Egypt, 1969

104. Madam President, your election to this high international post is

manifold in its significance. It is a recognition of your role

in the defence of the United Nations Charter and the right

of the peoples of Africa to independence and self-determination.

It is also an added illustration that the values

upheld by the African woman transcend African frontiers

and cross wider universal horizons. We further share in

rejoicing at your election because bonds of brotherhood

and the common struggle for the liberty and progress of

Africa bind our two countries and peoples. I have full

confidence that you will lead the twenty-fourth session of

the General Assembly with the greatest skill and objectivity,

which are characteristic of your conduct in all the

posts we have known you to occupy.

105. I also wish to express here the deep sorrow of the

United Arab Republic at the tragic death of Mr. Arenales,

President of the twenty-third session of the General

Assembly. His untimely demise shocked those who knew

him and it was, indeed, a great loss for the Government and

the friendly people of Guatemala.

106. The conflict which engulfs the Middle East today is

between aggression manifested in Israel’s occupation of

Arab territories aimed at expansion in these territories and

the will to achieve peace based on the United Nations

Charter, which condemns aggression and expansion and

ensures the territorial integrity and the political independence

of all States.

107. Israel’s policy of continued occupation of Arab

territories to realize its expansionist aims by usurping more

Arab lands and expelling more Arab citizens, is only

comparable in modern history to Nazi aggression based on

the fiction of racial supremacy as a justification for

aggression against other peoples and the usurpation of their

rights and homeland.

108. The crime of the arson of the Al Agsa Mosque in

Jerusalem stands in repulsive contrast to man’s progress

towards the unity of his civilization and faith. The guilt of

this crime weighs heavily upon racist Zionism, which

occupies Jerusalem by the force of arms, destroying the

houses of God as well as the houses of the Palestinians and

undeterred in fulfilling its dreams of expansion and

domination by any law, be it of God or man. The crime of

the arson of Al Aqsa Mosque is not the first crime by

Zionism on the land of Palestine or other Arab lands, nor

will it be its last, so long as it believes that the international

community is incapable of standing up to enforce on it the

rule of the Charter.

109. Every day that passes without the withdrawal of the

Israeli forces from the occupied Arab territories is, in itself,

a new aggression. It is an aggression whose dangerous and

criminal character is constantly aggravated with every raid

Israel commits against the Arab countries and every attack

it commits against Arab civilians, civilian targets and Arab

economic achievements.

110. The crimes which Israel commits daily against the

Arab citizens in the occupied Arab territories reach, in the

case Of Israel, the same level of criminality practised by

Nazi Germany against the peoples of occupied Europe.

Israel deludes itself in believing that by throwing thousands

of Arab citizens into the camps of torture, by expelling

more Arab citizens, by the destruction of Arab villages and

houses, and all other measures of police terror against the

people of the occupied territories, it can ultimately achieve

its aim of forcing Arab citizens to submit to occupation and

to give up their legitimate resistance. But Israel is as

hopelessly blind as were all other occupiers to a fundamental

fact—that the struggle of all peoples against occupation

and aggression is ultimately more powerful than all the

armies of occupation, and that the faith and the will of

liberation inevitably overcome forces of usurpation and

aggression.

111. This is the fourth time that the General Assembly has

convened under the shadow of Israel’s occupation of the

territories of three States Members of the United Nations

since Israel committed its aggression on 5 June 1967.

112. The General Assembly first met in an emergency

special session, especially called in June 1967, to consider

the situation arising from Israel’s aggression against the

Arab countries. Despite the diversions of views which

characterized the deliberations at that session, there nevertheless

existed one fundamental point: the absolute necessity

of withdrawing Israeli forces from all the territories

they have occupied. Every Member State of this Organization

voted for this principle in the General Assembly,

whether they supported the non-aligned draft resolution

or the Latin American draft. There was not a single

proposal submitted to the emergency special session which

failed to provide for Israel’s withdrawal from all of the

occupied territories. At its emergency special session, the

General Assembly also adopted, by an overwhelming

majority, resolutions stating the illegitimacy of the Israeli

measures for the annexation of Jerusalem [resolutions

2253 (ES-V) and 2254 (ES-V)]. This continued to be the

United Nations position in many resolutions which it has

persistently adopted and which Israel, with equal persistence,

continued in arrogance and defiance to reject; the

last of these was adopted by the Security Council on the

15th of this very month [resolution 271 (1969)].

113. With regard to the citizens of the occupied territories,

who have been forced to leave their homes as a result

of Israeli aggression, the General Assembly has adopted

unanimous resolutions which provide for their return to

their homes in the occupied territories. Israel expresses its

continuous rejection and defiance of these resolutions in

terms and in a language heretofore unheard in the international

society.

114. In the autumn of 1967 intensive consultations were

held among the members of the Security Council, in which

the permanent members of the Security Council played a

principal role. These consultations resulted in the adoption

of Security Council resolution 242 (1967) of 22 November

1967, which provides for a peaceful settlement in the

Middle East. In accordance with this resolution, the

Secretary-General appointed a Special Representative for

the implementation of the resolution.

115. Since his first visit to Cairo in December 1967, the

United Arab Republic has informed Ambassador Jarring of

its acceptance of the Security Council resolution and of its

readiness to implement all its obligations arising from this

resolution. We also proposed to him, in the course of our

contacts, that he should set up a time-table for the

implementation of the resolution.

116. Furthermore, we have informed the Special Representative

that we consider it necessary that the Security

Council should undertake the supervision of, and guarantee

the implementation of, the resolution of 22 November

[242 (1967)]. This necessity stems from Israel’s record of

aggression and unilateral denunciation of the international

agreements it has signed with the Arab States.

117. Israel has rejected the Security Council resolution

Israeli spokesmen in the United Nations have desperately

attempted to conceal this fact, through semantics and

deceptive abuse of words. The official statements which

Israeli leaders have been issuing, in competition with one

another, have served in revealing, beyond any doubt,

Israel’s plans for territorial expansion, as well as its policy

of defiance and rejection of the Security Council resolution.

118. There is not a single principle in that resolution

which has escaped Israel’s rejection, either by deed or by

word. It has already taken measures to annex Arab

territories, and its leaders have reiterated their insistence on

territorial aggrandizement in the occupied territories. Thus,

Israel rejects and challenges: the principle of the inadmissibility

of the acquisition of territory by war; the principle

of the sovereignty of States over their territories; the

principle of territorial integrity and political independence

of the States in the region. Furthermore, Israel, by its

continued occupation of Arab territories, is obstructing the

termination of the state of belligerency.

119. Throughout 1968 and in the first few months of

1969, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General

pursued his contacts; these were destined to come to a

standstill, however, as a result of the collision between

Israel’s policy of expansion and the provisions of the

Security Council resolution. It was impossible for Israel, no

matter how clever its spokesmen were in the abuse of

words, to conceal this one fundamental contradiction. This

has resulted in the fact that the Special Representative of

the Secretary-General was forced, early this year, to

suspend his contacts.

120. In the early spring, France took the initiative to hold

talks among the four permanent members of the Security

Council with a view to implementing the 22 November

1967 Security Council resolution, and to assist the Special

Representative of the Secretary-General in the pursuit of

his mission.

121. On our part, we have welcomed the initiative of

France, whose Middle Eastern policy has been consistently

motivated by a consciousness of its responsibilities and its

commitments arising from the Charter—a stand which has

been greatly appreciated by the Arab peoples. We have also

welcomed the talks by the four Powers arising out of their

special responsibility in the maintenance of international

peace and security, and the fact that these consultations

have taken place within the framework of the Security

Council resolution and its implementation. Once again,

Israel stood against this step and declared its opposition to

this new attempt aimed at the implementation of the

Security Council resolution.

122. Today the entire world is witness to Israel’s plan of

expansion, as revealed by its actions in the occupied

territories and the declarations of its leaders.

123. First, there is the West Bank of the Jordan. The

Prime Minister of Israel stated in February 1969 that “the

Jordan River must become a security border for Israel with

all that that implies” and that the Israeli army was to be

stationed “on the strip along that border“.

124. Secondly, there is Jerusalem. Israeli spokesmen here

and outside the United Nations have wasted no opportunity

of asserting that the process of annexation is irreversible

and unnegotiable.

125. Thirdly, the Golan Heights: Israeli leaders have

emphasized, time and again, that Israel will retain the

Syrian Golan Heights.

126. Fourthly, the Gaza Strip: Israeli leaders have also

declared that they will continue to retain the Gaza Strip.

127. Fifthly, the Sinai Peninsula: Israel has declared that

it will continue the occupation of the eastern and southern

parts of Sinai.

128. Mr. Yigal Allon, Deputy Prime Minister of Israel,

declared in August 1969 that a part of Sinai, which

stretches 64 kilometres from Rafah to El Arish on the

Mediterranean coast down to southern Sinai, has been

added to “municipal Israeli administration” by annexing it

to a newly-formed municipal region, namely, the “Eshkol

region in the Negev desert“. In the celebration of this event,

the Deputy Prime Minister of Israel made the following

announcement: “It benefits Eshkol’s memory that this

should be the first regional council to include an area

beyond the former demarcation lines”.

129. That is Israel’s plan for expansion in the occupied

Arab territories. It operates on the basis of two complementary

components: annexing Arab territories and expelling

Arab citizens. This is the same policy which turned 1.5

million Palestinians into refugees who have lived in camps

for the past twenty years and caused the displacement of

another half million people as a result of Israel’s latest

aggression.

130. By persisting in its policy of expansion against the

Arab States, Israel not only commits a crime against the

Charter, but it also undermines the peaceful settlement

adopted by the Security Council and threatens world peace.

131. It is the duty of every Member State of this

Organization to stand up to Israel’s aggression against the

Charter and the decisions of the United Nations. The

obligation of every State positively to oppose Israel’s

aggression is rooted in each and every principle upon which

international order, as laid down in the Charter, has been

built. Forcing Israel to withdrew its aggressive forces from

the occupied Arab territories and to abandon its policy of

expansion, in conformity with the norms of the Charter, is

not only a sacred national duty, responsibility for which

falls on the countries victim of aggression, but is, at the

same time, a collective duty to which all Members must

subscribe, if we are to preserve the integrity and, indeed,

the very existence of the United Nations order.

132. I wish here to refer to the just stand taken by the

Assembly of Heads of African States and Governments at

its sixth session held at Addis Ababa from 6 to 9 September

1969, concerning Israel’s acts of aggression. They have

adopted the following resolution [AHG/Res. 56 (VI)]:

“We, the Heads of State and Government, meeting in

Addis Ababa this day, 9 September 1969,

“Deeply moved by reports that a further aggression has

been perpetrated today by Israeli forces against another

part of the national territory of the United Arab

Republic,

“1. Condemn this act of aggression, like all other acts

of aggression directed against a sister country;

“2. Desire to reaffirm, in these circumstances, our

unwavering solidarity with the United Arab Republic;

“3. Demand the immediate withdrawal of the foreign

occupation forces;

“4. Appeal to the conscience of mankind to do

everything possible in order to spare our continent, which

has suffered all too often from invasion by foreign forces,

from becoming afresh the scene of tension and conflict,

with unforeseeable consequences for Africa and the rest

of the world.”

133. The Heads of African States and Governments also

issued another resolution [AHG/Res. 57(VI)] in which

they declared their solidarity and support to the United

Arab Republic and called for “the withdrawal of foreign

troops from all Arab territories occupied since 5 June 1967,

in accordance with the resolution taken by the Security

Council on 22 November 1967”. They also appealed to all

Member States of the Organization of African Unity to

“use their influence to ensure a strict implementation of

this resolution“.

134. There can be no question that the implementation of

the decisions and resolutions adopted by this world

Organization, in matters of direct bearing on international

peace and security and the safeguarding of territorial

integrity and political independence for all States, is the

most imperative among all collective duties shouldered by

all Member States. The permanent members of the Security

Council bear a special responsibility within the framework

of this collective obligation.

135. In this connexion, I wish to refer specifically to the

position of the United States, which continues to supply

Israel with war planes and other weapons while Israel

continues its occupation and declares its expansionist plans.

The Skyhawk and Phantom planes which Israel receives

from the United States are the same planes which every day

raid the Arab peoples, kill Arab citizens and follow the

Palestinian refugees in their tents and camps with napalm

bombs and other instruments of death and destruction.

136. The United States policy of support to Israel in the

military, political and financial spheres, while Israel occupies

Arab territories, is a policy which could at least be

described as a violation of the provisions of the Charter and

a denial of peace in the Middle East.

137. The United States support to Israel, and its share of

responsibility in the present state of aggression and denial

of peace in the Middle East, acquires a more serious

character when we recall that this support runs contrary to

the commitments which the United States had previously

undertaken upon itself. The United States has continuously

affirmed the absolute necessity of respecting the Armistice

Agreements, its support for the territorial integrity and the

political independence of all States in the Middle East, and

its firm opposition to aggression in the area.

138. Today, we are entitled to ask the United States

whether it does not see in Israel’s occupation of the

territories of Arab States a violation of the territorial

integrity and the political independence of these States; and

whether its supply of warplanes and other weapons to

Israel, while Israel occupies the territories of Arab States,

does indeed constitute an opposition to aggression, or

whether it is rather a support of aggression.

139. I wish further to refer to the United States position

with regard to the implementation of the Security Council

resolution of 22 November 1967 [242 (1967)], That is a

resolution which the United States voted for and declared it

would support. We are entitled today to ask the United

States how it can reconcile its support for that resolution

with its supplying of Skyhawks and Phantoms to Israel at a

time when Israel has already declared its annexation of

Arab territories, in full violation of the Security Council

resolution, as well as its unqualified rejection of the United

Nations resolutions on the Palestinian refugees.

140. It is within our right to ask the United States to

follow in the Middle East a policy of justice compatible

with the Charter and with its own commitments, and to

proceed from the principle that the right of an Arab man to

peace, to his land and to his home should not be sacrificed

to satisfy Israel’s dreams of territorial expansion.

141. We also believe that the United States is capable of

casting its weight behind peace and the implementation of

the peaceful settlement proposed in the resolution adopted

by the Security Council. We believe that when the United

States proceeds along that road, prospects for making peace

in the Middle East will be greatly improved.

142. The Israeli leaders want the world to believe that the

Palestinian people, who have lived in Palestine for thousands

of years, never existed. The Prime Minister of Israel

declared this to the world in the course of an interview

published by the Sunday Times of London on 15 June

1969. She stated:

“It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in

Palestine considering themselves a Palestinian people, and

we came and threw them out and took their country

away from them. They did not exist.”

This statement reveals the extent of Israel’s attempt to

suppress the truth. The Prime Minister of Israel imagines

that by such a statement she will be able to conceal the

crimes which Zionism has committed against the people of

Palestine in Palestine.

143. The struggle that the Palestinian people are waging

today, in conditions which no other people have ever faced,

is a struggle for their right to exist, to return to their

homes, and to exercise their right to self-determination. By

virtue of this fact, the Palestinian people’s struggle incontestably

attains the highest degree of legitimacy and deserves the

support of all forces that have faith in the right

of every man, regardless of his race, colour or religion, to

live on his land, to defend his existence and to determine

his future.

144. The United Nations was brought into existence for

the very purpose of never allowing a situation similar to

that existing today in the Middle East to exist. That

situation cannot possibly continue without assuming that

the international order on which this Organization is

founded has finally collapsed, and that the principles of the

Charter have been completely shattered with Israel’s aggression

on 5 June 1967.

145. For our part, we refuse to submit to aggression.

History is a witness to the fact that the will of peace, in

mobility and in action, is far stronger than the will of war

and aggression. In this our faith has no limits. We thus

refuse to believe that the international community can

possibly allow Israel to continue a policy that is destined to

undermine and ruin the rule of the Charter.

146. In the history of this Organization there is no

example, apart from Israel’s aggression, more indicative of

the serious hazards to international peace and security

resulting from the refusal of one Member State to abide by

the decisions of the Security Council and other resolutions

of the United Nations.

147. In this connexion, I wish to express our appreciation

of the positive initiative taken by the Union of Soviet

Socialist Republics to include in the agenda of the

twenty-fourth session of the General Assembly a new item

on strengthening international security. The Foreign Minister

of the Soviet Union presented to us [1756th meeting],

in his important address here some days ago, various

constructive ideas, amongst which is the need for the

implementation by Member States of the Security Council

decisions and for respect for the provisions of the Charter.

148. My delegation, together with other delegations, looks

forward to the deliberations that will take place on this

item. We are confident that those deliberations will lead to

positive results for the future effectiveness of the United

Nations system.

149. In the Middle East, faithful implementation of all the

provisions of Security Council resolution 242 (1967) of 22

November 1967, under the supervision and guarantees of

the Council, is the road to peace. Israel’s call for direct

negotiations with Arab States while it occupies their

territories is a call for capitulation by those States. At the

time Israel calls for direct negotiations with Arab countries,

it continues to occupy their territories and attack Arab

cities. At the same time that it calls for those direct

negotiations, Israeli leaders insist that the annexation of

Jerusalem and the Syrian Golan Heights is non-negotiable.

150. In this connexion, I wish to refer to the annual

report of the Secretary-General of the United Nations on

the work of the Organization, submitted to the twenty-third

session, in which he states that his Personal Representative

on Jerusalem stated

“... that Israel leaders had made clear to him beyond

any doubt that Israel was taking every step to place under

its sovereignty those parts of the city not controlled

before June 1967”.

151. In an interview published by Newsweek magazine in

its issue of 17 February 1969, the Prime Minister of Israel

stated: ”As for the Golan Heights, we will, quite simply,

never give them up. The same goes for Jerusalem. Here

there is no flexibility at all.” In the same interview, the

Israeli Prime Minister referred to Jerusalem in the following

words: “There is no possible way to compromise on

Jerusalem.”

152. No matter how much Israel’s representatives in the

United Nations resort to the use of semantics and the

deceptive abuse of words, they will inevitably collide with

the truth. The truth here is that Israel’s call for direct

negotiations from the position of its occupation of Arab

territories aims at imposing its policy of expansion and fait

accompli upon the Arab countries. This has been clearly

affirmed by Israeli words as well as Israeli deeds. These are

the same negotiations that Nazi Germany sought to impose

upon the occupied countries of Europe. These negotiations

are inherently in contradiction to peace. Indeed, they

would be but the continuation of aggression and the

instrument for consolidating the results of aggression, in

complete denial of all the values of the Charter and in an

attempt to return to an era when international society was

subject to the law of the jungle.

153. The only alternative to the present state of aggression

and war prevailing in the Middle East is the faithful

implementation of all the provisions of the peaceful

settlement proposed in the resolution adopted by the

Security Council of 22 November 1967 [242 (1967)]. The

implementation of that resolution requires the fulfilment of

the following three points: first, the withdrawal of the

Israeli forces from all the territories they have occupied as a

result of the aggression of 5 June 1967. That withdrawal

would be the practical implementation of terminating the

state of belligerency in the Middle East. Secondly, the

legitimate rights of the Palestinian people must be recognized

and the United Nations resolutions affirming the right

of the Palestinian refugees to return to their homes or to

receive compensation must be implemented. Those resolutions

constitute the formula which the international community

has adopted for the achievement of justice for the

people of Palestine. Thirdly, the Security Council must

undertake adequate guarantees for peace and security in the

Middle East, and for the implementation of all provisions of

the Security Council resolution of 22 November 1967.

154. The struggle of our people falls within the framework

of the universal struggle to establish just international

relations which will ultimately flow into the current of

man’s progress and advancement. The people of the United

Arab Republic have been carrying out the movement for

industrialization and an increase in their arable land. They

have already begun to use the electric power provided by

the Aswan High Dam, which is destined for completion in

the course of next year. It will be erected on the Nile as a

monumental example of the creative co-operation with the

friendly people of the Soviet Union, to whom I wish to

express here the deep appreciation of the people of the

United Arab Republic for their firm stand against Israeli

aggression, for their efforts to establish peace based on

justice and the rule of the Charter and for the support given

to the peoples of Asia and Africa in their just struggle

against colonialism and foreign domination.

155. The United Arab Republic refused to allow the

conditions of aggression to disrupt its pursuit of the

realization of the principles of peaceful coexistence and

international co-operation. We have joined cur efforts with

those of all the other non-aligned countries in a new stage

of the development of the principles of non-alignment. The

last consultative meeting of the representatives of the

Governments of non-aligned countries, held from 8-12 July

1969 in Belgrade, was a new landmark on the road of

non-alignment adopted by many countries and peoples of

the third world.

156. Meanwhile, the United Arab Republic continued,

together with its sister African States, to work within the

Organization of African Unity for the complete liberation

of the African continent from colonialism and racism and

to provide the African personality with new opportunities

for creativeness and for effecting progress on the land of

Africa.

157. We have been constantly subscribing to the international

efforts aimed at establishing just economic international

relations necessary for a more accelerated rate of

development, and at the realization of a better life for the

peoples of the developing countries.

158. The attainment of peace in Viet-Nam continues to

require a complete and immediate end to all military

operations against the people of Viet-Nam, and the withdrawal

of foreign troops from the territory of Viet-Nam, so

that the Viet-Namese people will be able to determine their

own future and to build on Viet-Namese land as heroically

as they have fought for it.

159. The United Arab Republic has continued its policy

of working in the various international forums for general

and complete disarmament and for ensuring the peaceful

character of the new spheres conquered by man. We believe

that further efforts must be exerted towards the realization

of disarmament and the strengthening of international

security. Indeed, several important steps await the nuclear

Powers’ agreements in the field of disarmament which

would strengthen international security and make available

more human and material resources for the benefit of all

mankind.

166. It is my duty to convey to you the state of mind

prevailing among the people of the United Arab Republic

concerning the aggression on their territory. Our faith is

absolute in the inevitable freeing of every inch of Arab

territories occupied as a result of Israel’s aggression on

5 June 1967. Failure is the ultimate destiny of Israel’s

invasion.

161. This faith is part and parcel of every beat of life in

the heart of every man, woman and child in the land of

Egypt. No matter how much military assistance the

occupying Israeli forces receive, never will they overcome

the will and the determination of the people of Egypt to

recover the occupied territory, nor will they ever be able to

impose any capitulation on the people of Egypt, or any

other Arab peoples.

162. Our refusal to submit to the diktat of aggression and

our faith in its inevitable failure not only give expression to

our national commitment, but also carry the conviction of

and give honour to all human sacrifices made throughout

history to establish an international society capable of

maintaining peace and bringing justice.