88. It gives me great pleasure to extend to our President my warmest congratulations and those of my Government on his unanimous election as President of the General Assembly during its present session. His election is a tribute to his country, his person and the Latin American Republics. I sincerely wish him a speedy recovery to good health and hope that he will very soon be able to preside over the Assembly meetings.
89. I should like to congratulate his predecessor, Mr. Corneliu Manescu, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Romania, on the manner in which he conducted the proceedings of the previous session, which contributed so much to the success of its work.
90. May I also take this opportunity of commending our Secretary-General, U Thant for the efforts he is making to realize the principles on which our world Organization is founded. I should like to express to U Thant the appreciation and support of my Government; and I wish to reassure him that the hopes he cherishes for the establishment of world peace do evoke an immediate response among my people and Government.
91. Kuwait has an unshakeable faith in the principles and purposes of the United Nations Charter and has formulated its policy in the spirit of the Charter from which it derives constant inspiration in tackling international problems and seeking to find solutions for them. However, the principles of the Charter which truly reflect the hopes of mankind to live in peace and security are still without substantive and practical application in the international field. This is due to the fact that some governments, especially big Powers, pursue policies which promote narrow national interests and seek to impose their will regardless of the principle of sovereign equality of all members of the international family.
92. The main shortcoming is that the United Nations is not effective in dealing with international problems which constitute a threat to world peace and security; we must seriously consider applying the enforcement measures embodied in Chapter VII of the Charter regarding the action to be taken with respect to threats to the peace, breaches of the peace, and acts of aggression. Only thus can the United Nations become an effective instrument in upholding the rule of law and justice in international relations.
93. Previous experience has taught us that we must accord to the Secretary-General of the United Nations wide powers, in accordance with Articles 98 and 99 of the Charter, so as to give effect to the principles of the Charter and to prevent their infringement. The assumption of greater responsibilities by the Secretary-General is tantamount to enhancing the prestige of the world Organization and enabling it to perform a more effective role, not merely in the maintenance of peace and security, but also in coming to grips with the most difficult international problems objectively. In this manner we can dispel the impression in the minds of peoples that the main organs of the United Nations are merely a debating forum and have no efficiency in enforcing the provisions of the Charter relating to the maintenance of international peace and security.
94. Foremost among the questions which concern Kuwait is that which is inscribed in our agenda under the title, “The situation in the Middle East”. This designation is euphemistic; it conceals far more than it reveals. For it is clear that the “situation” under reference is that which has resulted from the Israeli invasion, carried out in June 1967, of the remainder of Palestine and some adjacent Arab States — the situation, namely, of military occupation of Arab territories, of formal annexation of portions of those territories and extensive colonization of the rest, of exploitation of their wealth and natural resources, as well as the dispersion of hundreds of thousands of their inhabitants and the subjugation of the rest to oppressive military rule.
95. But this new phase of the Middle Eastern situation, resulting from the most recent Israeli aggression, together with the antecedent condition of continuous conflict between Israel and the Arab States, jointly constitutes only one facet of the total situation obtaining in the Middle East. The other facet pertains to the assault upon the Palestinian Arab people, in consequence of which that people finds itself dispossessed, dispersed, and deprived of the most elementary and sacred of rights: the right to peaceful existence in its homeland; and the right to exercise, freely and honourably, self-determination on its own national soil.
96. “The situation in the Middle East", in other words, subsists on two distinct levels: the first, pertaining to the destiny of the Palestinian people, and its fate resulting from the creation of Israel; and the second, pertaining to the continuing conflict between the Arab States and Israel, resulting from what Israel represents — an encroachment on the existence of the Palestinian Arab people, on its homeland, and on its rights.
97. The conflict between the Arab States and Israel can be properly envisioned only within the context of Israel’s encroachment on the very being of the Palestinian people. For the dark fate of the Palestinian Arab people, in consequence of the existence of Israel, is the basis of the problem; the relations between the Arab States and Israel are the derivative products. The deprival of the Palestinian people of its inalienable right to exist, in security and dignity and sovereignty, in its native land, is the root of the problem; the conflicts between the Arab States and Israel represent the branches thereof. Endeavours to control the shape of the branches or the character of the fruits are vain as long as the roots remain unchanged.
98. Permit me then to address myself, at first, to the original facet of the subject. The Palestinian people, which today witnesses the subjection of its entire homeland to alien rule, also finds itself in an utterly abnormal and unnatural condition the like of which is experienced by no other people anywhere else in the world. For Palestinians fall today into three categories: the first comprises the evictees, the dispossessed who have not only been displaced, but also prevented from returning to their homes and property; the second category embraces those who have been condemned, ever since the middle of last year, to life under alien military occupation; while under the third and by far the smallest category are subsumed those Palestinian Arabs who, twenty years ago, found their status radically transformed overnight from that of a part of the overwhelming native majority to that of a subordinate minority — a minority leading, in its own ancestral homeland, a marginal life under the domination of an alien, imported, new majority; a minority deprived of the dignity of equality and condemned, in effect, to the status of third-class citizenship.
99. This is the basic injustice — this is the original sin - underlying the chronic, twenty-year-old situation in the Middle East, which entered an acute phase of extraordinary gravity in mid-1967. No analysis of the situation that does not start from this point of departure can be sound; nor can any approach to the problems of the Middle East that does not start from the determination to remedy that primordial injustice be just or have a chance of success. For an approach that fails to correct injustice is itself unjust; and an approach that does not aim at removing the causes of grave discontent is foredoomed to failure.
100. I have heard some representatives of Member States speak, from this rostrum, about the right of Israel to existence and survival. Not all of them, I must say with sorrow, evinced equal concern for the right of the Palestinian people to existence and survival. Have they forgotten that we all belong to an Organization the very first words of whose Charter proclaim that it speaks for peoples, and the very first Article of whose Charter, as well as Article 55, asserts that fulfilment of the purposes of the United Nations demands “respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples"? If, then, in this era of the United Nations, a State forces its way into being at the expense of a given people, will it be congruent with the Charter for Member States to be so preoccupied with the “right” of that State to survival as to ignore the right of the people in question to existence?
101. Israel is a society of transplanted aliens living in the homeland of the Palestinian Arab people, which it has come to occupy piecemeal and by force of arms, usurping its wealth, exploiting its resources and barring all Palestinians whom it has evicted and dispersed from returning to their homes, while subjecting the remaining inhabitants of the recently occupied territories to harsh military rule. To ask the Palestinian people to accept this fate is tantamount to asking the victim to give his blessing to the usurpation of his possessions, and to bestow unmerited legitimacy upon unjust conditions imposed by sheer force.
102. Need I remind you that, during the self-same twenty-year period in which the Palestinian people has been experiencing, step by step, its national tragedy, dozens of other peoples have been struggling to liberate themselves from foreign domination — which is merely one fact of the total calamity befalling the Palestinian people? Fortunately, more of those peoples have now achieved their goals; they have attained their independence and have joined the international community as sovereign States. Is there one among the representatives of those new States who would have accepted, for his own people and his own country, what the Palestinian people is now being asked by some to accept for itself, namely, dispersion, dispossession, as well as foreign occupation of the homeland? Is there one among them who would have accepted, for his own country, the logic by which the Palestinian people is asked to be persuaded?
103. Let us also recall that the Palestinian Arab people, which has undergone its tragic experience with the full awareness of the United Nations, has been the recipient of specific international assurances safeguarding its existence and its rights, assurances which the United Nations should have made exceptional efforts to put into effect. For half a century the international community has been giving, time after time, solemn pledges guaranteeing the safety of the Palestinian people; both the League of Nations and the United Nations made such formal undertakings before the national tragedy descended upon Palestine, and various organs of the United Nations have continued to make similar undertakings since then.
104. From the outset, when Palestine began to be subjected to alien, organized and purposeful Zionist immigration and the Palestinian people rose in opposition, the League of Nations rushed to give it full and firm guarantees. In article 22 of its Covenant, the League proclaimed the Palestinian people, as all other Arab peoples, provisionally independent, subject to minor limitations of temporary duration. The Mandate for Palestine safeguarded, in its preamble as well as in articles 2, 6 and 9, the rights and position of the Palestinian people. As successor to the League, the United Nations provided, in Article 80 (1) of the Charter, that none of the rights safeguarded by the League would be prejudiced within the United Nations system, save perhaps in circumstances which did not apply to Palestine. Even when the General Assembly adopted its recommendation to partition Palestine [181 (II)], it incorporated, as an integral part of its proposed partition plan, guarantees of a wide range of rights, in sections B and C of part 1 of that plan.
105. As soon as the first phase of the Zionist programme of forcible displacement of Palestinian Arabs was completed, the General Assembly recognized the rights of the expellees to return to their homes in resolution 194 (III), which has been recalled and/or reaffirmed by the Assembly in every session held since 1948. At every subsequent phase of Arab expulsion, the Security Council has demanded the immediate return of the expellees, as it did in resolution 89 (1950) and resolution 93 (1951). And, finally, when Israel succeeded in displacing another sizeable group of Palestinian Arabs in the war it launched in June 1967, the Security Council demanded their return in resolution 237 (1967), which was promptly welcomed by the General Assembly in its resolution 2252 (ES-V) and again in resolution 2341 (XXII). A similar call was issued by the Commission on Human Rights, at its twenty-fourth session, in resolution 6, which was endorsed by the Economic and Social Council in resolution 1336 (XLIV). Last, but not least, came the reaffirmation of the right of the Palestinian expellees to return, in the resolution I adopted by the International Conference on Human Rights on 7 May 1968.
106. I have permitted myself to cite these pronouncements of the various organs of the United Nations in order to emphasize that the General Assembly—which is the ultimate embodiment of the will and conscience of the international community, and the last resort of oppressed peoples - bears special obligations towards the Palestinian people, in addition to the general obligations it bears towards all peoples in accordance with the principles of the Charter. The General Assembly is obligated to protect the Palestinian people; it is responsible for the destiny of that people. Such responsibility is not diminished by talk about the rights of States: for the existence of a State cannot rightfully be maintained at the expense of the existence of another people, particularly when the State in question has brought itself into being in the homeland of another people by force of arms, as has happened in Palestine.
107. The reluctance of the United Nations, thus far, to assume in full measure its responsibility for the restoration and protection of the rights of the Palestinian people has begun to create a new, important situation in the area. The Palestinian people, having despaired of attaining its legitimate aspirations and rights through the international community and its appropriate organizations, has found itself — as any other people under similar circumstances would have found itself — forced to choose between extinction and resistance. It has chosen resistance as the avenue to the liberation of its homeland from foreign domination and to the restoration of its human and national rights. it has actually embarked on the path of resistance — that path travelled earlier by many other peoples which were, until yesterday, fighting for their liberation and which are now represented here, among us, as free and sovereign States. Kuwait is proud of the vanguard of resistance and liberation fighting in the occupied territories of Palestine, and proud to endorse that cause and support that struggle.
108. The conflict between the Arab States and Israel, which is the second aspect of “the situation in the Middle Fast”, is derivative; it is a product of the original aspect, about which I have spoken thus far. That conflict reached its most dangerous phase during the latest Israeli aggression.
109. Since the cease-fire, Israel has persisted in its endeavour to create a new fait accompli in the recently-occupied territories, in accordance with a clear expansionist programme, of which the most important components are the following nine:
(1) Adoption of intensive measures to realize in practice the formal annexation of portions of the occupied territories — including Jerusalem, which has a unique and sublime position and distinctive spiritual significance, and the annexation of which has been challenged by the United Nations in successive resolutions, which I need not enumerate, adopted by the General Assembly and the Security Council; and the introduction of other measures preparatory to the prospective annexation of other occupied territories — including changing their geographical names, alteration of the status of points of entry and exits, and issuance of new maps in Israel embodying the territories occupied in the June war.
(2) Expulsion from the occupied areas of tens of thousands of Palestinian Arabs since the cease-fire, in addition to all those expelled, or otherwise prompted to leave in pursuit of self-preservation, during the war.
(3) Importation of thousands of aliens, from all over the world, for the colonization of the occupied territories, in accordance with a programme devised by Israel and formally endorsed by the Twenty-Seventh World Zionist Congress, which was held in Jerusalem about one year after the cease-fire.
(4) Establishment of dozens of new settlements in the occupied territories — from Hermon and Al-Joulan, through the West Bank, to Al-Arish — populated in part by same of the recently-imported immigrants.
(5) Destruction of entire towns and villages, which were razed to the ground.
(6) Expropriation of private property, in addition to public property.
(7) Exploitation of natural resources.
(8) Oppressive and repressive treatment of the civilians in the occupied territories, in open violation of the Geneva Convention of 1949 and of the resolutions of the Security Council and the General Assembly which called upon Israel to abide fully by that Convention. These persistent violations have caused grave concern in the Commission on Human Rights, the International Conference on Human Rights, the Economic and Social Council and the Security Council, which have duly deplored, in their respective resolutions, Israel’s conduct and called for international investigation. Little wonder that Israel has deemed it expedient to obstruct such investigation, and has in fact succeeded thus far in preventing it from taking place.
(9) Use of the occupied territories as launching pads for new aggressive, military attacks upon neighbouring Arab States—attacks which have occasioned new condemnations of Israel’s behaviour by the Security Council.
110. This is the true nine-point Israeli programme, which Israel has implemented since the cease-fire. The other nine-point Israeli programme, contained in the statement of the Israeli Foreign Minister, is misleading. Not only does it contradict the actual programme put into effect by Israel, but it also embodies contradictions between its purported and its real significance, between its rhetoric and its spirit. That programme, whatever else it pretends to be, rests upon four principles.
111. First, Israel is not prepared, under any circumstances, to withdraw completely — nor even to promise to withdraw completely — from all the territories it has occupied by armed force. The readiness, of which there are some hints, to consider unspecified modifications in present positions, upon fulfilment of precisely defined conditions, is only a round-about notification of lack of readiness to evacuate other positions. And it is clear from official and semi-official pronouncements made by Israeli leaders, both civilian and military, that the areas in which Israel is determined to maintain its control under all circumstances are by far the larger of those occupied by aggressive force.
112. Even the limited withdrawal, which Israel is said to be ready to contemplate under conditions of its own choosing, is envisioned as a part of a bartering process, through which Israel clearly aspires to obtain distinct political and economic gains in return for its giving up fragments of what it now occupies but does not own.
113. Second, Israel has no intention whatsoever of allowing the displaced and dispossessed Palestinians to return to their homes and property, although such return is in accordance with their inalienable, natural rights, with their clearly-stated wishes, and with the numerous resolutions adopted by the competent organs of the United Nations.
114. Israel, nevertheless, is prepared to call for a conference on the refugees; but the true purpose of that conference is to consecrate their displacement, and its principal function is to bestow legitimacy upon what Israel has already accomplished in its programme of emptying Palestine of the Palestinian people and refilling it with transplanted aliens. Apart from its purpose and intended function, that proposed conference is noteworthy also for its composition. It is Israel’s design that neither the United Nations, nor the Palestinian Arab people, should participate in that conference.
115. Third, Israel intends, in its programme, once and for all to push the United Nations out of the situation in the Middle East, and to push that situation out of the United Nations. According to the Israeli programme, United Nations involvement in the Palestine problem will, once and for all, be terminated, notwithstanding the fact that this problem has been before the United Nations continuously ever since 1947, and has been thus far the subject of 162 resolutions adopted by the principal organs of this Organization.
116. Equally important for Israel is the termination of United Nations responsibility for the fate of the Palestinian people, a responsibility which this Organization cannot and must not abdicate. This expulsion of the United Nations has a dual significance for Israel. On the one hand, it enables Israel to extricate itself from all its obligations arising out of the resolutions adopted by the United Nations in the past; on the other hand, it enables Israel to relieve itself of the burden of international observation and scrutiny in the future, and indeed to rid itself of the very presence of the United Nations in the area as a neutral observer and an impartial umpire.
117. Fourth, the Israeli programme seeks to liquidate the entire Palestine question through the settlement of the problems arising from Israel’s most recent aggression largely by Arab acceptance of the new fait accompli. But the Palestine question can be liquidated only by liquidating the Palestinian people itself; hence the total oblivion of the Israeli programme to the national rights of the Palestinian people to an honourable existence in its homeland and to the free exercise of self-determination on its national soil. In fact it appears as though Israel does not recognize at all that there is such a thing as the Palestinian people.
118. To envision the whole Palestine question within the limited context of Israel’s relations with the Arab States is only one side of the coin, the other side of which is to deny the existence of the Palestinian people. This denial was always implicit in the practice of Israel — in its very establishment and in its subsequent conduct. Israel’s recent programme seeks to obtain acceptance of this denial by others. Israel’s programme is not a programme for peace; it is a programme for continuing the war by political means. It is essentially a programme for retaining, through international politics, most of the gains obtained by war; and, indeed, for attaining by means of diplomacy those additional political and economic desiderata which Israel has consistently failed to achieve in twenty years by military means.
119. The world today is fraught with grave dangers. The war which is still being fought in Viet-Nam can lead to an international conflagration which may put an end to human life on this earth. It has not yet been possible to find an honourable solution to this conflict. We add our voice to the voices of those who have been calling for a cessation of the bombing of North Viet-Nam, because we are convinced that such a step is necessary to create a favourable atmosphere for the peace talks now taking place in Paris. We hope that those talks will be successful and will bring about the solution that is so desired by people everywhere. We believe that the ideal solution to this problem should be based on the principles of the Geneva Agreements, which emphasized the right of the people of Viet-Nam to self-determination without foreign interference.
120. The recent events in Czechoslovakia have aggravated the tension between the two blocs and revealed the possibility of a new international conflict in Europe. We believe that the withdrawal of foreign troops from Czechoslovakia constitutes a basic step towards the resumption of the dialogue between the two blocs, whose outcome determines the prospects of world peace and dispels the fears which cloud the international scene.
121. I called last year, in this forum, for the admission of the People’s Republic of China to the United Nations, I should like to restate my Government’s position on the necessity of its admission considering the great influence the People’s Republic of China has on the course of events in South-East Asia and the world at large. The admission of the People’s Republic of China implies an obligation on its part to co-operate with other countries within the framework of the Charter. Such co-operation is needed to accelerate disarmament and end the nuclear arms race. It will be a great asset in promoting world peace and security.
122. The non-proliferation Treaty was widely viewed as a positive step towards disarmament. We in Kuwait have been among the first countries to sign it because we are dedicated to the cause of complete and general disarmament. We hope that countries which have been reluctant to sign it will soon reconsider their position.
123. Kuwait, which believes in the right of self-determination, commends the achievements of the United Nations in implementing the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, and supports all nations in their struggle for self-government and independence.
124. The widening gap between the standard of living in the developing and developed countries is one of the main causes of the anxiety and bitterness which prevail in the world today. It is inhuman to leave the developing countries at the mercy of their limited resources while they are striving to attain a higher standard of living and achieve rapid, economic and social progress. The developed countries are contributing only a negligible portion of their resources in aid to the developing countries. The second session of UNCTAD held in New Delhi has revealed that the developed countries have not met what had been agreed upon in contributing 1 per cent of their gross national product towards helping the developing countries. The gulf between the standard of living in the two groups of countries is thus expected to widen steadily.
125. In this context, I should like to state that Kuwait earmarks more than 20 per cent of its national income for assistance to sister and friendly countries, in addition to the financial resources provided by the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development, and the programmes of aid to countries of the Gulf and South Arabia. We hope that the developed countries will do their utmost to provide the aid and know-how needed to promote prosperity and stimulate progress in the developing countries.
126. Let us not lose faith in the will of man to overcome the obstacles which hamper his progress and the determination of people all over the world to live in freedom and dignity. Let us not be shaken in our belief in the principles on which our Organization is founded. Let us reiterate our faith in peace and freedom. Let us all look forward to a better future for a world now overburdened with crises, a future in which humanity will enjoy the blessings of harmony, tranquillity and prosperity.