82. It was with deep regret that we learned of the surgical operation undergone by the President of the General Assembly, and we seize this opportunity to wish him a speedy recovery. We all consider Mr. Arenales ax outstanding exponent of Latin American culture and thereby share with his own people a common heritage. We have no doubt that his high qualifications and the wide experience he has had in international affairs will contribute to guiding our deliberations in the best traditions of this Organization.
83. I should also like to take this opportunity to thank the past President of the General Assembly, the Foreign Minister of Romania, Mr. Manescu, for having guided the last session of the General Assembly with singular ability, tact and dignity.
84. It is with deep pleasure that I welcome Swaziland, the new sister African State, which has recently joined our Organization.
85. My thanks and greetings would be incomplete were I not to mention the noble role of U Thant, the Secretary-General, who has continuously laboured with courage in his endeavour to remind the Member States that the raison d’être of this Organization is the maintenance of world peace.
86. The acute conflicts in the world today do not augur well for the universal brotherhood of man. In 1945 hopes were high in San Francisco that the United Nations would not repeat the serious mistakes of the League of Nations, which led to the Second World War. In 1945 a renewed hope loomed on the horizon. Today we shudder to think that we may be on the threshold of another world conflict. There seem to be striking similarities between the underlying forces that prevailed in the late thirties and those of the late sixties which may shatter our fondest hope for universal peace.
87. The cause for alarm lies in the fact that those States which exercise tremendous power do not desist from subordinating the fundamental principles of the United Nations Charter to the promotion of their own national interests. Similar behaviour on the part of the great Powers in the late thirties led to the disintegration of the League of Nations. I was in Western Europe then and observed the work of the League of Nations and I feel I am justified in making these comparisons.
88. Any policy of expediency and rationalization which may be promulgated under such terms as compromise or political solution would inevitably fail to establish even the semblance of world peace. Unless compromise and political solutions are based on justice, and only on justice, the fate of the United Nations will be at stake, and no one will be in a position to assure us that our Organization will not flounder as the League of Nations did before it.
89. Inasmuch as at one time a good number of Member States deplored the abuse of the veto in the Security Council, many of us today are aware of a tendency to take Council decisions by consensus whenever the great Powers shun assuming a position based on justice. Hence consensus may in many cases prove to be as unsatisfactory as the abuse of the veto, if not more so. This relatively recent practice of arriving at a consensus in the Security Council, quite often at the expense of reaching a right solution, has been utilized to evade justice on the one hand and avoid a serious confrontation, especially between the super-Powers, on the other hand.
90. It is true that many political problems today are of such a complex nature, involving all kinds of conflicting interests, that it is not easy in an Organization like ours to find simple solutions. Nevertheless, we do know that since the First World War any problem arbitrarily dealt with by the great Powers without observing the fundamental principles, whether they were enshrined in the League of Nations Covenant or the United Nations Charter, ultimately led to serious trouble in the world.
91. One of these fundamental principles of the League of Nations Covenant, which has eventually evolved into a fundamental right, is that of self-determination of peoples and nations. The flouting of the right of self-determination at the Conference of Versailles in 1919 sowed the seeds of the Second World War. There is no guarantee that the flouting of the right of self-determination today may not likewise cause the eruption of a third world war, especially when that right has been trodden underfoot in a critical area, such as Palestine, which lies astride three continents.
92. The United Nations committed one of the most dangerous errors when, by a slim majority, exacted through great pressure on the part of certain Western and Eastern Powers, it recommended the partition of Palestine [181 (II)] and, in so doing, totally ignored the right of the majority of the indigenous people of that country to exercise their sovereign rights.
93. It would be a waste of time to argue the Palestine question from this rostrum, as indeed it has become common knowledge that those Zionists who laid claim to Palestine were an alien people that belonged to many nationalities, mostly from Eastern Europe. Their claim has always been spurious on religious and historical grounds — spurious because the majority of these Zionists were converted to Judaism between the seventh and ninth centuries, as is attested by the Jewish Encyclopaedia. Hence, these people, although they embraced a Semitic religion, were no more Semites than a Christian Scotsman or a Christian Scandinavian whose religion is of Semitic origin.
94. Furthermore, the indigenous people of Palestine lived on the land even before they were arabized and, no doubt, some of them may have been of the Jewish faith. In fact, there were Jews in Palestine whose heritage of culture, language and traditions was Arab before political Zionism was conceived in the mind of an Eastern European Jew. These Oriental Jews had always lived at peace with their brothers, as they too had been arabized.
95. The argument that Palestine belongs to the Zionist Jews because Judaism flourished in that area three thousand years ago is, therefore, invalid. Palestine is also the cradle of Christianity and equally holy to Muslims. Do the Christian nations lay any political claim to Palestine on the grounds of religion? The answer is a simple “no”. Why should Zionist Jews then, whose real homeland lies in Eastern Europe, at least mostly so, claim title to Palestine on the grounds of their religion? The only people to whom Palestine really belongs are the people who have lived there regardless of the religious faith they belonged to. The Arab people of Palestine amounted to 94 per cent of the entire population in 1919, when they were betrayed and placed under a Mandate by the Allied Powers, instead of being treated on an equal basis with other Arab Territories that were also placed under mandates and eventually attained total independence.
96. It is an anachronism to make a nationality out of a religion. It is indeed an anachronism, in this twentieth century, to make a nationality out of a religion. There are many Christian nations represented here, or at least their religion is Christian because there is a separation between State and church, and I ask, do Christians all over the world consider themselves as belonging to one single nation? Do Muslims all over the world consider themselves as belonging to one single modern State? Do the followers of Buddhism — and there are many Buddhists amongst us here — and other major religions for that matter claim to belong to one single State or nation? No. Only the Zionists, regrettably, claim that it is imperative for all Jews, regardless of their ethnic origin, to become one and only one single nation. I say “regrettably", because we know a good number of Jews in many parts of the world who identify themselves with their countries of birth or adoption and do not consider themselves as belonging to a single Jewish State. I say “regrettably" because the Zionists, by claiming that all Jews should eventually and ultimately belong to one State, are creating a world Jewish problem which, due to the influence Zionists wield in many countries, may one day throw the world into a third world war.
97. The Palestine question has been consistently considered as one stemming from the conflict between Israel, which usurped Palestine, and the Arab countries, especially those contiguous with Israel. In dealing with this problem in various organs of the United Nations, quite often the Palestinian people have been sadly neglected in so far as their sovereignty and political rights are concerned. The emphasis in the United Nations has been mostly on how to keep the Palestinian refugees alive on six or seven cents a day per person, herded in camps as they are, whilst their homes and land and other possessions have been expropriated by the Zionists from Eastern Europe — all this under the banner of Judaism, a noble religion.
98. The fact that these refugees reside in camps and subsist on a pittance, and are dispersed, as some of the Palestinians have been, outside refugee camps, does not rob them of their sovereignty and political rights, whether this Organization exists or does not exist. Sovereignty resides in the people. Nobody can rob a people of its sovereignty unless that people is erased. Can they erase two million Palestinians? Let them try. That will start a third world war, I assure you, Mr. President, it is not a question of what you and I want; it is that two million and more Palestinians wish to see that they are not robbed of their sovereign rights.
99. The Palestine question, therefore, does not revolve only around the state of war that exists between Israel and the Arab countries, but also around whether any Power or group of Powers in this United Nations is able, once and for all, to kill the aspirations and the deep yearning of the Palestine people on the whole to return to their own homeland.
100. It is my duty to make the Member States of the United Nations aware that, should any solution based on expediency be imposed on the Middle East without cognizance being taken of the sovereignty and political tights of the indigenous people of Palestine, it will be doomed to failure. The Palestine patriots, called “terrorists” by Eastern European Zionists who usurped their homeland, cannot be suppressed. They are no different from any other freedom fighters in Europe or elsewhere who maintained their struggle under the most dire circumstances.
101. Those who believe that the establishment of Israel is a fait accompli should not ignore the lessons of history in the area. Conquerors have come and conquerors have gone, but the indigenous people, regardless of their religious beliefs, have remained in Palestine. Time is the best judge, and unless the whole of mankind commits suicide, time will demonstrate that the Palestine people will come into their own, perhaps not in the very near future but not at some very distant date either.
102. Indeed, any consensus — I return here to the matter of consensus, whether it is in the Security Council or in any other organ of the United Nations — any consensus, indeed, among the major Powers — and the lesser Powers, for that matter — that does not render justice to a people like the Palestinian people may spell the disintegration of the United Nations, all the more so because Palestine lies in one of the mast sensitive strategic areas of the globe.
103. I remember — you are young, Mr. President, but I remember, although I was a child — it took one bullet at Sarajevo to start the First World War. But you do remember, Sir, and many here remember that the marching of Hitler into the narrow strip called the Polish Corridor started the Second World War. You remember that, Sir. We all remember that. I submit that the situation in the Middle East is fraught with no less danger. Let this be a warning. My hair is grey; I have seen a lot. Let this be a warning.
104. I repeat, the situation in the Middle East is fraught with no less danger. More than bullets is flying around in the Holy Land. Let us not persuade ourselves, erroneously, that the patriots and freedom-fighters can be stopped or deterred in an area where misjudgement of the forces at play may abruptly lead to a third world conflagration.
105. If I have not so far mentioned the Holy City of Jerusalem it is because my Government considers it part and parcel of the Palestinian homeland. However, I must mention again that Jerusalem is considered as holy as Mecca and Medina not only by Arabs, regardless of their religion, but by all Muslims the world over. The Zionists’ claim that Jerusalem is also holy to Jews does not give them any political rights to that city. I say “political rights”; they have religious rights as does any other monotheistic religion to which Jerusalem is holy. If the number of adherents to any religion is to be the criterion for political rights to Jerusalem, let us not forget that there are over a thousand million Christians and about 600 million Muslims in the world.
106. Since the adventure of the Crusaders, the remnants of whom ultimately were assimilated and became part of the indigenous people of the Middle East, no Christian country, as such, nor the hierarchy of any Christian denomination, has laid claim to Jerusalem because it was the cradle of Christianity. Christian nations all over the world have accepted the concept that Jerusalem should belong to the indigenous people who have resided in it for centuries. Likewise, no Muslim State ever laid claim to Jerusalem because of its holiness to Islam. By dint of what logic, or by what yardstick of justice, do the Zionist Jews claim political rights to Jerusalem, when the number of Jews does not exceed 17 million in the world; all the more so when the majority of those 17 million are nationals of many modern States and do not consider Israel as their country, as then they would indeed suffer from the conflict of dual nationality? And since when are the Eastern European Zionists more pious and devout than the majority of Jews who do not wish to claim Israel as their fatherland? We have come to realize that Zionism is indeed a movement which, unfortunately, has used Judaism, a noble religion, as a motivation for a political and economic end.
107. Since the usurpation of Jerusalem by the Zionists, it is becoming an attraction for tourists rather than exclusively a place for piety and reverence. We have been told — indeed we have read despatches to the effect — that cabarets and dance-halls have been established in the Holy City to lure all kinds of tourists with a view to filling the coffers of the Zionist authorities. This what Jerusalem has come to. Never in the history of Jerusalem have there been cabarets, dance-halls, go-go swingers, miniskirts, and whatnot.
108. I would be remiss in my duty were I not to repeat again and again that there can be no peace in Palestine if the aspirations of the indigenous people remain unfulfilled — and by “indigenous people” I mean the people of Palestine regardless of their religion.
109. It was with great misgiving and indeed with deep dismay that we learned of the decision that the Government of the United States of America has undertaken to sell or donate a substantial number of Phantom jets to Israel, whose troops still occupy Arab territories and whose authorities have illegally annexed the Holy City of Jerusalem in contravention of United Nations resolutions. That decision on the part of the United States Government will no doubt alienate Arab peoples, as a whole, from the United States and make it more difficult for the Arab peoples and Governments not to question the consistent partiality which the United States has always manifested, to the detriment of the mutual interests of the Arabs and the United States. I hope the representative of the United States is here listening to what I am saying. The lights are too glaring — I cannot see all the representatives in this Hall. Perhaps he is listening to the radio if he is not here.
110. Inasmuch as we consider the aggression in Palestine as a stark form of colonialism fraught with great dangers, as we have mentioned, we should not forget the repressive measures committed by alien forces against the indigenous people of various parts of Africa. The people who have lived under the Mandate of South Africa do not seem to have a chance to attain full nationhood unless the Mandatory Power — I should say the “erstwhile" Mandatory Power — recognizes their right to self-determination and accelerates the process leading to their independence.
111. We do not believe that economic sanctions are enough to compel South Africa and Southern Rhodesia to pursue a policy of liberating the people under their yoke. On the other hand, the highly developed countries — I do not have to name them — are not willing to use force on the grounds that persuasion might be the better part of wisdom for bringing about the desired ends. This lack of positive action is engendering a legitimate bitterness against those highly developed Powers, which, because of the special vested interests they have in both South Africa and Southern Rhodesia, are reluctant to go beyond making pious declarations. They say: “Oh, we want them to evacuate. We want those forces to liberate.” It is all double talk. It is understandable that national interests often dictate the policies of States, large and small, but if such policies are in contravention of the fundamental principles of the Charter, should the United Nations give up the search for effective measures to bring about a just solution?
112. There are other means than pious declarations to attain the proper goal. I am afraid that emotions are ruining so high in Africa as well as in Asia that in the not-too-distant future arms will be smuggled in and these will be utilized in guerrilla warfare against the ruling authorities. Such a situation, which may arise, would indeed be deplorable, because it would entail loss of life and a great deal of destruction. it is therefore hoped that the authorities in South Africa and Southern Rhodesia — and I am speaking to them in a friendly way — will not remain obdurate in pursuing a policy which one day may subvert their very existence in Africa.
113. We have an Arabic proverb which says “An eye cannot fight with an awl" — an awl is an instrument with which leather is bored. The people of Africa will become that awl and the poor Rhodesians — I say “poor Rhodesians” because it is their authorities who are responsible — and the poor South Africans will be that eye. Not now, but in the future. Let us hope therefore that they will think of a solution that will bring peace to that continent in the future.
114. Year in, year out, the United Nations has condemned all forms of racial discrimination, but apartheid is still prevalent in South Africa. We sincerely hope that South Africa will abolish such practices which, without a shadow of a doubt, will create dangerous tensions that may lead to sanguinary conflicts with repercussions in Africa, Asia and other continents.
115. We also hope that Portugal, which has dominated large areas cf Africa, will see the light and feel the winds of change that may — and not in the distant future — turn into a hurricane. It is indeed strange that a small State like Portugal should ignore the lessons of history. Erstwhile colonial Powers — mighty colonial Powers — have relinquished their possessions in Africa and elsewhere. How could Portugal, small Portugal, were it not for the Powers behind it, beguile itself into thinking that it can retain territories whose indigenous people are clamouring for independence? It is a question of time. Although, I must admit, Portugal is less racially minded than were the former European colonial Powers, we believe it is in Portugal’s interest as well as that of the multi-racial elements residing in Angola, Mozambique and so-called Portuguese Guinea (Bissau) to identify themselves with the movement for political independence with due regard to economic ties with the metropolitan State — we do not want Africa to suffer. It took a great statesman of the century, General de Gaulle, to recognize that Algeria was not a province of France. We hope that Portugal will produce a similar statesman and a lot of bloodshed will be avoided. If Europe could produce such a great statesman as de Gaulle, we should not lose hope that Portugal will see the light of wisdom.
116. We are not unmindful of the armaments race, which more than ever is endangering the peace of the whole world. The conventional weapons used in the Second World War caused such a massive loss of life and treasure that one would have thought that the havoc wrought would be a sufficient deterrent to the creation of more advanced lethal weapons. Unfortunately, man seems to suffer from a short memory. The arsenals of the major Powers are replete with the most sophisticated engines of war — not to speak of chemical, bacteriological and other secret weapons which may very well bring about the end of human and animal life on this earth; and maybe vegetable life too — I have heard that there are certain bombs that are used to kill vegetable life also. Fear is far from being a safe deterrent to the deployment of these weapons. On the contrary, fear may give rise to spontaneous panic, and panic may inevitably hasten the release of the wild demons of total warfare.
117. The only practical solution leading to disarmament is a genuine change of heart — and not resolutions and debates in the United Nations. Words, words, words, as Hamlet said. I repeat: the only practical solution leading to disarmament is a genuine change of heart among the leaders of the major Powers, instead of protracted negotiations for writing international treaties which cover only partial disarmament in various stages — one stage after the other. Such treaties cannot possibly keep pace with the armaments race. And many of us, representatives of small States, sincerely believe that time is running short.
118. As to the observance of human rights, I must say that hardly any fundamental human rights can be respected in time of war. Therefore, we should co-ordinate our endeavours to protect human rights with the earnest will to abolish war. Only the major Powers can bring about world peace, by concerted acts rather than by high-sounding declarations that their weapons are being stockpiled for self-defence or for preventing war. Whom do they think they are fooling? "Self-defence” and “for preventing war”: that has been said time and again, and we have witnessed two world wars. Weapons are being stockpiled for “self-defence”! Nowadays, when wars — modern wars — break out, thousands of miles away from those waging them, what kind of self-defence is it? It is to stretch our imaginations immeasurably to think of self-defence in such terms.
119. But nobody believes any longer that wars are fought “to save democracy”, or to save an ideology, for that matter. Youngsters are rebelling in the streets in many countries of the world today. The hypocrites of my generation have been unmasked — and that is all to the good — but people should not go to extremes. The younger generation of today is rebelling all over the world because it can no longer be taken in by such hackneyed slogans as “war to end war", “war to save democracy” and so forth. The younger generation — and good for it — has awakened, and it is going to rise as one generation, regardless of nationalities, to abolish war, and I hope this happens before I die.
120. Other polemics used by politicians all over the world — and their number is legion — include assertions like “preventive war", “just war", and similar terms which no intelligent youngster in his innermost heart believes; nor do we adults believe such terms any longer. To sum up, war is war, and that is that. No wonder that people at large nowadays expect their leaders to become real statesmen and are increasingly decrying the blunders of politicians, which they cannot afford if humanity is to survive.
121. I do not wish to be unduly repetitious, but since an indisposition has prevented Mr. Sakkaf from delivering this speech, I should like to recall on his behalf, before bringing my statement to a close, some observations that I have made at previous sessions, from this rostrum, about economic and social development in Saudi Arabia.
122. I might mention that further progress has been achieved under the guidance of His Majesty King Faisal and with the co-operation of the Saudi people. More progress in many fields would have been achieved had it not been for the fact that the critical situation in the Middle East is preventing us from deploying all our energy and resources to pave the way for additional welfare services which it is the sacred duty of my Government to provide, in accordance with Islamic law. We do sincerely pray that God the Creator of the universe will ultimately inspire us all to follow the righteous path that will ultimately lead to peace and brotherhood on earth.