I should like, first of all, on behalf of the Jordanian delegation, to convey our congratulations to Sir Leslie Munro on the occasion of his election to the Presidency of the twelfth session of the General Assembly.
54. I should like, at the same time, to congratulate the Secretary-General, Mr. Dag Hammarskjold, on the occasion of his re-election. The unanimous vote received by Mr. Hammarskjold in the Security Council and in the General Assembly expresses the general appreciation of his great ability in directing this world Organization and of his untiring efforts in upholding the principles of the Charter.
55. On behalf of the Government of Jordan, I want also to extend our welcome to the Federation of Malaya as a new Member of the United Nations. The Arabs have kept for many centuries cultural and economic relations with the people of Malaya and we feel sure that these friendly links will be strengthened with the independence of the new State.
56. It is gratifying to note the contribution that the United Nations continued to make, all through last year, to the welfare of many countries in the cultural, economic and political fields. A number of heads of delegations have already surveyed these United Nations activities and we fully share their appreciation.
57. The United Nations efforts in maintaining peace deserve special mention. The most recent and praiseworthy example of these efforts is the important role played by the United Nations last year in stopping the tripartite invasion of Egypt, an invasion that, if permitted to develop, would have no doubt brought catastrophe to the entire world. World security is indivisible and the concepts of little wars, short wars, or limited wars are, in our age, fast becoming increasingly dangerous fallacies.
58. The historic stand of the United Nations in the Suez war convinced the smaller Powers in our community of nations that this great international institution remains one of the best instruments to check aggression, maintain peace and uphold international justice. Because world public opinion proved so irresistible a moral force when Egypt became the victim of aggression, it prompted many countries to turn with renewed faith to the United Nations, whose prestige and authority rose higher than ever among nations.
59. As the representative of an Arab country, I should like to be allowed to limit my remarks to a few general aspects of the difficulties affecting world security in the Near East.
60. As we all know, a general atmosphere of crisis, together with much discontent and political instability is prevailing in the Near East. A number of States outside the area are endeavouring to remedy this state of affairs. But effective remedies will not be found until the real nature of the ills in the region is fully understood.
61. For the last ten years, all unprejudiced students of the political local scene are agreed on one thing: that the roots of basic difficulties in the area stem from the Zionist movement and the Israel policy of expansion, unrelentingly pursued at the expense of Arabs.
62. I am not going to take the Assembly’s time to retrace these historic developments. The circumstances in which the creation of Israel made more than one million Arab refugees, representing over 75 per cent of the original Arab population of Palestine, are known well enough. These unfortunate victims of the Zionist aggression are still scattered in refugee camps, or live destitute lives in various Middle East countries or in faraway places, in the four corners of the world: families who for centuries had lived in the same cities, the same villages, or even under the same roofs are now dispersed — innocent victims of events in which they had no voice and no control, they feel abandoned by all. This has been allowed to happen in spite of the fact that the same United Nations decisions which created Israel, uphold the natural right of the Palestinian Arabs to return to their homes. Yet, ten years after the creation of Israel, these refugees continue to live in degrading circumstances on Arab charity and on United Nations relief, which amount only to about $2 per person per month, for each refugee. These $2 include expenses for health, education, transportation, shelter, food and the salaries of the United Nations relief workers.
63. One of the tragic sides of this situation is that, in reality, these unfortunate Palestinian refugees forced to survive on charity, are not poor: in fact, they own 90 per cent of the area of Palestine now known as Israel. The value of individually owned Arab properties in Israel is estimated at $12,000 million, and in 1947 these properties were yielding a yearly revenue of about $150 million.
64. One does not see why the Arab properties in Israel should continue to be exploited by Israelis, and why the rightful owners, who are in such dire need, should continue to be deprived of these revenues. One does not see why the United Nations should, year after year, beg Members of this Organization to contribute to the upkeep of the Arab refugees, when the properties in Israel of those Arab refugees are yielding a revenue of about $150 million a year. We are told that this year the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East is again experiencing financial difficulties and intends to discontinue part of its services to the Arab refugees. The General Assembly cannot escape much longer facing the moral responsibilities involved in this matter, and this Organization would take a very practical step if it considered whether it is not time to set up a committee for the custody of Arab properties in Israel, which would administer and supervise their maintenance, instead of leaving the refugees' properties to the Israelis who purposely allow them to deteriorate. This United Nations Committee would also collect Arab revenues in Israel and distribute them for the benefit of the refugees, until a definite settlement of the Palestine problem was reached.
65. Homage should be paid here to the specialized agencies of the United Nations — particularly the United Nations Relief and Works Agency — for their untiring efforts to help the refugees to fight famine and disease, although all these efforts combined do not ensure more than a near-starvation level of existence to the victims of Zionism.
66. World opinion cannot, without danger, continue to remain humanely insensitive and politically blind to the fact that one of ,the main causes of the present bitterness and unrest in the area derives from Israel's continued disregard of the repeated United Nations decisions calling for the return of the Arab refugees to their homes and stipulating that those refugees who might choose not to return should be properly and individually compensated. But, unfortunately for the refugees' fate and for the fate of world security, Israel has consistently refused to implement the provisions of the United Nations decisions, which aimed at safeguarding some Arab rights in Palestine.
67. There are also other reasons for the dangerous tensions prevailing in the Near East. The deterioration of the political situation in this part of the world is found to be directly linked with the pursuits of Israel political ambitions. Every day Israelis are trying to overrun more Arab lands. Israel leaders are making no secret of their expansionist policy. Only recently, Mr. Ben Gurion declared that Israel intends to bring no fewer than 2 million new Jewish immigrants to the shores of Palestine in the near future. At the same time, Israel continues to refuse to allow the return of the Arab refugees to their homes and properties, under the pretext that there is no more room for newcomers in Israel.
68. Jewish immigration has always proved to be the main tool for the implementation of Israel expansionist plans. As such, it is a matter of serious concern to the Arabs. They cannot forget that the immigration of 700,000 Jews into Palestine during the British Mandate resulted in the carving out of a foreign State in the heart of the Arab countries, and in the dispossessing and exiling of more than one million Palestine Arabs. The present Arab unrest, fear and tension cannot be studied in isolation from the context of this historic development: when fewer than 750,000 Jewish immigrants brought to the Arabs a tragedy of such magnitude, is it really surprising if they are at present alarmed, if they desire to arm themselves and resist the expansionist aims of Zionism? With 2 million more immigrants in Israel, Israel's propensity to expand will be greatly increased. As it is now, the Israel danger is already felt by each one of the Arab countries in the area. They have endured many blows and suffered many losses. The United Nations itself has been put to great pains to contain repeated Israel aggressions.
69. The fact that Israel is already heavily armed and continues to arm itself with foreign help, out of proportion to its defensive needs, and the fact that Israel has welcomed a foreign military mission inimical to the Arabs, constitute a major threat to the security of the Arab States. The situation is steadily worsening, and that explains why Arab leaders are looking for help from anywhere. To them falls the unenviable task of facing day and night the Zionist danger, the avowed aims of which are to seize more Arab lands, to dispossess more Arab owners, and to exterminate more Arab men, women and children, so that an always more powerful Zionist State may rule in the Near East. To put an end to that chronic source of unrest in the Near East something must be done, because, in the present circumstances, if things are left to themselves they can only become progressively worse.
70. Some Western politicians seem to think that the Palestine problem can be solved through economic measures. But the realities of the situation created by the Palestinian tragedy make this approach completely inadequate. It cannot be stressed enough that the Palestine problem is essentially a political problem; and no progress will be made until the political issues involved are squarely faced. Only after a political settlement is reached guaranteeing Arab rights in Palestine will the way be open to successful economic developments.
71. We are convinced that some measures, taken without delay through the United Nations along the following lines, would have a quieting effect: First, the implementation of the United Nations decisions, which have been repeated again and again in the last ten years, stipulating the return of the refugees to their homes in Palestine and compensation for their losses. Secondly, the return to the Arabs of the territory which Israel unlawfully occupies in the part of Palestine that the United Nations decided should remain Arab. Thirdly, the creation of a United Nations committee for the custody of Arab properties in Israel, which should be responsible for the administration and maintenance of these properties, as well as for the collection and distribution of the revenue from them for the benefit of their rightful owners, the Palestinian, refugees. Fourthly and most imperative, bringing an end to uncontrolled Jewish immigration to Israel, the present unlimited Jewish immigration being the most real and immediate danger to the stability of the area. This danger is so threatening that, in the view of most political observers, it should not be allowed to continue, even under the pretext of sovereign rights, because the point has been reached where Zionist immigration affects not only the situation in Israel but, in fact, affects the future of every Arab country in the Near East; that is to say, the political stability of the area.
72. It is our deep conviction that it is urgent for this great assembly of nations to study the questions raised by unrestricted Zionist immigration in a very restricted enclave of the Near East. This introduction of a foreign and hostile element into the area has proved, during the last decade, a most disturbing political factor. We believe that the Members of this Assembly could exercise a stabilizing influence in this troubled area by removing the matter of Jewish immigration from national control and putting it under international control. This new approach would allay some of the deeper fears responsible for the rapid deterioration of the situation. Time is running short to the Near East.
73. Other political difficulties arose recently in the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula, at Oman and Yemen. Here, too, the difficulties developed as a result of foreign ambitions to dominate these Arab parts of the world. Continued aggression must be stopped in the south of Arabia if political stability is truly desired. It is our fervent hope that the spirit of domination still, at times, misguiding some big Powers will disappear as people become more aware of the greater advantages to be derived from political and economic co-operation, freely consented to between countries.
74. Another area of great concern to Arabs everywhere is North Africa, particularly because of what is happening in Algeria.
75. French policy concerning Morocco and Tunisia, which ultimately resulted in the independence of the two countries, was an enlightened and wise policy. It prevented unnecessary loss of life and much human suffering to both sides, and opened the way to fruitful co-operation.
76. Unfortunately, France has followed a quite different course in Algeria, a course which has been disastrous for all concerned, a course that the friends of France are following with a heavy heart and that Arabs everywhere watch with consternation and anger. France is writing a sad page of its history in Algeria. It is sad indeed that a country which, at the end of the eighteenth century, was the champion of people’s emancipation, should now turn to the use of brutal force to keep under its yoke another people.
77. I am not going to describe how Arab national emancipation is repressed in Algeria. But I want, to register here Arab indignation at the use of NATO forces and armaments in exterminating the Arab population of Algeria. In fact, the horror of what is going on in Algeria is beyond description. And one wonders why no powerful voice in the West has been raised to denounce these atrocities. For us, aggression and the brutal repression of national liberation movements are reprehensible wherever they happen, and we would like to see the principles of the Charter upheld everywhere in regulating international relations.
78. I should like to acknowledge here the courageous stand of Senator Kennedy, who asked for a cease fire in Algeria and justice for the Algerians. Also to be acknowledged with gratitude are «he statements of a number of speakers in this Assembly, particularly the statement of Mr. Aiken, Minister for External Affairs and Chairman of the delegation of Ireland, for their unequivocal stand for justice in Algeria on the basis of the principles of the United Nations Charter.
79. Everywhere, Arabs find it hard to pass over in silence the fact that about 200,000 men, women, children and old people have already been massacred in Algeria. In spite of all appearances in that unhappy land, we refuse to believe that democratic principles and the principles of the Charter are interpreted or applied differently when the question of their application is raised in Europe, in Africa or in Asia. We believe that respect for human life should be the same everywhere.
80. Last year, France was given a chance by the United Nations to arrive at an understanding with the Algerian people, and to reach a peaceful solution of the Algerian problem. It was hoped, by the representatives of the eleventh session of the General Assembly, that France would use the delay granted to it to find ways and means to achieve these aims. But, unfortunately, France used the time to pour 500,000 soldiers, with modern arms of all kinds, into Algeria and it continues to entertain the false hope that ultimately force will crush the movements for independence, and that torture will kill the spirit of liberation in Algeria. But these repressive efforts and atrocities have not crushed the national liberation movement in Algeria; on the contrary, more than ever, the Algerian people continue to ask for justice.
81. France might try again to propose palliative measures, but we all know that such measures cannot bring any satisfactory results. The main essential step in reaching a peaceful solution in Algeria, would be for France to abandon the unreal claim that Algeria is an integral part of Metropolitan France, and to recognize the right to independence of the Algerian people. The United Nations, we believe, could play a very useful role by ordering a cease fire, together with the withdrawal of French forces, by sending a United Nations force to keep order, and by appointing a committee to supervise really free general elections in Algeria, so that the people may decide on their political future and form of government. The granting of independence and self-determination to Algeria would benefit all concerned, including France itself in the sense that destructive past hatred could be buried, and that a common policy of co-operation among the three North African countries and France could fully develop.
82. As this session of the General Assembly gets under way, the point of highest political tension has moved to our Arab part of the world, and most observers consider the present situation dangerous to world peace. To us, the inhabitants of the area, this is a sad destination and a threatening one. But we remain convinced that none of our difficulties would be unsurmountable, if they were approached in the spirit of the United Nations Charter, which reaffirms the faith of the Members of this Organization "in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small". Indeed, proper respect of all countries for the principles embodied in the United Nations Charter would ensure the reign of justice, freedom and tranquillity in every part of the world.
83. In our hopes for a brighter future, we fully share the belief of that great soldier, humanist and leader, President Eisenhower, that there is no peace without justice.