Mideast situation/Palestine question – Letter from Israel

Letter dated 17 June 1985 from the Permanent Representative of Israel

to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General

Pursuant to General Assembly resolution 39/114 (in which the Assembly condemned nazism and fascism), I would like to bring to your attention a message made public by Yasir Arafat on 25 April 1985 at Bandung, Indonesia. Arafat praised Hal Amin al-Husseini and Ahmed Shukeiry as "two Palestinian leaders" whom he "took immense pride in recalling". He said that the "PLO is continuing the path that they have set".

Forty years after the defeat of nazism, my delegation finds it reprehensible that some of the most notorious Nazi collaborators are being extolled and their activities presented as models for emulation.

Husseini's collaboration with Hitler is well known. His Buro des Grossmufti in Berlin organized military units in Axis-occupied countries for the slaughter of thousands of Jews. He prevented the emigration of thousands of other Jews, thereby sealing their fate in the crematoria of the SS. Ahmed Shukeiry, a fervent follower of Husseini, called for the extermination of the Jews of Israel. His undisguised call "to throw the Jews into the sea" distilled his often expressed desire to complete the task which the Nazis had begun.

If further evidence is needed of the nature of the PLO, Arafat's praise of these "two Palestinian leaders" and the "path that they have set" once again indicates the true intent of that terrorist organization.

1 have the honour to request that this letter be circulated as a document of the General Assembly, under items 12, 38, 88, 94 and 101 of the preliminary list, and of the Security Council.

(Signed) Benjamin NETANYAHU

Ambassador

Permanent Representative

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*A/40/50/Rev.1.