KHASHABA Pasha stated that on the occasion of the opening of the third session of the General Assembly of the United Nations, the Egyptian delegation was eager to offer its cooperation to the family of nations in the efforts to be made during the ensuing weeks to strengthen the work of justice and peace for which the foundation had been laid in the Charter of the United Nations.
Egypt was happy to participate in that work, not out of any selfish aims or ambitions, but because it was aware that in the present era peace could not be fragmentary and the disturbances which might arise in any part of the world would compromise security everywhere else.
Moreover, it should be considered a favourable sign that the Assembly was being held in Paris, in the very heart of Europe, where the life-beat of nations was felt more strongly and where the decisions taken by the Assembly were likely to be better adapted to the evils which they were designed to correct.
The meeting of the United Nations in that great capital brought to mind the glorious days of the liberation of Paris which together with the heroic resistance at Stalingrad and the battle of El Alamein had been one of the decisive stages in the victory of the democracies. The fruits of that dearly bought victory, to which the people and the Government of Egypt had contributed in large measure on their own territory, must not be lost for mankind.
But victory on the field of battle was merely a first step; it would remain illusory so long as the principles which the great democratic Powers had so often proclaimed as their war aims did not prevail in the relations between States.
Yet, a review of the events which had taken place since San Francisco forced the conclusion that in the field of practical achievement the United Nations had not entirely fulfilled the hopes which had rightfully been placed on it.
In truth the reasons for the disillusionment experienced should be sought not in the Articles of the Charter, but perhaps rather in the fact that the spirit which inspired the authors of the Charter, immediately alter the anguish which mankind had suffered, had not outlived the war long enough. Everywhere there had been a resurgence of the old antagonisms, the old prejudices and selfishness. While people had hardly cherished the hope that the behaviour of States would be completely transformed in so short a time there had been then and there still was today a strong desire that the United Nations should be guided each day more and more by the spirit of wisdom and justice which had prevailed when the Charter was drawn up.
In that connexion, the Egyptian delegation felt bound to recall that, despite the sympathy manifested toward the claims put forward by Egypt in the Security Council, the Egyptian question had not yet been settled in accordance with the Charter.
In addition to the disillusionment which nations experienced owing to the negative position taken by the United Nations on certain matters, there were other disappointments brought about by positive injustice, for example, certain actions the effects of which were being so strongly felt at present throughout the Middle East.
The Egyptian representative asked whether the forcible settlement in the Holy Land of hundreds of thousands of foreigners who intended to behave like masters of that territory to the detriment of the indigenous inhabitants driven from their centuries-old homeland by violence and terror, could be considered a solution of that problem. Was it not shocking that populations which had been settled for centuries should be dispossessed in favour of newcomers by methods utterly contrary to the rights of man? Having come from all parts of the world, with the most diversified origins and aspirations, hostile to the environment into which they were being introduced, those heterogeneous groups could only upset the harmony of a region which until that time had been homogeneous. Those new groups represented a disturbing factor; by their acts of aggression and their terroristic activities in so sensitive a region as the Middle East they constituted a threat to the security of the entire world. Already more than a half-million Arabs of Palestine found themselves without shelter and were living in stark misery. Driven from their homes, dispossessed of their fields and crops, exposed to privations and disease, men, women and children had been forced to leave their native soil and flee before unbridled terrorism. Could it be doubted that the return of those unfortunate people to their ancestral homeland was an inalienable right which could not be made dependent on any conditions?
The representative of Egypt concluded his remarks by stating that such was the mournful result of a policy which had tried, in spite of the Charter, to make the traditionally tolerant and hospitable East atone for the errors of those who had raised religious and racial discrimination to the level of a political system. Was it too much to hope that the General Assembly, which was now better informed of conditions in the Middle East, would consider the problem in a spirit deriving from the principles of the Charter, a spirit of justice and fairness without which any solution would not only be fragile but dangerous?
In seeking a solution for the Palestine question, the Mediator appointed by the United Nations had been faced by what he had himself termed the extreme complexity of the problem. He had said in so many words and frequently repeated in his reports (S/888 and A/648) that the role which the United Nations had assigned to him was not to present final formulae, but merely to offer suggestions which might serve as a basis for further discussions and counter-proposals with a view to reaching a peaceful settlement. If there was a method contrary to the spirit of the Charter, it was the one which tried to impose preconceived ideas on the Assembly summarily and without sufficient discussion. Such a method would be a misunderstanding of the dignity of the Assembly and would ignore the fundamental principle of the sovereign equality of all the Members of the United Nations. It was inconceivable that a question affecting the peace of so sensitive a region as the Middle East should be disposed of by the Assembly at that decisive stage without serious examination of the problem in an atmosphere of peace and tranquillity undisturbed by outside pressure.
The representative of Egypt wished to pay a public tribute to the memory of those who, working in Palestine in the name of the United Nations, had sacrificed their lives in carrying out the task with which they had been entrusted. He said that the Mediator, Count Folke Bernadotte, who had fallen a victim to Zionist terrorism, would be remembered as a messenger of peace who had paid the final sacrifice in the service of the ideal to which he aspired.
Egypt could not remain indifferent to any event which endangered the maintenance of peace and world security. Accordingly it hoped that the question of the former Italian colonies, which would come up at the present Assembly, might be settled in accordance with the will of the peoples of those territories and in conformity with the letter and the spirit of the United Nations Charter.
In the work of consolidating peace and international security, which was the main task of the United Nations, Egypt would join in the common cause with all its man-power, its natural resources, its geographical position at the crossroads of three continents, and its ancient traditions of justice and peace.