My delegation joins whole-heartedly in the tribute which so many speakers here have paid, and which was repeated but a few moments ago, to the hospitality of France. We note too with pleasure that this session of the General Assembly coincides with the two thousandth anniversary of Paris, with the flowering of an age-long tradition of moderation, grape and balance, of a human civilization that testifies so clearly to a sense of universality.
137. At previous meetings and again today we have heard many and very useful suggestions and proposals which we shall, I am sure, find helpful in directing our work. However, at this sixth session of our Assembly, which is opening at a time of such dire uncertainty, distress and anxiety, I should like first of all, on behalf of my country, to repeat our profession of faith in international co-operation, in the principles which regulate it, in the deep-seated solidarity it evokes despite all the antagonisms and conflicts that appear upon the surface. This profession of faith and the observances it implies are, I believe, even more effective than the search in our committees for methods and texts whereby peace may be ensured. I do not, of course, wish to underestimate the long and patient work carried on for the codification of international relations, or to minimize our contribution to the study of constructive proposals for checking ventures; nor yet do I fail to appreciate the value and generosity of the economic, social and cultural assistance proffered by our Organization to the whale world, a subject on which we have listened [337th and 338th meetings] to eloquent accounts from the directors of the specialized agencies. I should like merely to say that our confidence is less in elaborated texts than in the spirit which gives them life, less in techniques than in the moral system which inspires them and, at the outset of my remarks, to proclaim in simple but forceful terms the primacy of the spiritual factor in this as in every officer field.
138. Material goods, without which neither peoples nor individuals can live, are by their very nature capable of being measured and weighed; they are limited in quantity and are such that they cannot be shared without being divided. The distribution of wealth does not make ipso facto for agreement; far from it! If it meant merely that the goods of this world could be selfishly hoarded by some, if it were not governed and guided by higher considerations, if it did not express and imply a desire for order, equilibrium and peace, it would be a cause of dissension and conflict.
139. Peace is achieved through justice, I can say so all the more freely because I represent a small nation. I feel no apprehension on that account; far from it! On the contrary, I claim for the small nations, as a cause for pride and a title of nobility, the privilege of having decisively linked their destiny with the reign of right, of having identified their own cause and their security with the cause of right. How fortunate are they in their weakness, a purely material weakness! Fortunate in that their weakness, spares them the temptations of conquest and domination and leads them to take as the standard of their existence the principles of justice universally proclaimed and thus to be the most zealous of all the Members of the United Nations to hold aloft the lamp of real progress.
140. Thus, we, the small nations, know that we are making a powerful contribution to the security of all the others. If, to use Pascal’s expression, the right emerges strengthened from our efforts, the numerical importance, the territorial area of the nation? which have contributed to those efforts are of little account; and the support given by one of them, by Lebanon for example, to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is seen to have a greater influence on history than many a military venture and many a conquest by force of arms. But if in the end it is force that is justified and prevails in relations among the nations, of what nation, however powerful, can it be said that it is safe for ever from insecurity and aggression? In this collaboration between the great and the small for the preservation of peace, it is by the fate of the small nations and by the success of their efforts that the value and efficacy of the joint work can be gauged. And it is far from paradoxical to maintain that the great are not making a concession, but are reaping an immense advantage by conferring with the small on the basis of sovereign equality.
141. It is on that score that my country takes a keen interest in all the items on our session’s agenda, just as it feels convinced of having made a large and valuable contribution to the United Nations during the last six years. We have brought to the task goodwill and a warm heart, an experience rapidly acquired in international assemblies and the resources of a wisdom derived from several thousand years of history and from our immediate contiguity to the very sites of Revelation.
142. While noting with satisfaction and confidence the progress made by the United Nations in the path of understanding and peace, my country considers it its right and its moral obligation to point out the failures and, at times, the bitter and hear-rending disappointments encountered. And in doing so we are not indulging in barren criticism but because we wish to contribute to the righting of wrongs and to anticipate and prepare for the future.
143. This then is the time to remind you that we, and the Organization with us, will not be saved by more texts, more motions, more proposals but, in many instances, by a reform of the spirit in which this Organization functions. Some decisions are taken in which one would look in vain for any conformity with the ideal, so frequently proclaimed, of peace with justice. Others remain a dead letter.
144. How can Lebanon fail to evoke as an illustration of both these classes of excision — and I could give you many other examples — the long drawn out drama of Palestine upon our frontiers, that has cost countless despairing victims upon our territory? How cruel is the irony of a formula when it is seen to be but a sin against the spirit! In this tragedy of Palestine, the iniquity we shall never cease to denounce was perpetrated in the name of the highest ideals of equity and charity. Nearly a million Arab refugees have for years been enduring indescribable sufferings on the pretext that other refugees must be found a home and, on the pretext of a home, a centre for an empire. A country that has resounded with so many messages of universal charity has been bathed in blood, conquered and given over to the most intransigent racial hatred by the very people, who, justly complaining of the consequences of racial hatred, appealed to men’s compassion for their hard lot.
145. At the same time some are striving, in the name of conciliation, to sanction the fait accompli. The resolutions which the Assembly has adopted one after another over the past four years on the question of the refugees and (fie territorial question are now a matter for compromise, and the internationalization of Jerusalem, to which the day of mourning has returned, has, it seems, been reduced to a meagre and questionable assurance of free access to the Holy Places.
146. While I discharge this elementary duty of branding the injustices and violences suffered in Palestine, I should like for a moment to dwell on the problems of Jerusalem which affords the clearest evidence of that violence and injustice. Let there be no mistake. We are not singling out this problem and detaching it from its background; but we regard it a key problem, a test problem, because we see it as a problem of pure and unadulterated justice. By that I mean that it is uncontaminated by any political, economic or military consideration which might obscure the data.
147. The point therefore to which we cannot close our eyes is this. If the resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly are not applied to Jerusalem, the city to which the whole body of both Christianity and Islam — more than a hundred thousand human beings — are bound by their very faith, if they are not applied to a measure of internationalization prompted neither by favour nor by bias, what solution can we hope for the whole Palestinian-Arab problem, for the Arab refugees of Palestine? Is it imagined that it will have no effect upon the peoples’ confidence in our Organization, in its justice and efficacy? Is not every nation led to consider itself in a state of emergency and to tell itself that despite all our advocacy and striving, the work of justice and peace has not borne fruit but that, for all the variety of organizations we have created, the spirit of self-interest lives on, the old warmongering spirit of self-interest that destroys all co-operation?
148. The truth is that justice, like peace, is indivisible. It would be vain to suppose that an injustice committed anywhere in the world could settle anything or anybody. It would be vain to try to choose between injustice and disorder. Injustice is itself disorder and insecurity, ff an injustice is committed, we must realize that all our laws may be disrupted. Injustice itself is thus subject to q higher justice, and those who triumph in defiance of the right must fear to see their unjust victories swallowed up in the ruin of the whole United Nations structure whose foundations they have undermined.
149. I wish to make myself quite clear. I am not deluded enough to suppose that one more speech can make any immediate difference to the course of events. I have only a moderate belief in the persuasive power of speech. But I believe in the absolute power of truth. I believe that sooner or later the truth, although scorned and trampled on, will be avenged. I believe that truth is not a mere philosophic, abstract concept but a living reality, that it has being, and is the supreme director or history and its laws. I believe that everything done in defiance of the truth bears in itself the stigma of transience and disaster, and I say that, not from a feeling of exaggerated idealism but from a wide awake sense of reality, taught by the daily lesson of experience. For a nation, for the collectivity of nations to hearken to the language of truth in spite of prejudice and every other hindrance is to take out a sort of life insurance policy.
150. It is with this rule in mind, g rule instinct with wisdom and prudence, that the delegation of Lebanon will carry on its work and assures you of its collaboration. member of the Arab League and of the United Nations, Lebanon brings the same spirit to these two forms of co-operation, the one on the regional and the other on the international level. The obligations they impose on it are of the same kind. In the Arab League, it has always, like all the other States in the League, adhered to the principles of the United Nations Charter. In the United Nations it asks that those same principles be applied to the solution of the problems of the Arab States, in whatever form they may present themselves and in whatever sector they may arise.
151. To understand us you must consider us not only from the political and strategic point of view but first and foremost on the plane of the mind and the emotions, not only on the level of geography but on that of geography and history taken together. We are the birth place of world religions and of some of the world’s major civilizations. Situated at the meeting place of three continents and of the great ideological movements of this century and of the past, we must be considered not merely as a “position” but as a physical, social and spiritual link indispensable to the peace of the world.
152. I do not wish to anticipate what the leaders of the other Arab delegations may have to say, nor to repeat the clear and temperate statements made at a previous meeting by the head of the delegation of Iraq [340th meeting], but I can without temerity interpret the views of the countries In the Arab League by requesting more understanding for these countries with their venerable past and their vast prospects for the future. During the decisive period through which we are passing and which is of particular importance in Egypt, whose national aspirations we cherish and whose contribution to civilization is so substantial, this is but the language of reason, equity and peace. For countries of the Arab League, and for mine in particular, it is an honour that we should be the instrument of nature for the reconciliation of values which the discoveries and progress of the century are bringing ever closer together. It is for this reason and in this capacity that we wish to assist to the utmost of our power in solving the problems dividing the nations and we hope our problems will find the same measure of comprehension,
153. We are not here merely to make demands, but to contribute to the enthronement of international harmony and right. To sum up, by following the path of justice for all we are ensuring peace.