56. The delegation of the Syrian Arab Republic wishes to associate itself with all the delegations which have preceded us to this rostrum in addressing to the President our heartfelt congratulations on his unanimous election to the Presidency of the General Assembly at its twenty-second session at a crucial time in the life of the world Organization, Our congratulations and thanks go equally to the outgoing President, Ambassador Pazhwak of Afghanistan, for having presided so ably over the deliberations of the previous session, as well as the special sessions of this Assembly.
57. This session is different from previous ones in two respects: first, in that the Middle East witnessed during the month of June a savage aggressive war, in which the most modern arms were ruthlessly used against our people, killing and driving out hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, destroying their towns and villages, looting their property, and occupying vast areas of three Members of the United Nations Organization; secondly, in that Syria, like the other Arab victims of this aggression, has resorted to the world Organization, requesting the application of its Charter, in letter and spirit, to solve the present crisis by condemning aggression and by liquidating its consequences.
58. Unhappily, we have found ourselves on the international level, as we found ourselves in the battle, victims of a premeditated plan, devised and executed by Israel and the imperialist Powers which supported it before, during and after its aggression. That is why we are impelled now to concentrate our greatest attention on this tragic and explosive situation. For the crisis of the Middle East, and the subsequent inability of the United Nations to act fully to liquidate the results of aggression, reflect the weakness of the existing international order. Consequently, unless the forces striving for the good and peace of mankind are united, and unless the peoples of the Third World, threatened as we are threatened, combine their efforts to stop this deterioration we shall find ourselves ruled by the law of the jungle, to which the Secretary-General has referred in the introduction to his annual report [A/6701/Add.1].
59. What do the peoples of the world expect from this Organization? They ask for no more than the full implementation or the Charter to enable them to defend themselves against the onslaught of imperialism, old and new, direct and indirect. Be it an open attack, as is the case now in Viet-Nam, or an onslaught through an instrument of imperialism and colonialism, as is the case of Israel, the obligation of the United Nations remains the same: that is, to undertake the defence of the victim and to uphold the rule of law.
60. We have heard the overwhelming majority of speakers denounce from this rostrum, the Israeli military occupation of Arab territories and the attempt to impose solutions by force. We also heard pleas for peaceful solutions to the crisis of the Middle East. But what is beyond contestation is the fact that the search for peaceful solutions is incumbent upon the international community, not upon the occupied countries, victims of aggression. In fact, the problem we are dealing with goes beyond the area and involves the whole of the international community. When the Arab nation resists aggression and occupation, it exercises its elementary and legitimate rights to safeguard its freedom and dignity. The Arabs are victims of the combined forces of world Zionism and imperialism, and they are justified in refusing to submit to any pressure ultimately aiming at the alienation of their fundamental rights.
61. The battle of the Arab people against neo-colonialism is the battle of the Third World, Should our front lines of resistance crumble, it would deal a deadly blow to all national liberation movements, and would necessarily lead to the encirclement and destruction of the progressive forces of the world.
62. The Assembly has heard appeals for peace from Israel speakers. The greatest affront that could be made to the very dignity of this Organization would be to give any credence to Israel's false show of peaceful intentions. For how can Israel speak of peace, stability and progress in the Near East when its very existence has been based from the outset on violence and expansion, culminating in the aggressive war of 5 June and the occupation of vast areas belonging to three Member States of the United Nations, three times larger than the area it already occupied before 5 June? How can these expansionist and racist policies of Israel differ from nazism in Europe — Europe, which saw the armies of Hitler occupy areas far exceeding the area of Germany? At that time, also, attempts were made to impose conditions on the victims, but were fiercely opposed and rejected. Would the case of the Arab people be any different?
63. The legend which the powerful Zionist propaganda machine has created is that Israel is a tiny area in which a persecuted people has found refuge. Yet the shocking series of events of the last twenty years have exploded this artificial myth. The Arab countries have fallen victims to an unlimited number of military operations across the demarcation lines and three all-out wars waged by Israel forces. To use the words of the Secretary-General in his report, "that is more than enough war in any one area" [A/6701/ Add.1, para. 42]. Despite this bloody record, Israel finds it fitting to advocate peace from this rostrum.
64. As long as this fundamental injustice persists, there can be no durable peace in the Middle East. Pursuing its defiant and aggressive policy, Israel, through its Foreign Minister, is now asking the United Nations to desist from discharging its responsibilities in this problem. It is indeed ironical that Israel should come now and ask the United Nations to play no role whatsoever in the solution of this problem. No doubt, the United Nations responsibility is organically linked to the Palestine question, and any attempt to bypass the United Nations is a flagrant manoeuvre which would weaken the authority of our Organization. Reason and justice, therefore, impose upon every statesman looking for a solution the task of investigating the roots of the problem. Thus the first principle to be maintained is the right of the people of Palestine to self-determination, a right which can never be the object of bargaining. This simple truth has been recognized by all fair-minded people, and the Secretary-General is no exception when he states in his report that:
"people everywhere, and this certainly applies to the Palestinian refugees, have a natural right to be in their homeland and to have a future" [ibid., para. 49].
65. As for Israel’s demand to have direct negotiations with the Arab Governments, it is nothing but an Israel manoeuvre purporting to achieve a dual objective: first, to prevent the people of Palestine, the main party to the issue, from being heard; second, to ignore the United Nations. In so doing, Israel attempts to obliterate scores of United Nations resolutions calling on it to permit the Palestinians to go back to their homeland.
66. As for the fate of the new refugees, our Assembly has received the report of the Secretary-General's personal Representative regarding the plight of these innocent victims of Israel's recent aggression, who have been refused the legitimate right to return to their homes.
67. In this connexion, we would like to quote only two statements. On 16 June Mr. Abba Eban stated that "even if the United Nations votes by 121 votes to one, we will not withdraw from the territory we have occupied" and as recently as 2 October General Dayan is quoted in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency Daily News Bulletin, which stated:
"In an interview with the Army weekly, Bamachaneh, published today, General Dayan spoke enthusiastically of the cease-fire lines, as 'ideal' and expressed doubts that anyone could establish 'more ideal borders than the present ones'. He pointed out that, 'after all, crossing the Suez Canal means that we are in the outskirts of Cairo; crossing the Jordan, we are near Amman, and just proceeding somewhat north of Kuneitra, we shall find ourselves in Damascus.'"
68. These two statements, among others, clearly indicate that Israel is practising belligerency in deeds and advocating belligerency as its official policy. Contrary to all norms of international law, Israel is exploiting its conquest and military occupation of Arab territories to impose its own terms and conditions.
69. Here a basic question arises. Should the withdrawal of occupying armies be made subject to any condition? If we accept this principle, are we not implicitly and explicitly recognizing the right of conquest and the deriving of benefits from it? In other words, should the conqueror be permitted to benefit from the fruits of his conquest? My reply to this question is twofold: first, the objective judgement rendered by international law and practice, and, second, the facts concerning the Middle East crisis.
70. For, as is well known, one of the fundamentals of contemporary international law, at the stage in which we are engaged now, denies to the aggressor any right to benefit from his aggression or to impose any condition resultant therefrom. To mention one instance only out of many I cite the following, as an illustration of the concrete implementation of this fundamental principle, from the declaration, contained in the Final Act of the Conference, on Non-Recognition of the Acquisition of Territory by Force, approved on 22 December 1938 at the Eighth International Conference of American States at Lima:
"That it reiterates, as a fundamental principle of the Public Law of America, that the occupation or acquisition of territory or any other modification or territorial or boundary arrangement obtained through conquest by force or by non-pacific means shall not be valid or have legal effect."
71. I come now to the second aspect of the state of belligerency as it applies to the Palestine question. I maintain that a basic distinction ought to be drawn sharply between belligerency as a legal stand subject to international judgement, which could be invoked as a right of self-defence, and acts of belligerency and war such as Israel committed in 1967, and before that, in 1956 and in 1947-1948. Let us recall here that Zionism is in itself an aggression and declaration of war, because it has justified to itself, on a false ideological basis, the right to occupy another people's land and to drive that people completely out of its territory.
72. Furthermore, the war which Israel started on 5 June is not an isolated incident. It is but an implementation of the Zionist scheme to occupy by force of arms what Israel and Zionist leaders consider to be Eretz Israel. Here I shall let the Israel leaders confess their own guilt.
73. During the Zionist conference held in Jerusalem in January 1967, the Jerusalem Post, in its issue of 12 January, reported the following:
"Mr. Sh. Z. Shragai, head of the Immigration Department, told the Zionist leaders yesterday morning that 'the great tragedy of our generation and of Zionism is that, despite the fact that part of the Land of Israel has been returned to the Jewish people as a sovereign State, we have not yet succeeded in bringing the people back to the State'." Notice, Mr. President, the word "part".
74. In an interview to the Israel paper Haboker on 1 March 1964, Ben Gurion said: "The boundaries of the Jewish State would have been larger had Moshe Dayan been our Commander-in-Chief in 1948." In answer to this statement, Yigal Allon, who was the Commander-in-Chief in 1948, said:
"Had Ben Gurion not ordered a cease-fire, then our troops would have occupied the Litani River in the north (Lebanon) and the Sinai Desert in the south (Egypt) and also liberated the whole of our homeland."
75. So, if there is any doubt in the minds of some members of the international community that we are witnessing the execution of the historic expansionist plans of Zionism, this must be enough to convince everyone concerned as to which is the real belligerent party. The Arabs have done nothing but exercise their right of self-defence, in order to defend their homeland against aggression and occupation.
76. We have so far reviewed the situation obtaining in the Middle East as a result of Israel's aggression and its occupation of Arab territory. We have also demonstrated that Israel's attempt to bypass the United Nations is nothing but a manoeuvre to delay its withdrawal from the occupied areas. In addition, the Assembly has witnessed an almost unanimous disapproval of Israel's conduct and the theory it is trying to build regarding the so-called rights which an aggressor can derive from military occupation.
77. Now, what is our Organization to do? We believe that when the Member States aim seriously at the restoration of peace in our area, they achieve this when they implement the spirit and letter of the Charter and refuse to be carried away by pressure. This Organization could and should play its constructive role in condemning aggression and calling on the aggressors unconditionally to withdraw from occupied territories to their positions prior to the aggression. Consequently, we call on all Member States, and especially the smaller countries, to join hands to resist aggression and to strive to restore peace built on justice and the rule of law.
78. This is the only valid response to the challenge our Organization is facing. If it discharged its responsibility, the peoples of the world would be able to continue trusting the United Nations. If, on the other hand, our Organization failed to uphold the Charter in the face of aggression and conquest, as it has so far, then those States that were mainly responsible for this failure, and especially the Government of the United States, would have shattered the only hope our present international community holds for a society ruled by law. The tragic consequences would be a repetition of the primitive way of live where the weak had to yield to the will and whims of the strong. Let international public opinion then decide which are those States which would bring that calamity on the human race.
79. The delegation of the Syrian Arab Republic, speaking from the rostrum of this august body of the United Nations, that was created mainly for the purpose of saving the world from the scourge of war and assuring respect for the right of peoples to self-determination, appeals to the universal conscience to consecrate the following principles:
(1) Rejection of policies of provocation and faits accomplis. This is a requirement of the very principles of right, justice and international law;
(2) Implementation of the almost unanimous will of the delegations here as to the rejection of the occupation and annexation of territory by force and aggression;
(3) Necessity of solidarity among all peace-loving forces in the world;
(4) Consecration of these principles as a prerequisite to a firm stand against imperialist ambitions and conspiracies aiming at obstructing the liberation movements, and the friends of progress and independence in the world, and
(5) Responsibility of the international Organization in condemning: aggression and eliminating its consequences, so as to safeguard the trust of peoples in the Organization.
80. Let us now turn to another drama in this bloody struggle opposing two sides: on the one hand, peoples eager to build their life in freedom and dignity, and on: the other colonial oppression based on material superiority. This is what is taking place in Viet-Nam.
81. The heroic struggle of the Viet-Namese people against the most devilish instrument of destruction and devastation ever known in the history of mankind is a source of pride not only to the heroic people of Viet-Nam, small in number, but to all struggling peoples. Indeed, they draw from this epic struggle a stronger determination to stand up to forces far superior to themselves.
82. We wish to join all other delegations which called on the Government of the United States of America to stop the operations of extermination which it is carrying on against the people of Viet-Nam. The Government of the United States, in persisting in its present policy, is defying international public opinion and putting itself in complete isolation. In addition, it is facing an ever-increasing opposition on the part of the American masses.
83. This obstinate attitude of the United States Government, in imposing its will by iron and fire on this struggling Asiatic people, is paralleled only by the blind obstinacy of the same Government in attempting to ignore the existence of the great people of China in the international community. My delegation has again joined with others in requesting the inscription of this item in the agenda of the twenty-second session. We hope that reason will prevail at last and that the great people of China will recover its legitimate right to exercise its natural role in this Organization, Indeed, our Organization will never be able to achieve any tangible and lasting progress in the solution of world problems such as peace, security and disarmament unless this great Power, representing one fourth of mankind, is integrated within the international community.
84. Finally, we wish to seize the opportunity of this session to express to the people and Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics the best wishes of the Syrian Arab Republic on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the glorious October Revolution. That revolution marked indeed the beginning of an evolution in the history of mankind which is among the cardinal events in the annals of its contemporary history. The great energies of the peoples of the Soviet Socialist Republics have exploded, and new limitless horizons have opened for contributing to a reconstruction in the political, social economic and cultural fields. Thus the path of developing peoples has been illuminated in their struggle for a better and more dignified life — for their own benefit and, indeed, for the benefit of all mankind.