S/PV.638 Security Council

I may seek occasion at a later meeting to deal in more detail with the very long, immoderate and inflammatory speech to which· we have just listened, but I should like now merely to make sorne urgent observations on the major aspects of the situation which confronts the Security Council at the end of that speech. 114. Before l do that, however, I should like to clarify one or two matters in which the views which I have suhmitted on behalf of my GOvernment have been misrepresented. The representative of Jordan found it possible to ascribe to me the statement that the Qihya incidents were justified. I shall not repeat exactly what l did say to the Security Council about that tragic and unhappy occurrence, but what· l said was precisely the opposite, in every true sense, of that 115. No human being, l think, is capable of any greater act of ;:reverence than to confine his sympathy for human life to his own politic:al ÎramèW(}fk, &r~& herc, l repeat with some indignation, is the represen~tive of a neighbouring country whose actions' have left thctlsands of our people slaughtered on the field of battle and hundreds done to death since the Annistice Agreement was signed, and he cannat spare a single wordof .regret or hth'nilit'j or Cvficem ID match those which l did utter and would, on any occasion, repeat with reference to the 10ss of Ïtmocent life on the other side of the.frontier. 116. l say this not because l believe that the Security Council itself will follow him into such a unilateral or tendentious discrimination in its expressions of sympathy, but because it does illustrate, l think, a certain lack of candour and of humbleness in the approach to the humanitarian aspects of this border tension. 119. It is our submission that there is a possibility, if there is a desire to do so, of bringing about a complete cessation of these murderous incursions and, therefore, of their unhappy results. But the element of urgency is inseparable from the procedural proposal which l made for an immediate meeting at United Nations Hea<tquarters on a high level of governmental responsibility. to take tmder immediate review all aspects of the border tension and of its causes wit.l,. a view to • 1 tf!;;; dimiml.t!lJ!l of ~!!. d1~se clashE;.,) and all the'ae \·esults. 120. If we could ever have been in doubt as to the urgency of this problenl and the need to bring it under immediate general review, the events of t.1],e last three weeks wouid, l think, have convinced us of the growing gravitY of the situation, because since 16 October the scene on our border with Jordan, mostly in the area which 1 described before, on the strength of General Bennike's report, as being the main area of anned raids, has had the following aspects: 16 Oc-tober. A group of anned raiders from Jordan attack a police patrol near Petah Tigva. They are pursued to the Jordan border. 19 Oefober. Armed raiders from Jordan attempt to penetrate the village of Ramat Hakovesh. The attaclc is foiled. One infiltrator is killed when a hand grenade e..xplodes in his pocket. 20 October. Regular Jordan troops of the Arab Legion tire at a train near Bir Karshieh, south of Jeru~alern. 21 Oetober. Armed Jordanians trespass on Israel territory and open tire on a patrol near Bir Karshieh. 22 October. Saboteurs from Jordan derail a locomotive and thirteen cars of the main Haifa-Tel Aviv train near Ayal. The mining was intended to explode a fuel train which ordinarily passes at that hour. The Mixed Armistice Commission condem..l1s the Govemment of Jordan for this violati011l. 24 Octobe'1'. An Israeli police post in the Kakun area is fited upon from across the Jordan border. The same day Arab Legion soldiers threaten to open tire on an Israel commander walking near the armistice line in the Ayal area where the train had been derailed. 29 october. An Israeli officer on his way to an ~sraeIi-Jordan local commanders' meeting near Budrus 1S fired upon by Arab Legion soldier-s from across the border.. 30 October. Anned Jordanians penetrate Neve nan, . a village in the Jerusalem area. They open tire on the watchman an.d steal tools and other items. from the village1"s. . 4 N ovember. Jotdanian 'OO.tional guardsmen cross the armistice line into Israel near Attir in the northern «1 November. An Israeli soldier is lcidnapped and killed by Egyptian 'Soldiers. Another Israel soldier is wounded but escapes. The body of the Israel soldier returned by the Egyptians is riddled with bullets fired. from one metre range, and has cuts in the back and the stomach. The i:ndd'mt occurs when a three-man border patrol stops to e.~change dl;uIettes and cOnvers<'\tion with an Egyptian patrol. 1.1 NovembC'r. Arab Legion troops attack a group of Israeli Arabs, women and children and a Jewish watchman 150 metres inside Israel territory near Sharafat. Eighteen women and children and the watchman are kidnapped and forced into Jordan territory. OV.e woman is wounded and the watchman is later murdered. 121. Does this not build up a strong case for the assumption that the problems that we are dealing with here are of the highest degree of contemporary urgency and that they cannot be dea1t with by refusing summary methods of high-leve1 consultation in deference to the nonnal routine? Local processes of consultation, valuable as they are, have conspicuously failed, even according to the Jordan representative's own statistics, to have any l~miting effect ttpon the anned raids, and therefore upon the results of those raids. It is to meet this problem of growing gravity and urgency that our proposaI was conceived, a proposal for an urgent conference ta seekmeans bath of stopping these incursions, and .therefore of preventing an reactions to them, both legitimate reactions and reactions which are regarded as imprudent. 122. It is in the light of such a list of events within a period of two to tirree weeks that it seems to us to faU short ofany level of international responsibility to ignore an opportunity for consulting, within the shelter of United Nations Headquarters. upon meailS for putting an end to this process, and thereby of preventing aU those movements which create stlch an insecurity of life - apparently on bath sides of the frontier. 123. The second clement in our proposal, in addition to that of urgency, is the use of United Nations Headquarters for the purpose of such a meeting. We believe that this fully c011lforms with the purposes of our Organization as a centre in which efforts at international conciliation should be harmonized, and it aIso has the advantage of talcing place at a scene in which aU expert: opinion with e.~perience in this problem is casily available for consultation. This proposal is quite different, it belongs to an utterly different world from the proposaI made by the representative of Jordat1l for a retum to those routine discussions nt Mixed Armistice Commission levels which have operated over a period of years and which have left the situation indt-,;~cl.<i-ai offences - and. that is his description of the Ulovement of murdcrO\\s raids upon Israelconstitute the bulk of the infiltration problem from the Jordan sicle. and consequently such offences make up the bulk of Jordanian violations of the Annistice Agreement. If words have any meaning these words 0111y convey l\. c1ear prediction that in so far as the responsibility of the Jordan Government is. concerned, the position on Isrnel's frontier sha11 continue to he as tense and as insecnre as it has been in the pasto V'le cannat take llllY comfort at t\1l from the description of 'this movement in such words as "minor individual offenœsu • The attack on Beit Nabnla: was that a minor individual ottence? The slayillg' of men, women and children, by the hundreds o\'er a period of months: can all that he legitimntely described as a minor individual offence? The attack on p<1.ssenger buses and on crowded pllSsellger l'ailways: can all this he descrihed' as a nùnor' individual offence? l doubt very much whether this verbal description, which tends to depreciate in the minds of the Jordan public the entire significance and gravity of this murderous movem-ent, is likely to cCl11ulllmicate itself to our side of the f;:ontier. Therefore, evell Îlt this realm of description, in the moral detlnitioll of these events, we catmot see in the Jorda11l 'speech. anythillg except a, factor in itself for the aggravation of the problem \mder discussion. And certailldY, no citizen of Jordan wha lived by the ward of a speech su("h as this would look with any coucern or with any apprehension upon that movement which has caùsed us these lumdreds of casualties and which has accordillgly made our frontier Ua line of fire and blood", ta quote and Arab pronouncement in the Security Council itself. 126. Sha1l the froutier Hne be given greater identity j 'ShaH it he demarcated with gl'eater energy or specificness? The answer is, No. Will the Jordan Government act through its ar1l1ed forces to prevent thousands of illegal crossiugs of this frontier? The answer is, No. The Jordan representative tells 'us quite candiclly that the armed forces of Jordan. will continue to dissociate themselves from auy sucil responsibility and will leave the annistice frontier between Jordan and Israel in the custody of the local interests in whase tare the frontier has been 1eft up till now. The obvious re.sult will he that this pattern-. thotl'sands of crossings \VIth hundreds af murders and defensive measures-- will continue to exist. 128. The refusaI to embark upon a short-tenu settlement is, l think, especia11y, disquieting when it is linked to a general refttsal to embark upon a long-term settlement either. Thus Jordan will ",;)t talk to us on any Ieve1 of responsibility about a border settlement. Nor will Tordan talk to us about a total settlement of outsta.nâing questions such as would e1iminate all the circml1stances out of whieh both anl1ed marauding ane!' border rioting flow. Thus, what we have sa far reached is a continuation of the present tension \Vith no attempt whatever to eli'l1inate its causes, and l m\tst suggest to the Security Council 'in all earnestness that·we, on our part, do not believe that this is an adequate international response to the tense situation which has brought the Council into session. 129. It has, l tl1ink, become quite obvious that the public exchliUlge of positions is unlikely to lead to an~­ thing, except, perhaps, an increasingly cle~, and vivid illustration of how tense the situation is. It is for this ,reason that we have sought, and still seek, to supplement local reCOUl"se to the Mixed Armistice Commissions by this proposaI for ageneral review of the entÎre stateof the Israel-Jordan Armistice Agreement at the United Nations Headquarters. That Agreement is of special importance and, l think, requires especia1ly earnest scrutiny because of the great width and 'depth of its imperfections. The preamble of the Agreement, ·relating ta a transition to peace, is repudiated.· Article J, \Vith its similar message, is ignored. Article IV establishing a·frontier line across which civilia11's may not move withoutauthorizatioll, is set aside and there ·is nethïng in the speech to which we have just listened '\vhiéh indicates that it will be brought under responsible military control. Article VIII, 'which affe~ts the posItion on l\i[ount Scopus, is in a complete paralysis .owing to Jordan's refusal to implement it sa far. In other words, the basic structure - the entire foundarion -'- of this Agreement is in sueh a state of acute ,disrepair as to require and demand of both parties an earnest attempt to rebuild that structure if, through a failure to achieve a peace settlement, we are destined to live witlùn that armistice frontier for a further period of time. But thenegative attitude which says .that we will neither move on otowards peace nor make an attempt fundamentally to repair the existing armistice structure under which we live - this seems ota me a most sterile approach which does not augur well for any improvement in the tense security situation on the frontier concerned. l~ve caused this tension but th~t ts shouÏd heavily triticize the measures which Israel h~;; ~ken to defend itself against them. vVe have the declared and avowed proposal that the Jordan military cGmmand, notwithstanding the Armistice Agreement, shaH refuse to atcept responsibility for safeguarding that frontier from within. And we just have a new proposal that this abdication from responsibility which· prevails on that side of the frontier shou~d he instituted on our sicle of the frontier, and· that Israel regular anned forces should also dissociate themselves from any.effort to maintain or guard the frontier. If that were to happen then instead of some four hundred casualties we should probably have some four thousand within the same period of time. 131. It seems to me tllat the Secarity'Council has, therefore, reaUy reached the decisive moment in its treatment of this question. It has heard an exchange of views representing the concern which the two go'vernments feel for their security and for the stability of their life in thefrontier area: On our part it has heard a proposal consistent with the normal practice of the Security Council in almast every other disputea proposal for dealjng with the specifie conflict in order ta crea:te conditions which would he tolerable until such time as the more normal intercourse and relationships of peace shaH come to prevail between us. l would, therefore, .again ask the Security Council to continue to g-ive its support to this problem of finding a way out of this deadlock, this impasse, which we have reached, and not to follow the Jordan representative in a mere orgy of unilateral critidsm bereft of any prdposal, either political or procedural, which would enable the Secl1rity CounciJ to find a means of bringing sectirity to the tormented region. 132.. Mr. Charles MALIK (Lebanon): If l may say so wIth respect, l think that the tone of the representative of Israel 1:his aftemoon shows an improvement over his tone the other day. In return, l would assure him, that :for every improvement he shows in his tone· he will find a decided improvement in the tone of those who oppose him. 133. l do not know how long the representative of Israel was intending ta spealc. l always like ta listen to him at length, because the more he talks the more substance he gives me, to reflect upon and the more material to comImnt, upon and refute, and this is always weIcome. l tried ta listen. to him very carefully this afternoon, but, so far as l heard him, the only 134. It i5 not trUe that, as the representative of Israel said, the attitude of. the representative of Jordan was 'wholly negative. In the first place, the representatÎ\ire of Jordan said that if Israel had any suggestions to make it could make them to the general armistice 'Supervision machinery in Palestine, and that this machinèry could take it UI.> at the appropriate place and in the appropriate manner. That, therefore, 15 soinetmng constructive and positive which the representative of Jordan has given us this afternoon. 135. Furtp,ermore, he suggested a series of lines along which the Council could move in its deliberations and in the formulation of its resolution. That is also constructive and positive. 136. l do not tlùnk that any objective comparison between the language used by the representative oi Jordan this afternoon and that used by the representatives of Israel in his statement on 12 November [637th meeting] will reveal that Mr. Eban was the anget and the representative of Jordan was something of a different' description; but l would say to the representative of Israel that his tone was considerahly improved, which· is quite a gain on the whole. He told us of a number of things that had happened in November and before. But we 31so.heard figures given by the representative of Jordan. Why should the Counci1 believe daims made by one State rather than cla.ims made by another State? 'Vas it not precisely for that reason that the United Nations established its own truce supervision machinery so as to enable the Council to make an objective estimate of all these figures with which the two representatives at this table have flooded us within the last week? l submit that we have only one available objective criterion whereby we may tell what has really happened in Palestine and how much the two countries have suffered in the way of casualties, and that criterion is provided. in the report of the Mixed Armistice Commission. 137. Whydid Mr. Eban not have the courage to refer to thaï report and to reàd sorne of the questions and answers? l think it would be a good thing to do that. And why did he not refer to the figures in General Bennike's answers to the questions put to him by the Security Council [63Sth m,eeting) anne:l:) appendiz I]. These figures give a totally different story from the one given by the representative of Israel this afternoon. l am asking only that the Council should not accept the words·of Israel or of Jordan. Nevertheless, if it accepïs the words of. one, it should 138. What do we find in General Bennike's a..t1Swers? l shall give the Council a summary of my calculations based on the figures on that page;. l am sure that the members of the Israel delegation assisting Mr. Eban have pointed these out ta him. My ca1culations ean.he verified. l do not know whether representatives have any private sources of infonnation but, l repeat, the, truce supervisory machinery is the only objective eriterion on which we can base our conclusions. The Mixed Armistice Commission has verified these figures _ and I shall later on talk about the relative degrees of reliability of the claims made by both Israel and Jordan - and I have made an interesting calcuiation. Let us ,ay that Israel makes 500 compl::.ints; possibly the Mixed Armistîce Commission verifies only a small proportion of that figure. But whatever the relative degrees of reliability of the daims of Israel and Jordan, the figures show that since 1949, from the very begining of this whole affair, Israel, in Israel territory, has lost 24 people killed; and Jordan, in its own territory, has lost 77 people killed, of whom 55 10st their lives at Qibya. Of the 77 killed sinee June 1949 .in Jordan by Israel, 55 were killed four weeks aga in the Qibya incident. This is a very interesting calculation which can he verified in General Bennike's answers. 139. Compare these verified figures with those which we have heard from bath sides. These are the only figures which we have ta rely on and they tell a different sfi}ry, namely, that Jordan has lost, up ta the middle of Octoher, 77 people, and Israel 24. If Mr. Eban would like to know where l got the figure 24 l can tell him. Perhaps he is making his own ca1culations. Perhaps he cannot find the figure 24 on page 45; I arrived at it by adding the 14 Israelis Idlled from June 1949 through 1952 and the 10 killed from 1 January through 15 October 1953. To arrive at the figure of 77 it is necessary ta add the figures 55 and 22 in the corresponding columns. 140. There are many otherconclusions of a pure1y mathematical nature which can he drawn from these figures. 141. I should likè to take a few moments of the Council's time to read sorne extracts from the Jewish Press in various parts of the world showing that Jews have been morally shocked by the events at Qibya. That is a good 'sign. There is no doubt that the Jewish people throughout the world who have been steeped .in the highest ethical teachings have been deeply shocked by the Israeli action at Qibya. l should like to read a few reports to prove to the Council that the conscience of the world, including !he conscience of ,the Jewish people, is becoming lllcreasingly aware of the horror of the incidents which took place four weeks ago in Jordan. "'vVnat standards are \ve to adopt in passing judgment? Surely, we have no option. but to base ourselves 0111 those ethica1 precepts on which our religion is founded, but the jettisoning of which will lead to the annilùlation of our raison d'être as a community. By that standard is there any possible moral justification for this cruel· assault on the Jordan villagers? This was not self-defence against anned attack" - This is not my language, Mi'. Eban, it is the language of the The Jewish Chronide of London - "It was reprisal of the same kind that was perpetrated by our enemies in the last war. If the action was morally unjustified, can it, perhaps, he excused on grounds of expediency? Sur'cly not." - The paper goes on to say - "For wbat couJd be more stupid than to alienate the sympathy of so many of Israel's friends at a time when, more than ever, their support is vital to its well-being if not to its existence? The defennent of American financiaI aia tnay he attribufable to the River Jordan dispute, but that.by itself is indicative of present Sate Department thinki~g and cannot but serve as a serious wal'IÙnlT" - I am not speaking for the American Gove~ent on this. I am on1y reading from what I see in the The Jewish Chronicle of London, which then conc1udes aS follows - "The evil which was wrought by the fanatics who perpetrated the crime of Deir Yassin" - this is not my language. This is the language of the The Jewish Chronicle - "has never heen entirely eliminated. Unless the Israeli Government will dissociate itself from this action and punish the culprits it. may weIl have an even more· disastrous effect than the irresponsible action of the Irgun terrorists:' 143. Now what about the American Press? It also reaeted very justly to this whole affair. I do not have with me all details of the study I have m'ade on this matter, but I must salute the American Press in this connexion for the just manner inwhich it first reàcted to the massacre at Qibya. This is a good sign also, because certainly if there is going to he justice and peace in the Near East, certain1y the great American Press, with its enormOtls influence, must sooner or later wake up te the fact that it must treat the matter impartiallyand just1y and not always take the position that Israel wants it to take. I will quotefrom only one of the papers here. This is what the National Jewish Post of Indianapolis, in its editorial of 30 October, whîle deploring the use that the pro-Arab propagandists will make of the episode, said: " ... Still, this does not relieve the United States Jewish community from voicing its utmost condetnnation of what took place... Ben-Gurion'sexplanation is not acceptable... we cannot believe that 144. l shall read·· on another occasion something that was published by the New Yot'k Post, which also uses the word Lidice in describing what happened at Qibya. Now l say that these are hopeful signs, the more so as they come from either Jewish papers 01' pro-Israel papers. l shall read more of these reacvons of the Press to this matter in order , tirst, to prove to the CoullcH that there has been moral indignation at what h..'\s happened, and also, to show that the Arab world noticed .that the rest of the worid is not r \together indifferent to these horrible events to encourage the Arab world to realize that they are not ~ltogether forgotten by the rest of the world, and - to underline what 1 have already said - that it is most encouraglng to find this spontaneous reaction of the world Press to these terrible eve."1ts. 145. 1 do not k-now what your pla11lS are with regard to the further consideration of this item and when you plan to continue considering it, but it 1S very clear that whatever the proposais of the representative of Israel, they cannot he considered formally by the Council, unless one of the members presents them. Therefore, the representative of Israel must induce the .representative of the United States, the representative of Chile, the repre" sentative of China, the representative of Colombia, the representative of Denmark, the representative of :France, the representative of Greece, my'self, the representative of Pakistan, the representative of the Soviet Union or the representative of the United Kingdom, to present their formaI proposaIs. He has every right to present proposaIs to the CoUI1Cil, but· he has no right to ask us to act on them, unless one of us should adopt them as his own and present them formally. l do not know whether any other member of the Security Council is· going to do that. For my part, l am not yet sufficiently moved, either by Mr. Eban's eloquence or by his persuasiveness, to feel that 1 am in a position to present them. But, sooner or later, the Council should be seized of formaI proposaIs; Of course, l am deferring my own text until l see whether anybody else 1S going to submit one. l have a text right he're in my pocket which l should HIre to present formally to Ll:te Council for its consideration, but l will not do so until l see what others have·in mind. ·sen~ant Greee, Pakistan, Royaume-Uni. devant demander à compte de a ni que au de Conseil. voir projet lution men vu Conseil. 146. représentant mais 146. 1 am not going to press anybody to present his text quickly, but it seems to me, as l said, that what MI'. Eban has told us is such that it cannot he acted