1. Mr. President, the Members of the United Nations have expressed deep confidence in you and your country by electing you to guide their deliberations in the tenth session of the General Assembly. In congratulating you on this distinction, I gratefully recall the constant and generous sympathy with which the peoples of Latin America have sustained Israel’s struggle for independence and security.
2. The illness which has beset the President of the United States has evoked our profound concern. Few men in our generation have brought such high qualities of leadership to the defence and preservation of freedom. Multitudes of people in every land will attend President Eisenhower's progress with devout wishes for his swift recuperation.
3. Three months have passed since we assembled in San Francisco to commemorate the signature of our Charter and to review the progress of the United Nations in the first decade of its labours. A strong impulse for peace went forth from that meeting and brought a healing touch to international relations. We are following with satisfaction the progress made towards the establishment in San Francisco of a visible memorial to mark an enduring covenant between the United Nations and the city of its birth.
4. The central theme in the work of the United Nations at the threshold of its second decade is the unity of human destiny, in a world where the alternatives of catastrophe and salvation have been massively enlarged by the new potency of science. Nations are still sharply divided in their judgements and outlooks. But the knowledge that the ultimate dangers and opportunities are the same for us all has now entered the consciousness of our generation, and given a strong impetus to international conciliation.
5. Thus, as the Conference of the Heads of Government of the four great Powers convened in Geneva, three months ago, its participants could already look back on a period of fruitful diplomacy. In swift succession they had witnessed a settlement of dangerous disputes in Europe and Asia. An armistice had been achieved in Korea. Bloodshed had ceased in Indo-China. The Austrian State Treaty had been signed. The General Assembly had agreed unanimously on a policy for the peaceful use of atomic energy [resolution 810 (IX)]; and. the disarmament question seemed to have moved forward from its previous point of deadlock.
6. This momentum of agreement drew its motive force from the sentiment that war as an instrument of policy was now obsolete, not only in terms of morality and idealism, but also by the simpler test of utility. The uncontrollable effects of modern weapons had begun to reduce to absurdity the concept of a military solution of major international problems. With the military argument removed as the ultimate arbiter of international relations, the art of conciliation had entered on a new era of challenge. The soldier’s deadlock is the diplomat’s opportunity.
7. The four-Power meeting at Geneva dramatized this central truth. This, indeed, was its main achievement For that reason alone, a conference which reached no accord on any specific item of its agenda could yet be accounted successful. The parties at Geneva disagreed on disarmament, on Germany, and on the role and character of a European security arrangement. Their differences on Far Eastern problems were not even submitted for discussion. Leaving these basic discords unsolved, the four Powers nevertheless were united in their determination that a solution by war must be ruled out of any sane calculation.
8. While this common ground should not be under-estimated, the fact remains that specific discords have not yet been removed. The road towards agreement may be clearer, and a gentler atmosphere pervades part of its course. But in terms of actual movement towards the solution of conflicts, the greater part of the journey still lies ahead. Our task in the General Assembly is not to inherit or enjoy assured triumphs, but rather to utilize an improved international climate to secure agreements on specific issues.
9. The general debate in this session has already confirmed the need for a cautious appraisal of the international situation. Improvement has not been complete in measure or universal in scope. Disarmament is still a prospect, not an achievement. The problems of the Far East have not yet advanced towards a solution. Moreover, across the whole expanse of the eastern and central Mediterranean the weeks since Geneva have registered an unmistakable decline. In this area, old conflicts have been sharpened and new ones have arisen. It would not be honest to deny that the international situation is less promising today than it was on the opening day of our session.
10. The sense that the gains of Geneva are in acute need of consolidation impelled the delegations of small Powers, a few weeks ago, to consult on a proposal for expressing the General Assembly’s interest in the success of the forthcoming Foreign Ministers’ Conference. This idea was widely canvassed and supported. It is our hope that the General Assembly will take suitable action at a later stage.
11. It is pleasing to turn to one area of international co-operation in which the months since the Geneva Conference have fulfilled our highest hopes. The International Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy has rewarded the unanimous faith of the General Assembly and the skilful direction of the Secretary-General. In speaking of the world’s interdependence, the writers and thinkers of our generation have usually referred to the menace of destruction which has united us in a common fear. But international cooperation should be something deeper and more affirmative than a defensive reaction to peril. Men and nations can be united not merely by a common dread but, more deeply, by a common hope. This message, proclaimed with splendid dedication by the world’s scientists assembled at Geneva, enriched the technical successes of the Conference, and made it a landmark in the spiritual history of our times.
12. The Israel delegation at Geneva was inspired by its contact with the nuclear scientists of other lands. In the papers containing Israel’s contributions to applied nuclear research, our physicists helped to prove that the atomic age is not the monopoly of the great continental or imperial Powers. All countries which develop a sound scientific tradition may have something to contribute to the new abundance which science has bequeathed to our universal potentiality.
13. The tenth session should move to consolidate the progress made within the last year in this field of international co-operation. The Assembly may wish to make provision for convening a second scientific conference at a suitable time, and for establishing an international atomic agency. My delegation will make its proposals on this agency when the discussion reaches the Committee stage.
14. We are especially concerned with the criterion for the agency’s composition and with the nature of its link with the United Nations. But the prospects of a stable peace or of a new abundance will not be realized unless the tensions mid burdens of armaments are reduced. In our Disarmament Sub-Committee, the attitudes of the great Powers have now been expressed more clearly than ever before. An objective study of these positions would not give the impression that they are irreconcilable. But the key to disarmament lies not so much in technical devices or the reconciliation of verbal formulae, as in an atmosphere of confidence which, in turn, requires agreement on outstanding political disputes. It is true that heavy armaments cause international tensions; but it is even more true that international tensions cause heavy armaments. The pace of disarmament can thus hardly be more rapid than the general progress of international conciliation.
15. In the meantime, countries which manufacture armaments bear a heavy political and moral responsibility. This responsibility cannot be discharged by supplying armaments on purely “commercial” criteria without reference to their political context; or by using them as currency for the purchase of political influence. The sale or gift of armaments is of course a sovereign right of nations; but like all rights, it can be used with moral discretion, or abused by lack of judgement. Is it not an elementary duty of all Powers to deny armaments to those who proclaim and practice, belligerency, and to shun any policy which, on a local level, would defeat the larger purpose of universal disarmament? We must all agree with the passage in the eloquent address by the Foreign Minister of the Soviet Union in which he declared: “The primary objective in the present circumstances must be recognized as the termination of the armaments race” [520th meeting, para. 131], It is unfortunate that a few days later an armaments race was stimulated in the Middle East.
16. Little is achieved of permanent benefit if tensions are eliminated in one continent only to be aggravated in another. In the name of our region’s threatened security, we are moved to appeal to all peace-loving States to avoid rewarding Arab belligerency with arms; to abstain from disturbing the military balance on which the peace of our region has precariously rested for seven years. It is indeed hard to comprehend how any Government which values its moral position can give or sell arms to Governments whose primary international objective is to harass, besiege, intimidate, and if possible destroy a neighbouring State with which they refuse to establish peace. It certainly cannot be righteous for any Power to do that which is wrong for another Power to do. Can it be assumed that Israel, or indeed any State in like circumstances, would be content to wait passively while a hostile neighbour, asserting or practising a state of war, strengthened itself for the decisive blow?
17. The institutional problems of the United Nations — its membership, its Charter and its procedures — deserve our vigilant care, especially if we believe that this Organization is destined to play an increasing role in the international problems of the next decade.
18. The question of a conference for reviewing the Charter appears on our agenda in accordance with Article 109. But there is need for delicacy of judgement in selecting the circumstances in which a review conference might be held.
19. My delegation agrees that an attempt to revise the Charter might at this stage present more danger than opportunity. However, a review need not necessarily compel the adoption of revisions. It might well emerge, in such a review, that the trouble lies not in the text of the Charter but in its faulty application.
20. There is clearly a growing opinion in favour of expanding our membership. The Charter envisages the admission of States which are able and willing to carry out the obligations of the Charter. These, of course, include the obligations for the pacific settlement of disputes and the duty to respect the territorial integrity and political independence of all other States.
21. All States which honour these Charter obligations, which have not repudiated pacific settlement and which do not profess or exercise a “state of war” against a Member of the United Nations, may rightly claim a sympathetic response to their membership applications.
22. The work of the United Nations in the fields ol development and welfare attracts little of the attention which converges upon its political discussions. The technical assistance programme, the United Nations Children's Fund, the efforts of the United Nations Korean Reconstruction Agency and of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, the regional economic commissions and the co-ordinating activities of the Secretariat have all made the name of the United Nations a byword of humane and disinterested endeavour. Yet many fields remain fallow or peglected. It is urgent to find methods of encouraging international capital investment on terms which are economically feasible to the majority of under-developed countries.
23. The Committees of the General Assembly will again be called upon to examine non-political problems which evoke universal human solidarities across the dividing barriers of national frontiers. My delegation will again contribute its best efforts to the work on die Covenant of Human Rights and to the promotion of the aims of the specialized agencies and of the High Commissioner for Refugees.
24. The General Assembly has agreed by unanimous vote to inscribe in its agenda an item proposed by Israel concerning the question of the safety of commercial aircraft flying in the vicinity of, or inadvertently crossing; international frontiers. The submission of this item to the Third Committee reflects my delegation’s intention to treat this matter as a humanitarian question and not as a political or legal problem. In days when so many people commit the safety of their lives to the fortunes of the air, it is urgent to improve procedures for avoiding the disasters which have clouded many homes in many countries in recent years. The traditions of chivalry and freedom which have grown up across the ages in maritime relations should have their counterpart in the protection and immunity of aircraft innocently traversing the skies.
25. Many successes in recent diplomatic history have been achieved by procedures outside this Organization. We need not begrudge this fact, for our Charter, in Article 33, requests parties to a dispute to seek remedy first of all by negotiation and other peaceful means of their own choice.
26. Nevertheless, it is legitimate to feel concern for the institutional welfare of the United Nations and its organs. There is sometimes a danger of weakness through neglect. Where any act of international cooperation or discussion could, with equal efficiency, be carried out either inside or outside the United Nations, there is reason, wherever feasible, to make use of the machinery and moral prestige of the United Nations. There are many techniques available to the United Nations in addition to the familiar method of public debate. More use can be made of our Headquarters as a centre for harmonizing the interests of nations and seeking contacts and agreements away from the inhibiting gaze of publicity. Attention should be given to the Secretary-General’s function as a supplementary means of diplomacy. The Secretary-General's success in bringing about the release of United Nations troops held captive in China is both a tribute to his personal statesmanship and an example of an enlightened use of international machinery.
27. But the most acute dangers facing the United Nations today are not those which arise from a neglect of its availability. On the contrary, the crisis lies in a tendency to stretch our functions beyond the limits of discretion, and even of law. The powers of the General Assembly are broad, but not unlimited. Indeed, the Charter first restricts them to a capacity of recommendation, and then denies their application entirely to matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any State.
28. It was never intended by the authors of the Charter that these provisions should be so stringently applied as to defeat the moral purposes of the United Nations in the broad field of human rights and self-determination. On the other hand, these provisions were certainly meant to be a barrier against headlong encroachments on sovereignty such as that which occurred on Friday last. It is disquieting to assemble today in the absence of a nation whose radiant contributions to the ideals of liberty have left their impress on the best thought and institutions of modern civilization. To repair this crisis and to prevent its recurrence will now demand careful judgement and action. My delegation hopes that the First Committee will move immediately to dispose of that item by deciding to avoid substantive diseussiort.
29. The concept of a world government over-riding national sovereignly has a certain nobility. It is a vision towards which the international order may well evolve over the years as community attitudes strike root more deeply in international life. But the Charter of the United Nations is something quite different. It specifically defines our powers and functions and there would be nothing valuable or idealistic in infringing its terms, even if the motives for such infringement were in all cases beyond reproach.
30. This acute problem of determining the due limits of United Nations jurisdiction has often arisen in the context of debates initiated by the newly-liberated countries of Asia and Africa.
31. The United Nations has played a proud role in the emancipation of dependent communities. Israel is one of many countries which have been established since the Second World War through the evolution of dependent or mandated territories into sovereign States.
32. The transition by so many communities from dependence to sovereignty has been powerfully aided by international judgement. A process of liberation which, but a short time ago, could have been achieved only by forcible secession or revolt can now be promoted by conciliation and international judgement. This, indeed, is one of the most important developments in the international life of the twentieth century. There is still much to be done in this field. But there is already such a swift and favourable momentum, the tide of liberation is so irresistible, that the bitterness and acrimony which have attended discussions of this problem are surely without cause.
33. The Asian-African Conference of nations held at Bandung early this year, adopted a series of principles, many of which reflect the general ideals of the United Nations. Most nations assembled at that Conference would undoubtedly agree that the test of these principles lies in their honest and unswerving application. Declarations against discrimination lose much of their value when they proceed from an assembly which embodied discrimination in its composition by prejudicially excluding a Member of the United Nations which forms part of the geographical area represented at Bandung. Similarly, appeals to all nations to practise tolerance and live together in peace as good neighbours even in times of conflict and dispute are not consistent with the refusal to allow all the nations of the region to practise that tolerance and live together within the confines of a single Conference.
34. We are confident that the peoples of Asia and Africa with whom Israel's ties of friendship are steadily increasing will not on any future occasion allow themselves to be pressed into any surrender of their own most cherished principles of equality and coexistence.
35. In debates on national independence, and in many others, especially those concerning the Middle East and North Africa, some States have been eloquent in describing the imperfections of others. But it has still not been pointed out with sufficient frequency that those who denounce the shortcomings of others would do well, in all humility, to contemplate their own. Governments which have themselves never provided their peoples with a free election denounce States with free institutions for their alleged lack of democratic zeal. Representatives of countries in which men have few civil rights and in which women have none, appear in our assemblies as the champions of human equality and as defenders of fundamental freedoms. Representatives of countries in which slavery is officially practised, in which mutilation is a penalty for theft and decapitation the punishment for non-capital crimes, in which elaborate systems of discrimination still prevail, in which power is concentrated in absolute monarchies or military dictatorships, in which fearful poverty and squalor are fatalistically endured, in which labour enjoys neither the right of free association nor the protection of elementary social legislation, in which such outrages as child labour are officially condoned, stand here in the white raiment of immaculate virtue to denounce others for falling short in the observance of human rights or in the promotion of national independence.
36. Since the countries which I have in mind happen also to be the inveterate denouncers of Israel in these halls, we have naturally followed their performance with anxiety and with an envious wonderment at their ability to display such a sweeping tolerance of ills within themselves and such a ruthless intolerance of imperfection anywhere else.
37. Now that the atmosphere of discussion between the major world Powers has become more conciliatory and less vehement, has not the time come to exclude the censorious note of rancour which still marks United Nations debates in regional conflicts and in the great discussions on national emancipation?
38. There is no area in which such a change of atmosphere and approach is more urgently needed than in the Middle East. The very first day of our general debate [518th meeting] was marked by an extraordinary tirade on this subject from the representative of Egypt, since echoed by his Arab colleagues. Describing the citizens of a neighbouring State as “a motley horde of invaders” inciting the Arabs neither to live peacefully in Israel nor to tolerate Israel’s existence from outside, he has used the highest international forum as a platform for threatening the integrity and independence of a neighbouring State.
39. Israel is at least as able to withstand these verbal assaults as to resist the more tangible violence which has been directed against her for over seven years, and especially from Egypt in recent months. It is here, more than anywhere else, that we see the incongruity of denunciation. For who is the denouncer? A State which seven years ago sent its armies and air force across its frontiers to launch war in an attempt to destroy a neighbouring Government whose establishment was sanctioned by international recommendation; a State which leads the Arab world in its refusal to establish a peace settlement in the Middle East; a State which professes belligerency and exercises a unilateral state of war; a State whose present Foreign Minister once declared that Egypt admits no obligations under the resolutions of the General Assembly and implied that it is even entitled to resist them by force; a State which, with other Arab States, fought a United Nations resolution by armed force and now requires others to honour the recommendation which she and her associates tried to destroy; a State which has publicly avowed her refusal to be bound by the decisions of the Security Council, which alone amongst United Nations resolutions have a legally binding effect; a State which maintains in Suez and Aqaba a blockade condemned by international judgement and by the unanimous opinion of the maritime world; a State which has published communiques boasting that its armed units have penetrated deep into Israel territory, there to spread murder and violence amongst an innocent civilian population; a State from which an influence of tension spreads to every point of encounter with the neighbouring world, northward to the Israel frontier, southward in an attempt to intimidate the people of Sudan, westward in efforts to incite violence across the shores of Northern Africa; a State which, already maintaining a military budget three times the size of that of Israel, invites the horrors of an arms race in the Middle East and seeks to conduct macabre bargains in weapons of death —- is such a State really in any moral condition to denounce its neighbour from the forum of the United Nations?
40. Instead of rebutting in detail accusations of dubious title and content, I prefer to summarize in positive terms the ideals which guide Israel’s outlook on the affairs of its region. Representatives are, of course, free to place this vision side by side with the doctrine of belligerency, blockade, rearmament and nonrecognition, winch Arab representatives have unfortunately espoused, and to decide which version more closely corresponds to the ideals of the United Nations and to the current mood and outlook of peace-loving mankind.
41. In our conception, the Middle East is a region in which the Arab States and Israel have an unconditional duty to live together in peace side by side.
42. In recent decades, the Arab peoples have been awarded independence in eight sovereign States, thirty times greater than Israel in population, three hundred times as great in area, with unlimited resources of natural and mineral wealth. Israel’s restoration to freedom in its small but cherished homeland therefore constitutes no grievance to the Arab world. Indeed, it would have been an indelible disgrace to the world conscience if an international community which had rightly liberated the Arab peoples on an almost imperial scale, had not been able, in the aftermath of immeasurable Jewish tragedy, to establish Israel’s independence within the smallest margin of territory and resources in which a modern sovereign State can survive.
43. It is our further contention that Israel and the Arab States are bound to respect each other’s political independence and territorial integrity. They are bound to maintain armistice agreements which define the precise limits of their jurisdiction and which cannot be changed without mutual consent.
44. The obligation to respect armistice agreements is, of course, mutual and reciprocal and does not require Israel passively to accept the encroachment of its neighbours. The Arabs are not entitled to exercise, nor is Israel obliged to suffer, a policy of belligerency and blockade which has been ruled inconsistent with the existing agreements.
45. Since these agreements already signed are described in their own text as a "transition to peace”, it is surely an offence against their letter and spirit to maintain them indefinitely without an attempt to extend them into a more, durable accord, and it is still more illegitimate to regard them as a shelter for regulated siege or belligerency.
46. Subject to their obligations to each other in their agreements, Israel and each Arab State are completely sovereign. Israel is thus fully entitled to maintain its territorial integrity, and to apply the elementary principle that those who enter Israel's gates shall be men and women, the central passion of whose lives shall be devotion to Israel's flag, loyalty to Israel’s independence, zeal for Israel’s welfare and security, and a readiness to defend it against all assaults from near or far. These are some of the basic concepts which determine the duties of Israel and the Arab States to each other.
47. Much progress must be made before we achieve even this minimum basis of a formal inter-State relationship. But this cannot be our total aspiration. Even in these discouraging days Israel's vision of the Middle East goes far beyond a mere renunciation of hostility. We are convinced that these two peoples whose encounters in history have been so fruitful for mankind, can, by united effort, restore the past glories of their common region.
48. Israel stands at the very heart of the Middle East, in the centre of its pivotal communications. Only if hostlity is abandoned will a free commerce of ideas, energies and merchandise flow across a region which has all the resources of natural and mineral wealth, of man-power and cultural tradition with which to sustain a rich civilization at the highest levels of the atomic century. Is this not a vision worthy of tenacious pursuit?
49. There are no problems outstanding between Israel and the Arab States which would for so much as a few weeks survive a mutual decision to solve them by negotiation. The tragedy of the Middle East lies not only in the Arab refusal to envisage peace and mutual recognition, but, even more acutely, in the painful consciousness of the rich potentiality which lies so close to our common door.
50. If we are denied this fair prospect of conciliation, if conflict and controversy are forced upon us, we shall deploy ourselves accordingly. Some might say that our efforts to consolidate our statehood and defend our interests during seven years of relentless siege have not been unsuccessful. But the vision which attends us when we enter this hall ’of peace, is the vision of regional harmony and co-operation. However vigorously our neighbours now reject this prospect, we are convinced that it must finally prevail.
51. It was in that spirit that my delegation last year proclaimed from this platform its readiness to fortify the armistice agreements by new pledges of non-aggression, and of mutual respect for political independence and territorial integrity. We do not regret that suggestion, we uphold it still.
52. Similarly, Israel’s co-operation is assured for any well-founded effort from outside our region to stabilize its security and to advance its progress.
53. In his address to the General Assembly on 23 September [518th meeting], the Secretary of State of the United States announced his Government’s readiness to contribute to s'/ stable settlement by suggestions of which the three essential aspects were, as he described them, irrigation projects, financial assistance in relation to the refugee problem and security. The United States Secretary of State announced his Government’s willingness to enter into monetary and security commitments if those directly concerned wish to contribute to a settlement along these lines.
54. These ideas merit our careful and discerning reaction. While we have reservations on some points, and see unresolved obscurities on others, we respect the broad purposes which have inspired this initiative, and are moving in the proper channels towards its further elucidation/
55. Recent developments which portend the introduction of new and disturbing factors into our region have created a situation of urgent gravity. Thus, any plan to redress the balance and to strengthen inter-regional security is now of real value only if it is so conceived and formulated as to be capable of very early application.
56. We cannot discuss our country’s fortunes in its region without a glance at the broad vistas of universal history which surround Israel’s view of world affairs. The journey of this people across history for 3,000 years, bearing the great message of order and progress in the universal design; its survival by spiritual dedication amidst unexampled violence and hostility; its martyrdom a decade ago, under the most barbarous assault which has ever disfigured human history; its sudden recuperation at the very depths of its agony by its restoration to statehood in its original home; its revival of one of mankind’s oldest cultures; its assault upon the primeval desolation of its country; the rescue which it extended to its kinsmen, remnants of massacre and oppression in Europe and Africa; the establishment of its free institutions; its return to the Community of nations after an absence of 2,000 years — these are all landmarks in a story which, despite its small physical compass, has a quality of grandeur and exaltation which has deeply impressed men of sensitive historical insight in every land.
57. The General Assembly of the United Nations has a unique eminence in the international life of our age. All nations and cultures, all systems of thought and conduct confront each other here in the overriding solidarity of peace. Science and history have narrowed the margins of safety within which nations used., to dwell. In modern diplomacy the price of success and the penalty of failure have become vaster than they ever were before. International relations are now the decisive preoccupation of our age. Those who labour in these fields may rightly approach their task with a heavy sense of responsibility and dedication. Israel then reaffirms its faith in the ideals of the Charter; pledges its labours to the advancement of peace and abundance; invokes both its ancient tradition and its modem revival to inspire its faith in man’s capacity to advance through perils and pitfalls, towards the fulfilment of his peaceful destiny.