104. Madam President, your election to this high international post is
manifold in its significance. It is a recognition of your role
in the defence of the United Nations Charter and the right
of the peoples of Africa to independence and self-determination.
It is also an added illustration that the values
upheld by the African woman transcend African frontiers
and cross wider universal horizons. We further share in
rejoicing at your election because bonds of brotherhood
and the common struggle for the liberty and progress of
Africa bind our two countries and peoples. I have full
confidence that you will lead the twenty-fourth session of
the General Assembly with the greatest skill and objectivity,
which are characteristic of your conduct in all the
posts we have known you to occupy.
105. I also wish to express here the deep sorrow of the
United Arab Republic at the tragic death of Mr. Arenales,
President of the twenty-third session of the General
Assembly. His untimely demise shocked those who knew
him and it was, indeed, a great loss for the Government and
the friendly people of Guatemala.
106. The conflict which engulfs the Middle East today is
between aggression manifested in Israel’s occupation of
Arab territories aimed at expansion in these territories and
the will to achieve peace based on the United Nations
Charter, which condemns aggression and expansion and
ensures the territorial integrity and the political independence
of all States.
107. Israel’s policy of continued occupation of Arab
territories to realize its expansionist aims by usurping more
Arab lands and expelling more Arab citizens, is only
comparable in modern history to Nazi aggression based on
the fiction of racial supremacy as a justification for
aggression against other peoples and the usurpation of their
rights and homeland.
108. The crime of the arson of the Al Agsa Mosque in
Jerusalem stands in repulsive contrast to man’s progress
towards the unity of his civilization and faith. The guilt of
this crime weighs heavily upon racist Zionism, which
occupies Jerusalem by the force of arms, destroying the
houses of God as well as the houses of the Palestinians and
undeterred in fulfilling its dreams of expansion and
domination by any law, be it of God or man. The crime of
the arson of Al Aqsa Mosque is not the first crime by
Zionism on the land of Palestine or other Arab lands, nor
will it be its last, so long as it believes that the international
community is incapable of standing up to enforce on it the
rule of the Charter.
109. Every day that passes without the withdrawal of the
Israeli forces from the occupied Arab territories is, in itself,
a new aggression. It is an aggression whose dangerous and
criminal character is constantly aggravated with every raid
Israel commits against the Arab countries and every attack
it commits against Arab civilians, civilian targets and Arab
economic achievements.
110. The crimes which Israel commits daily against the
Arab citizens in the occupied Arab territories reach, in the
case Of Israel, the same level of criminality practised by
Nazi Germany against the peoples of occupied Europe.
Israel deludes itself in believing that by throwing thousands
of Arab citizens into the camps of torture, by expelling
more Arab citizens, by the destruction of Arab villages and
houses, and all other measures of police terror against the
people of the occupied territories, it can ultimately achieve
its aim of forcing Arab citizens to submit to occupation and
to give up their legitimate resistance. But Israel is as
hopelessly blind as were all other occupiers to a fundamental
fact—that the struggle of all peoples against occupation
and aggression is ultimately more powerful than all the
armies of occupation, and that the faith and the will of
liberation inevitably overcome forces of usurpation and
aggression.
111. This is the fourth time that the General Assembly has
convened under the shadow of Israel’s occupation of the
territories of three States Members of the United Nations
since Israel committed its aggression on 5 June 1967.
112. The General Assembly first met in an emergency
special session, especially called in June 1967, to consider
the situation arising from Israel’s aggression against the
Arab countries. Despite the diversions of views which
characterized the deliberations at that session, there nevertheless
existed one fundamental point: the absolute necessity
of withdrawing Israeli forces from all the territories
they have occupied. Every Member State of this Organization
voted for this principle in the General Assembly,
whether they supported the non-aligned draft resolution
or the Latin American draft. There was not a single
proposal submitted to the emergency special session which
failed to provide for Israel’s withdrawal from all of the
occupied territories. At its emergency special session, the
General Assembly also adopted, by an overwhelming
majority, resolutions stating the illegitimacy of the Israeli
measures for the annexation of Jerusalem [resolutions
2253 (ES-V) and 2254 (ES-V)]. This continued to be the
United Nations position in many resolutions which it has
persistently adopted and which Israel, with equal persistence,
continued in arrogance and defiance to reject; the
last of these was adopted by the Security Council on the
15th of this very month [resolution 271 (1969)].
113. With regard to the citizens of the occupied territories,
who have been forced to leave their homes as a result
of Israeli aggression, the General Assembly has adopted
unanimous resolutions which provide for their return to
their homes in the occupied territories. Israel expresses its
continuous rejection and defiance of these resolutions in
terms and in a language heretofore unheard in the international
society.
114. In the autumn of 1967 intensive consultations were
held among the members of the Security Council, in which
the permanent members of the Security Council played a
principal role. These consultations resulted in the adoption
of Security Council resolution 242 (1967) of 22 November
1967, which provides for a peaceful settlement in the
Middle East. In accordance with this resolution, the
Secretary-General appointed a Special Representative for
the implementation of the resolution.
115. Since his first visit to Cairo in December 1967, the
United Arab Republic has informed Ambassador Jarring of
its acceptance of the Security Council resolution and of its
readiness to implement all its obligations arising from this
resolution. We also proposed to him, in the course of our
contacts, that he should set up a time-table for the
implementation of the resolution.
116. Furthermore, we have informed the Special Representative
that we consider it necessary that the Security
Council should undertake the supervision of, and guarantee
the implementation of, the resolution of 22 November
[242 (1967)]. This necessity stems from Israel’s record of
aggression and unilateral denunciation of the international
agreements it has signed with the Arab States.
117. Israel has rejected the Security Council resolution
Israeli spokesmen in the United Nations have desperately
attempted to conceal this fact, through semantics and
deceptive abuse of words. The official statements which
Israeli leaders have been issuing, in competition with one
another, have served in revealing, beyond any doubt,
Israel’s plans for territorial expansion, as well as its policy
of defiance and rejection of the Security Council resolution.
118. There is not a single principle in that resolution
which has escaped Israel’s rejection, either by deed or by
word. It has already taken measures to annex Arab
territories, and its leaders have reiterated their insistence on
territorial aggrandizement in the occupied territories. Thus,
Israel rejects and challenges: the principle of the inadmissibility
of the acquisition of territory by war; the principle
of the sovereignty of States over their territories; the
principle of territorial integrity and political independence
of the States in the region. Furthermore, Israel, by its
continued occupation of Arab territories, is obstructing the
termination of the state of belligerency.
119. Throughout 1968 and in the first few months of
1969, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General
pursued his contacts; these were destined to come to a
standstill, however, as a result of the collision between
Israel’s policy of expansion and the provisions of the
Security Council resolution. It was impossible for Israel, no
matter how clever its spokesmen were in the abuse of
words, to conceal this one fundamental contradiction. This
has resulted in the fact that the Special Representative of
the Secretary-General was forced, early this year, to
suspend his contacts.
120. In the early spring, France took the initiative to hold
talks among the four permanent members of the Security
Council with a view to implementing the 22 November
1967 Security Council resolution, and to assist the Special
Representative of the Secretary-General in the pursuit of
his mission.
121. On our part, we have welcomed the initiative of
France, whose Middle Eastern policy has been consistently
motivated by a consciousness of its responsibilities and its
commitments arising from the Charter—a stand which has
been greatly appreciated by the Arab peoples. We have also
welcomed the talks by the four Powers arising out of their
special responsibility in the maintenance of international
peace and security, and the fact that these consultations
have taken place within the framework of the Security
Council resolution and its implementation. Once again,
Israel stood against this step and declared its opposition to
this new attempt aimed at the implementation of the
Security Council resolution.
122. Today the entire world is witness to Israel’s plan of
expansion, as revealed by its actions in the occupied
territories and the declarations of its leaders.
123. First, there is the West Bank of the Jordan. The
Prime Minister of Israel stated in February 1969 that “the
Jordan River must become a security border for Israel with
all that that implies” and that the Israeli army was to be
stationed “on the strip along that border“.
124. Secondly, there is Jerusalem. Israeli spokesmen here
and outside the United Nations have wasted no opportunity
of asserting that the process of annexation is irreversible
and unnegotiable.
125. Thirdly, the Golan Heights: Israeli leaders have
emphasized, time and again, that Israel will retain the
Syrian Golan Heights.
126. Fourthly, the Gaza Strip: Israeli leaders have also
declared that they will continue to retain the Gaza Strip.
127. Fifthly, the Sinai Peninsula: Israel has declared that
it will continue the occupation of the eastern and southern
parts of Sinai.
128. Mr. Yigal Allon, Deputy Prime Minister of Israel,
declared in August 1969 that a part of Sinai, which
stretches 64 kilometres from Rafah to El Arish on the
Mediterranean coast down to southern Sinai, has been
added to “municipal Israeli administration” by annexing it
to a newly-formed municipal region, namely, the “Eshkol
region in the Negev desert“. In the celebration of this event,
the Deputy Prime Minister of Israel made the following
announcement: “It benefits Eshkol’s memory that this
should be the first regional council to include an area
beyond the former demarcation lines”.
129. That is Israel’s plan for expansion in the occupied
Arab territories. It operates on the basis of two complementary
components: annexing Arab territories and expelling
Arab citizens. This is the same policy which turned 1.5
million Palestinians into refugees who have lived in camps
for the past twenty years and caused the displacement of
another half million people as a result of Israel’s latest
aggression.
130. By persisting in its policy of expansion against the
Arab States, Israel not only commits a crime against the
Charter, but it also undermines the peaceful settlement
adopted by the Security Council and threatens world peace.
131. It is the duty of every Member State of this
Organization to stand up to Israel’s aggression against the
Charter and the decisions of the United Nations. The
obligation of every State positively to oppose Israel’s
aggression is rooted in each and every principle upon which
international order, as laid down in the Charter, has been
built. Forcing Israel to withdrew its aggressive forces from
the occupied Arab territories and to abandon its policy of
expansion, in conformity with the norms of the Charter, is
not only a sacred national duty, responsibility for which
falls on the countries victim of aggression, but is, at the
same time, a collective duty to which all Members must
subscribe, if we are to preserve the integrity and, indeed,
the very existence of the United Nations order.
132. I wish here to refer to the just stand taken by the
Assembly of Heads of African States and Governments at
its sixth session held at Addis Ababa from 6 to 9 September
1969, concerning Israel’s acts of aggression. They have
adopted the following resolution [AHG/Res. 56 (VI)]:
“We, the Heads of State and Government, meeting in
Addis Ababa this day, 9 September 1969,
“Deeply moved by reports that a further aggression has
been perpetrated today by Israeli forces against another
part of the national territory of the United Arab
Republic,
“1. Condemn this act of aggression, like all other acts
of aggression directed against a sister country;
“2. Desire to reaffirm, in these circumstances, our
unwavering solidarity with the United Arab Republic;
“3. Demand the immediate withdrawal of the foreign
occupation forces;
“4. Appeal to the conscience of mankind to do
everything possible in order to spare our continent, which
has suffered all too often from invasion by foreign forces,
from becoming afresh the scene of tension and conflict,
with unforeseeable consequences for Africa and the rest
of the world.”
133. The Heads of African States and Governments also
issued another resolution [AHG/Res. 57(VI)] in which
they declared their solidarity and support to the United
Arab Republic and called for “the withdrawal of foreign
troops from all Arab territories occupied since 5 June 1967,
in accordance with the resolution taken by the Security
Council on 22 November 1967”. They also appealed to all
Member States of the Organization of African Unity to
“use their influence to ensure a strict implementation of
this resolution“.
134. There can be no question that the implementation of
the decisions and resolutions adopted by this world
Organization, in matters of direct bearing on international
peace and security and the safeguarding of territorial
integrity and political independence for all States, is the
most imperative among all collective duties shouldered by
all Member States. The permanent members of the Security
Council bear a special responsibility within the framework
of this collective obligation.
135. In this connexion, I wish to refer specifically to the
position of the United States, which continues to supply
Israel with war planes and other weapons while Israel
continues its occupation and declares its expansionist plans.
The Skyhawk and Phantom planes which Israel receives
from the United States are the same planes which every day
raid the Arab peoples, kill Arab citizens and follow the
Palestinian refugees in their tents and camps with napalm
bombs and other instruments of death and destruction.
136. The United States policy of support to Israel in the
military, political and financial spheres, while Israel occupies
Arab territories, is a policy which could at least be
described as a violation of the provisions of the Charter and
a denial of peace in the Middle East.
137. The United States support to Israel, and its share of
responsibility in the present state of aggression and denial
of peace in the Middle East, acquires a more serious
character when we recall that this support runs contrary to
the commitments which the United States had previously
undertaken upon itself. The United States has continuously
affirmed the absolute necessity of respecting the Armistice
Agreements, its support for the territorial integrity and the
political independence of all States in the Middle East, and
its firm opposition to aggression in the area.
138. Today, we are entitled to ask the United States
whether it does not see in Israel’s occupation of the
territories of Arab States a violation of the territorial
integrity and the political independence of these States; and
whether its supply of warplanes and other weapons to
Israel, while Israel occupies the territories of Arab States,
does indeed constitute an opposition to aggression, or
whether it is rather a support of aggression.
139. I wish further to refer to the United States position
with regard to the implementation of the Security Council
resolution of 22 November 1967 [242 (1967)], That is a
resolution which the United States voted for and declared it
would support. We are entitled today to ask the United
States how it can reconcile its support for that resolution
with its supplying of Skyhawks and Phantoms to Israel at a
time when Israel has already declared its annexation of
Arab territories, in full violation of the Security Council
resolution, as well as its unqualified rejection of the United
Nations resolutions on the Palestinian refugees.
140. It is within our right to ask the United States to
follow in the Middle East a policy of justice compatible
with the Charter and with its own commitments, and to
proceed from the principle that the right of an Arab man to
peace, to his land and to his home should not be sacrificed
to satisfy Israel’s dreams of territorial expansion.
141. We also believe that the United States is capable of
casting its weight behind peace and the implementation of
the peaceful settlement proposed in the resolution adopted
by the Security Council. We believe that when the United
States proceeds along that road, prospects for making peace
in the Middle East will be greatly improved.
142. The Israeli leaders want the world to believe that the
Palestinian people, who have lived in Palestine for thousands
of years, never existed. The Prime Minister of Israel
declared this to the world in the course of an interview
published by the Sunday Times of London on 15 June
1969. She stated:
“It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in
Palestine considering themselves a Palestinian people, and
we came and threw them out and took their country
away from them. They did not exist.”
This statement reveals the extent of Israel’s attempt to
suppress the truth. The Prime Minister of Israel imagines
that by such a statement she will be able to conceal the
crimes which Zionism has committed against the people of
Palestine in Palestine.
143. The struggle that the Palestinian people are waging
today, in conditions which no other people have ever faced,
is a struggle for their right to exist, to return to their
homes, and to exercise their right to self-determination. By
virtue of this fact, the Palestinian people’s struggle incontestably
attains the highest degree of legitimacy and deserves the
support of all forces that have faith in the right
of every man, regardless of his race, colour or religion, to
live on his land, to defend his existence and to determine
his future.
144. The United Nations was brought into existence for
the very purpose of never allowing a situation similar to
that existing today in the Middle East to exist. That
situation cannot possibly continue without assuming that
the international order on which this Organization is
founded has finally collapsed, and that the principles of the
Charter have been completely shattered with Israel’s aggression
on 5 June 1967.
145. For our part, we refuse to submit to aggression.
History is a witness to the fact that the will of peace, in
mobility and in action, is far stronger than the will of war
and aggression. In this our faith has no limits. We thus
refuse to believe that the international community can
possibly allow Israel to continue a policy that is destined to
undermine and ruin the rule of the Charter.
146. In the history of this Organization there is no
example, apart from Israel’s aggression, more indicative of
the serious hazards to international peace and security
resulting from the refusal of one Member State to abide by
the decisions of the Security Council and other resolutions
of the United Nations.
147. In this connexion, I wish to express our appreciation
of the positive initiative taken by the Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics to include in the agenda of the
twenty-fourth session of the General Assembly a new item
on strengthening international security. The Foreign Minister
of the Soviet Union presented to us [1756th meeting],
in his important address here some days ago, various
constructive ideas, amongst which is the need for the
implementation by Member States of the Security Council
decisions and for respect for the provisions of the Charter.
148. My delegation, together with other delegations, looks
forward to the deliberations that will take place on this
item. We are confident that those deliberations will lead to
positive results for the future effectiveness of the United
Nations system.
149. In the Middle East, faithful implementation of all the
provisions of Security Council resolution 242 (1967) of 22
November 1967, under the supervision and guarantees of
the Council, is the road to peace. Israel’s call for direct
negotiations with Arab States while it occupies their
territories is a call for capitulation by those States. At the
time Israel calls for direct negotiations with Arab countries,
it continues to occupy their territories and attack Arab
cities. At the same time that it calls for those direct
negotiations, Israeli leaders insist that the annexation of
Jerusalem and the Syrian Golan Heights is non-negotiable.
150. In this connexion, I wish to refer to the annual
report of the Secretary-General of the United Nations on
the work of the Organization, submitted to the twenty-third
session, in which he states that his Personal Representative
on Jerusalem stated
“... that Israel leaders had made clear to him beyond
any doubt that Israel was taking every step to place under
its sovereignty those parts of the city not controlled
before June 1967”.
151. In an interview published by Newsweek magazine in
its issue of 17 February 1969, the Prime Minister of Israel
stated: ”As for the Golan Heights, we will, quite simply,
never give them up. The same goes for Jerusalem. Here
there is no flexibility at all.” In the same interview, the
Israeli Prime Minister referred to Jerusalem in the following
words: “There is no possible way to compromise on
Jerusalem.”
152. No matter how much Israel’s representatives in the
United Nations resort to the use of semantics and the
deceptive abuse of words, they will inevitably collide with
the truth. The truth here is that Israel’s call for direct
negotiations from the position of its occupation of Arab
territories aims at imposing its policy of expansion and fait
accompli upon the Arab countries. This has been clearly
affirmed by Israeli words as well as Israeli deeds. These are
the same negotiations that Nazi Germany sought to impose
upon the occupied countries of Europe. These negotiations
are inherently in contradiction to peace. Indeed, they
would be but the continuation of aggression and the
instrument for consolidating the results of aggression, in
complete denial of all the values of the Charter and in an
attempt to return to an era when international society was
subject to the law of the jungle.
153. The only alternative to the present state of aggression
and war prevailing in the Middle East is the faithful
implementation of all the provisions of the peaceful
settlement proposed in the resolution adopted by the
Security Council of 22 November 1967 [242 (1967)]. The
implementation of that resolution requires the fulfilment of
the following three points: first, the withdrawal of the
Israeli forces from all the territories they have occupied as a
result of the aggression of 5 June 1967. That withdrawal
would be the practical implementation of terminating the
state of belligerency in the Middle East. Secondly, the
legitimate rights of the Palestinian people must be recognized
and the United Nations resolutions affirming the right
of the Palestinian refugees to return to their homes or to
receive compensation must be implemented. Those resolutions
constitute the formula which the international community
has adopted for the achievement of justice for the
people of Palestine. Thirdly, the Security Council must
undertake adequate guarantees for peace and security in the
Middle East, and for the implementation of all provisions of
the Security Council resolution of 22 November 1967.
154. The struggle of our people falls within the framework
of the universal struggle to establish just international
relations which will ultimately flow into the current of
man’s progress and advancement. The people of the United
Arab Republic have been carrying out the movement for
industrialization and an increase in their arable land. They
have already begun to use the electric power provided by
the Aswan High Dam, which is destined for completion in
the course of next year. It will be erected on the Nile as a
monumental example of the creative co-operation with the
friendly people of the Soviet Union, to whom I wish to
express here the deep appreciation of the people of the
United Arab Republic for their firm stand against Israeli
aggression, for their efforts to establish peace based on
justice and the rule of the Charter and for the support given
to the peoples of Asia and Africa in their just struggle
against colonialism and foreign domination.
155. The United Arab Republic refused to allow the
conditions of aggression to disrupt its pursuit of the
realization of the principles of peaceful coexistence and
international co-operation. We have joined cur efforts with
those of all the other non-aligned countries in a new stage
of the development of the principles of non-alignment. The
last consultative meeting of the representatives of the
Governments of non-aligned countries, held from 8-12 July
1969 in Belgrade, was a new landmark on the road of
non-alignment adopted by many countries and peoples of
the third world.
156. Meanwhile, the United Arab Republic continued,
together with its sister African States, to work within the
Organization of African Unity for the complete liberation
of the African continent from colonialism and racism and
to provide the African personality with new opportunities
for creativeness and for effecting progress on the land of
Africa.
157. We have been constantly subscribing to the international
efforts aimed at establishing just economic international
relations necessary for a more accelerated rate of
development, and at the realization of a better life for the
peoples of the developing countries.
158. The attainment of peace in Viet-Nam continues to
require a complete and immediate end to all military
operations against the people of Viet-Nam, and the withdrawal
of foreign troops from the territory of Viet-Nam, so
that the Viet-Namese people will be able to determine their
own future and to build on Viet-Namese land as heroically
as they have fought for it.
159. The United Arab Republic has continued its policy
of working in the various international forums for general
and complete disarmament and for ensuring the peaceful
character of the new spheres conquered by man. We believe
that further efforts must be exerted towards the realization
of disarmament and the strengthening of international
security. Indeed, several important steps await the nuclear
Powers’ agreements in the field of disarmament which
would strengthen international security and make available
more human and material resources for the benefit of all
mankind.
166. It is my duty to convey to you the state of mind
prevailing among the people of the United Arab Republic
concerning the aggression on their territory. Our faith is
absolute in the inevitable freeing of every inch of Arab
territories occupied as a result of Israel’s aggression on
5 June 1967. Failure is the ultimate destiny of Israel’s
invasion.
161. This faith is part and parcel of every beat of life in
the heart of every man, woman and child in the land of
Egypt. No matter how much military assistance the
occupying Israeli forces receive, never will they overcome
the will and the determination of the people of Egypt to
recover the occupied territory, nor will they ever be able to
impose any capitulation on the people of Egypt, or any
other Arab peoples.
162. Our refusal to submit to the diktat of aggression and
our faith in its inevitable failure not only give expression to
our national commitment, but also carry the conviction of
and give honour to all human sacrifices made throughout
history to establish an international society capable of
maintaining peace and bringing justice.