Jordan

1. The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on whose behalf I have the honour to address this Assembly today, feels a particular satisfaction in extending congratulations to our distinguished President on his election to preside over the twentieth session of the General Assembly. The election is a token of the esteem in which a leading world statesman is held by the universal opinion of the world, as represented in the Assembly. It is equally an expression of the high standing in which the friendly country of Italy is held in the family of nations. May I join with all my colleagues in wishing the President a full and speedy recovery. 2. My country’s relationships with Rome are as old as recorded history. It is a proud story, in which our two peoples worked in close and equal association to enrich the movement of culture in the world. 3. The province of Syria, of which Jordan was a part, was the granary of the Roman Empire, and it gave four Emperors to Rome. Roman law and wisdom found consummate expression in our land. Save for the dreary winter months, the citizens of Amman — once known as Philadelphia — assemble to this day in the spacious and exquisite Roman amphitheatre to celebrate national and cultural occasions. The beautiful town of Jerash is the site of the largest Roman city that is to be found intact anywhere. And the unique grandeur of Petra, while built by the Nabatian Arabs, was also enriched by Roman contributions. But these terrestrial achievements, great as they are and great as is the treasure-house of history with which they abound, tell but a part of the story. For our land has been the cradle of man’s unending and unyielding yearning towards the sublime, and of humankind's penchant to discover God in His wisdom, mercy and love. 4. It was not fortuitous, then, that His Holiness Pope Paul VI, who honoured us with a visit and inspired us with his lofty message a few days ago as an apostle of peace and goodwill upon this earth, should have made his first pilgrimage to Jordan — to Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and other parts of Palestine where the Apostle of Peace lived, preached, suffered and died as saviour of humanity. 5. Looking back in retrospect at the compendium of human events which have crowded the annals of our history, one is impelled to reflect soberly on the sacrifices and the sufferings with which the path to peace has been strewn and studded in the course of its attainment. But, alas, notwithstanding all the sacrifices, the stirrings and the yearnings for peace, we still find ourselves marching perilously, almost inexorably, to the abyss of destruction. 6. Since the cause of peace is the paramount issue of the United Nations and of our time, it is imperative that we attempt to explore the causes of its sad failure. Without such diagnosis our pious hopes, pleas and declarations become, at best, emptied of any real content. 7. When the United Nations was established twenty years ago, its avowed purpose was to ensure the preservation of peace with justice. Peace devoid of justice may well be the adjunct of indescribable tyranny, of human spoilation and the denial of every value which makes life worth living. And in the ultimate sense, and in itself, as President Eisenhower, a great leader of our present time once said, "there is no peace more efficacious and eternal than the peace of the grave". 8. But we are, distinguished delegates, talking about peace within the matrix of life with all the hopes and yearnings with which the human heart throbs. Here is where we find that the United Nations has suffered some of its starkest failures and this is where in our diagnosis we must look for remedial action. We realize full well the contribution which the United Nations has made towards the life-giving process, as exemplified in the emergence of our sixty new nations into the vistas of a new life in independence, dignity and equality which is the birthright of our humanness. 9. We rejoice over this stupendous and breathtaking record in decolonization, almost unparalleled in the record of human evolution towards freedom. But while rejoicing over the liberation which our human brethren in every part of the world have attained in the course of the past twenty years, we cannot but pause to mourn the demise and destruction of our own people in the Holy Land of Palestine which has given so much to the happiness and freedom of others. In place of the life-giving process for which the United Nations has deservedly earned the gratitude of countless millions all over the world, and of posterity, its action in the tragedy of Palestine has been an act of life-denial without parallel in civilized history and, in the most unabashed violation of its own principles, its own Charter and the collective conscience of those who comprise it. 10. Needless to say, when I talk about the United Nations I do not refer to the beautiful but inanimate structure which houses us within its precincts. Nor do I talk about the United Nations as presently constituted, representing as it does the great bulk of liberated humanity. I refer to the United Nations in its incipient stages when it was not much more than the private enclave of the privileged few, albeit almighty. Imperialism and colonialism were still rampant. Consciences had not yet been stirred to the yearnings of the underprivileged and the deprived. Favouritism and influence peddling, a curse which we all recognize must be stamped out within every national society when and wherever they occur, were still an accepted practice in international diplomacy. The record of this sordid episode, which is now available for all to read, is proof and testimony, if any were needed, of the departure from the letter and the spirit of the Charter which is the cornerstone and the guideline of our behaviour in the pursuit of peace with justice. 11. The peace-loving people of Palestine, who had lived in their homeland from time immemorial and who had seen conquerors come and go in endless succession, were now to face a cataclysm which surpassed them all in the venom, the ferocity and the wilful finality which was and is its avowed aim. They were uprooted from their homeland, their fields, their meadows, their groves, their seas and rivers, their simple serene villages and hamlets, their towns and cities, their mosques and churches and the graveyards wherein their forefathers have been laid to rest. The cemetery of Ma'marullah wherein families of Jerusalem, including my own, have buried their martyrs and deceased for over a thousand years has now been desecrated and turned into a park, with strangers from every land treading over its hallowed soil. 12. Palestine, with its unique geographic location athwart three continents on land and sea and in the air, and with the indefatigable industry of its people, could have been one of the happiest and more prosperous countries of the world, partaking in the overall development and prosperity of the region as a whole. The fate of the people of Palestine was ordained otherwise and what we have now and have had for over seventeen years is the misery, the confinement and the bitterness of an uprooted people living in the shadow of death as refugees or frontier villagers outside the mainstream of humanity and at the periphery of a dead-end. They live by the sufferance of United Nations assistance to keep body and soul together, and even this is being begrudged them as principal contributors show more and more signs of impatience with its continuance and may in fact be contemplating a reduction of even that meagre assistance of a subsistence level, which it in fact is. 13. Now apart from the over-all political problem, and glossing over for a moment the question of atonement and the responsibility for the tragedy which has befallen an innocent people in every meaningful sense of the term, would we be asking too much if we reiterated the plea made on many previous occasions that, in order to relieve the crushing burden on the shoulders of the contributing Powers which amounts to the staggering sum of one dollar per human soul per month, the present twentieth session of the Assembly approve on humanitarian grounds the appointment of a United Nations custodian of Arab properties in Palestine so. that, at least, we give these hapless people the chance to survive on the proceeds of their properties and the toil and sweat of a lifetime and the generations which preceded them? 14. We have been prone in the United Nations to talk about colonialism, the disparity between rich and poor, and apartheid as the worst evils in inter-human relations. The tragedy of the people of Palestine has dwarfed them all and has given a new dimension to the suffering and injustice to which a people could he exposed. It goes beyond equality, it goes beyond independence, it goes beyond riches and poverty: it is a question of "to be or not to be". And while the national and civic rights of the people of Palestine were being destroyed, a new and alien entity named Israel was forming over the prostrate body of the indigenous inhabitants. 15. Such being the circumstances, am I going off course if I say that Israel was born in sin, nurtured in enmity and hate and sustained by all the sinister forces which seem to place their own selfish interests and ends over and above the norms and dictates of peace, morality and justice? 16. I wish to reiterate at this juncture that the Arab peoples bear no enmity to the Jews as adherents of a religious faith. What we are unalterably opposed to is the divisive fragmentation and despoliation of the Jewish tradition from the mainstream of human integration as a result of international Zionism, in an age which is striving and surging forward towards a universal system in which loyalties and outlook are based upon the brotherhood of man rather than upon the narrow, bigoted, selfish, racial, religious and self-contained cluster which Israel and Zionism, without doubt, represent. Our position and attitude would have been equally vehement and unequivocal if the crime committed against the people of Palestine had been perpetrated by any other race, religion or ideology. 17. As for the people of Palestine, who are presently dispersed under every sky, all I can say is that they are irrevocably determined to continue the struggle which they have been waging for over forty years against the unholy alliance of colonialism and Zionism until their rights are fully restored in their homeland and the dawn of a new day supersedes the dark clouds which cast their shadow ominously above their fate. 18. The problems pertaining to the tragedy of Palestine have, on numerous occasions, and within the sanctuary of the United Nations, been posed as a lamentable dispute between the Arab States on the one hand and Israel on the other. I should like to state categorically that the case is far from being so. It is, in fact, predominantly the struggle of the people of Palestine to retrieve their own homeland against the forces of Zionism, in conjunction with imperialism, which have corroded and crushed them. The people of Palestine, with renewed energies and determination, are now reorganizing their ranks, under the aegis of the Palestine Liberation Organization, to achieve their restoration to nationhood in their usurped land in dignity, freedom and self-determination. 19. The Arab world does, of course, come into the picture not only as an understandably staunch supporter of its brethren's righteous cause but also on account of the new and sinister situation which the creation of Israel has brought forth relative to the security of the Arab States. Where precious resources could have been devoted solely to problems of development and social enhancement, the Arab States find themselves impelled to allocate increasingly greater resources to stave off the seemingly endless designs and insatiable ambitions of the newly created adversary; and the process of escalation continues unabated. 20. I feel impelled, at this stage, to notify and warn this world assembly of the incalculable peril to world peace and security, and particularly to the peace and security of Africa and Asia, as a result of Israel's unabated efforts, with massive technical and financial assistance from the outside, to acquire nuclear weapons. It would be a tragedy of unprecedented and unfathomable magnitude, if the Middle East, the cradle of civilization and the residuary legatee of the most cherished values in which humanity takes anchor and sustenance, should find itself the victim of a full-fledged nuclear armament race, the price for disengagement from which' becomes the abdication of national survival with all that this implies. 21. The Jordan Government lauds the sustained efforts which are being expended to achieve nuclear disarmament under an appropriate system of international inspection and control. We would further support the extension of the Moscow test ban Treaty to include underground tests. Above all, the Government of Jordan urges that the proposed treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons be finalized as quickly and expeditiously as possible; for time is running out, and unless immediate action is taken, it takes little imagination to see what the future holds in store for the peace of the Middle East and of the continents of Africa and Asia and indeed the peace of the world at large. 22. I have dealt at some length with problems pertaining to the maintenance of peace within the framework of justice, fairness and morality, which is the only realistic framework for its attainment. I have also touched upon its twin concomitant, namely, the need for sustained efforts towards disarmament, particularly in the awesome nuclear field. I shall now come to a third and by no means less important pillar of peace, namely, the transformation of societies from the status of existence to that of living and partaking in the good things of life. I realize that this problem has been discussed by nearly all the speakers who have addressed this Assembly in the course of the general debate. Therefore I beg your indulgence if I add a few remarks to what has already been said. 23. To achieve peace, it is imperative that the United Nations should embody the needs and yearnings of the masses of humanity in all corners of the world, not merely in the political sense but, equally important, in the totality of man's life: the social, the economic and the cultural. 24. There is a serious and imminent danger that unless the United Nations, acting individually and collectively, adopts bolder, more imaginative and more far-reaching steps to level out the glaring disparities between the rich and the poor, the haves and the have-nots, the less formate, the less endowed and the underprivileged would gradually but incessantly lose faith in the common aims which bind the United Nations together. Hence the movement which inclines to interpret the world as basically a conflict between the old, established and developed nations on the one hand and the newly emerging forces of developing countries on the other-. It would be a great tragedy indeed if this trend were allowed to crystallize and harden on account of the inadequacy of the measures which can and should be taken to narrow the gap between those two factions of humanity. 25. We are not unmindful of the fact that development is a long-term and arduous process. It is not something that can be done miraculously or by an act of wishing, overnight. We are equally cognizant of the fact that the developing countries have to catch up with a lag of centuries as a result of their past centuries of atrophy. We do likewise recognize that the main burden of uplifting must be shouldered by the developing countries themselves, through toil and sweat. 26. However, having said that, we are firmly of the belief that the developed countries have not given a square deal to those who are less fortunate. I refer particularly to what seems to be a secular adverse trend in the terms of trade between the developed and the developing countries, which in effect wipes out practically all the assistance which is being extended to the developing countries. 27. It is with that chronic and unjust relationship in mind that the Government of Jordan subscribes fully and unreservedly to the conclusions adopted by the first United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, which represents a milestone in dealing with the most urgent need of our time. It is a cause for rejoicing that the General Assembly last December was able to agree on the establishment of the Conference, as an organ of the General Assembly with its own machinery and an independent secretariat [resolution 1995 (XIX)]. It is our fervent hope and prayer that the new organization will be afforded all the co-operation and assistance which will enable it to fulfil its long-delayed but paramount mission. 28. I feel in duty bound, while criticizing the inadequacy of the measures taken so far in this pivotal field, to pay special tribute to the work and accomplishments of the United Nations technical assistance programmes, the Special Fund and the various specialized agencies, notwithstanding their relatively meagre resources for dealing with this problem. I am sure I speak for all of us when I acknowledge the dedication, the vision and the sheer hard work which has animated their leadership and staff in carrying out their mission. 29. The fourth urgent task confronting the United Nations is to work out effective ways and means of adjudicating and resolving outstanding issues and disputes amongst nations. Since we are all agreed that wars are abhorrent, it is incumbent upon the United Nations to shoulder its responsibilities as the instrument of change, in consonance with what is just, equitable and fair. It is well nigh impossible to impose a moratorium on a status quo which in many instances has no moral foundation other than being a reflection of the outcome of a preceding sanguinary conflict. We do have quite a sizable stockpile of specific unresolved issues which presently constitute the "hot spots" in the world. And there is no alternative to pre-emptive action if we are to prevent those hot spots from spilling over into areas of explosion. 30. One such specific dispute, namely, the longstanding problem between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, recently erupted into what looked to a shocked world like a full-fledged resort to arms. Now, lest there be any misunderstanding, I should like to stress that Jordan, as part of the Arab world, has always been linked by the closest bonds of brotherly friendship to these two great countries. We have always benefited from the civilization and wisdom of the Indian sub-continent and we hope and believe that it has also benefited from us. I refer to mathematics, religious experiences, cultures, trade and commerce as traditional and continuing links which have bound our two worlds together. It is sad, therefore, to find ourselves in a position where perforce we have to make a value-judgement and adopt a stand which, in the charged atmosphere of armed conflict, appears to be partisan. 31. We have rejoiced over the conclusion of a ceasefire arrangement which at least resulted in halting the bloodshed. I join with those representatives who preceded me in addressing the Assembly in extending our heartfelt congratulations and gratitude to Secretary-General U Thant for his efforts to bring this about. But what then? Are the two great and friendly countries to continue to live in the tenuous and perilous atmosphere of the cease-fire, with all the hatreds that are engendered and accumulated and all the dislocations which a State verging on war inevitably creates? The Government of Jordan is of the firm belief that the cease-fire must be followed promptly by effective steps to ensure a permanent settlement of this long-standing and endemic issue. We further believe that the criteria for the proposed settlement should be based upon the principles of the Charter and the resolutions of the various organs of the United Nations for the settlement of the issue of Kashmir. We believe in the principle of self-determination for all peoples everywhere. This belief is strengthened by the great teachings of India's founding fathers, Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Nehru, who, I am sure, would not and did not exclude the people of Kashmir from this elemental faith of humanity. 32. In making our point of view clear-cut and forthright we are not in any way prejudging or prejudicing the outcome of any plebiscite to ascertain the freely expressed wishes of the people of the territory. They may, if they wish, opt for India, or opt for Pakistan. Thus Kashmir may become a centre for co-operation between the two great countries rather than an arena of armed conflict. We appeal to both India and Pakistan to marshal into being their great reservoir of statesmanship and wisdom to save the continent of Asia, of which they form two stout pillars, from the catastrophe of a long, drawn-out conflict. 33. Another hot spot in the world today is caused by the tragic conflict which has been continuing unabated and for decades in the unhappy land of Viet- Nam, I do not wish to delve into the merits of the case, but I do wish to emphasize that the United Nations cannot continue to watch in callous indifference the untold sufferings of the people of Viet-Nam, whether in the north or the south, the east or the west; nor should they continue to be the victims of the power struggle which they have so long endured. The Government of Jordan believes that the reconvening of the Geneva Conference as early as possible and the implementation of the 1954 Geneva Agreements, in letter and in spirit, is the most effective method to bring the ordeal of the people of Viet-Nam to an end. 34. A third sanguinary conflict is raging in a part of our greater Arab homeland. I refer, of course, to the sad situation which presently prevails in Aden and Southern Arabia. We know that, for one reason or another, the British have consistently shown a particular love for the Arabs and an even greater reluctance to leave them alone except with a bang, the kind of bang which leaves behind a chronic and splitting headache which long outlives their departure. Far greater prizes in colonial possessions have been forsaken by the British since the process of decolonization came into full swing. Numerous countries which had once been highly prized possessions of the British Crown have since gained independence and become proud Members of the United Nations. And yet, in contradistinction, any process of decolonization pertaining to the Arab world has, in most instances, taken the form of a caesarean and painful operation which baffles the ingenuity of friend and foe alike. 35. Love can sometimes be blind and it is the more dangerous for being so. 36. We deplore the repressive measures recently taken by the British Government in an attempt to blunt and thwart the struggle of the people of Aden and the Protectorates for emancipation and self- determination. It is the more deplorable since those measures coincided with the opening of the twentieth session of the General Assembly which, it had been hoped, would act upon the last report of the Committee of Twenty-Four within the over-all policy of orderly decolonization which the General Assembly has successfully set into motion. And what is even more ominous is the fact that the clock was set back at a time when hopes for real progress had been aroused by the visit to the Middle East of a distinguished British Minister of State for direct contacts specifically aimed at a final solution to the problem. I would certainly have been aroused and dismayed if my Government, while sending me on a mission to a foreign land, had undermined my mission in such a manner by that ill-advised and drastic action. 37. We call upon the General Assembly, through the appropriate organs of the United Nations, to take firm and forthright action with a view to rectifying a situation which not only runs counter to its avowed principles and aims, but also jeopardizes the peace and security of the area. We also call upon the United Kingdom to reappraise its policies in that region and to bring about a speedy solution to the problem. 38. The struggle of the people of Oman for self- determination still remains unanswered. It is our earnest hope that the General Assembly will, at this session, act upon and implement the report of the Ad Hoc Committee on Oman with a view to enabling its people to determine their fate in accordance with their own freely expressed wishes. 39. I should like to take this opportunity to extend warmest greetings and congratulations to the new Members of the United Nations, the Gambia, the Maldive Islands and Singapore, fully confident that they will make a worthy contribution to the success of this world Organization. 40. The Jordan delegation is particularly happy that the United Nations, which had suffered grievous paralysis during the nineteenth session, is now fully restored to a position enabling it to carry out its duties and functions. We are proud of the modest contribution which we have made in this connexion, and our most earnest hope is that a more lasting arrangement can be worked out to ensure against a recurrence of the immobility of the nineteenth session. 41. Mr. Vice-President, I would beg your forgiveness for expressing one final thought. The speeches which have been delivered in the course of this general debate have been extremely stimulating, instructive and learned; they have registered ;he pulse of mankind in its understandable unity, in diversity, which is a healthy sign for a world undergoing one of the greatest periods of transformation in recorded history, and in all the manifold aspects of national and international life. But there is one thing which alarms me as the general debate draws .to a close. It is a fear, which I hope is exaggerated, that we may develop a kind of immunity to what is being said and lose the potency which the weighty opinion of representatives of the world should necessarily carry. We hope that our deliberations here will not degenerate into a yearly ritual which, while stimulating and challenging in the extreme, go unheeded, for they all deal with live problems, affecting live people in all corners of the world. It would be a tragedy indeed if our words did not result in concrete courses of action by this highest international forum in the world.