It is difficult to remember a time when the United Nations confronted greater dangers to itself and to the cause of universal peace than those which crowd in upon it at this grave hour. If we rise from our deliberations without an earnest effort to advance towards agreed settlements of international issues, we shall not have served our destiny or risen to the full level of our cherished trust. All delegations should be haunted by these perils and uplifted by the contrary prospect of salvation which would burst upon our anxious world if we were able to chart some course of reconciliation through the conflicts and rancours of our times. We shall find no easy formula. There is no way of relieving the general tension except by encouraging agreements on the specific issues of which it is composed. The Israel delegation will make its chief contribution to the work of the General Assembly by offering detailed lines of action to our Main Committees which are engaged in the discussion of specific political tissues.
83. For these reasons, and for motives of restraint concerned with the tensions of our region, it was not my purpose until a few hours ago to participate in this general discussion. Those who have listened to the speeches made here on behalf of Arab Governments will have observed with regret that this sense of restraint has not been reciprocated. We note with deep concern that these governments appear resolved to maintain the original atmosphere of the armed aggression which they launched against Israel five years ago. They refuse to give home or shelter to their own kinsmen whose plight they wantonly caused and now deliberately perpetuate. But to these familiar themes of intransigence, they have now, in five speeches — two in the general debate and three in committee — added another: the unwarranted intervention, beyond their right or legal competence, into the treaty recently concluded between the Government of Israel and the Federal Republic of Germany.
84. This treaty, signed within the past few weeks, constitutes one of the most remarkable episodes which has taken place this year in the international life of this, or indeed of any other, generation. Historians of the future will pause in wonder when their eyes alight upon that solemn and silent encounter which took place upon the friendly soil of the Duchy of Luxembourg between representatives of Israel and the Federal Republic of Germany.
85. It was a moment unique in the moral history of civilization. It evoked the fresh and poignant memory of the most fearful crimes ever committed in a ghastly revolt against man’s essential humanity. Six million of our kinsmen, men, women and children, had been rounded up like cattle, crowded into trains, neatly and diabolically classified into categories and age groups — there were special trains of special design for children — and then in circumstances calculated to be most revolting to human dignity, were slaughtered, beheaded, asphyxiated in cold blood, and their remains devoted to satisfy the chemical deficiencies of an aggressive war machine. In the sequel of Allied victory and at the Nürnberg trials, an astonished humanity gasped in incredulity when the curtain went up upon this hideous scene. Along with the slaughter there had been an odious campaign of degradation. The fame, the pride and the repute of the Jewish people, the oldest family of the human race, had been foully attacked. Behind the smiling villages and the gleaming cities of Central Europe and Eastern Europe, ostensibly the symbols of an ordered and merciful civilization, there had opened up a dark abyss of perverted hatred into which millions of our people had been pulled to their doom.
86. These memories of anguish, this unlimited ocean of blood and tears, were the sombre background of the Luxembourg encounter. The guilt was too extreme for any human forgiveness. The sorrow was too vast for any expiation. Yet within those limitations, an alert human conscience would see much significance in that meeting and in that treaty. It marked the ultimate victory of justice over brute force, of weakness over strength and of responsibility over arbitrary and tyrannical impunity. For the first time in its bloodstained martyrdom, the Jewish people were able, as a result of Israel’s renewed sovereignty, to receive the public penitence of its most savage foe acting under the dictates of a tormented conscience,
87. The Nürnberg trials had been hailed as a great advance towards universal law because they recognized and confirmed the responsibility of individuals who, as leaders of nations, embarked upon aggression and violated the universal peace. But the Luxembourg meeting extended the frontiers of that advance. It laid it down that the people, in whose name the initiative for launching war is taken, bear the collective responsibility for all that follows from that initiative and for all the sequence of blood and suffering inflicted by the aggressor in his attack and by the defender in his response. When the concepts of retribution and responsibility begin to attach to international crime as surely as they attach to individual crime within our separate societies, shall we not begin to see the portents of a new world order regulated by legal penalties and restraints? The conclusion, therefore, of the Luxembourg treaty naturally evoked a deep and unanimous echo of applause in all the free countries of the World. It was plain that the conclusion and implementation of this treaty constituted a deep and inescapable necessity, not merely for Germany and for Israel, but for the conscience of mankind,
88. Into this bilateral treaty between the Governments of Israel and Germany, into a matter which is none of their business and none of their concern, into a situation in which they lack the remotest right or title to interfere, the Arab Governments have now intruded with prejudice to the sovereignty of the signatory governments and with an abuse of the United Nations forum in order to magnify the echoes of this intervention.
89. The Foreign Minister of Egypt, speaking at this rostrum [395th meeting], took it upon himself to assert that Germany and Israel had no right or title to conclude the agreement which they have concluded. If the territories of Israel and Germany were Egyptian colonial possessions, the Egyptian Foreign Minister could not have spoken with a more lordly and arbitrary decisiveness about what treaties they might or might not agree to sign.
90. But the speeches here do not exhaust the Story. They are part of the pressure campaign conducted by the Arab League in Bonn in an effort to persuade the German authorities not to honour their signature, and thus to bring an indelible disgrace upon mankind in the issue which, more than any other, affects the moral health of our generation. The avowed object of this pressure is to cause a violation by Germany of its most compelling international obligation, to prevent any attempt at departing from the nazi tradition which has afflicted the life of the German people, to perpetuate the atmosphere and sentiments of nazism by opposing their voluntary expiation, and to do all this by arbitrary diplomatic intervention and by a threat of economic sanctions and political penalties.
91. The General Assembly will observe that Arab States, Members of the United Nations, have threatened to apply sanctions to the German Government if that Government does not violate its international obligations, Thus the Arab League stands ready to apply a new and mournful system of international morality: they will punish attempted virtue ; they will reward the maintenance of an international crime, Within our separate States, the effort by any citizen to carry out the kind of extortion which the Arab League now attempts at Bonn and elsewhere would surely be described by some such word as “blackmail” and be recognized as one of the most despicable of offences. Why then should that concept here be asserted and avowed in so sensitive a sphere of international relations?
92. The Government of Israel has reason and justification to expect the early and unconditional ratification of the Israel-German compensation treaty. We assume that the Government of Germany understands the paramount international importance of this treaty. This morning, The New York Times reported from Bonn: “Chancellor Conrad Adenauer asserted tonight that West Germany would stand by its restitution agreement with Israel, and would not yield to the threats of an economic boycott advanced by the Arab League. ‘I have signed the German-Israel agreement’, Dr. Adenauer said in radio interview. ‘I stick to my word.’”
93. The objection of the Egyptian representative, as exemplified by the action in Bonn and by allusions made in these debates, rests presumably upon the following assumption. Egypt, or the Arab States, are in a state of war with Israel ; they are entitled to maintain a policy of boycott to serve that state of war; they are further entitled to induce other States within the United Nations and outside of it to identify themselves with the alleged Egyptian state of war and also with the blockade and boycott which flow from it. Therefore, the argument goes on, Israel’s trade may legitimately be subject to pressures, controls and limitations, imposed in deference to Egypt or other Arab States.
94. It is here that this question becomes of much closer concern to the United Nations. Let there be no mistake. It is an international offence for any State even to invoke these justifications of belligerency, let alone to base international policies upon them. The offence is not that other nations negotiate agreements with Israel; the offence is that the Arab States do not themselves negotiate such agreements with Israel. The international illegality rests in the maintenance by Egypt of its boycott and blockade, not in the refusal of other governments to be marked by the infection of that boycott and blockade. The Arab policy of blockade towards Israel is something to be changed in itself, not something to be communicated to other spheres of international relations.
95. I wonder whether all Members of the General Assembly and of the wider public are aware that this question whether any State is entitled to base its policies towards Israel upon the theory of belligerency has been the subject of international adjudication. The principal organ of international security has pronounced a verdict of which, incidentally, Egypt is still in defiance. The discussion arose in the context of Israel’s complaints to the Security Council against Egyptian action in interfering with the passage of commerce and shipping on their way to Israel ports under alleged rights of blockade. In the course of condemning this Egyptian action and requiring its cessation, the Security Council made a clear and final definition of the wider political and juridical issues involved,
96. On 1 September 1951, at the 558th meeting, the Security Council examined Israel’s complaint, and adopted a resolution without dissent. The resolution recalled that, in a previous resolution relating to the conclusion of armistice agreements between Israel and the neighbouring Arab States, the Council had drawn attention to the pledges in these agreements against any further acts of hostility between the parties; it recalled further its reminder to the States concerned that the armistice agreements to which they were parties contemplated the return of permanent peace, and therefore urged them and the other States in the area to take all such steps as would lead to the settlement of the issues between them. The Security Council went on to affirm that since the armistice regime, which had been in existence for nearly two and a half years, was of a permanent character, neither party could reasonably assert that it was actively a belligerent or required to exercise the right of visit, search and seizure for any legitimate purpose of self-defence. Therefore the Security Council found that the maintenance of these blockade practices was inconsistent with the objectives of a peaceful settlement between the parties, that such practice was in abuse of the exercise of the right of visit, search and seizure, and that these practices could not in the prevailing circumstances be justified on the ground that they were necessary for self-defence. The Security Council called upon Egypt to terminate all these restrictions on the passage of international commerce and goods wherever bound and to cease all interference with shipping and with the free passage of goods.
97. Israel will, of course, utilize its specific rights under that resolution. Here I am more concerned with its broad political and juridical effects. I am aware that many governments represented here are under constant pressure by Arab States to adapt their own policies towards Israel so as to conform with the objectives of the Arab boycott and blockade, I am confident that all those governments will Understand, from a reading of this resolution, and indeed of the Charter of the United Nations itself, that they would here be invited to participate in hostile and aggressive actions.
98. I suggest in seriousness that it is not for other governments within the United Nations, or outside it, to model their attitude in this question on that of the Arab States. On the contrary, it is the right and bounden duty of the United Nations to require most insistently that the Arab States shall bring their relations with Israel into accord with those practised by the international community as a whole, both by the United Nations and by all Member States that maintain the decencies of international intercourse.
99. My delegation will return to this subject in the proper committee at the proper time. Here I would merely stress that the basic duty of the States of the Near East is not to maintain boycotts or intrude into each other's treaty relationships with third parties, but to negotiate directly for a settlement of their outstanding differences. Those who refuse to seek a settlement by direct negotiation have no moral right to complain before world tribunals because those problems are not solved. When has any problem ever been solved in the history of international relations except by those who agree to meet for a negotiated settlement? Is there any other government represented here which would receive or entertain claims or complaints persistently lodged against it by other governments which refuse to acknowledge its statehood and sovereignly and to seek agreed settlements in accordance with the basic purposes and principles of the Charter?.
100. The General Assembly of the United Nations, whose purpose is to reconcile differences and encourage agreements, should not be used as a melancholy substitute for normal international relations, as an alibi and evasion for States which will not carry out the most elementary of their international duties, namely, the establishment of norm?! relations with their neighbours and the regulation of all conflicts and differences within the framework of those normal relations.
101. My delegation deeply regrets that the representative of Syria, having also told the Governments of Israel and Germany what treaties they might or might not sign between them, then went on to question [396th meeting] the existence of our statehood and even resorted to expressions such as “alleged Israel State”, Israel “authorities” and “community”.
102. The emergence of Israel as a sovereign State has on many due occasions, and especially within recent days, received sufficient testimony of universal applause and approval to enable us to maintain belief in our statehood despite the strictures of the Syrian spokesman. The only government in its area in which the ideals and practices of democracy are held up; almost the only country in the area in which individual freedom is not restricted by despotic monarchy or military dictatorship ; the only State which, above all others in the area, devotes its political freedom consistently and earnestly to the purpose of social and economic progress; the only State in the area in which all adult men and women have freedom to vote; the only government in the area which is prepared without condition to enter into full and normal relations with all other governments in the area; the only government in the region which by sacrifice close to the very point of exhaustion has given shelter and home to 750,000 of its kinsmen, while the Arab governments of that same area voluntarily withhold permanent home and shelter and employment from their own flesh and blood, whose flight and panic those governments caused and whose rehabilitation they have the full capacity to effect; the only government in the area which, despite all attack, refuses to abandon or renounce the ultimate prospect of Israel-Arab peace. Such a people does not depend for the credentials of its statehood upon the authority or sanction of the Syrian representative.
103, I speak with some detail on these affairs, because the agenda of this session is rather full of Arab complaints against the world. Sometimes individual governments are denounced for not reaching standards satisfactory to the Arab States in their political, social and national progress, in their attachment to national liberty, equality and fraternity, in their habit of signing treaties without Arab permission, or in their efforts to solve the problem of minorities and civil rights. Sometimes the United Nations as a whole is abused as being responsible for all international difficulties because it does not always conform to the particular objectives of the Arab world.
104. Here we are, some fifty-four nations full of imperfections and sin, in a world in which the Arab States stand out in solitary and immaculate virtue, full of righteous indignation at our shortcomings. Such is the picture presented by this most extraordinary agenda which the Arab States have prepared for-our political committees at this session. I have felt a deep undercurrent of desire amongst many delegations to see some balance of humility restored in the spirit and tone of these debates. For this attitude of grievance and denunciation is not justified by any objective reference to facts.
105. Has history in its broadest sweep, history In its general line of movement, dealt harshly with the Arab world? Look at that vast expanse of sovereign opportunity extending throughout eight Arab States, covering a million and a half square miles, teeming with natural and mineral resources, full of latent and potential wealth; a great region in which the wonderful developments of the American continent in recent centuries could well be inaugurated by the united and devoted efforts of its people, if they were all dedicated to a vision of the future and not to rancours of the past.
106. Most of these sovereignties were recently established. There was not a single independent Arab State upon the surface of the inhabited globe thirty-five years ago. Rarely in history has any people attained a greater measure of its national aspirations in so short a time. The world rightly congratulates them upon that progress and wishes them well in the development of that opportunity.
107. The United Nations and the victorious coalitions of two world wars have contributed much by their blood and sacrifice to this great Arab bounty. International opinion throughout the United Nations has helped to liberate many of these Near Eastern countries from, foreign occupation. In one case, that of Libya, the United Nations has itself established Arab sovereignty in a new and great area — an act to which the Government of Israel, notwithstanding the general climate of our relations, gave wholehearted assistance through fine exercise of what proved to be its decisive vote. From a people thus endowed with such a wealth of political good fortune and national opportunity, the United Nations may perhaps rightly expect a modification of these harsh attitudes and these vengeful demeanours.
108. Indeed, it was this huge expanse, of Arab sovereignty which stood before the eyes of the United Nations when the question of Israel’s right to statehood came before it. The nations of the world pronounced a simple truth. They said, “If it is right for the Arab peoples to possess their vast continent, it cannot be wrong for the Jewish people to enjoy the peaceful possession of its more -modest but precious home”. It was plain to every balanced conscience that there is no value whatever in an international philosophy which would withhold from Israel in its infinitely smaller domain the privileges and opportunities with which the Arab people is so lavishly endowed?
109. The Arab States now aspire to expand further in other large areas. These problems are complex, and my delegation will express its views upon them on due occasion, but is there not some contradiction in the attitude of a national movement which begrudges to its own neighbour, in the most modest measure, those very rights and privileges which it claims for itself on so unlimited a scale? Is Arab nationalism the only interest which has to be satisfied in the affairs of his region? Is national freedom the prerogative of all peoples in our area or the monopoly of one?
110. We listened carefully and sympathetically when the representative of Egypt outlined the achievements of the new Egyptian régime in passing a law of agrarian reform for the fair allocation of land. The leaders of my Government in Parliament did not hesitate to make public the expression of their profound sympathy with all efforts to cure the conditions of social and economic oppressions which have prevailed in the neighbouring Near East for time immemorial. I am certain that all liberal nations which heard about it welcomed the adoption of that law and will react with sympathetic enthusiasm if it is implemented.
111. But they consistently argue for the limitation of vast estates, for an equitable distribution of land and property, within a national community, and fail to apply to international relations the identical concept, namely, that each people has a right to its own corner, however small, of this vast globe, in which its life and spirit can develop in complete freedom and independence. If you look at the map, you will see that the Arab governments are the vast estate owners of the Middle East, objecting, unfortunately, to the most minimal concept of equal distribution of sovereign rights.
112. What an enormous patrimony is theirs! Surely their true destiny is to develop and fructify the vast inheritance which they possess, under the impulse of their venerable and magnificent culture, and not to brood in sterile vengeance over the tiny corner in which Israel was born and now lives again. Surely a nationalism which proclaims freedom for itself and denies it to others will lose much of the moral credit which would otherwise adhere to its cause.
113. Despite all disappointments and denunciations, and notwithstanding our resentment at being provoked into this superfluous exchange, the Government of Israel continues to believe in the ultimate vision of Arab-Israel reconciliation. All other nations, individually and collectively, can help in that task to the degree that they actively sponsor and encourage direct settlements between the Arab States and Israel, and indeed among all governments and movements in that area of the Middle East and central Mediterranean, whose interests appear to conflict. The Hebrew tradition now embodied in a free Israel preceded and indeed gave birth to ah the other great spiritual movements which have given the Middle East its eternal renown. We do not now doubt that these tv/o kindred peoples — the Arab States and Israel — can unite their strength to build upon the shores of the eastern Mediterranean a civilization worthy of their ancient and medieval past. Thus, while we defend our honour and interests in these debates no less vigorously than we defended out frontiers against equally unprovoked attack, it Is upon that paramount vision of fraternity that we would rather set our eyes and consecrate our effort,