative of a permanent member of the Council, you might feel that you have the duty, in addition to your responsibilities and functions as President, to uphold the moral values of the founding fathers and the principles of the Charter of the United Nations and of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.? One of those rights is the right of everyone to life, liberty and the security of his person. 36. The situation in the occupied Palestinian lands is deteriorating-not that it has been any better or more Promising at any time since 1967. My brother from Jerusalem, the representative of Jordan, has *just enlightened the Council on the current events, and it would be rather tedious if I were to produce here all the United Nations documentation issued and endorsed by the Council on the acts of aggression and the violations committed by Israel, the occupying Power, Whst our Palestinian people and other Arab peoples in other occupied territories, such as the Syrian nntionals in the occupied Syrian Arab Golan Heights, where not even the International Committee of the Red Cross was permitted to bring food and medicine to help the Syrian nationals under siege. 37. The United Nations, as a result of the reports of the General Assembly’s Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Population of the Occupied Territories, is replete with facts about Israeli brutality and policy rind &signs to eliminate the physical presence of our people from our own homes, our homeland in Palestine, to make 42. I do know that Cowmcnt~rry has a rather good readership, particularly among the “intellectuals”, and sometimes it even appears dressed in green-especially if it is March and St. Patrick’s Day. Be that as it may, Milson admits from the outset that the parties to the Camp David accords: 38. The latest acts started a few weeks ago, when schools were closed and school-children arrested; all these things have been described in Security Council documents. The brutality escalated and acquired a more concrete form. In Nablus, on 7 March, Israeli soldiers fired at demonstrating students. One student received a bullet in his stomach and another in his leg. An Israeli army spokesman said, “soldiers fired into the air to break up a stone-throwing demonstration protesting the continued shut-down of Bir Zeit University.” But two elements here are clear: the student’s stomach could not have been that high in the air, and the real cause for the demonstration was the shutting down of the University. So the students were not anarchists; they were exercising their legitimate right to demonstrate and to protest against the arbitrary act of the military governor in shutting down their university , “have not been able to reach agreement on any of the principal questions in dispute. That is not surprising when one considers that the representatives of the people for whom the autonomy plan is intended refuse to take part in the talks and, indeed, reject the whole idea.” 43. I have no intention of analysing any further what Professor-General Milson said. My question to you, Madam President, is: What is in the Camp David accords for the Palestinian people that might tempt ot induce us to accept such accords? 44. I should like just to recall some historical facts. When the Special Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, which was created by the United Nations,.’ presented a programme of action-and that programme of action was subsequently endorsed by the General Assemblythe Palestine National CounciI welcomed the recommendations, including the programme, and considered them as a positive and constructive step towards the attainment and free exercise of our inalienable rights and a major step forward towards peace. 39. I say “military governor”, because it is nothing more and nothing less. The military governor is a general in the army, but he is also a professor at the University and he should know better. And I believe that all members of faculties in educational institutions know how students manifest their reaction against whatever they believe and indeed know to he wrong, 45. On I October 1977, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the United States of America came out with their joint statement on their endeavours to achieve peace. The PLO again welcomed the move and saw in it the light at the end of the tunnel. But, unfortunately, it was the United States Government which retracted its commitment and then, suddenly, plans surfaced for separate agreements and an approach to achieve comprehensive peace-so-called, However, the plans proved to be non-productive-or, rather, counterproductive. The substance of the Camp David accords annuls the existence of the Palestinian people and denies us all individual rights, such as the right of return, and national rights, such as the right to self-determination and independence in our own homeland, in Palestine. Yes, Milson is right. We, the PLO, the internationally recognized representative of the Palestinian people, did in fact reject the accords, and I think that we have the right to oppose sue h projects. 40. In the Jerusalem Post of 21 February, that same professor-general defines his role as follows: “Civil administration does not mean that this is an administration operated by civilians but an administration dealing with the affairs of civilians. It reflects the understanding that the separation of executive functions between military and civilian affairs would better suit the needs of the population and the policy aims of the Government. But of course we hope and believe that the atmosphere in the area will be such that moderate people, pragmatic people, will be encouraged to join the peace process, and in that respect we may be in a sense preparing a political atmosphere which may be conducive to the full implementation of the Camp David accords.” 41. It is this same Menahem Milson who, in a “study” and “design” published in the May 1981 issue of Cornrnrntof-y -and I take it that a lot of people here know what Commentary is-concludes that it is only through “legitimation from within” that he can help realize the Zionist dream, subjugate the Pales- 46. It might seem odd that the future of the Palestinian people was to be determined by others, and that the Palestinians-as if we were fossils-were not even consulted. Frankly, we are not the acquiescing and passive type when it comes to the defence of our rights and our survival, people, annulling its rights and denying it the free exercise of those rights-inalienable rights that have been identified and affirmed by the international community. In the defence of its rights and in its struggle, to attain them the Palestinian people does not have to be pressured either by “patronage money” or by “physic;ll terror and intimidation”, despite what Professor-General Milson tries to convey in an attempt to convince his readers. 48. The history of the British Mandate is only a vivid proof. Our struggle has taken several forms: demonstrations, strikes, even a general strike that lasted 180 days in 1936. I feel it is my duty to say to Milson and his readership that there is no need to pressure our people: our love for freedom, our love for our country and our love for independence are inborn. 49. But Milson arrives at the conclusion-a sound conclusion in a way-that through a joint effort of the United States and Israel conditions should be created to subjugate the Palestinians, thereby creating what he calls the chances for peace. In his opinion, the “permanent solution of the Palestinian problem must ultimately be struck between Israel and that political entity whose centre is Amman”. 50. Does this concept, this policy, this ideology, reveal the real goal-namely, forget about and do away with the Palestinians? 51. There are 4 million of us Palestinians, and believe me. we are not dormant and we are not pas: sive. And at this stage I wonder, if there were any need for a plebiscite among the Palestinians undel occupation, do YOU not think that the results of such a Pk&xik are very clear from what is happening now under occupation? 52. This morning I handed the Secretary-General a letter dated 23 March from Yasser Arafat, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine LiberdNl OIgaIliZatiOn and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Palestinian Revolution. It reads as follows: “The situation in the occupied Palestinian territories is exacerbating. The racist Zionist forces of occupation pursue their oppressive actions against the population and against professional social, educational, trade union and other institutidns in the West Bank and Gaza. The Government of Israel has decided to increase heavily the presence of the Israeli army in the occupied territories with instructions to impose the most severe brutalities on the “Our people under occupation cxcrcises it.r legitimate right to resist racist occupation and declares its total re-jection of all projects that the forces of occupation try to impose by force: among these projects is the civil administration and the autonomy. By its heroic struggle our people asserlt its inalienable rights, including the right to return. the right to self-determination. the establishment of its own independent State with Jerusalem 21% its capital, and at the same time our people affirms its support and commitment to the Palestine Liberation Organization, its sole legitimate representalivt: and leader of its national struggle. We appeal tu you, and through you to the world community. to peaceand :iustice-loving people and people keen on maintammg the sanctity of the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Palestine Liberation Organization would recall that all measures undertaken by the Israeli forces of occupation, its continued occupation of land, its aggression against our people and our national and human rights and our institutions-all these acts are in defiance of internationat norms as contained in the Charter of the United Nations. In addition, these illegal acts assume that the continued illegal occupation is a lasting jhit rrwmpli by virtue of oppression and force. “It is no secret that these barbaric acts of the Zionist racist forces against our people and OLIIrights is fully supported by the United States of America on all levels, be it military, economic, political or diplomatic. This is also reflected in the position of the United States of America within the international Orgynization. Such a position only encoilrages continued aggression and justifies all pretexts for the Persistence of Israel in its acts of terrrlr and other oppressive measures against our people and OLII children. “In my name, in the name of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization and in the name of the Palestinian Arab people, I appeal to you, Mr. Secretary-General, and to the United Nations, all its organs and institutions, to assume its responsibility in conformity with its Charter and its resolutions and put an end to this Zionist aggression against our people and our inalienable national rights. We trust that the just iind legitimate struggle of our people will meet with your support and the support of the United Nations.” 53. Public opinion in the United States is cognizant of the true facts. Only yesterday T& Cliristitrn Sc~ic~rtc*r Moniior in an editorial said: Of course, The Chsistitrn SC-irncc Monitor says more than that and 1 am sure everyone here knows how to get that newspaper in order to read the entire editorial, 54. The United States may feel constrained, but we believe that the Security Council does have powers vested in it by the Charter of the United Nations. It is our belief that the Council should rise to the moment, stop the flow of blood of innocent human beings and prevent further exacerbation of the situation. The PLO does believe in the efficacy of the Council and of the United Nations. It can assume, and in times of need it has assumed, a positive role and improve situations. What exacerbates situations is the lack of respect for the decisions of the Council and failure to carry out such decisions. 55. Prompted by the need to bring peace to the land of peace, we appeal to the Council to take prompt action. A resolution adopted by the Council, even by unanimity, may not be accepted and carried out by Tel Aviv, but at least it will strengthen and justify our faith in the United Nations and its noble mission and cause.

The next speaker is the representative of Senegal. I invite him to take a place at the Council table and to make his statement.

I should like first of all to express my gratitude to the members of the Council who have been kind enought to permit me, in my two-fold capacity as representative of Senegal and Chairman of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, to participate in this debate, which is important because it assuredly has an impact on international peace and security. 58. Madam President, I should also like to convey my sincere and warm congratulations to you on your assumption of the presidency of the Council for the month of March. The various posts you have held in the past and the post you hold now are all so many guarantees of the success of our work. Indeed, for a long time you taught law in American universities. That was a veritable apostolate and we are happy to 59. A tribute must also be paid to your distinguished predecessor, Sir Anthony Parsons of the United Kingdom. He succeeded in conducting the proceedings of the Council last month in a manner that compelled out admiration. Coming, as he does, from that island which a poet has compared to a precious stone set in a silv& sea, Sir Anthony Parsons, who laboured so long in the Middle East and was concerned with the affairs of that area, did a great deal to contribute to the restoration of peace there. 60. From December to this very day, the Council has quite properly been faced with the consideration of the situation in the occupied Arab territories. The AI-Bireh events, if they are to be properly understood, should be placed within a general context, that is, that of the whole Middle East question, and underlying it the Palestinian problem. 61. I am sure you will recall, Madam President, that in this context the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, of which I have the honour to be Chairman, in its report to the thirty-sixth session of the General Assembly,” made concrete and objective proposals, all stemming from the desire to find a just and honourable solution to the Palestinian question. These recommendations, as you are aware, were approved by the General Assembly by a very large majority. They are the following. 62. First, the Palestinians have the right to return to their homes and to recover the goods of which they were stripped; secondly, they have the right to selfdetermination without outside interference and the right to national independence and sovereignty; thirdly, they have the right to create an independent State in Palestine; fourthly, the question of Palestine is at the very heart of the Middle East problem and no solution to this problem can be contemplated if it fails to take account of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people: fifthly, the exercise of these inalienable rights of the Palestinian people will contribute also to a final solution to the Middle East crisis; sixthly, the participation of the PLO, the representative of the Palestinian people, on an equal footing with all other parties on the basis of General Assembly resolutions 3236 (XXIX) and 3375 (XXX), is indispensable in all efforts, I 63. I wanted to set forth all these recommendations because we believe that, in the light of what I have just said, everyone will agree with me that any approach-past, present and future-to solve this crisis must necessarily take account of the elements I have outlined. We also believe that this is the time for the Council to take up all these recommendations and put them into effect. Any delay in carrying them out will only serve to increase tension in the area, as borne out by the cycles of violence which have been triggered off there, with all their untold consequences. 64. But until such time as these measures are applied, the Council must also take all necessary measures to contain the events in Al-Bireh. In this regard, the Committee believes that the draft resolution submitted for the Council’s approval will contribute to this. 65. Madam President, in the course of your brilliant university career you have always taught law; in your present post you practise it. Therefore, we appeal to you: Please work for the triumph of right over might. Work for the restoration of peace in that region which gave the world the eternal message of peace and fraternity which we have all learned through the revealed religions. Peace and justice have been implanted in all minds today; it is a powerful idea. And, as was so well put by a great French thinker and writer, “no army can stop an idea whose time has come”. I have quoted Victor Hugo.

The next speaker is the representative of the Syrian Arab Republic. I invite him to take a place at the Council table and to make his statement.

Madam President, I wish to express my congratulations on your assumption of the presidency of this distinguished body. I should also like to express my admiration for the diplomatic skills of your predecessor, the representative of the United Kingdom. 68. In 1976 the Middle East conflict entered a new phase as a result of the Camp David process-a phase in which it has been ever since then, and which is no less cruel than previous phases and which is even much more dangerous not only with regard to regional security but also with regard to world peace and security. This new phase is ostensibly characterized by the widening of the area of conflict, on the one hand, 69. The Council has been convened urgently to face a tragic situation affecting the lives and the property, as well as the future, of millions of Palestinians, the victims of Israeli aggression since 1948. The Council is invited to shoulder its responsibilities and carry out its duties, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, in the most ominous context-that of the declared policy of Israel calling for the final liquidation of the Palestinian people in the occupied territories as well as of those in exile. The Council is also called upon to consider the situation in the Golan Heights, where the occupying authorities are committing barbaric acts. The Council should not forgel that threats by Israel to invade southern Lebanon before a certain date-which I am not going to mention-add to the complexities of the situation in the area. 70. The symptoms of Israeli rapacity arc daily news: more settlements: more confiscation of Arab land: the arming of Israeli civilians to attack Palestinians; the closing of universities and cruel crackdowns on students and their professors: the shooting at peaceful demonstrators resulting in the deaths of many teen-agers; and the assassination of Palestinian individuals without any justification. The disbanding of the Municipal Council of Al-Bireh and its replacement by Israeli military rule-a new gauleiter-is an indication that the Israeli occupation authorities have embarked on the process of annexing the West Bank bit by bit. In addition, Israel, whose talent in manipulating the markets is undisputed, is creating such conditions in the West Bank and Gaza as to force the educated Palestinians and Arab skilled labourers to emigrate, since the development of the West Bank is supposed to serve exclusively the interests of the Jewish settlers. 71. We should like the Council to consider in depth the Israeli oppressive policies in the Golan Heights. Soon after the Israeli occupation authorities annexed the Golan on I4 December 198 1, adecision that both the Security Council and the General Assembly declared null and void, the Israeli military authorities began speeding up the process of annexation through the use of suppression, terrorism and harassment. As of the first of this month the carrying of Israeli identity cards by Syrian nationals in the Golan Heights became compulsory. Information on those repressive measures has already been communicated to the Secretary- General and circulated as official documents of the Security Council and the General Assembly. 73. To portray the character of the Israeli occupation authorities I wish to bring to the Council’s attention the following statement made by Mordechai Zippori, Minister of Communications of Israel, as reported on 17 February by Reuters: “KIRYAT SHMONA, Israel-Communications Minister Mordechai Zippori said today that ‘the Golan Heights is ours and anybody who regards himself a Syrian should be allowed, in a democratic fashion, to move to Syria.’ He made the statement to reporters in the northern Israeli town after a tour of the Heights.” Since you, Madam President, are a believer in Israeli democracy, I draw your attention to this notion of the Syrians being allowed, democratically, to lose their homeland, their property, their homes. This is the character of your ally. 74. In order to understand the problems we are facing in the Middle East as a result of the Israeli intrusion we must always try to analyse the Israeli mind and its understanding of the meaning of “peace”. In the Israeli perverse perception, the occupation of Arab territories and its corollary annexation-even without having to shoot people-is being portrayed as an act of normalization, as was stated by the Israeli representative [set S/1482/, prrra. S], as the rectification of an anomaly: and surely, in the Zionist racist mind, it is regarded as an act of “purification”. And in a recent speech reported in the 18 January issue of Nr\t*.s~l~rk, the Israeli Minister for Foreign Affairs, Yitzhak Shamir, the head of a terrorist gang of the past, and of the present, declared: “We want peace, but only in conditions which will enable us to continue our existence, and this means the Golan Heights, Judea and Samaria within the boundaries of the land of Israel”. 75. The Council is therefore called upon to draw its conclusions from a statement by one of the most involved policy-makers of the Zionist entity. It is quite clear that Israel considers its existence as a negation of Arab existence, whether in the Golan, in the West Bank or in Gaza or elsewhere. Therefore, the annexation of the West Bank and Gaza, in addition 77. The Syrian Arab Republic is entirely committed to the Charter of the United Nations, but that is not true of Israel, whose leaders’ obsession with Judaizing all occupied Arab territories is best illustrated by a call uttered by Begin exemplifying a dictatorial imposition of Israel’s jurisdiction over everyone of the Jewish faith. I have quoted it on an earlier occasion. He said: “We call on the young generation, in the homeland and in the Diaspora, to arise, go forth and settle. Come from the East and the West, the North and the South, to build together Eretz Yisrael. There is room for millions of returnees to Zion.” What sort of State are we dealing with? What ideology? 78. The history of Israel must be considered in its proper context, a context that has been and remains essentially colonial. It is an outgrowth of a Western colonial incursion of the nineteenth century against Asia, Africa and Latin America during the West’s hectic race to carve out colonies and to build empires. 79. Likewise, from the outset, violence has been implicit in Zionism, an inherent characteristic of this movement, which is purely political and purely colonial. Post-State Zionism was a force which deliberately and systematically aimed at perpetuating violence and conflict in the Middle East region. The architect of the Zionist doctrine, Theodore Herzl, confided in his Ditrrks, published after his death in f904, that military power was an essential component of the Zionist strategy and that the land of their choice, by then Palestine, had to be acquired by armed conquest. But then Herzl was realistic enough to admit that the original natives of Palestine were the greatest obstacle in the Zionists’ way, an obstacle which had to removed by any and all means. To hear Herzl speak of the Arabs, one hears the ruthlessness and the inhumanity of the man who founded the movement, as well as the philosophy of his disciples who rule Israel today. 80. Herzl speaks of “spiriting the penniless population across the border-while denying it employment in our own country.” He instructs that “both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly.” And after advocating that property owners should be cheated and not given anything back in return, he advises his followers “not to expel the native population before putting them to some use, “such as” 81. Nor was Herzl. the father of Zionism, the exception to the rest of the Zionists, all of whom planned and continue to plan Israel’s long-term strategy of terror, ter’ritorial expansion, subversion and provocation G,v-ir-r+s the Arabs. Moshe Sharett, considered a founding father of labour Zionism, is yet another example of an Israeli leader whose published PPI~soI~~~/ Ditrrirs illustrate the Zionists’ decision to occupy what they call “the rest of Eretz Yisrael”. The DirrrG~s disclose that Israel’s decision to expand to six times its size in 1967 was taken as early as 1954, that the decision to create a small puppet State in Lebanon was taken as early as 1954-55 and that plans to carry out subversive and terroristic acts in other Arab countries, particularly in my country, Syria, date back to the mid- 1950s. Once out of office Sharett became haunted by acts of violence and terrorism for which he and his colleagues were primarily responsible. He confides in his Llirwie.s: “*The phenomenon that has prevailed among us for years and years is that of insensibility to acts of wrong, to moral corruption . . . We don’t have a moral approach to moral problems but a pragmatic approach to moral problems . , . Once, Israeli soldiers murdered a number of Arabs for reasons of blind vengeance , . . and no conclusion was drawn from that, no one was demoted, no one was removed from office . . . . Then there was Kafr Kassem, Equally those responsible have drawn no conclusions . . . And then came the amnesty for those of Kafr Kassem, and such conclusions could be drawn again, and I could go on like this forever . . .” Sharett concludes: “All this must bring about a revolt of the sense of justice and honesty in public opinion: it must ’ make the State appear in the eyes of the world at large as a savage State that does not recognize the principles of justice as they have been established and accepted by contemporary society”. X2. All Israeli leaders, despite their hypocritical cries for peace, realize that Israel is doomed to everlasting conflict with its neighbours, and Moshe Dayan was one of those who understood that that which came into being by violent and unnatural means could only survive and prosper by violent and unnatural means and that a nation born by the sword must survive by it. 83. In a speech delivered to Israeli soldiers, Dayan, who typified and embodied the spirit of Israel, said: “Let us not today fling accusations at the murderers. Who are we that we should argue against 84. The speaker is now dead, but his generation is still alive, bringing up a generation that is even less sensitive to suffering and more than ever bent on violence, a militaristic society dedicated to carrying on the Zionist colonial mission. As one British analyst put it: “Force for the Zionists is not merely punitive it is also purative”-and it may be curative. A recent example of this is the case of the annexation of the Golan Heights, exactly what the Israeli representative calls “normalization”. 85. Some apologists for the Zionists have tried to persuade world public opinion that the crimes committed against the Arabs, particularly the people of Palestine, may be justified by the Nazi crimes committed against the Jews and others in Europe during the Second World War. They argue that Nazi crimes cannot be expiated except at the expense of the Arabs, an argument that is totally false and inhuman-false, because the Jewish programme was elaborated and became operational long before the Nazis committed their crimes against a sector of the European population, both Jewish and gentile: and inhuman, because no crime perpetrated against humanity can be washed away by other, equally hideous crimes. On his deathbed, the philosopher Bertrand Russel had this to say about the twisted reasoning I have just described: “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 no reason to perpetuate any suffering. What Israel is doing today cannot be condoned, and to invoke the horror of the past to justify those of the present is gross hypocrisy. Not only does Israel condemn a vast number of refugees to misery: not only are many Arabs under occupation condemned to military rule: but also Israel condemns the Arab nations, only recently emerging from colonial status, to continuing impoverishment.” 86. We hold the United States of America responsible for the deterioration of the situation in the Middle East in general and in the occupied Arab territories in particular, for without the unlimited military, economic, financial and diplomatic support it has extended to Israel, that racist entity would not have been able to apply the law of the jungle in our area. 87. We keep warning that the Arab masses-the Arab people-cannot recognize any interest which Lb While stressing that our interdependent world needs the United Nations and the principles initiated in the Charter, and that it continues to be in the American interest to use the United Nations as a significant foreign policy forum, the group of experts urged the United States to be prepared to act, alone or with others, outside the United Nations in the light of the deterioration in the capacity of the world body to deal impartially and effectively with questions of world concern.” 88. Peace-a slogan of the Israeli spokesman-has a meaning. Peace for the Arabs is the following. Peace in the Middle East cannot be established unless it is a just peace, based on two elements: first, the total and unconditional withdrawal of Israel from all occupied Arab territories, including Jerusalem; and secondly, the exercise by the Palestinian people of all their rights-right to self-determination, right to return, right to establish of their own national homeland-state-in Palestine, under the leadership of their sole representative, namely, the PLO, whose presence the United States voted against.

The next speaker is the representative of Israel, on whom I now call.

Madam President, at the outset permit me to pay my respects to you on you1 assumption of the presidency of the Council for this month. Over the past year you have won the admiration of all those who have experienced first-hand your vast knowledge, your wisdom and perspicacity, your intellectual honesty, your forthrightness and your principled stand on the issues facing us here at the United Nations. I personally have also been greatly privileged in acquiring in you a valued and trusted friend. 89. Israel should not be permitted by the Council to continue its grave violations of international law. The only avenue left open to us is the Security Council, and the Council’s obligation-by now it is indeed an obligation-is to apply mandatory sanctions against Israel under Chapter VII of the Charter, particularly those measures that are provided for in Article 4 I. The Council must remove the Israeli aggression and adopt a resolution, here and now, recommending that Israel be expelled from the world Organization because of its persistent violations of the principles of the Charter. 95. You, Madam President, represent in the Organization one of the most powerful nations in history, I represent one of the smallest on earth. There is a tremendous disparity between our two nations in terms of physical size, as well as in military and economic power. Yet our two nations share the illustrious spiritual heritage bequeathed to mankind by the prophets of Israel. Together we stand in our struggle for the preservation of the fundamental human freedoms and human rights in our world, for the equality and brotherhood of man, for the intrinsic dignity and value of every human being, for social justice, for the equality of all nations great and small, for the peaceful settlement of international disputes and for peace among nations. 90. The General Assembly has already taken a step forward towards the imposition of sanctions after it declared that Israel is not a peace-loving Member State, We believe that the Council should take into consideration the will of the majority of the United Nations, as expressed in General Assembly resolution ES-q/i. Unless those punitive measures are applied against Israel, it will persevere in its policies of occupation and annexation to create a greater Israel stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates-a racist State from which each and every non-Jew is to be expelled. 96. It is this shared dedication of our two nations to these values and ideals that binds our two countries and our two peoples in bonds of solidarity and lasting friendship. 91, Most of the members of the Council feel-and have expressed the feeling--that Israel is posing a grave threat to world peace and security. They wished to put an end to that danger, but were prevented from doing so by the misuse of the United States power of veto on behalf of the lawless State. 97. Let me also take this opportunity of presenting my compliments to the representative of the United Kingdom who conducted the Council’s business last month with his usual courtesy and aplomb. 92. We are extremely worried by pronouncements mildc by important United States personalities on the fulurc of the United Nations, A group of prominent 98. There has developed in the United Nations a tradition of proclaiming international days connected else can a person in his right mind interpret a most compunction in carrying out mass itrWsts. Iityhlg urgent request for the Council to meet when that siege to large cities and indiscriminately bombarding request emanates from those who over the years not them, kidnapping, murdering and torturing thosr: only have brought unmitigated disaster to the Palwho happen to disagree. estinian Arabs but have also decimated their ranks? 104. Since 1976, between 30.000 and 50,000 p~plr: 99. It appears that two such countries have tried to have been killed or maimed by Syrian forces in Syriil out-do each other in calling for this most urgent itself and in Lebanon. No Council meeting-urgent. meeting. As a result, those two well-known soul-mates, emergency, or otherwise-was ever requested tcl the representatives of Syria and Jordan, have been discuss those massacres and mass detentions. Incivying for this honour. In the event, it would seem that dentally, the number of those arrcstcd without trial Jordan has won out and has managed to out-distance in Syria today stands well above 10,000. Syria. 105. Among the illustrious acts of the heroic Syrian 100. If Jordan’s opprobrious record is not yet suffiarmy of occupation in Lebanon are the massacre of ciently known by members of the Council, let me menerstwhile allies, the leftists and the Palestinians. and tion just a few highlights. During the 19 years in which the violent struggle with the Christian groups dtlring it occupied Judea and Samaria, between 1948 and 1978, when large Christian quarter-s in Beirut were 1967, the Jordanian Government deliberately curdestroyed and between 5,000 and 10.000 people were tailed their economic and educational development wounded. No Council meeting was ever requested so that the Palestinian Arabs living in Judea and to discuss those acts of heroism. Samaria could not compete with the primacy of the territory which became the Kingdom of Trans-Jordan 106. And let us not forget such insignificant details in 1946 and which previously had been the eastern as Syrian commando operations in the northern I3ekaa part of the Palestine Mandate. Hence, from 1948 in the summer of 1978: as well as the siege and bomto 1967, agriculture in the areas concerned was kept bardment of Zahlk and Christian East Wcirut last at a subsistence level. Industry was virtually nonexistent and no infrastructure was developed. The year, which exacted 5,000 casualties. No Council Jordanian occupation authorities oppressed the local meeting was convened to discuss those acts of hrutupopulation and brutally suppressed the riots which lity either. The Syrians did not refrain from murdering broke out at frequent intervals. During those I9 years, political opponents in Lebanon, among whom were hundreds of Arabs in Judea and Samaria were killed Kamal Jumblat, members of the Gemayel family and and wounded by the Jordanian army, other leading figures. While all these activities were going on in Lebanon, the Syrian rbgime suppressed 101. During its rule, Jordan also took steps to fraginsurrections in Aleppo, in northern Syria, through ment Judea and Samaria. The three civil governors the use of tank and artillery barrages, destroying appointed by the Jordanian rkgime in the Jerusalem, entire sections of cities and villages. Trade unions were Nablus and Hebron districts controlled most municipal forcibly disbanded and hundreds wet-e killed and functions. The mayors were appointed from among wounded. Some 500 prisoners at the Palmira Prison. ‘the council members, and the local governor, the the majority of whom were members of the Muslim Mllhqfiz, was ASO authorized to influence the electoral Brotherhood, were massacred on 27 June 1980 in processes, retaliation for an attempt on the life of President Assad. which had taken place the day before. 102. Jordan’s attitude towards the Palestinian Arabs persisted after l967-and if proof is needed 107. These efforts to maintain the Assad rCgime at all one has OnlY to recall the ruthless killing of thousand; costs spread beyond the borders of Syria. Members .f.l m . . . ofpalestinian Arabs in Jordan in September 1970, when hundreds of them came fleeing across the Jordan River to find refuge under Israeli rule. or me syrlan opposition abroad were murdered during ’ the period from July 1980 to March 1981. includinti Salah al-din Al-Bitar, a former Prime Minister o? Syria, who was killed in Paris, and the political refugee Abdul Wahab al-Bakhri, who was murdered in Jordan. 103. Let us consider the other protagonist of the Palestinian Arabs. It is the totalitarian dictatorship of the Assad brothers in Syria, a narrow, ethnic minority 108. We also know the sinister role played by the rkgime supported by bayonets and indiscriminate notorious brother of President Assad, Colonel Rifa’al Cruelty and terror. This indeed is a country that knows Assad, over the last several years, First, Brother no liberty of expression, a police-State which sup- Rifa’at’s storm troopers were especially prominent in Presses all individual liberties and strangles the counthe bloody quelling of the uprising of the Muslim Brotherhood in the city of Hama last month. The city 109. Incidentally, in an interview with the Middle &st magazine of London, the Syrian Minister fol Foreign Affairs Khaddam explicitly blamed Jordan for its involvement in Hama, claiming that “he has evidence that the gangsters of the Muslim Brotherhood have a base in Jordan”. That was reported by the Associated Press on 23 February. 1 10. All these facts of Syrian barbarity cannot be erased by mendacious statements of the Syrian representative, including his pseudo-scientific and pseudophilosophical ramblings, all punctuated by his customary clarity of mind and elegance of style. I would only like to remind him that he has omitted from his source material and documentation the Protocols of TOP E/dPrs of Zion, that crude anti-Semitic forgery of the Tsarist Russian secret police from the turn of the century. I 1 1. This indeed is a shocking record of the Syrian and Jordanian rCgimes’ inhumanity against their own citizens as well as against Palestinian Arabs and Lebanese citizens. Against this record of brutality and inhumanity of Jordan, Syria and others it is clear why any fair-minded observer must watch with disgust and contempt the display of hypocrisy to which the Council is being subjected by the representatives of Syria and Jordan, who in their statements-like other, . equally sanctimonious statements already delivered and yet to be delivered-have raised wailings over the alleged predicament of the population of Judea and Samaria. These sentiments of disgust were aptly summed up as follows in an editorial in the Nc1c1 York Post of today, 24 March: “Here we go again on another whirl through the Luna Park of distorting mirrors at the Security Council. “Syria calls a special session to condemn Israel for dissolving the PLO-run city council of El Bireh on the West Bank and for firing on stone-throwing demonstrators trying to provoke disturbances before next month’s crucial handover of the rest of the Sinai to Egypt. “But who condemns Syria for sending 8,000 soldiers, bombers, tanks and helicopters to subjugate Sunni religious opposition in the large Syrian city of Hama last month, causing an estimated 1,000 civilian casualties before the situation is brought ‘under control’?” 113. Israel has had to overcome obstacles at every turn in its pursuit of peace. Its initiatives have been repeatedly rejected and refused by Arab countries, supported in their re+iectionist attitude by certain Powers outside the region. After a peace agreement was signed between Israel and Egypt, those rejectionist Arab rCgimes not only gave expression to theil opposition to it but even harnessed the United Nations -an organization dedicated under the Charter to the promotion of international peace and the advancement of harmony among nations-to their bellicose ends aimed at turning the United Nations against its very raison d’itre. However, this Arab attitude notwithstanding, Israel has been consistent in its efforts to create an atmosphere of greater understanding and co-operation in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza District. Thus, for instance, in 1976 for the first time in the history of Judea and Samaria three municipal elections were held. The candidates in those elections were given every opportunity to conduct their campaigns, irrespective of their political views. Unlike the Jordanian occupation authorities, Israel did not try to influence the election results. 114. A further important and positive step was taken when a civilian administration took over the duties formerly handled by the military administration in these areas. By setting up the civilian administration, Israel seeks to create the framework for a Palestinian Arab autonomy which would eventually take over from the civilian administration. 115. For the first time since June 1967, a local Arab leadership has arisen in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza District which believes that it is not bound by orders emanating from the terrorist PLO. These local Arab leaders are willingly and successfully pursuing a path which indicates their desire to live in peace with Israel and which repudiates the PLO methods of terror and violence, 116. The PLO and its supporters in the Middle East and beyond have viewed this development with great alarm and apprehension since it would ultimately mean the dashing of their hopes to terrorize the inhabitants in these areas. Having been conceived in violence and barbarism and nurtured on bloodletting in the worst tradition of its Husseini predecessors, the PLO is desperately trying to “discipline” the Palestinian Arabs by exacting submission through fear. To the question put to Farouk Kadoumi, one of Ardfat'S henchmen, by the Beirut weekly Monday Morning of “It must first be said that the PLO and the Palestinian people in the occupied territories and outside them know very well how to use such methods to prevent certain personalities from being diverted from the revolutionary path. Our people in the interior recognize their responsibilities and are capable of taking the necessary disciplinary measures against those who try to leave the right path. The PLO is keenly interested in having everyone stick to the path of the revolution under the PLO bannet -the PLO will take all measures needed to prevent any personality or group regardless of identity from striking out in a different direction. That is OUI policy”. The meaning of these words is clear. They require no elaboration. 117. Since its inception in the mid-1960s, the terrorist PLO has operated by and large outside the major centres of the Palestinian Arab population, basically because the message of the PLO to the Palestinian Arabs was and is destructive and sterile: it held and holds no promise for the lives of the Palestinian Arabs of the present and future generations. Many Palestinian Arabs fear a PLO takeover since it could spell only war and destruction. But those who have had the temerity to resist the terror sown by the PLO were intimidated and subjected to assassination attempts. They thus feared for their very lives, The many examples that come to mind on this subject clearly demonstrate the kind of persuasion the PLO is apt to use against those who do not concur with its destructive philosophy. The systematic PLO campaign of death and terror to intimidate and silence those Arab leaders who oppose terrorism and who favour peace with Israel has resulted in a long list of slayings, including the slaying of Yusuf Al-Khatib, the head of a village association in the Ramalfah area, and of his son in November 1981; the slaying of Muhammad Abu Warde, the Deputy Mayor of Jabelieh, in the town of Gaza in November 1980: the slaying of Sheikh Hashem Khuzander, the Imam of Gaza, in June 1979; and the slaying of’ Abd AI-Nur Janho, a member of the Ramallah municipality, in February 1978. All of these local leaders who died at the hands of the PLO were guilty of only one sin-openly supporting peaceful coexistence with Israel. I IX. The most recent attempt by the PLO to silence an Arab leader occurred on I2 March 1982, when a barrage of bullets struck the home of Mr. Fahri Issah Ismail, a member of the Village Association of the village of Bitunia, in the Ramallah area [S/14Y/O]. I 19. The orders issued by the PLO to the Arab leaders of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza District were to 120. Israel regrets the loss of any human life, without regard to nationality, religion or creed. The responsibility for this loss of life rests squarely and exclusively with those who have engineered and masterminded violence in Judea and Samaria in recent weeks. 121. Responsibility for the unrest that has recently spread in Judea and Samaria must to a large extent be shared by the Government of the Palestinian Arab State of Jordan. Just over two weeks ago, the Prime Minister of Jordan, in his capacity as Martial Law Administrator, threatened the inhabitants of Judea and Samaria with treason charges and death penalties if they favoured peace with Israel-

I call on the representative of Jordan on a point of order. 123, Mr. NUSEIBEH (Jordan): I feel impelled to raise a point of order. The representative of Israel has taken the licence of violating the norms of international conduct by deliberately falsifying the officially recog nized name of Jordan by referring to it as the Palestinian State of Jordan. I request that the representative of Israel respect and abide by the rules of procedure and the norms of international conduct by calling a member State of the Council by its proper name, which is Jordan or, if he wants to give the full name, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

I ask the representative of Israel to continue.

It is strange that the representative of the Hashemite Kingdom of the Palestinian Arab State of Jordan should object so strenuously to the characterization of his country as a Palestinian State. I have in front of me a book entitled Pu/c>stine (rrzd the United Ntrtions and authored by Mr. Hazem Zaki Nuseibeh, and on the dust jacket of that book the first words are the following: “Hazem Nuseibeh is a Palestinian”, Well, I would assume that if he is here as the representative of a member State, it is

1 call on the representative of Jordan.

I have to reiterate that the representative of Israel should be ruled out of order. I am proud to be a Palestinian: I am proud to be a Jerusalemite whose family has been in Jerusalem for 14 centuries, unlike the representative of Israel, who came to the Holy Land probably 20 or 25 years ago. I have the honour to represent Jordan as its Permanent Representative. There are many Palestinians who, since their dispersal and after having been denied the establishment of their own Palestinian State in accordance with resolution 181 (II), adopted by the General Assemblg on 29 November 1947, have been working for all the neighbouring countries-but primarily to restore the Palestinian people’s right to create their own State, which is still on the books and which must be created. It is the creation of that State which Israel had to pledge to respect in order to be granted admission to the United Nations.

I call on the representative of Israel.

It would seem that Mr. Nuseibeh is abusing the procedure of a point of order. He is in fact right: not many, but the majority of the citizens of Jordan are Palestinian Arabs and the majority of the Palestinian Arabs are Jordanian citizens -which of course goes a long way to prove my point. 130. Responsibility for the unrest that has recently spread in Judea and Samaria must to a large extent be shared-

I think that we should proceed with the substance of the matter before us. 132. I call on the representative of Jordan.

The substance of the matter in brief is that every spokesman in the Security Council should address a member of the Council or any other member invited to address the Council by the official name of the country which he represents. .Anything which deviates from this elemental rule is out of order and I am sure that all the legal experts would agree with me on this point.

I think that we should proceed with the substance of the matter before us. I may say that it does strike me personally as a very sound idea that all Member States at the United Nations should always be addressed by the proper names “I give those who were deceived by this scheme one month from today to withdraw from these organizations. Anyone who remains, joins, campaigns for or works for them in any form after this delay will be prosecuted for treason and will be brought before the competent courts which will pass the required sentences. The maximum penalty will be death and the confiscation of all immovable and movable properties.” [Sre S//@/O] 136. What we are witnessing today is a concerted effort on the part of Jordan and its long-estranged and rediscovered bosom friend, the terrorist PLO, to eliminate any emerging and promising alternative to the PLO method of violence and terror. 137. The constant provocations on the part of both Jordan and the PLO to subvert any movement towards peaceful coexistence in the region have never been more apparent than in the recent developments in Judea and Samaria. 138. The calling of this meeting itself is nothing but a cIear attempt to engender additional tensions and to attract support for the provocations inside those areas. 139. We shall certainly not be surprised to witness the usual procession of so-called peace-loving, democratic and liberal States, such as Cuba, Viet Nam, Afghanistan and East Germany, reviling Israel at this table, Their participation will fittingly underscore the true intentions of the sponsors of this performance. 140. A framework for the peaceful coexistence between Jew and Arab is now clearly emerging: the PLO, Jordan and their ilk are conspiring to destroy it. The greater the promise for Jewish-Arab understanding and co-operation, the greater the combined rejectionist effort to see it terminated. The terrorist chiefs, as well as the leaders of Jordan and their rejectionist friends, are obviously gnawed by the fear that the Palestinian Arabs might strike out in a different direction, aimed at peaceful coexistence and mutual accommodation with Israel in a spirit of reconciliation between the two fraternal Semitic peoples.

The next speaker is the representative of Egypt. I invite him to take a place at the Council table and to make his statement.

Madam President, allow me at the outset to extend to you on behalf of my delegation and in my own name congratulations on your assuming the presidency of this august body. I am confident that under your capable leadership, and given your sagacity, the Council will conduct its business with all smoothness and efficacy. 144. My country, Egypt, maintains a high level of friendly relations with your Government and people based on mutual respect for the principle of national independence and sovereignty. You represent a country and people whose dedication to the values of human dignity, liberty and independence has profusely enriched the advancement of mankind. I am confident that you will be inspired by those traditions in upholding the supreme value of the right to selfdetermination of the Arab people of Palestine and its right to live in full dignity, freedom, independence and nationhood. This will be a culmination and in fact a coronation of your strenuous efforts throughout the past years to help achieve a just, comprehensive and peaceful settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict. 145. Yet again an appalling flow of news on death, tortures, massacres, oppression and suppression in the occupied Palestinian territory in the West Bank is besetting this body, which represents the conscience and will of the international community and stands as a guarantor of international peace and security. 146. Yet again Israeli policies and practices in the *occupied Arab territories are creating further challenges and obstacles which will undermine sincere attempts to achieve a peaceful, just and comprehensive settlement of the Middle East question. 147. The Middle East region has since June 1981 and even before then been witnessing crisis after crisis caused by systematic, predetermined Israeli moves against Arab countries-Iraq, Lebanon, Syria-and against the Palestinians within and outside their occupied territories. Those moves are obviously designed to impose military and political domination on those countries and to consecrate new sfcritLs rrwornplis under Israeli occupation. 149. Those policies, as correctly described in T/jc Wclshington Post of 23 March, are aimed at “expanding the Jewish presence on the West Bank and sliding over eventually to annexation. This entails shrinking the Arab presence and creating conditions to induce members of the Arab majority to abandon their homes.” 150. The illegal and unwarranted Israeli move to dissolve the Municipal Council of Al-Bireh and the expulsion of Mayor Ibrahim Al-Tawil are only reminiscent of similar actions against the mayors of Hebron and Halhoul. Again the increasing death toll among the Palestinian inhabitants of Nablus, Ramallah, Hebron and East Jerusalem evokes memories of the tragic events of June 1980 and the attempts on the lives of the mayors of Nablus, Ramallah and AI-Bireh, condemned by the Council in its resolution 47 I ( 1980). 151. In my statement before the Council of 5 June 1980, I emphasized the following facts: “repressive measures in the occupied territories have destroyed all the Israeli arguments that the maintenance of security in the occupied territories should remain the exclusive responsibility of Israel. Under the Israeli military administration, Palestinians have been denied their rights, their security has been endangered, their homes have been destroyed and their lives have been threatened. It is therefore imperative that the Palestinians themselves should now be responsible for security affairs in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, within the framework of transitional full self-government . . , The Palestinian people should be enabled to exercise their inalienable rights, including their right to self-determination. Those, in our view, are the steps essential for the creation of the necessary conditions conducive to the achievement of a just, comprehensive and lasting settlement, “Genuine peace can never prevail as long as military occupation exists,” [2226rh tneeting, parcls. 90 crnd 911 152. The general strike now prevailing in the occupied Palestinian territory of the West Bank is a natural expression of resistance against iron-fist policies 153. The Israeli military occupation is the real underlying cause and prime mover of these tragic events, as was cogently highlighted by The Christirrn Sriancc Monitor in its editorial of 22 March: “few would quarrel [with the fact] that the underlying cause remains the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank and the failure to give the ruled Palestinians the right of self-determination. Palestinian Arabs indeed take up stones against Jewish settlers. They feel themselves the helpless victims of an Israeli policy which, more and more, seeks to subjugate them-by expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank, by trying to implant a pro-Israeli civil administration, by harassing Palestinian educational and family life. “The loss of life in the West Bank does more than evoke sadness. It points to dangers-of growing Arab bitterness, of uncontrollable violence.” 154. Egypt sees and finds in these Israeli policies a deIiberate attempt designed to dehumanize the Palestinian people, to depopulate the occupied Palestinian territories, to make them less and less suitable as potential sites for a Palestinian homeland. Increasing international opinion in favour of a Palestinian State is met with increasing Israeli determination to foreclose their option by redoubled efforts to Israelize those occupied territories. Israel annexed Arab Jerusalem, confiscated 40 per cent of the total area of the West Bank, implanted more than 100 Israeli settlements and siphoned off water resources. It expelled a large number of potential leaders. It is forcing Arab cities and viIlages to connect into the Israeli electric grid and water network-all in a race to abort the idea of Palestinian nationhood and to foreclose the possibility of Palestinian independence. 155. The position of the people and leadership of the Arab Republic of Egypt on the situation in the occupied Palestinian and other occupied Arab territories has been amply elaborated in my statements before the Security Council on 16 December 1981 and the General Assembly on I February 1982: “The peace which Israel presumably seeks, and which we in Egypt endeavour sincerely to realize, cannot but remain an unfulfilled delusion if Israel persists in such acts, which dissipate all possibilities, though meagre, of reconciliation or coexistence. “We also call upon the United Nations and the international community to live up to their responsibilities “Peace with Egypt alone, whatever its value-and it is great-whatever its significance-and it too is great-is not and cannot be a substitute for just peace among all parties to the Arab-Israeli dispute, foremost among which is the Arab people of Palestine. “If the relationship of Egypt to Israef, which is now entering its third year after 30 years of wars, bloodshed and thousands of victims, is today one of coexistence and reconciliation and a clear landmark on the road to peace, the relationship of Egypt to the Arab nation, in spite of the fact that today it is undergoing certain difficulties, is a relationship that is centuries and generations old and is based on a common language, religion and culture, a common past, future and destiny. It is a relationship that is national, immutable and eternal and transcends any disagreement or crisis and, in the view of Egypt, is not at variance with the relationship of a peace based on justice between Israel and the Arabs.“S 156. The increasing tensions in the West Bank created by heavy-handed Israeli practices further escalate a deteriorating security situation in the Middle East and adversely affect prospects for an early, peaceful and comprehensive settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict. These practices conducted against the letter and spirit of the fourth Geneva Convention,’ norms of international law, relevant United Nations resolutions, and principles and purposes of the Charter should be strongly condemned and declared invalid by this body. 157. The question of Palestine has been and remains the core and crux of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Egypt, among other Arab States, cannot overlook or ignore the adverse effects and consequences of these policies on the peace process. This prevailing aggravating situation in the occupied Palestinian territory in the West Bank is a direct corollary of the adamant Israeli rejection of the recognition or acknowledgement of the existence of an independent Palestinian national entity and a direct product of the intransigent and stubborn Israeli rejection of the conducting or undertaking of an objective and constructive dialogue with the Palestinian national entity, based on the principles of mutual recognition and coexistence. 158. The dynamics of the peace process have to be maintained-in fact, energized-or else we shall again face a fatal stalemate which would inevitably entail a total collapse of the regional security structure. To overcome a likely impasse in this historic achievement of the peace process, we have to promote energetica]]y 159. These are the starting points for overcoming an impasse which threatens to frustrate peace efforts. These points have been rationally explored in a highly valuable statesmanlike report published by the Seven Springs Center under the title The Ptrth to Pcrrcc, Artrk-Isrirrli POLYP, Omh~r 1981 . 160. Israel should accept squarely and unhesitantly the challenges of peace as set forth in the options formulated in the framework of peace in the Middle East and as designed in the autonomy talks, because this is, in our opinion, the most practical and realistic basis for the establishment of a just, peaceful, comprehensive settlement. 161. We call upon Israel to rescind forthwith its latest measures, to reinstitute the Municipal Council of Al-Bireh and Mayor Ibrahim AI-Tawil, who was freely and legally elected to his office, and also to lift all oppressive regulations enacted by the Israeli administration. 162. We also urge and call upon Israel to start the implementation of the confidence-building measures called for by Egypt time and again since October 1978 in order to convince and persuade the Palestinians of the viability, possibility and promising prospects of the peace process. 163. Before I conclude, I should like to reaffirm a remark made in my statement before the General Assembly last February: “We have accepted peace with honour and dignity, and we call upon others to join the march of peace inspired by free will. At the same time, however, we categorically reject any peace that would be imposed on us or on others from positions of strength and the usurpation and denial of the inalienable legitimate rights of all parties, foremost among which are the rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination and the establishment of a free and independent State.‘16 164. We are aware of the difficulties and pain that accompany the birth of peace, but we are also aware of the potentialities of peace, They far outweigh those difficulties and hardships. Delivery of peace in the Middle East, while requiring courage, statemanship, commitment to international law and legality, cannot be achieved before the liberation of the Palestinian people and deliverance of the Palestinian future. 165. I should like to conclude by striking a hopeful note, despite this ominous situation, and quoting one of the wisest witticisms of Winston Churchill: “An

The next speaker is the representative of Pakistan. 1 invite him to take a place at the Council table and to make his statement,

Madam President, first of all I should like warmly to felicitate you on the assumption of the presidency of the Council for the month of March. We are confident that with YOUI experience and diplomatic skill you will be able to steer the proceedings of the Council with distinction. It also gives me great pleasure to refer to the cordiitl and happy relations which exist between Pakistan and the United States of America. 168. 1 should also like to take this opportunity to express our gratitude to Sir Anthony Parsons for having provided guidance to the Council’s work during the month of February. His departure from New York will deprive us of his wise counsel in the United Nations and we shall deeply miss it. 169. The fact that the Council has been obliged to address itself time and again to the situation in the occupied Arab and Palestinian territories of the West Bank, Gaza and the Syrian Golan Heights and the Holy City of Jerusalem is clear evidence of the explosive nature of the problem, which poses a grave peril to international peace and security. The continuing resistance of the Palestinian people to the Israeli occupation of their homeland also highlights the primary imperative of the Middle East conflict--that peace cannot be attained in the region without the full restitution of the inalienable national rights of the Palestinian people, including their right to self-determination and the establishment of their sovereign State in Palestine. 170. Israel has long defied overwhelming world opinion, particularly the decisions of the United Nations on the Middle East conflict, and has embarked on a relentless policy of annexation and consolidation of its control of the Holy City of Jerusalem, Gaza, the West Bank and the Syrian Golan Heights, occupied since 1967. This policy has been condemned by the United Nations in unequivocal terms. 171. The Council, in several resolutions--namely, resolution 465 (1980), which addressed itself to the ; occupied Palestinian and other Arab territories, including the Holy City of Jerusalem; resolutions 476 ! ( 1980) and 478 (1980), relating to the status of the Holy City: and the latest resolution, 497 ( I98 I), on the Syrian Golan Heights-censured all measures taken by Israel to alter the character and status of the occupied territories and declared them to be without any legal validity. Those measures, which represent Israel’s ambition for aggrandizement, are in flagrant contravention of the Charter of the United Nations, the fourth 172. The gravity of Israeli actions is not fully encompassed by their illegality as determined by international law and United Nations resolutions. The Israeli policies of brutal repression against the Palestinian people appear to be aimed at thec,liquidation of the Palestinian nation, its identity and its magnificent and venerable culture, which spans scores of centuries. 173. The recent events in the occupied West Bank have once against stirred up anxiety and indignation throughout the world, The Israeli decision to disband the Al-Bireh elected Municipal Council and to replace it by direct Israeli rule, and its coercive methods against unarmed civilians protesting against that illegal decision, are yet further manifestations of Israel’s scheme to bring the occupied West Bank under its permanent annexation and control. But it is also evident that the Israeli annexationist policy has met the determined opposition of the Palestinian people. The Israeli oppression of the Palestinians in the occupied territories, the expropriation of their land and property, the denial of their fundamental rights-and even the indiscriminate bombardment of the Palestinian refugee population in Lebanon-have failed to vanquish Palestinian aspirations to the restoration of their national rights. The Israeli repression has only served to intensify their indomitable resistance. 174. On this occasion, we should like to salute the martyrs of the Palestinian struggle, the heroism of the Palestinian youth who are once again demonstrating in the streets of Al-Bireh, Nablus and Halhoul that they cannot be subjugated by violence and the courage of their elected leaders in occupied Palestine, who have stood firmly in defence of the rights of their people. 175. Judging from the upsurge for liberty and freedom in our time, the cause of the Palestinian people will eventually triumph. However, we cannot overlook the fact that Israeli expansionist policies have already taken a heavy toll in sacrifices of blood and tears. Tension is mounting. Should the tragedy of the Palestinian people persist longer in the future, it will inevitably escalate into a world-wide conflict. 176. Deeply conscious of the grim consequences of Israel’s dangerous course of annexing the occupied Palestinian and Arab territories and its repression of the 177. Recent events in the occupied territories have demonstrated that paralysis on the part of the Council, preventing it from acting expeditiously and firmly, will contribute to the aggravation of the situation. A particularly heavy responsibility therefore lies with the permanent members of the Security Council to enable the Council to carry out its primary responsibility to bring peace to the afflicted region. Nothing could be more dangerous than a situation in which the authority of the Council is impaired and it is prevented from complying with the dictates of peace and redressing the injustice being perpetrated against the Palestinian people. 178. The Council must demand from Israel-the occupying Power-that it rescind forthwith its decision to dissolve the Al-Bireh elected Municipal Council. Israel must immediately reinstate the duly elected Municipal Council of Al-Bireh. The Council must demand of Israel that it put an end to its brutal violence against the unarmed civilian population of the occupied Arab and Palestinian territories. 179. While taking this opportunity to declare once again the complete solidarity of the people of Pakistan with the Palestinian cause, I would, on behalf of the Pakistan delegation, urge the Council to make a concerted effort to fulfil its historic obligation towards the Palestinian people by bringing to a close the tragic chapter of their sufferings and travail.

The next speaker is Mr. Clovis Maksoud, to whom the Council has extended an invitation under rule 39 of the provisional rules of procedure. I invite him to take a place at the Council table and to make his statement. 181. Mr. MAKSOUD: Madam President, I should like to extend to you the congratulations of the League of Arab States on your assumption of the presidency of the Council for the month of March. Throughout your tenure at the United Nations you have represented and articulated some of the noblest ideals characterizing the body politic of the United States, ideals and values we cherish throughout the world 182. Your academic background is well known and well established; it brings to the United Nations the intellect in action, giving the lie to the perceived dichotomy between the academic and the diplomat or politician. 183. I should like to take this opportunity also to congratulate the British representative on his tenure last month. He is a well-known Arabist and the Council enioyed his wisdom and his guidance in many of its deliberations. We will all miss him. . 184. The dissolution of the Al-Bireh Municipal Council and the removal of the mayor constitute an escalation of the annexationist policies of the Israeli occupation authorities. That escalation is aimed at setting in motion a mechanism by which all other options before the Palestinians are foreclosed. The intention of Israel at this particular juncture is especially to put the United States in particular in a position where if it does not collude with Israel in its policies it will collide with Israel. In fact, what Israel intends to do in the next few days and weeks is to make totally impossible the development by the United States of more flexible policies in regard to the Arab-Israeli conflict. 185. We have learned today, to our great regret -as a matter of fact, to our great astonishment-that one of your predecessors, Madam President, Senator Moynihan has introduced at this particular moment in the Foreign Relations Committee of the United States Senate a resolution which states that any attempt on the part of the General Assembly or the Security Council to penalize Israel for its aggression will be a proper’ excuse for the United States to withhold any of its financial contributions to the United Nations. That resolution, which was unfortunately adopted by the Foreign Relations Committee, comes on precisely the same day that Israel acts in complete contempt of the United Nations, in complete defiance of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, in utter rejection of all norms of international law, in defiance of all agreements. At precisely this moment, when the international community, including many sectors of American opinion, unequivocally condemns Israel’s behaviour and its escalating annexationist policies in the West Bank, politics seeks to interrupt American policy and preempt America’s objective judgement. 186. This resolution is reprehensible because it is perceived by Israel as a sort of license to act at will, to strike at will and to be able to have the protective shield of a very important Power whose global responsibilities for peace and international security are underlined by the Charter of the United Nations and by the perception by the United States itself of its global functions and role. 188. In regard to the presentation we heard from the Israeli representative about Syria and Jordan vying to present the complaint about Israel’s activities and oppression in the West Bank, I should like to put the record straight. It is to their great credit that Arab States vie with each other to submit this complaint on behalf of the Palestinian people under occupation, For the PLO is recognized, but the Palestinians are denied their right to statehood. All Arab States consider themselves Palestinian, for the Arab people recognize in Palestine a part of their sacred homeland and in the Palestinian people an integral part of their national constituency, but one whose rights have been denied. Thus each one of us is acting on behalf of the Palestinian people, because as long as they are temporarily denied a State every Arab, State will vie to protect and articulate their rights. 189. Let me say for the record that the complaint submitted to the Council by the representative of Jordan was submitted in his capacity as the Chairman of the Group of Arab States members of the League of Arab States. Therefore, there was no question of vying. This was a collective, unanimous decision on the part of the Arab nation, whose diplomatic vehicle in the United Nations is the Arab Group. 190. Secondly, oft repeated is the notion that the PLO is a terrorist organization. Let me! on behalf of the League of Arab States, spell out what we conceive to be the PLO. I think that the record should be put straight again-although this has been affirmed repeatedly-in order that there be no misunderstanding or misrepresentation. The PLO is, by resolutions of the League of Arab States, the Non-Aligned Conference and the United Nations, the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. But that is only one attribute of the PLO. 191. The PLO is something else: it is the framework of Palestinian “peoplehood”. There are no Palestiniafi Arabs in so-called Judea and Samaria; there are no Palestinians in refugee camps who are separate from their own people: there are no Palestinians in Diaspora without a focus of representation. Because finally the Palestinian people have discovered and asserted not only their identity but also their rights, and they have assigned the PLO not only the function of leading their liberation struggle-that is one of the functions: and not only the function of representing the Palestinian people in the international community-that is 192. That is what Israeli occupation and racism are seeking to pre-empt by actions of State-sponsored terrorism, by the attempt to picture the PLO as a phase of the Palestinians and a faction of the Palestinians: as well as by alleging that the sponsored, minute quislings which are under the “village leagues” are an alternative leadership that acquiesces in Israeli occupation, that serves its conquering objectives and that feeds on Israel’s creeping annexation of the West Bank and the occupied territories. 197. Israel’s annexationist policies have been escalated to an intolerable level and warrant the convening of the Council, because this level of escalated annexation threatens the peace of the region, and perhaps of the world as well. These annexationist policies treat the Palestinian people in the occupied territories as they were treated in the early beginnings of the Zionist conquest of Palestine-not as adversaries, not as human beings, but as human obstacles to the unfolding conquering pattern of the Zionist colonization of Palestine. They must be removed-by persuasion, by village leagues, by quislings, by purchase, by military occupation, by annexation, by making it totally impossible for them to survive because they are denied water, education, social facilities and human equality. 193. For the Palestinian people the PLO is not only its legitimate representative, its leader in its liberation struggle, the framework of the Palestinian people and the carrier of the seeds of its statehood: it is also a state of mind. Any attempt to circumvent and dislocate it only reinforces the facets of national cohesion and national determination. And the PLO is not unique in these manifold functions. 194. In recent days and weeks we have seen that the mayor of Al-Bireh is only one of the mayors. There are the mayors of Nablus and Ramallah. There are other mayors, who are outside their towns and villages because they have been expelled and condemned by Israel; they are mayors who were duly elected and functioning, without any coercion. 198. Israel treats the Palestinians as human obstacles that have to be removed in order to accommodate the future Israeli empire already designated, not as occupied territories, but as “Judea” and “Samaria” in preparation for the infliction on Palestine of outright Israeli conquest and annexation. Has Israel eve1 called the occupied territories “occupied territories”? Has it ever treated them as occupied territories? The Israelis do not consider the occupied territories occupied. They consider the occupied territories to be territories that should be “liberated”. From whom? And upon what philosophy is this based? It is based on a philosophy of Zionism that considers that there is a permanent polarity between the Jew and the other, a polarity that cannot be reconciled: that every non-Jew has to be suspect, has to be treated critically and is ultimately an alien. So in the Israeli-Zionist philosophy the native population, the Palestinians, are not only human obstacles: they have to be treated as aliens in their own homeland and country. It is this philosophy of alienation that has engendered the ghetto mentality-that everybody must be treated with suspicion-and that has engendered the concept that their actual military terrorism inside the occupied territories, in Lebanon and in the Golan Heights is a terrorism that not only is self-generating but has to be protected; that anybody, anybody in the world, who questions Israel’s policies, who questions its behaviour, who does not comply with and acquiesce in Israel’s perpetual addiction to aggression, expansion and annexation, must be regarded as anti-Semitic. 19.5. The demonstrations by the hundreds and thousands of students in Bir Zeit University, Bethlehem University and other universities in the occupied territories are passive, peace-loving acts against the whole might of the Israeli military authority. They are seeking to trigger the conscience of mankind, to focus attention on their plight, because they consider the PLO not only as their representative: they know that the PLO has also become coterminous with their identity and personality, their present and their future. It is in this context that when an attempt is made to denfgrate the PLO, any attempt to describe it as terrorist, it is an insult not only to the Palestinians and the Arab people. Many similarly situated peoples and liberation movements throughout history have been termed terrorists by the colonialists and racists. Gandhi and Nehru of India, Kenyatta of Kenya, Makarios of Cyprus and other leaders, including those in Zimbabwe, have been called-up to a few years 01 months ago-terrorists by the occupiers, the conquerors and the annexationists. Liberation movements too have been called terrorist. Well, I must say that Mr. Arafat and the PLO are in good historical company. 196. The hysteria with which Israel perceives the wave of the future inherent in the Palestine liberation movement, the terror that Israel inflicts on the Palestinian refugee camps in southern Lebanon by air and 199. And the Israelis come to the Council and say about the representative of Jordan that he called himself a Palestinian from Jerusalem and therefore is a “diplomatic mercenary”. What would happen to the ZOO. I do not want to dwell on the crocodile tears that have been shed concerning the anguish and agony of the Arab States in their search for a sense of direction in the twentieth century. In many instances that search has caused us a great deal of bloodshed. But all our inter-Arab relations, all our inter-Arab disputes are within the framework of an Arab nation in trying to assert its rights and develop itself. It is the Israel which occupied part of our nation, which conquers part of our nation and is in occupation of Arab territories, that must realize that it cannot play havoc with the chances of comprehensive and genuine peace by perpetually denying the Palestinians theit right to self-determination, 201. We have come to the Security Council. The representative of Jordan, in his capacity as the Chairman of the Group of Arab States for this month, has presented our complaint because we believe, despite evidence to the contrary, in the ultimate efficacy of the United Nations machinery. We are committed to exhaust all diplomatic and peaceful options through the mechanism of the United Nations. But if the intolerable and escalating annexationist policies of Israel, its addiction to aggression and annexation, remain uninterrupted by the intervention of the United Nations, then the havoc that we are all seeking to avoid will be conjured up and enforced.

Two participants in this debate have asked to exercise their rights of reply. I call first on the representative of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

The Council has on numerous occasions decided 204. The mayors of the Palestinian territories -among whom are the mayors of Al-Bireh, Ramallah, Halhoul and Hebron-were elected, but when their terms of office expired, the Palestinian people were denied the right to go to the polls either to renew theil mandates or to elect other individuals to these posts. One wonders: Can we dare the occupying Power to allow new elections to be held? In that case they would not need to provide all those obstrusively and heavily armed guards of the so-called village leaguers. 205. We are not dealing here with criminal acts of mass murders, like the Deir Yassin massacre or the deliberate and planned sinking by the Zionist movement of the Putria, which was carrying Jewish survivors from the Nazi concentration camps and gas chambers. The Council is now faced with the flow of blood and the imminent threat of a ma.jor military confrontation in the area. 206. A new concept of law, both national and international-and I do not claim to be a jurist-a new jurisprudence, has just been announced here. One i wonders whether spies, quislings, agents and traitors i can be absolved of their crimes by invoking “their desire to live in peace with the other party”--the relationship between that party and their own people and their national aspirations, rights and interests notwithstanding. I am sure that some jurists and \ legislators will work very hard to provide an answer. / 207. As I mentioned earlier, the civilian administration referred to is a misnomer, a deception or an 1 attempt to insult our intelligence and that of the worId i community. Professor-General Milson has already c described to us what this so-called civilian adminis- 1 tration really is. He tells us very clearly that this is 1 not administration by civilians but one dealing with the / affairs of civilians. And there he draws a line between 1 the needs of the population-whether it be for a ! sewer system, public water or streets-and the policy : aims of the Government. Thus this administration is i based on the denial of political and other rights of these f people and, as Mr. Milson says, the aim of that admin- 1 istration is the full implementation of the Camp David accords. It is the substance of the Camp David accords that is the cause; it is not the labyrinth of various : interpretations of the substance itself. i’ 208. I noticed that the media were being quoted, 1 I only wish again to suggest a reading of the entire i 2 15. Criminals under investigation always evade the issue to distract attention from their crimes, 216. If we read the fourth Geneva Convention carefully, concerning punitive measures, by its standards any country on the globe can detain Mr. Begin and try him for war crimes. 217. On 8 March, which is Revolution Day in Syria. the President of the Syrian Arab Republic marched in the streets of Damascus on the way to the Parliament. He was received by one million Syrians. He WAS carried on the shoulders of our workers, farmers, intellectuals, even pseudo-intellectuals. His speech in Parliament wilt remain a monumental defence of his country against imperialism and Zionism and their permanent attempt to subvert Syria. 209. It really hurts me to the bottom of my heart when I hear someone representing a racist regime speak about Jews and Arabs living together in peace. I belong to a generation which has known Palestine. I was born in Jerusalem. I know the country as one where there was no difference, no discrimination between Arab and Jew. It was only when it became clear to the Palestinian Arabs that the Zionist newcorners were to take over their homeland and their beloved country that the clashes started. We had lived in peace and in oneness; it is not only a question of understanding: we are just one. I wonder how many among the members of the delegation seated at the other end of this table were born in peaceful and beautiful Palestine or have their roots there. 218. Syria wishes through you, Madam President, to correct the representative of Israel. He said that workers’ trade unions had been dissolved. That has never happened. The power of Syria ties in the ranks of a large segment of workers, whether labourers in the agricultural fields or workers in factories. Those are the people of Syria. 2 10. In 1974 Chairman Arafat addressed the General Assembly.’ He called for a State-he described it as a “dream”, but it was really an aim and not merely a dream-in which we should all live inpeace, without any discrimination, on Palestinian territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. There is plenty of room to accommodate all of us. Believe me, that woutd be peace-and a viable peace. 219. His defence of the terrorist activities of the Muslim Brotherhood shows the extent of the cooperation of Israel and the United States with that group. Israel and the United States of America are arming and supporting and co-operating with those armed groups, which have nothing to do with Islam -those heretics, whose objective it is to bleed Syria and to weaken its credibility in withstanding United States and Israeli aggression against the Arab homeland and in liberating our territory from the Zionist occupation supported by the United States. 21 I. The Council is faced with a challenge: to enable the Palestinians to return to their homes and freely exercise their inalienable rights in their own homeland, Palestine. This is the challenge, and it is high time that the Council met that challenge and found a solution, 220. Syria is the bastion of Arab nationalism, the catalyst of progressive forces. Its image cannot be tarnished-neither through the pronouncements of the Israeli representative here nor through sabotage by the reactionary forces armed and protected by United States imperialism and Israel, whose objective it is to destroy Syria from the inside. The people and Government of the Syrian Arab Republic are, as they have been for the last 30 years, dedicated to harnessing all their force with the help of their friends-and we have so many friends-to liberate Palestine and the occupied Arab territories. 212. Meanwhile, the Council is dealing with an immediate issue; it is dealing with the most recent Israeli acts of State terrorism; it is dealing with the question of innocent persons being killed. The Council has the duty and the power to deal with this issue. 2 13. The PRESIDENT: The representative of the Syrian Arab Republic has asked to speak in exercise of the right of reply. I invite him to take a place at the Council table and to make his statement. 22 I. The PRESIDENT: I call on the representative of Israel,

The representative of Israel has taken the floor to misrepresent and to mislead the Council. He spoke about everything in the area except the situation in the occupied Arab territories, which is, as you, Madam President, and all members know, deteriorating. The

I had no intention of replying to the sermon delivered by Mr. Maksoud. One does not usually respond to sermons. But towards the end of that sermon he made certain allegations which call for a response. 224. I do not want to polemicize with him with regard to the alleged unity within the Arab world. We were, though. told towards the end of the statement that there are many disputes and rivalries within the Arab world but that they are inter-Arab rivalries and others should not intervene. Well, if they were inter-Arab rivalries and disputes and dissensions and suspicions, that would have no implications for the rest of the world and for the rest of the Middle East, and I think that we would all heed his advice. But unfortunately it is precisely these inter-Arab rivalries and dissensions and suspicions and disputes that are the rootcause of the instability of the Middle East and that these days constitute one of the major threats to international stability and international peace and security. So we should not be told to leave it to Mr. Maksoud to sort out those differences. After all, what is at stake is not only the well-being of the people of the Middle EM but also the peace of the world. 225. And then we were told by Mr. Maksoud that we have a ghetto mentality. There are limits even to arrogance. 226. This Organization is the product of the great wartime coalition that fought nazism and fascism. The prime targets of nazism and fascism in those days were persons to be found in the ghettos of Europe and those who rebelled against Nazi tyranny in Europe. At that time the spiritual and intellectual mentor of Mr. Maksoud, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the notorious Mufti of Jerusalem, co-operated with the Nazis in the extermination of the Jews of Europe in the ghettos. He was wanted as a war criminal in Nuremburg after the war, So Mr. Maksoud would do well not to address himself to the question of ghettos and the ghetto mentality. What he has displayed here is the mentality of those who oppressed the ghetto dwellers during the Second World War. 227. I do not think that the reply that we heard from the representative of Syria calls for any detailed response. I think it was a very useful statement. It clarified once again for all of us here the state of mind of the Syrian representative. 228. He spoke of Revolution Day, 8 March-Revolu- ,tion Day in Syria. What he has failed to tell us is which of the many revolutions Syria has undergone over the past 35 years that day is intended to mark? He also made a very interesting Freudian slip, which he corrected at once. He spoke of his President going on 8 March last to Jerusalem. This may be part of his

Mr. Clovis Maksotld wishes to make a further statement. I understand that he htls. strictly speaking, no right to do SO. However, with the consent of the Council, I shall invite him tu address the Council. As there is no objection, I invite Mr. Mibksoud to take a place at the Council table anti to make his statement. 230. Mr, MAKSOUD: I do not want to take more of the precious time of the Council, but I think that it is necessary to clarify certain positions SO that the distortion of truth and reality does not become habitu:d and uninterrupted. 231. The League of Arab States has amongst its members all the independent Arab States, as well ils the PLO, a full member. This is not only il regional organization of various Arab Governments, but :IISO a national organization. Our nation, the Arab nation. has experienced a variety of colonial Powers and different levels of colonial control ranging from the Ottoman in the past to the British and the French at it moment prior to the decolonization period. Therefore. the Arab States achieved their independence at different stages. We had national liberation movements in every Arab State. We did not have the over-n11 mechanism of a national liberation movement because of the multiplicity of the colonial Powers and the different levels of colonial control. So we achieved our independence at different stages. Because of this we realize that the sovereignty and independence of each Arab State is precious, important and vital, historically and contemporaneously. But besides being independent sovereign Arab States, we are one nation; we are one nation of many States. And because of this dynamics of inter-Arab relations, determined by historical factors, the unity of our spiritual experience, the unity of our culture and language, the unity of our aspiration, the unity of our destiny-because of all this, the interrelationships among the Arab States assume a dimension and a dynamics that put the Arabs in a togetherness that is at times intimate and at times acute. Sometimes we differ with many States outside the Arab nation. Our differences are sometimes resolvable and sometimes not resolvable. We have misunderstandings with many States throughout the world. We have good relations also. But because of the intimate nature of ourrelationships, because of the organic nature of Arab nationalism, we have a feeling of interdependence that makes our sovereignty Protective of interference, but not uf interaction. This is the dynamism of Arab nationalism, Included in that nationalism are the PaIestiniun people, because the Palestinians still are almost the only Ar& People that has not achieved sovereignty and an independent State in its homeland-that is llnfinished business and Palestinian rights are on our conscience.

Mr. Maksoud has referred to US as a religious group, thus explicitly denying the national identity of the Jewish people. He has also stated that Jews are a part of “our” people-that is to say, of the Arab people. I think he has highlighted the source of the Arab-Israel conflict, namely, the refusal of that brand of nationalism which he speaks for to admit the existence of any other nationalism in our part of the world. This kind of exclusivist approach-racist approach-is aimed not only at Israelis and Jews. He applies it equally to Kurds, to Druse and to other non-Arab nationalities in the Middle East. That is the kind of nationalism-the brand of nationalism-which Mr. Maksoud speaks for. This is the internationalist approach. And others who maintain that they have the same rights to national existence as the Arabs are relegated to the level of people suffering from a ghetto mentality. 233, That is why it is crucial that at this moment, when we are discussing the fate of the Palestinians under occupation, we go into the root of the problem -and that is the fact that Zionist nationalism has no accountability. It considers the world answerable to it but it is accountable to nobody. It is that alienation in the ideological structure that spills over and becomes total contempt for the international community. NOTES 1 United Nations, Tr~fy Series. vol. 75, No. 973, p. 287. 2 General Assemblv resolution 217 A (III). ’ See General Assembly resolution 3376 (XXX). 4 C#cirr/ Rcwrds of fhe Getwrul Assembly, Thirty-sisfh Ses- ,sion, .S~/pplemet~t No. 35 (A/36/35). 5 Ibid., Ninth Etnerg~twy Special Sc.ssicttf, Plc~~~rry M~Witt,sv, 4th meeting, paras. 20 and 25. h Ibid., para. 32. HOW TO OBTAIN UMTED NATIONS PUBLICATIONS United Nations publications may be obtained from bookstores and distributors throughout the world. Consult your bookstore or write to: United Nations, Sales Section, New York or Geneva. COMMENT SE PROCURER LES PUBLICATIONS DES NATIONS UNIES Les publications des Nations Unies sont en vente dans les librairies et les agences dcpositaires du monde entier. Informez-vous auprts de votre libraire ou adressez-vous a : Nations Unies, Section des ventes. New York ou Get&e. COMO CONSEGUIR PUBLICACIONES DE LAS NACIONES UNIDAS Las publicaciones de las Naciones Unidas estan en venta en librerias y casas distribuidoras en todas panes del mundo. Consulte a su librero o dirijase a: Nacioncs Unidas, Seccibn de Ventas. Nueva York o Ginebra. Litho in United Nations, New York 00400 8%60989-April 1989-2,050