Syria, 1969

55. Madam President, our congratulations

upon your election to preside over the twenty-fourth

session of the General Assembly, necessarily evoke

in our mind the rise of the great continent of Africa to

independence and dignity, and the renaissance of its role

and culture. You symbolize this great emancipation, and

you symbolize our hope that the remaining part of Africa

still under colonial domination shall be free and sovereign.

56. You succeed a distinguished son of another great

continent that is marking our era with its renaissance; Latin

America. Mr. Arenales succumbed prematurely, after a

strenuous session, to the eventual fate of all human beings.

We address to his country, Guatemala, to his Government

and to the Latin American continent our deepest and

heartfelt condolences.

57. Madam President, a recurrent theme in the general

debate so far has been, as it was in past years, self-examination

and self-criticism and your own opening address

[1753rd meeting] eloquently set the tone. Any sensitive

observer, viewing the discrepancies between the elevated

ideals of the Charter and the tragic state of the world, must

welcome this spirit of introspection. For, as the Secretary-General,

with understatement, put it in the introduction to

his annual report, “the deterioration of the international

situation, which I noted ... last year, has continued”

[A/7601/Add.1, para. 1].

58. We are indeed worlds away from the high hopes for a

new world of law and international comity as envisaged by

the founders and drafters of the Charter. Two possible

explanations for the failure come to mind. One is that man

is incorrigible. He refuses to learn and persists in the blind

pursuits of the law of the jungle. However, the nobility of

the Charter, drafted by men, repudiates this pessimism. The

second explanation for the disparity is that, in our

preoccupation here with the legalisms, the cynicisms and

evasions of diplomacy, we have shut our hearts and minds

to the world of men we say we represent.

59. There are 104 items on the agenda of this session. All

of us, in moments of genuine honesty, confess to our

inadequacy in coping with all of them in any satisfactory

manner. But despite this feeling of inadequacy, I mention

this agenda because, if examined closely, it reads like an

inventory of the hopes and fears, of the progress and

failures of those we are mandated to serve, “the peoples of

the United Nations”. From economic development to

human environment, from the outer reaches of space to the

beds of the ocean, from apartheid to the education of

youth in respect for human rights; these offer some

examples of the dimensions of the problems we are

expected to define, analyse and resolve. We shall fail this

constituency of ours — “the peoples” of the world — if we

persist in attempting to filter out and reduce these issues to

the old and worn, the narrow and stringent formalism and

procedural amenities. Time has little patience, and the

substance of these agenda items is somewhere in the hearts

and minds of men all over the world.

60. There is no more dramatically visible evidence of this

impatience of “the peoples” than in the youth of the world

today. Their yearning to be free of wars, poverty, racism

and depersonalized lives transcends systems of economics

and social structures. Their revulsion challenges presidents

and kings, and the challenge is eloquent. I shall have more

to say about one Middle East manifestation of this

phenomenon later. But for now it may be merely noted

that the expanding resistance and liberation forces, whether

it be in the Middle East or over the world, are a revolt

against the lack of understanding of man. This revolt is in

essence one and the same as the revolt, let us say of the

American youth, and indeed of the world at large, against

the immorality, barbarism and inhuman war in Viet-Nam

against a heroic people that has decided to live in

independence and dignity.

61. This phenomenon, then, in the Middle East is symptomatic

of the youth movement everywhere. In our maturity

we would do well to read the world-wide phenomenon

carefully and correctly, unflattering as it may be to our

pre-occupation with form. In fact, our obligation to heed

what youth is saying is dictated by more than any wisdom

we may have acquired with years. That obligation comes

from the Charter itself. Its first words say that all we do

here must be designed “to save succeeding generations from

the scourge of war...” Therefore, I submit that if we are

to meet this highest obligation, this session of the General

Assembly had better turn from power-plays to humanity,

from wasteful and endless formalities to determining the

moral equities at the heart of each of the great problems we

are asked to confront. “Peoples” and “generations” are two

generic, dynamic terms inscribed in the first lines of the

Charter that have initiated throughout the history of

mankind the greatest movements of history.

62. Let me now tum to some specific items on this

agenda.

63. On the subject of colonialism, the process of decolonization

has reached stagnation. The Secretary-General has

adequately described how the flagrant and massive violation

of human rights and fundamental liberties in such regions as

southern Africa continues unabated. The problems of

Southern Rhodesia, the colonies under Portuguese domination

and Namibia, and indeed the continuing discrimination

against the masses of innocent people in South Africa and

the suppression of the rights of the people of Oman under

the presence of the Sultan’s sovereignty, are all only

manifestations of reaction against sweeping historical progress.

Far from extinguishing the liberation movements,

suppression only stimulates this noble struggle.

64. Sovereign States, particularly those adjacent to the

territories under colonial rule, rightly feel it their duty to

extend support to this struggle, Indeed, the resolutions of

the General Assembly call for such support. But the

colonial forces think it then appropriate to proceed to

aggressive encroachments on the territories of sovereign

States. The Security Council has been seized of numerous

complaints by the United Republic of Tanzania, the

Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia against

those flagrant encroachments.

65. The urgency of sober reflection on ways and means to

arrest this deterioration is only increased by two nefarious

symptoms. On the one hand, the colonial forces are uniting

their energies to better defend their bastions of reaction.

On the other hand, they continue to receive huge military

and economic assistance from their allies, in complete

disregard of United Nations resolutions, quite apart from

the support of monopolies mercilessly exploiting the

economic and human resources of the African and Asian

continents.

66. The strengthening of the United Nations organs to

deal with the remaining problems of colonialism cannot

serve, therefore, but to make possible the achievement of

the solidarity so much to be desired among the freedom-loving

and justice-loving States. Otherwise, the defiance on

the part of the colonial forces to the collective will of the

nations will continue and will drag the world into the abyss

of war and darkness.

67. It is with these dangers in mind that we find great

merit in the proposals of the Foreign Minister of the Soviet

Union for strengthening international peace and security.

Equally important is his call for a convention banning

chemical and bacteriological weapons.

68. In the context of world order, we continue consistently

to maintain that preventing China from regaining its

legitimate seat in the United Nations negates the basic

principle of the universality of the Charter. To persist

obstinately in this course is an exercise in futility, with dire

consequences to the world at large. We also support the call

to invite the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to

participate in the debate on this question. The goals of

unifying and rehabilitating Korea are the tasks of the

Koreans themselves, who must be able to exercise their

self-determination without interference from outside

powers.

69. In this context, we support the admission of the

German Democratic Republic to the United Nations. That

country is the eighth industrial State of the world, and my

country, Syria, has so far enjoyed very fruitful co-operation

with the German Democratic Republic on the basis of

mutual respect and understanding.

70. In examining the state of world economy, we find it

equally alarming. Thus far, international efforts to accelerate

the growth of the developing countries have been

inadequate. The Preparatory Committee for the Second

United Nations Development Decade is progressing very

slowly, and, as the Secretary-General appropriately stated

in the introduction of his annual report, “there is

evidence ... of the difficulty of reaching agreements on

priorities within a relatively limited number of sectors of

the United Nations family of organizations” [A/7601/Add.1, para. 84].

We feel that efforts should be intensified

in order to agree on the targets in various economic sectors

of the international development strategy.

71. Unfortunately, the record concerning agreement on,

and implementation of, international measures to help the

developing countries is not encouraging. Progress in the

field of granting the developing countries freer access to the

markets of the developed market-economy countries has,

thus far, been very inadequate. When we examine the

record concerning the provision of development assistance,

we find that, in general and with the exception of two

countries, there is no progress towards the achievement of

the one per cent gross national product net aid target.

72. Allow me now to take up the explosive and tragic

crisis of the Arab homeland, otherwise referred to among

the agenda items of this session as the Middle East crisis. It

is quite understandable that my delegation should devote

the largest part of its attention to this matter. Let me

plunge into the heart of the problem and begin with an

intriguing phrase from the address of the Foreign Minister

of Israel. Referring to the past year in the Middle East, he

said: “Nothing has gone as rational men expected” [1757th

meeting, para. 163]. Now this is a particularly presumptuous

statement, for what the Foreign Minister really means

is that nothing has gone as Israel’s militarists expected.

73. Unfortunately for the Foreign Minister, the memories

of other parties to the conflict are as operative as those of

the Israelis, and those memories are even longer than the

Foreign Minister tries to suggest. His country’s present

complaint is that there is no respect for what he calls “the

cease-fire lines”. The Israeli Foreign Minister then seeks to

justify the continuing Israeli occupation of territory by

saying: “... representatives of diverse traditions and cultures

have raised their voices ... against the illusion that

there could be changes in the cease-fire lines except in the

context of peace.” [Ibid., para. 168.]

74. Now, I must say candidly that I do not know what

this language means, or, at least, what the Foreign Minister

of Israel thinks it ought to mean to this world body. Who

are “representatives of diverse traditions and cultures” and

what is their competence here? And what is their status in

the context of the enactments of this Assembly or those of

the Security Council?

75. The meaning of the Charter is clear. It is inadmissible

to acquire territory by conquest and war. We have here a

classic example, in the history of Palestine, of the kind of

duplicity, the effort to cover substance with form, which is

at the root of the rebellion of “the peoples” of the world.

This body has yet to hear from the Foreign Minister of

Israel the solemn pledge of that State to yield the territories

acquired by war. On the contrary, we and the peoples of

the world, are advised that because of the Israeli memory,

Israel can “never ... return to the political anarchy and the

physical and territorial vulnerability ...” [ibid., para. 165]

which, so he says, obtained until June 1967. I profoundly

regret to say that the President of the United States gave

aid and comfort to this Zionist Israeli expansionism. “We

are convinced”, President Nixon said, “that peace cannot

be achieved on the basis of substantial alterations in the

map of the Middle East” [1755th meeting, para. 65]. How

substantial and altered by what methods, if at all? Is the

virtual annexation of Arab Jerusalem “substantial”? Is the

planting of new settlements on the Golan heights and the

west bank of the Jordan “substantial”? Is the published

plan for installing military bases in Sinai “substantial”? Is

the eviction of half a million people by force, after the

Israeli aggression, “substantial”?

76. I do not wish here to indulge in mere polemics with

either the President of the United States or Israel’s Foreign

Minister, but I would be performing less than my duty if I

passed over these expositions of policy in silence. Furthermore,

this body would discharge less than its moral

obligation if it were persuaded that either or both of those

interpretations were consistent with the spirit and letter of

the Charter or with the many General Assembly and

Security Council resolutions. In the plain language of the

peoples of the world, the Israeli Foreign Minister is saying

that peace must be assured before Israel agrees to terminate

the Zionist practices which brought conflict into the area

half a century ago. That is surely putting the cart before the

horse, and this body, and the world, should see which is the

cart and which is the horse. If the way to peace is, as

Mr. Eban says, through negotiations, then it should also be

said that negotiations cannot include how much of the

inadmissibly acquired territories Israel will restore to their

rightful sovereignties. It is as simple as that.

77. It is a source more of hurt than anger and of

disillusion more than indignation, that now the President of

the United States has qualified the inadmissibility of

acquiring territory by war by saying that such acquisition 1s

acceptable if only it is not “substantial”. President Nixon,

the President of the great Power which was party to the

Tripartite Agreement in 1950, has now watered down that

commitment to read only “substantial integrity”. I am

sadly reminded that some three decades ago the sovereign

of the speaker who preceded me, the Emperor of Ethiopia,

stood as a lone and tragic figure before the League of

Nations pleading for the protection of the integrity of his

realm. The acceptance of aggression then, it is now realized,

destroyed the efficacy and the credibility of the League of

Nations.

78. There is a more technical aspect to the language used

by Israel’s Foreign Minister and I will examine it now, after

having studied the morals involved. The Israeli Foreign

Minister referred to the “cease-fire line” and, in fact, the

incessant stream of Israeli propaganda constantly employs

the term. However, the Israeli Foreign Minister, who is so

scrupulous in his selection of words, must know that by the

findings of the Security Council there is no such thing as

“a cease-fire line”.

79. On 11 June 1967, the representative of Nigeria stated

in the Security Council:

“In the course of the debate... a new phrase has

gradually come into circulation, that is the phrase

'cease-fire line'.” Lest it be accepted merely by default, let

me say ... that we do not understand that there is a

cease-fire line. There are the armistice lines. There is the

cease-fire order which means that troops should stay

where they are and that any movement, north, south, east

or west, except such movement as to return from the

scene of battle to one’s own home ground, is a violation

of the cease-fire.“

80. That definition of the technical situation existing still

today was emphasized at that same meeting by the

representative of the United Kingdom. There was no dissent

in the Security Council, which means that the Security

Council unanimously accepted that legal definition.

81. The question as to whether or not there was a

cease-fire line was more than difficult in those turbulent

days of 1967. This point was clarified in the context of a

debate over which party to the conflict persisted in

violating the cease-fire, until it reached a certain strategic

point where it had wished all the time to establish a line.

That is what is important, for it really reveals which party

in 1967 welcomed the war and was motivated by territorial

ambitions, and which party was really fighting in defence.

82. We have been lectured by Israel’s Foreign Minister on

the elementary role of negotiations in any transition from

war to peace. Israel’s insistence upon direct negotiations as

the only way to any settlement must be judged as another

of those diversions which try to substitute form for

substance. It may sound plausible, but it is not constructive.

It may sound like generosity, but it is really arbitrary

and authoritarian.

83. Once again I revert to the Charter. Article 33 expresses

the earnest will of this Organization to pursue every means

in realizing the hopes of the peoples to be free from the

scourge of war. It lists, eight recognized and accepted

methods of seeking solutions to international problems.

The authors of the Charter must have had reasons for

adding the other seven. Certainly they were aware of the

fact that they were not putting together a book of synonyms.

84. This Assembly and the peoples of the world need to

know that in rejecting direct negotiations the Arabs have

neither elected war over peace or asked for anything that is

not within the letter of the Charter. Again, form must not

be confused with substance, and rigidity regarding form

should be examined carefully so as to be sure it is not a

pretext for more fait accompli diplomacy. Is Israel to be

allowed to dictate what the Charter means, and does this

body believe that Israel is subject to that Charter, or, by

some mystique which some of us do not understand, is

Israel entitled to play the role of judge and jury at the same time?

85. Then there is the ultimate question of “in whose

interest” and for what peoples of the world are we to make

peace in the Middle East? That crucial question raises for

examination the important element of a vital interest in

peace, making it a condition that both sides will wish to

maintain. President Nixon paid deference to this indisputable

element in any meaningful peace in his statement

of 18 September 1969 [1755th meeting]. He did not, of

course, explain how the “minimal conditions” of the

cease-fire resolution represented a vital interest for the

Arab, although he said that those conditions must prevail if

any settlement is to be reached [ibid., para. 64]. Nor did he

explain how. an invasion of the territorial integrity of three

Arab States, Members of the United Nations, is a vested

Arab interest if only the invasion is something less than

“substantial”.

86. Mr. Eban is always somewhat clearer about the

“vested interests” the Arabs will realize if they would only

make peace on the basis of whatever happens to be Israel’s

latest bargaining position. He is always intoning a song

about the enormous benefits to be reaped by these poor,

backward Arabs from Israel’s progress and enlightenment.

“New stories of co-operation and progress never heard or

told before”, were his own words a fortnight ago. And we

Arabs are supposed to be intoxicated with our own rhetoric

and led to persuade ourselves to dream the impossible

dream!

87. That is what Israel’s Foreign Minister says here for

public consumption. A less informed world will not cease

to wonder how those backward and ungrateful Arabs can

refuse this generous, open and uplifting embrace. But this is

not what Mr. Eban says at home, in the privacy of the

family. In Maariv of 19 December 1968, the “do-good”

Mr. Eban is quoted as saying: “The United States of

America should acknowledge the fact that Israel is an

acquisition for it and not a burden.” A less authoritative

spokesman echoed that sentiment, plus some embellishments,

in Haaretz, another of Israel’s major newspapers:

”We must tell the United States of America, if you stop

supporting us unconditionally ... you will be the one to

suffer; you will be squeezed out of the Middle East.”

88. It is indeed too strong a temptation to resist plagiarizing

the name of a popular American TV programme and

to ask: “Will the real Mr. Eban please stand up?”

89. I can allow for inaccuracies in the Press, even in the

Press of Israel, but the evidence is rather impressive that

something more than any objective inventory of America’s

present national interests in the Middle East motivates its

unconditional support for Israel. Whatever happened to

Mr. Nixon’s “new initiatives“ we were told about in his

electoral campaign and where has Governor Scranton been

exiled, following his simple appeal for a more “even-handed”

policy in the Arab world? Under what definition

of even defensive armaments does the United States supply

Israel with offensive Phantoms except to help Israel

consolidate its latest conquests and continue to terrorize

the Arab homeland? I shall not dwell at length on this

United States-Israeli collusion. The Prime Minister and

Foreign Minister of Sudan, in his brilliant statement in this

Assembly, has given an inventory of that unconditional

United States assistance to militaristic Zionism and Israel.

But one ominous fact must, be added now. Mrs. Meir in her

visit has already “shopped”, we are told, 150 Sikorsky

helicopters, the same as those used by the United States in

Viet-Nam, for only $350 million. What for? Is it ta

transform Israel, that “bastion of democracy” into some

other “bastion” — when the Viet-Nam war is finished - known

only to President Nixon, the Pentagon, the Central

Intelligence Agency and the super spies of the United

States, whose horrid crimes from the little that has become

known in Viet-Nam and elsewhere, are now every day

filling the front pages of the Press all over the world? Do

those things agree with the moral exhortations and preachings

of international ethics that have been hypocritically

spoken from this rostrum? Or is it, I ask — and wait for an

answer - for any horrible eventuality still in store for the

Arabs and for the world at large from the loving United

States and Israel?

90. Certainly, one question which both the United States

and Israel need to answer is whether any given settlement is

really in the vested interests of “the peoples” of the Middle

East, including those Jews who have legitimate claims to

life in Palestine; or whether a settlement is to be with an

Israel which is “an acquisition” of the United States as the

Foreign Minister of Israel said. If it is the latter, then we

authentic Middle Easterners ask, what are the vested

interests of the United States for which Israel serves as an

“acquisition”? The effort for peace is not a game of poker

in which we Arabs will gamble on a blind hole card. We

state our objectives clearly; the recognition and establishment

of the already legislated rights of the Arab Palestinians.

Those are “the peoples” to whom the Israeli Foreign

Minister, in his passion for peace, makes a vague proposal

for “some regional and international responsibility” to

resolve the refugee problem in some “five-year plan”. For

this core of the Palestine problem, the basic one, the Israeli

Foreign Minister is a hearty advocate of international

involvement. However, for the formulation of over-all peace

proposals, the same Foreign Minister says that to look for

help outside the region is “anachronistic”. That again is the

kind of semantic gymnastics which casts suspicions upon

the moral intent of the one who resorts to them. Any

acceptance of such a proposal by this body will not elevate,

but will diminish its moral prestige in a restive, explosive world.

91. I am reminded here of the eloquent words of the great

French writer, Albert Camus, who once said: “There is no

compromise with breach of faith. One has to reject it and

fight it.” Again, on another occasion he wrote words which

apply pointedly to so much that the representatives of

Israel have said: “Some people progress without transition

from speeches about the principles of honour or fraternity

to adoring the fait accompli or the cruelest party.”

92. That is where the Palestine problem stands today, fifty

years after its cruel, insensitive inception and something

more than two years after Israel’s latest, most cruel an

inhumane aggression.

93. Certainly, if there is any responsibility at all in the

so-eloquently heralded “democratic” policies of Israel, then

we Arabs are faced with being asked to accept another fait

accompli which is in clear and arrogant defiance of the

legislation of this international community. The world Press

has indeed been so full of the proclamations of this fait

accompli that it is perhaps unnecessary to recite them here.

Repetition of them is more than mere rhetoric until the

world, aroused by these events, takes them at face value

and, in moral indignation and judicial impartiality, imposes

upon this robber-baron State the just punishment which is

within the lawful power of the community to impose.

94. For example, the colleague of Mr. Eban, Defence

Minister Dayan, who is said to be inspired by the Bible, is

reported in Le Monde on 9 July 1969 to have said:

“The Israeli Government should reject outright the

Security Council resolution [1242 (1967)] of 22 November

1967, which demands, whatever they may say, the

restoration of the occupied Territories, including the

former Jordanian sector of Jerusalem.”

95. That is at feast a more candid and honest stand than

that of Israel’s representatives to this body of world

opinion, where they come and throw dust in the eyes of the

world about their acceptance of the Security Council’s and

General Assembly’s decisions while each day they further

entrench themselves in the newest effort at a fait accompli,

in violation of all those decisions.

96. We Arabs wait for the world’s answer to this frankness.

Meanwhile, history justifies our tempering and such

resistance to the fait accompli as we can muster at present.

97. To submit another declaration which can hardly be

called irresponsible, on 4 August 1969, The New York

Times reported on its front page that Israel’s dominant

political party, meeting in convention, had determined “to

hold” the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip and a “considerable

part of Sinai”. Israel has also, apparently, coined a new

language and a new concept of law. With respect to

Jordan’s West Bank territory, it has decided that the Jordan

river will be its “security border”. So, at least in that sector,

we are to be treated to not one but two borders if the

Israeli concept is accepted.

98. Here is another example of Israel’s concept of equality

under the law. All are to be equal, except Israel, which, as

George Orwell put it, is to be “more equal than others“. It

is to have two borders on a frontier while the rest are to be

satisfied with less than one. That is the programme of the

political party to which the silver-voiced Foreign Minister

of Israel owes his political career and distinction. If the

Press reports are to be believed, that self-confessed lineal

descendant of the Old Testament prophets offered no

substantive objection to his political patron’s platform.

99. Listen to Israel’s Prime Minister, speaking for the

record in the Sunday Times of London of 15 June 1969.

Asked if Israel admits “a measure of responsibility” for

“the Palestinians”, that grandmotherly Prime Minister said

categorically: “No, no responsibility whatsoever. ... I do

not know why the Arab refugees are a particular problem in

the world”.

100. Memories of the 1940s when the Zionists, including

Israel’s present Prime Minister, insisted not only that the

abominable treatment of Europe’s Jews by a madman

called Hitler made them a special problem, but, with a logic

never yet explained, insisted also that it was the particular

responsibility of the Arabs of Palestine to provide them and

“the Jewish people” with a State, and lands in violation

of rights which those Arab Palestinians had possessed for

centuries. Small wonder that now, from a position of

conquest and power, the once entreating Zionist, now

Prime Minister, says, in effect: “Who are the Palestinians,

and what are their rights to me?”.

101. Finally, I cannot withhold one more recorded declaration

of Israel’s hero, the Minister of Defence. In the same

edition of Le Monde, of 9 July 1969, he said:

“People abroad ought to realize that quite apart from

their strategic importance to Israel, Sinai, the Golan

Heights, the Tiran Straits and the hills west of the Jordan

lie at the heart of Jewish history. Nor has the restoration

of historical Israel ended yet. Since the return to Zion a

hundred years ago a double process of colonization and

expansion of frontiers has been going on. We have not yet

reached the end of that road: It is the people of Israel

who will determine the frontiers of their own State.”

102. That again is refreshing candour. It is not, I think,

out of order to ask the representative of Israel either to

affirm or to deny that declaration by his fellow Minister. If

he denies it, will he also say clearly so that the world and

we can understand, that his Government, including

Mr. Dayan and his Prime Minister, accept all General

Assembly and Security Council resolutions, with their

requirements of withdrawal from the occupied territories

and their insistence that any party to it has responsibility

for the refugees? If he cannot reject or deny his associate’s

clear declarations, then I submit to this body searching for

peace in the Middle East that nothing compels Israel to stay

within that association. No other Member of this body has

been found guilty of aggression as often as Israel, and those

aggressions have all been committed by Israel’s determination

to surmount the laws of this body and to compel the

world to accept its series of faits accomplis. Israel’s Defence

Minister has said, and I have quoted him as saying, that

”... it is the people of Israel who will determine the

frontiers” of that State.

103. Here I publicly confess my inability to make further

comments on the Arab tragedy. I leave the last word to the

Russian-born former American citizen, now Prime Minister

of Israel, Mrs. Meir. Only last Sunday, 28 September 1969,

she stated:

“Withdrawal is not the issue. The Arabs don’t think it’s

the issue. I think people do them an injustice when they

say that’s the issue. We’re not so fortunate that the

quarrel between us and the Arab countries is a question

of territory — it’s not true. The Arab countries are in lack

of a little more sand. That’s the problem.”

104. Rarely in the history of civilized peoples has man

witnessed such degradation of human values that millions

of people do not count; that their plight is not equal even

to sand, and that all this suffering is tolerable, as long as it

satisfies the “new civilizing mission” of Israel to the Arabs.

Thus the whole Middle Hast crisis and the whole Arab

Palestine tragedy is reduced to “a little more sand” in

Mrs. Meir’s scale of values, and to “no substantial change”

in President Nixon’s dictum. The world must ponder over

this United States-Israeli-Zionist axis.

105. There was one other observation in Mr.Eban’s

Statement which deserves careful analysis and which is

highly relevant to his stated relationship of Israel to the

United States. It is, therefore, relevant also to the relationship

of the United States to the Arab States. Mr. Eban

referred to the “odious picture of Israel’s spiritual heritage

and Jewish solidarities”. It is now time that that language,

also, be examined. In almost every place where the subject

of Palestine is debated, any critical evaluation of Israel’s

and Zionism’s policies is greeted by the slander of “anti-Semitism”

or “anti-Jewish”. It is time, too, that that hypocrisy be ended.

106. This is not a religious question. Let me quote you a

few eloquent words of a young Jew, one of Mr. Eban’s own

constituents, who sees, and publicly proclaims, the differences

between the genuine spiritual heritage of people who

are Jews and the much more recently fabricated Zionism-Israeli

nationality policies, which are exclusory, discriminating,

and therefore in direct contradiction to any spiritual

heritage worth the name. In August of this year at an

international conference in Jerusalem that young Israeli, a

philosopher and a student at the Hebrew University, spoke

these magnificently eloquent and accurate words:

“The Zionist ideologists in the nineteenth century believed

that Palestine was vacant. When they came to

realize that the promised land ... was already occupied,

they were faced with the most difficult dilemma that can

face a human being. ... The Palestinian struggle against

Israel today is not motivated by the mere historical fact

that Israel was initiated in sin, but because Israel has done

nothing to expiate and atone for her sin. Not only did

Israel refuse to admit her sinful birth and atone for it in

concrete practice, but this refusal has, as so often

happens, led her to repeat it twice. Both after the 1956

war and after the 1967 war Israel annexed territory. It is

this, and not Israel’s original sin, that has brought the

Middle East conflict to such monstrous escalation.”

107. What of Mr. Eban’s other phrase, “Jewish solidarities“?

I need not go into detail. The Status Law of 1952,

establishing the relationship between the State of Israel and

the World Zionism Organization and all the other Jewish

agencies is clear enough. What of the United States and why

does it tolerate those operations? Why does it allow

tax-deductible funds to be disbursed to the World Zionist

Organization, which, by law, is charged with serving the

national interests of Israel?

108. Surely, those who are victimized by Zionist money

and political pressures are entitled to make their judgement.

The fact is that the United States Government permits

United States citizens to support acts of belligerency

against the Arab States. Until better answers are given by

the United States, we who are the victims of this

permissiveness may be excused for accepting the explanation

of Israel’s Foreign Minister that “Israel is an acquisition

of the United States” in the heart of the Middle East.

109. I conclude by returning to the theme with which I

began and which you yourself stressed, Madam President, in

the address with which you opened this twenty-fourth

session [1753rd meeting]. Let us not yield to the delusion

that we are doing our best and that the world persists in

misjudging us. You wish us Arabs peacefully to settle the

Palestine problem. Then let us here and now come to grips

with the core-problems of that situation.

110. I have not wearied this Assembly with reminders of

Israel’s flouting of the collective will on Jerusalem. I have

not dignified by rebuttal Israel’s rationalization of that

defiance by claiming a new “white man’s burden”. I have

not supplied statistics of houses bulldozed, of villages

demolished, of holy places defiled, of the burning of the

Al Aqsa Mosque and of one-half million displaced persons. I

have not brought here the detailed indictment of Israeli

occupation now to be found in the testimony taken by the

Commission on Human Rights.

111. The list is long and the spectacle of the world

standing paralysed before this act of lawlessness, of

arrogant defiance and of reliance upon sheer power is, to us

Arabs, both electrifying and tragic. There is today in all of

our lands, the inevitable response to the Zionist stultification

of world morality and law. By the tens of thousands

our youth are disillusioned and have resorted to the only

course open to them — in the absence of any apparent will or

determination to enforce the law — the legitimate use of

force. Palestine has come full circle. The Zionist movement

in the 30s and the 40s introduced organized terrorism into

Palestine in an effort to thwart every attempt to install a

political system which would safeguard Arab rights. Now

the descendants of that Zionism have compelled the

descendants of those victims to the legitimate reaction of

self-defence against annihilation. Let it not be forgotten

that it is Israel which is in occupation of our territories. It is

Israel which says, unilaterally, that it has no intention of

withdrawing from them. It is Israel which says it wishes to

negotiate directly for peace, but which has withdrawn from

the agenda every Arab right and declared them non-negotiable.

112. You ask us to make peace, and I reply, unequivocally,

that we want peace. What we do not want, and will

never accept, is surrender. Let me remind this Assembly

that what is involved here and what has always been

involved in Palestine, is not some geopolitical advantage

which can be facilely manoeuvred. While we do not release

a news report or a blueprint on the occasion of every

tomato we grow, every dunam of land we reclaim, every

factory we build, we, too, are building our place under the

sun of human progress. We have our goals, as a people and

as a nation, and we are determined to achieve them. We

cherish our lands and we husband our resources and we

have our national self-interest. But the Palestine problem is,

above all, a matter of uncompromising and inalienable

human rights. The Zionist-Israeli answer to this core of the

Palestine problem has always been one of condescension,

given with a patronizing air.

113. When all the United Nations resolutions have been

carried out, then the way to peace can be paved, and this

body can bring the international law-breaker to the bar of

justice. It can give the victim the right, given in every

civilized court, of confronting his assailant. Let the Arab

Palestinians be heard here for they were, are and will

remain, the first party to this tragic conflict. Establish the

climate of justice, for only in justice will peace be established.

114. This is the way of peace. It is a way back, to bind the

wounds and to straighten the devious path which has

curved and twisted through thirty years of civil war and

three international wars in twenty years. When that part of

the road to peace is repaired, the design for its extension

into tomorrow will become increasingly clear. In language

which every liberal soul should be able to understand,

without subtlety, deception or sophistry, the Arab resistance

and liberation movements have suggested the broad

character of the highway to peace; a Palestine nation like

other nations, in which human rights are politically

sanctified in a law which respects all, regardless of faith or

race, as equals.

115. That is their prescription tor peace. We pray that

those in Israel who believe much the same will be heard by

that most “democratic” of all Governments. We pray that

all of you will heed their cry, for it is also our cry, as,

indeed, it must be the cry of all civilized people everywhere.

The road to peace can at least be charted by this

body if, for whatever racist or obscure reasons, Israel will

not see the road itself. Or, failing all of these, I can say only

that the Arab knows how to wait. Our patience has

sometimes been construed. as resignation, but that is a

misreading of our character.

116. Let me close, using my voice to speak the words, the

aspirations, the spirit of one of those who should be here

because he and his colleagues are one of the two principals

in the tragedy of Arab Palestine. Not many of you may

know that there is a literature of exile written by suffering

Arab Palestinians. The fact in itself is important. It

demonstrates the fallacy of those who think that the

Palestinians can be dismissed by superficial formulations of

diplomacy. There is among this people a deep, impassioned,

abiding spirit, capable of poetry and songs of tragedy and

bereavement. To them belongs the conclusion to this

statement, for the cry for justice and recognition which

these people send up from the depths of their hearts and

beings is part of the legal evidence you must weigh if you

are to legislate for peace. I quote:

“If I have to forfeit my bread,

“If I have to hawk my spirit and bed,

“If I have to work as stone cutter,

“Or porter,

“Or sweeper,

“If I have to clean your warehouses,

“Rummage in dung for food

“Or starve,

“and subside —

“Enemy of man,

“I shall not compromise!

“And to the end

“I shall fight.

“Go and filch the final strip of my land,

“Ditch my youth in prison holes,

“Plunder my legacy,

“Burn my books,

“Feed your dogs from my dishes,

“Go and spread your net of terror

“Upon the roofs of my village —

“Enemy of man,

“I shall not compromise,

“And to the end

“I shall fight!“

117. Twenty-five hundred years ago, another poet stood

in the land that so many call Holy and cried aloud to the

world:

“Let justice well up as waters

“And righteousness as a mighty stream.

118. I call upon those who now stand astride that Holy

or Land by virtue of force and conquest, and who claim

spiritual descent from that ancient poet, to heed his words.

The two poets state the inescapable choice. Forces are

at already in motion which assume, with the justification of

by history, that the older poet will be ignored.

119. We are all mature enough to know that such forces

feed on themselves as long as the basic conditions which

brought them to life exist. In the wake of those forces will

follow only more devastation, more violence, more human

misery. We must believe man is master of his destiny and

maker of his history, else we would not be here.

120. Let us seize the moment. Let us speak the truth. Let

us separate the substance of diplomacy from its form. Let

us add up the rights and the wrongs. Let us, without

ambiguity or equivocation, identify the international

brigand and as clearly identify the victim. Let us, each of

us, sincerely ask himself and the nation he represents here

how he, or it, would act in similar circumstances. Then let

us leave no stone unturned, no law we have legislated to be

dissipated in casuistry, no tool at our disposal to remain

unused to bring the fundamentally guilty party to justice.

121. That is the programme for peace that we Arabs offer,

and with the offer, our prayers that the spirit of the ancient

poet of justice and righteousness shall prevail. The transference

of the poetry of the despairing Arab freedom

fighter into still more violent action would then be

rendered unnecessary. To that task we pledge our support

and we invite men of genuine goodwill and moral integrity

to join in the fulfilment, by peaceful means, of the work of peace.