The Government of Iraq which I have the honour to represent before this Assembly, strongly upholds the principles of the United Nations Charter, and is convinced that there is no cure for the ills of the world outside these principles.
The United Nations Organization, representing the collective will of all nations, can succeed only if all nations collectively are desirous and willing to submerge their special or local interests in favour of maintaining the principles of the Charter.
The fact that the world is still groping in darkness and that every corner of this earth today is craving for peace, freedom and food, arises mainly because some nations have not yet translated the principles of the Charter into the practical plans of their everyday life.
While it is natural to expect such a state of affairs to continue for some time as an aftermath of a bloody, universal war, still, a more speedy recovery and adjustment could have been expected, were it not for the ideological onesidedness that prevails in one part of the world or another.
The essential underlying principle of the Charter is the dignity of man and his right of self- determination. No one analysed the implications of this principle better than the late Franklin D. Roosevelt — to whose efforts we owe the birth of the United Nations Organization more than to those of any other single person — when he defined the four freedoms: freedom of expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.
We believe that these freedoms arc one and inadvisable; one cannot be achieved without the other three. They guarantee the dignity of man and maintain the peace and happiness of mankind. It is because of the violation of one or more of these freedoms by ideological one-sidedness, which unfortunately abounds in the world today, that the world is faced with such grave problems.
Respect for the dignity of man emanates from faith in the equality of man, individuals and nations, irrespective of geographical position, race, religion, economic status, or physical or material power.
The United Nations Organization was inaugurated some two years ago to achieve these very ends. To help the United Nations achieve these ends, each nation must facilitate the work of this Organization. Political pressure, one-sided propaganda and power politics must give way to truth, justice and tolerance. The democratic process must replace dictatorship. Every nation, m taking a decision, must be able to justify itself before the bar of human justice. The principle: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you” should underlie all our international relationships.
With regard to the practical issues before the United Nations today, I wish to point out the attitude of my Government on the following points.
First, tire privilege of the veto. When my Government supported the right of veto at San Francisco, it was not because we believed that the veto in itself was a desirable tiling. One concern was to secure a guarantee of unanimity among the five Powers which we thought was essential to international peace on critical matters in which the armed forces of one or more of the five Powers were involved. We never dreamt that the veto would ever be used to debar a peace-loving democratic country whose people served the Allied cause in two world wars from joining the United Nations on the pretext by one of the big Powers that it had no diplomatic relations with that country. It is the view of my delegation that although unanimity, not only of the five great Powers but of all the United Nations, is a most desirable thing to attain, we cannot see any justification for retaining the veto privilege. We believe that special steps should be taken to abrogate that privilege.
My second point concerns the question of the peace treaties. My delegation regrets that the peace treaties were not formulated by all those States which contributed substantially to the war effort that finally led to Allied victory. Although Iraq declared war on the Axis early in 1943, it placed all its resources at the disposal of the Allied forces at the beginning of the war. Like several other nations, we were not given the opportunity to participate in laying down the principles of the peace treaties. We believe that peace treaties should be formulated with the object of human rehabilitation in a democratic world, and that they should not be the object of haggling and bargaining between Powers.
My third point concerns the economic crisis. We believe that modern science has advanced far enough to achieve freedom from want for all mankind. The fact that some parts of the world are on the verge of starvation is mainly due to economic barriers and outmoded economic isolationism. It is axiomatic that we can have no political stability without economic stability. Economic warfare always leads to political warfare. International economic co-operation should replace the nineteenth century economic exploitation of nations.
We have read a good deal about the Marshall Plan for Europe. No one denies the urgent need of Europe for immediate rehabilitation after the last devastating war. But we venture to submit that the whole world needs a survey and a plan for reconstructive development, and that the United Nations should directly and immediately concern itself with such a survey and help individual nations toward economic reconstruction and development.
I now come to the question of Palestine which has been submitted to the United Nations by the Mandatory Power for Palestine. Although for Arabs it is the dominant issue before this present Assembly, it had not been my intention to discuss it at this stage of the proceedings. But as the representative of the United States has stated that his Government considered the report of the Special Committee on Palestine to represent definite progress and that it is giving great weight to the recommendations of the majority of that Committee, I feel that I must make a brief statement at this time.
Before I say anything else, I wish to state in the most emphatic terms possible that the Arabs have never had any quarrel with the Jewish people. We have a record of friendly relations with the Jews throughout history of which we can justly feel proud. Our quarrel is with that small politically-minded section of the Jews, the political Zionists who want to dominate Palestine and other parts of the Arab world.
In common with the rest of the world, we realize the great ability of the Jews, their great energy and their success as politicians, intriguers, and publicists. No better example of their methods need be given than the case of the four thousand illegal immigrants who were sent to Palestine on the ill-fated and unscaworthy S.S. Exodus. The Zionists were able by their propaganda and their clamour to focus the attention of the whole world day by day on the voyage of that ship. They succeeded in inflaming passions and arousing emotions designed to influence every humanely disposed person in every country. Everybody has heard of the Exodus and of the four thousand miserable souls aboard that ship. Their sufferings were deliberately arranged by the Zionists in order that they could be exploited and used to further Zionist aims. All this was taking place while the Special Committee on Palestine set up by the United Nations was investigating conditions in Palestine and preparing its report. The members of the Committee could not fail to be influenced by all the excitement and the denunciation aroused by the voyage of the Exodus and the return to Europe of its four thousand passengers.
But nobody has heard that among these four thousand were many children who had been kidnapped from their parents, that among the adults were a number from the criminal classes and that the true origin of many of the immigrants is being concealed. But all of them were used to promote the Zionist cause.
What is far more important is that no one in the world has been told of more than thirty thousand Jewish settlers in Palestine who, upon hearing of the collapse of the Axis in 1945, registered their applications in Palestine to return to their original homes in Europe. They were subjected to extreme acts of violence and intimidation by the Zionist terrorists in Palestine, as a result of which they did not pursue their applications. Some arc known to have disappeared and are believed to have been murdered. This desire of a substantial number of refugee Jews in Palestine to return to their native countries is not dealt with in the report of the Special Committee on Palestine.
These are only two instances of the power and influence of the Zionists to sway world opinion on the one hand and, on the other, to suppress public expression by the Jews of any opinion which does not suit Zionist ends. How, therefore, is it possible for anybody to accept without further examination the findings of a special committee on Palestine, however high-minded and competent, which had to work in such an atmosphere of emotion, passion, excitement and clamour? A detailed criticism of the report of the Special Committee on Palestine and an exposure of the contradictions inherent in its recommendations will be made when the matter is discussed in the First Committee.
Today I ask you all to bear in mind that the United Kingdom found it impossible to carry out a policy which it had hastily adopted in a period of great crisis during the 1914-1918 war. Having made the fatal error of entering on a slippery slope, it has been struggling for twenty-five years to regain its balance and to recover its original position. Throughout those twenty-five years there existed the League of Nations, and now there exists the United Nations, to which the United Kingdom could turn if it found its task in Palestine impossible. But when the United Nations adopts a policy for Palestine and endeavours to enforce it, to whom can it turn if that policy proves a failure? For these reasons the United Nations should not be hurried into a decision, and all the Members should keep an open mind and not commit themselves in advance but wait until all the facts have been laid before them in the First Committee.
This Assembly of the United Nations finds that the tasks confronting it are at once difficult, delicate and dangerous. All the difficulties and dangers must be met by courage and confidence, if satisfactory solutions are to be found. Courage and confidence demand a basis of sound principles. The Charter of the United Nations is the only rock upon which the foundations of true policy can be established. If we are guided by the principles of the Charter of the United Nations, we shall have confidence in our judgment and courage to carry out our decisions. But if we stray from the high purpose and noble principles upon which this Organization was founded and come to decisions based upon expediency, upon self- interest, upon failure to face the real issue, or motivated by the hope of securing temporary popularity, we. shall lack the conviction that our decisions are just and honourable, and so the execution of these decisions will be feeble and fumbling and eventually futile.
May the endeavours of this Assembly be guided by the great and eternal principles of right and justice so that peace, prosperity and contentment may be established throughout the world.