Situation in the occupied Arab territories – SecCo debate – Meeting record

CONTENTS

Provisional agenda (S/Agenda/1899)

Adoption of the agenda

Request by the Libyan Arab Republic and Pakistan for consideration of the serious situation arising from recent developments in the occupied Arab territories:

Letter dated 19 March 1976 from the Permanent Representatives of the Libyan Arab Republic and Pakistan to the United Nations addressed to the President of the Security Council (S/12017)

President: Mr. Thomas S. BOYA (Benin).

[Present: The representatives of the following States: Benin, China, France, Guyana, Italy, Japan, Libyan Arab Republic, Pakistan, Panama, Romania, Sweden, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, United Republic of Tanzania, United States of America.

Provisional agenda (S/Agenda/1899)

1. Adoption of the agenda

2. Request by the Libyan Arab Republic and Pakistan for consideration of the serious situation arising  from recent developments in the occupied Arab  territories:

Letter dated 19 March 1976 from the Permanent Representatives of the Libyan Arab Republic and Pakistan to the United Nations addressed to the President of the Security Council (S/12017).

The meeting was called to order at 5.05 p.m.

Adoption of the agenda

The agenda was adopted.

Request by the Libyan Arab Republic and Pakistan for consideration of the serious situation arising from recent developments in the occupied Arab territories:

Letter dated 19 March 1976 from the Permanent Representatives of the Libyan Arab Republic and Pakistan to the United Nations addressed to the President of the Security Council (S/12017)

1. The PRESIDENT (interpretation from French): In accordance with the decisions adopted earlier [1893rd, 1894th, 1896th and 1897th meetings], I shall invite the representative of Israel as well as the representative of the Palestine Liberation Organization to take their places at the Security Council table and the representatives of Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Iraq, Jordan, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, the Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia and Yugoslavia to take the seats reserved for them at the side of the Council chamber on the understanding that, as is customary, they will be invited to take a place at the Council table when it is their turn to speak.

At the invitation of the President, Mr. Herzog (Israel) and Mr.  Terzi (Palestine Liberation Organization) took places at the Security Council table and Mr. Kaiser (Bangladesh), Mr. Abdel Meguid (Egypt), Mr. Jaipal (India), Mr. Zahawie (Iraq), Mr. Sharaf (Jordan), Mr. El Hassen (Mauritania), Mr. Baroody (Saudi Arabia), Mr. Allaf (Syrian Arab Republic), Mr. Driss (Tunisia) and Mr. Petric (Yugoslavia) took the places reserved for them at the side of the Council chamber.

2. The PRESIDENT (interpretation from French): The first speaker is the representative of Saudi Arabia. I invite him to take a place at the Council table and to make his statement.

3. Mr. BAROODY (Saudi Arabia): I feel constrained to speak again in order to correct certain misconceptions that seem to have formed in the minds of a few representatives here. Furthermore, so that I shall not have to ask to speak once again, I shall seize this opportunity to make clear the part of my statement yesterday [1897th meeting] to which reference was made by none other than my colleague from the United Kingdom, Mr. Richard.

4. I have been told that I was a little hard on the Jews. My reply is: I am never hard on the Jews. On the Zionists, yes, but not on the Jews. We have an Arabic proverb which says, "Stay away from evil and sing". Why should I wish to pick a quarrel with the Zionists? The fact is that the Zionists have not left us alone since 1922.

5. Indeed, had it not been for the 1947 plan for the partition of Palestine I would have quit the United Nations. I was asked by none other than His Majesty the late King Faisal—may his soul rest in peace—to organize, as a pan-Arab, the Saudi Arabian Mission to the United Nations. I really wished to do other things, because I was afraid that the United Nations was repeating the mistakes of the League of Nations. I had watched what had happened in San Francisco when the Charter was discussed and signed. At that time King Faisal was the Foreign Minister of his country. We were invited to the United Kingdom, before the war was over, by the Government of the late Mr. Churchill may God forgive him and have mercy on his soul. But we found that our British friends could no longer bear the blood, sweat and tears Mr. Churchill's  famous  phrase—and   we   were   greeted  on British soil by a representative of Mr. Attlee, the head of the Labour Government. This all happened in August 1945. While we were in mid-ocean—we were on the Queen Mary; it was still a troop ship but this was towards the end of the war and it was rather empty—we read a dispatch about the atom bombs that had been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the President of the United States, the late Mr. Truman—may God forgive him too and rest his soul in peace.

6. What relevance has all this to the item under discussion? The relevance will become very clear as I continue this statement.

7. The British got into the Second World War to liberate the world not only from Nazism and fascism, but also, allegedly, from any foreign yoke. But had it not been for Hitler—and I hold no brief for Hitler—the European empires abroad would still be extant.

8. History is not a collection of chronological facts; that is historiography. History is what was written by people like  Ibn Khaldun,  the  Arab historian and sociologist who lived many centuries ago. He was born in Tunis and went to Morocco, and part of his life was spent in Egypt. Real history is what is written by people like Spengler and Arnold Toynbee. What are the factors that shape history? What is the sociological background, the political forces in conflict? That is history. That is the kind of history we should learn, and not chronological facts, dates, and so forth.

9. I may have said this before, but it bears repetition: the Allies in the Second World War. were deceiving one another. To see that that is so one need only read a book that appeared a few months ago: Meeting at Potsdam, by Charles Mee, Jr. When Mr. Churchill and Mr. Truman were discussing the peace terms with the late Mr.  Stalin—and, although he was a Communist, may God rest his soul in peace also—Mr. Churchill turned to Mr. Truman and said, "What about those 700,000 Nazi troops that have laid down their weapons in the British zone? Why do we not march on Moscow and finish off the Russians? The Germans started it and we will finish it." As if the Russians were soft-boiled eggs. And Mr. Truman threw his chest out and said: "I have something better:

I have the atom bomb"—at a time when Mr. Stimpson, the Secretary of Defense, was pleading with Mr. Truman not to use the atom bomb because one day it might usher in doomsday on this earth.

10. I knew certain things from Sir Alexander Cadogan, who used to sit in the Security Council, but they were not as explicit as the facts that were given by Charles  Mee,  Jr.,  the  American  researcher.  The Russians—or the  Soviets—can bear me  out:   the Japanese were getting in touch through their Ambassador in Tokyo to see how they could make peace. But still Mr. Truman wanted to drop the atom bomb. And what a tragedy it was, and still is—because everybody is trying to acquire atom bombs.

11.   I shall now go a little further on in years when our British friends saw fit to have Mr. Churchill again as Prime Minister, the Empire was crumbling India and Pakistan were obtaining their freedom, and later we had to fight for those African "lions" sitting around this table, morally supporting them. All those beautiful "birds" in the British Empire were flying out of the "cage". And Mr. Churchill said: "I was not appointed His Majesty's Prime Minister to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire."It is against this background that I will touch on the problem that has bedevilled us since 1947.

12. When in 1947 the experts of the State Department of the United States asked to see Mr. Truman, because the United States had friends in the Middle East, friends in the journalistic and diplomatic sense; in other words, the United States had certain interests among Arabs and non-Arabs in the Middle East and in the Moslem world, Mr. Wadsworth spoke on their behalf—and I knew Mr. Wadsworth; he was a fine man, not because he posed the question he did but because in his own right he was a  man of good origin, as you are, Mr. Scranton—and Mr. Truman said "Tell me: how many Americans of Arab or Lebanese origin do I have in my constituency?" In other words, he threw in his lot with the Zionists, because the Zionists were strong; they permeated this count if the host country—a great country. They prospered and more power to the Jews if they prosper here. But they used their power in order to lord it over the Arabs and expel the Palestinians from their homeland. And I do not have to tell you again and again and again that their forebears had never seen Palestine.

13. Some people take issue with me, claiming that there were distortions and perhaps a falsification of history on my part. This was said by none other than my friend Mr. Richard. "Falsification" is a big word that one should not use. If Mr. Richard had said that. I might have been mistaken or that I had misinterpreted history, that would have been something else; but to accuse me of falsification? What am I, a forger? I do not expect Mr. Richard to say that I falsify certain aspects of history. I just learnt this from the press release:

"Ivor Richard, United Kingdom, said the representative of Saudi Arabia yesterday had falsify certain aspects of history."

"Falsified", that is a big word. There is intent behind the word "falsified". He could have said that I was mistaken or had misinterpreted. I make mistake; I stand to be corrected; I always say that. But falsified"? So in my statement of clarification I wish Mr. Thomas would listen very intently to me and convey what I say to our friend Mr. Richard.

14. I do not see why, with all the "good" that the they have done for the Zionists, the British are always afraid that the Zionists cannot defend themselves, and they begin to defend them here. He took issue with what I had said at yesterday afternoon's meeting.  I mentioned three things: Dachau, The Diary of Anne Frank and the empires that crumbled: the empires of yore, meaning the Roman, Arab, Byzantine empires, and what not, and also the recent empires. It seems if flayed the nerves of our friend Mr. Richard, who, I think, is always cool and collected, a tower of strength, when he sits in that chair; but he was ruffled, and so I went to the record to find out what irked him. And here is what I said:

"Let those who support Israel beware that they cannot maintain their strength and power if they are based on injustice. Where are the empires of yore?Crumbled—and the modern empires too. I do not want to exacerbate matters by naming them."[Ibid.,para. 198.]

Is that a falsification on a statement of fact?

"But, good Lord, colonialists? The other colonialists were a blessing in comparison with the Khazars. Neither the British nor the French, for that matter, ever expropriated the properties of the people of the land. Of course they had to rationalize their colonialism, and at one time they called it 'the white man's burden'." [Ibid., para. 200.]

Read Rudyard   Kipling  and   the   literature   during Kipling's day. The British had a mission. But now they have a Labour Government, I think and they are happier without the colonies. You went to "civilize" the world. Of course you have to rationalize your presence in countries which are not your own. "The white man's burden", you call it. I added:

"But how could the Zionists rationalize their colonialism? 'God gave us Palestine. We are the chosen people of God and you, all the peoples of the world, have to go down. You are upstarts because we are the chosen people of God.' What fiction, what hoaxes." [Ibid.]

That did not touch the British in any particular way. Maybe this is what irked him—I want to find out. I went on to say:

"They [meaning the Zionists] have even played on the emotions of the Europeans and swindled them"—I did not say the Jews swindled them; the Zionists— "… Before those Jews had a country, so to speak, before Israel was established, they made West Germany pay billions of dollars. And, others, I was touched when I read a book which Mrs. Roosevelt pointed out to me, saying: You read that book. It is very touching.' It was The Diary of Anne Frank, a girl of a Jewish family which lived in the Netherlands. She, her parents and  her brother and sister were interned by the Germans. It was not until recently that it dawned on me that 90 per cent of the alleged dialogues were written by certain Mr. Levine." [Ibid., para. 201.]

15. I have here the British source. This was written by Mr. Richard Harwood, a writer and specialist in political and diplomatic aspects of the Second World War. At present he is with the University of London. I think it is a respectable university. Mr. Harwood turned to the vexed subject of war crimes under the influence of Professor Paul Rassinier, a French writer to whose monumental work this little volume is greatly indebted. The author is now working on a sequel in this series on the main Nuremburg trial, 1945-1946.

16. I shall mention what I referred to, now that my good friend from the  United Kingdom knows the source, a British source. This is a recent publication.  And I want my colleague from Sweden to hear this. The publication says:

"The truth about the Anne Frank diary was first revealed in 1959 by the Swedish journal Fria Ord. It established that the Jewish novelist Meyer Levine had written the dialogue of the 'diary' and was demanding payment for his work in a court action against Otto Frank." Otto Frank was Anne's father. "A condensation of the Swedish articles appeared in the American Economic Council Letter, April 15th, 1959, as follows:

'The Western World has for some years been made aware of a Jewish girl through the medium of what purports to be her personally written story, The Diary of Anne Frank. Any informed literary inspection of this book would have shown it to have been impossible as the work of a teenager.

'A noteworthy decision of the New York Supreme Court confirms this point of view, in that the well-known American Jewish writer, Meyer Levine, has been awarded $50,000 to be paid him by the father of Anne Frank as an honorarium for Levine's work on the Anne Frank diary.

'Mr. Frank, in Switzerland, has promised to pay… Meyer Levine not less than $50,000 because he had used the dialogue of author Levine just as it was and "implanted" it in the diary as being his daughter's intellectual work.'

"Further inquiries brought a reply on May 7th, 1962 from a firm of New York lawyers, which stated:

'I was the attorney for Meyer Levine in his action against Otto Frank and others. It is true that a jury awarded Mr. Levine $50,000 in damages, as indicated in your letter. That award was later set aside by the trial justice, Hon. Samuel C. Coleman, on the ground that the damages had not been proved in the manner required by law. The action was subsequently settled while an appeal from Judge Coleman's decision was pending.

'I am afraid that the case itself is not officially reported, so far as the trial itself, or even Judge Coleman's decision, is concerned. Certain procedural matters were reported'—mark this down, my good friend Mr. Thomas, to pass on to Ambassador Richard—'in 141 New York Supplement, Second Series 170, and in 5 Second Series 181. The correct file number in the New York County Clerk's office is 2241-1956 and the file is probably a large and full one.' "

If I had been under a false impression, Mr. Richard, before saying I had falsified, could have asked me, "Where did you get your facts?" Perhaps he knows something about this author and could have told me "Well, he is a spurious author". But "falsify"? Baroody falsifies? Tut tut.

17. Yesterday I made a reference to Dachau. I have other sources, but I do not want to encumber the Council; some of them are from American historians. I refer now to an eye-witness account about Auschwitz:

"Christopherson's account is certainly one of the most important documents for a reappraisal of Auschwitz. He spent the whole of 1944 there, during which time he visited all of the separate camps comprising the large Auschwitz complex, including Auschwitz-Birkenau where it is alleged that wholesale massacres of Jews took place. Christopherson, however, is in no doubt that this is totally untrue. He writes: 'I was in Auschwitz from January until December 1944. After the war I heard about the mass murders which were supposedly perpetrated by the S.S. against the Jewish prisoners, and I was perfectly astonished. Despite all the evidence of witnesses, all the newspaper reports and radio broadcasts I still do not believe today in these horrible deeds. I have said this many times and in many places, but to no purpose. One is never believed.' "

And then he goes on to other sources, quoting from books about the gassings:

"However, no living, authentic eye-witness of these 'gassings' has ever been produced and validated. Benedikt Kautsky, who spent seven years in concentration camps, including three in Auschwitz, alleged in his book Teufel und Verdammte (Devil and Damned), Zurich, 1946, that 'not less than 3,500,000 Jews' had been killed there. This was certainly a remarkable statement, because by his own admission he had never seen a gas chamber. He confessed: 'I was in the big German concentration camps. However, I must establish the truth that in no camp at any time did I come across such an installation as a gas chamber.' … The only execution he actually witnessed was when two Polish inmates were executed for killing two Jewish inmates. Kautsky, who was sent from Buchenwald in October 1942 to work at Auschwitz-Buna, stressed in his book that the use of prisoners in war industry was a major feature of concentration camp policy until the end of the war. He fails to reconcile this with an alleged policy of massacring Jews."

18. I would not say there were not executions of Jews. Who am I to say that? I would feel sorry for any human being, Jew or Gentile, who was executed whether by gas, by sabre or by bombing. "The causes of death are multifarious, but death is one." It is a crime to take the life of another person. But the gist of what I said in reply to Mr. Herzog—who has again absented himself because, I think, he is very sensitive on this subject or he does not like to hear my voice, which irritates his eardrums—was that I was refuting allegations and mud-slinging at Arabs. I was telling him of the many distortions of history, quite apart from the myths and fictions of yore. And in that context I said that the Jews capitalized on the figure they  always  mentioned of 6 million Jews. Once, when Mr. Tekoah was sitting next to me, I said "Why don't you make it six and a quarter million, or 5,200,000? Why always 6 million, as if you have true statistics?" This is not true, and it will come out, just as it came out that the Germans did not eat Belgian babies when they invaded Belgium in the First World War. The greatness of the British lies in the fact that their Foreign  Secretary  made  an  apology to the Germans after the First World War in Parliament. But who except Baroody dares point out these things?  They call him an anti-Semite. This is a contradiction: a Semite becomes an anti-Semite—Baroody against himself. How do you like that? Shame on the word "falsify".

19. I do not ask for an apology, but I can refute what is said. We are diplomats; we make mistakes. But I do not think he was justified in saying that I falsified certain aspects of history. If I did so unwittingly, it was by proxy, quoting British sources.

20. I will end my statement by asking our colleague, from the United Kingdom to be assured that I am still friends with the British. This will not cloud the personal relations or diplomatic relations I have had with them. But we here should not be automata, formalist, playing the old game with toffs of diplomats and  measure our words and juggle semantics. Let us be frank. Let us have a new approach to international affairs. It is high time, when the big Powers say one sweet thing out of one corner of their mouths and then fill their arsenals for overkill. Who do they think they are? Are we fooled? No, Sir.

21. Although I am 70 years old, I hope that the youngsters will take a new approach and not use the antiquated   approaches   to  international   affairs by throwing mud, beating around the bush and going circles. Let them pirouette at the circus, if they want to go in circles rather than come here and deal with matters of life and death, matters that touch upon this self-determination of a people expelled from its own land. They   cannot   have   one   yardstick  for   the Europeans  and   another  for  the  Asians   and  the Africans. We are all human beings, brothers under the skin.  But if they want to be supercilious, we can beat them at that game. Who are they who wish to use the approach of wielding power over weaker people? The elements of destruction lie within them, and they will fall and crumble as others have. Let them beware.

22. I apologize for the length of this statement, knowing that members are all avid to finish this business and, perhaps, next week embark on another touchy question on which I will have my say—Angola, and other matters. We shall see what the Europeans are doing surreptitiously or covertly. I hope there will no mud-slinging and that we will all talk with good intentions in the hope of bringing peace, peace even between the Palestinians and the Jews in the Holy and Land of Palestine, and peace all over the world. For there is no escape from it: if we do not establish peace, we may be leading the world to perdition, into anguish and tribulation and, perhaps, the extinction of the human species.

23. The PRESIDENT (interpretation from French): Since no other member of the Council wishes to speak at this stage of the general debate, now that the Council is about to conclude its work on the question of Jerusalem, I should like to make a few brief comments as the representative of BENIN.

24. My delegation is very happy to have among us the new Permanent Representative of the United States, to whom we extend our best wishes for success in his post. I can assure him here and now of our complete co-operation.

25. My delegation is also pleased to see that we have participating  in  the   debate  the  delegation of the Palestine Liberation Organization as well as the delegation of Israel. The contributions which both delegations have made to the work will, I am sure, help to bring about the further evolution of the situation in the  Middle East. Benin is willing to see in their participation in the debates a good omen that the time is not distant when Palestinians and Israelis will at last agree to meet together at a negotiating table so as to seek jointly the ways and means to half future bloodshed in that disturbed area.

26. The delegation of Benin has attentively followed the statements of the delegations chiefly concerned with the problem of the tension prevailing in Jerusalem and in the occupied Arab territories, and we have come to the conclusion that we have been warranted in the position we have been taking for a number of years. The question of the desecration of the Holy Places in Jerusalem and elsewhere and the marked  tendency of Israel to change the demographic, political  and social character of the territories at present under its domination are manifestations of a single problem, namely, the need for withdrawal by Israel from all the occupied Arab territories. This fact has already been emphasized repeatedly in resolutions of both the General Assembly and the Security Council on the general question of the Middle East.

27. Clearly, any situation of occupation, if it does not draw to a close at an appropriate time, ends by exasperating the populations and provoking reactions of rebellion which the forces of occupation usually cannot control. These are tangible facts and realities which Israel must recognize in order to be able to adapt its reactions to them.  This occupation,  so repugnant to the Arabs and so strongly condemned by the international community, must cease without a futile delay which would inevitably be detrimental to Israel. That is why the Council must not tire of striving to have Israel withdraw as soon as possible from all the Arab territories occupied since the 1967 war if that country has a genuine wish to ensure its own security and live on terms of peace and good understanding with its neighbours. It is the duty of the Council to appeal to the great Powers, particularly those which are able to exercise any influence on Israel, so that Israel may recognize this truth and bow to the lessons of the history of wars that last too long and therefore are ruinous.  If Israel were to withdraw from the occupied Arab territories, the problem before the Council, which flows from this anachronistic and abnormal situation, would consequently disappear.

28. It only remains for us to express the hope that soon serious and real negotiations may start between Israel and the Arabs, particularly the Palestinians, so that they may find a solution that will permit the withdrawal of Israel from the occupied Arab territories and the lessening of tension in the Middle East.

29. Mr.  AKHUND (Pakistan): Mr. President, on behalf of your delegation, those of Guyana, Panama, the United Republic of Tanzania and my own, I have the honour to put before the Council the draft resolution contained in document S/12022. The draft is self  explanatory. Members are aware of the effort that has gone into its preparation. Nevertheless, I shall ask your indulgence while I explain briefly the considerations which the sponsors of this text have in mind in presenting it to the Council.

30. The present debate has ranged far and wide over the issues and emotions which divide the Arabs from the Israelis in the Middle East, and it has reflected the passions and the bitterness of this conflict, which has gone on too long. As happens often, not everything that was said was necessary or relevant. I want to say  again, as I said in my statement at the beginning of the debate [1894th meeting], that the objective of the present meeting was specific and was specified in the letter which my delegation and that of Libya submitted to the President [SI 12017}.

31. What has been happening in Jerusalem and in the West Bank generally is a warning signal that time is running out. It has been stated that the military occupation of Israel has been exemplary and benign. The fact of the matter is that in its nature no military occupation can be benign. As soon as resistance to occupation becomes effective the benign features disappear and the mailed fist reappears. This morning's issue of The New York Times states, for instance:

"… the Israelis today hesitate less in using force to maintain public order. In putting down the most recent riots, Israeli soldiers, many of them teenagers, have used tactics they would themselves denounce in any other situation."

32. The situation has been described to us by impartial observers reporting from Jerusalem and the occupied territories of the West Bank. There are curfews in town after town, paratroopers in Jerusalem on the rooftops of private houses. All this has been going on for more than seven weeks and has only intensified with every passing day. The judgement delivered by the Supreme Court of Israel has made no great difference to the situation. It was possible to describe acts by individual guerrillas as acts of terrorism, as acts of banditry. It is not possible to do so in the case of the mass uprising that we are witnessing in the West Bank. The representative of Israel minimized the whole affair as demonstrations by teenagers who had been carried away by propaganda directed at them from the outside. I would submit that such self-deception is futile and destructive.

33. The debate which has taken place here indicated at least one thing: that Council members are well aware of the gravity of the situation, and not only the members of the Council but the world at large. Once again, Mr. Terence Smith, reporting from Jerusalem, writes in today's New York Times: "The disturbances are a genuinely indigenous phenomenon that reflects the accumulated grievances of a population that has been under occupation for eight years." The world at large is also clear about the necessary elements of peace. There must be withdrawal of Israeli forces from all the territories they occupied in the war of 1967.  There must be recognition of the rights of Palestinians: their right to entity, their right to self-determination, their right to return if they so choose to their homes and properties from which they fled or had to flee; and finally of the right of all States in the region to live in peace, in mutual respect with each other. We shall have to return to this larger issue on a later occasion when the Council takes it up, and we shall seek once again to reach the agreement which eluded us on the previous occasion.

34. On the specifics of the present agenda item, it was encouraging to see that there were no substantial or major differences and, if I may say so, there were no minor differences on what is required to be done to redress the situation. I shall take the liberty of quoting from only one of the statements made here, that of  our colleague from the United States. On of the matter Jerusalem he recalled what his predecessors had said:

"The United States does not accept or recognize unilateral actions by any States in the area as altering the status of Jerusalem."

He went on to say:

"such unilateral measures, including expropriate of land or other administrative action taken by the Government of Israel, cannot be considered other than interim and provisional"—and I would venture to suggest that it cannot be considered anything but illegal—"and cannot affect the present international status or prejudge the final and permanent status of Jerusalem." [1896th meeting, paras. 66 and 67.]

On the wider issues that have been of concern to us, the representative of the United States stated:

"… substantial resettlement of the Israeli civilian population in occupied territories, including East Jerusalem, is illegal under the [Geneva] Convention… the presence of these settlements is seen by my Government as an obstacle to the success of the negotiations for a just and final peace between] Israel and its neighbours." [Ibid., para. 68.]

35. In the circumstances,  the  Security Council's responsibility to act under the Charter and to intervene in the situation is unmistakable and undisputed.  

36. I should like to say on behalf of the sponsors of this draft resolution that we have not approached it in a spirit of a semantical exercise. Although we do feel that fundamental principles must be stated with clarity, its language and phraseology is less important than its basic objective, its basic aim and thrust, which is, as expressed in the preamble, to express concern at what has happened, at what is happening and at what might yet happen, and to affirm fundamental principles such as the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force and war; and in the operative part, to call on Israel to do what seems to us essential in the present situation and inescapable in the longer perspective of the enduring peace which, Israel itself and all the other parties to the dispute desire and seek. I must say, in parenthesis, the fact that all the parties to the dispute are for the first time seated around this table is in itself a step towards reality.

37. If Ambassador Scranton will forgive me, I should like to return once again to his statement. There are three questions, he said, which would determine the position of his Government towards whatever action might be proposed to the Council. The first is, "do the facts and judgements on which the draft resolution is based correspond to the actual situation?" [ibid., para. 69]. In other words, is it broadly correct, it is accurate  that  the   measures  taken  by   the  Israeli authorities aimed at changing the physical, cultural, demographic and religious character of the occupied territories, the establishment of Israeli settlements in occupied territories, the violations of human rights- call them by whatever name you wish—should be a matter of deep concern to this Council?

38. It was put to us that Israel has shown the most punctilious regard for the religious sensibilities of Moslems and Christians who venerate the Holy Places situated in Jerusalem. I shall not burden the Council with a great deal of detail, but I have before me an article from The Guardian of London, 27 April 1972, by David Hirst, entitled "Bulldozing through Arab history", a long article in which he states:

"Four days  after Dayan  made  his  proclamation"—a proclamation to the effect that Israel would show respect for the Holy Places—"Israeli bulldozers demolished… 700 years of Moslem history in the shape of the waqf or religious endowment adjoining the Wall,"—the Wailing Wall—"founded by the son of Saladin himself; 135 houses of the lograbi quarter, where 650 beneficiaries of the endowment lived, and two mosques were swept away."

There is considerably more in the article.

39. Ambassador Scranton's second question was, "will the Council's action in practice advance the proper administration of the areas involved?" [ibid.]. All that the Council can do is to remind the parties of their responsibilities, of their obligations, of their  duties, of their commitments under the international instruments which exist, and this is what we seek to do. We have done it before and we have been met with silence and disregard. The least we can do—in operative paragraph   1—is to deplore the fact that Israel has failed "… to put a stop to actions and  policies tending to change the status of the City of Jerusalem and to rescind measures already taken to  that effect".

40. Finally, the representative of the United States asked—and he said, and I agree, that this was the roost important question of all—"will the Council's Action help or hinder the peaceful settlement process, the framework for which was established by resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973)?" [ibid.]. It is the considered view of the five sponsors, a view we hope will be shared by all the members of the Council, that the adoption of the draft resolution which we put TO you will indeed help this process. If there is any delegation which feels that, on the contrary, the adoption of this draft resolution will hinder the peaceful settlement process, we should be very happy to hear in what way it would do so.

41. I said that we are not wedded to any particular and phraseology. We have been responsive and we remain responsive to any constructive ideas, any changes, that any member feels might be necessary or might even be advisable to improve this draft and, if not to improve it, to make it more generally acceptable.

42. I think that we have given affirmative answers and that this draft resolution gives affirmative answers to all three of Mr. Scranton's questions. It embodies the widest measure of agreement obtainable on the specifics of the case we are discussing. It would be more than a pity, it would be more than disappointing; it would be contrary to the political logic of the situation if that agreement fell short of what is necessary for the unanimous adoption of the draft resolution. With these words I commend this draft resolution to the members of the Council in the hope that it will be adopted without dissent.

43. The PRESIDENT (interpretation from French): The next speaker is the representative of Israel, on whom I now call.

44. Mr. HERZOG (Israel): In my initial remarks to the Council [1894th meeting], I dwelt on the abandonment  of the  principles  of natural law in  United Nations practices. I pointed out that the concepts of impartiality in such a hearing as this one had been replaced by the idea that United Nations organs are both prosecutor and judge.

45. An allegation was preferred in connexion with certain alleged events in Jerusalem connected with the Al-Aqsa Mosque. As I pointed out, the allegation was nothing more than a lie and uttered in a mischievous and sinister attempt to incite religious feelings for political purposes. I trust that I convinced at least some of the representatives that indeed we were dealing with a frivolous argument which was completely unsustained by the evidence and was in fact a facetious use of the representatives' time. What is so serious, of course, in this whole debate is the dangerous and sinister purpose behind it all, namely, an attempt to inflame religious opinion throughout the world on the basis of a foul untruth.

46. An attempt was made to condemn Israel, whose Government is in fact protecting the Moslems' rights and whose  Supreme Court has twice upheld the Government's decision. I believe that I convinced some of my colleagues here on this point. In fact, you may have noticed that allegations in this respect have quietly disappeared from the speeches made before this body. Instead, we suddenly find ourselves seized of all sorts of matters irrelevant to the accusation preferred which do not relate in any way whatsoever to the original charges in respect of which this body was hastily summoned. This is in the Orwellian tradition of the Organization: to debate something that never was in the language which Orwell coined, "Newspeak", in which peace is war, love is hate and truth is falsehood. Yes, it may be 1976 outside this building, but the year inside this building is 1984.

47. And now what do we do? This allegation having been proved false,  all forms  of side  issues were introduced, which only goes to prove what I explained to the  Council regarding the real purpose of the frivolous document originally submitted in order to summon this body.

48. What might have been expected of this body if it had been acting in accordance with the principles of natural law—which should of course guide it? In those circumstances, those who had preferred this false charge would have been condemned not only for bringing it before this body and wasting everybody's time but also for a flagrant act of racial and religious incitement calculated to lead to a disturbance of the peace and to inflame passions in a situation fraught with danger.  An impartial body seated as a judiciary, independent of the executive, unimpeded by considerations of expediency would first of all have condemned this disgraceful attempt to falsify the facts, create mischief, encourage religious incitement and do harm in a charged atmosphere today in a manner which is best calculated to bring deterioration and tragedy. This body would then have proceeded, if it had indeed been an impartial judiciary and unimpeded by considerations of expediency, to invite the States parties to the conflict to meet face to face in accordance with Security Council resolution 338 (1973) and come to grips with the issues at stake instead of wasting the time of the Council.

49. Instead, what are you doing? As I pointed out, since three days before I was even given a chance to present our case, you have, in accordance with the incongruous practice which has begun to be accepted as a norm here, even by those who know better, been sitting in judgement and in fact writing the judgement—for that is what the draft resolution is—even before you heard the sides to the case. I protest against this disgraceful behaviour which violates norms of natural law and which is destroying the United Nations. In raising my voice against it, may I express the hope that the enlightened world community will awaken to the dangers inherent in this abhorrent development. To return to the Queen of Hearts, "sentence first, judgement afterwards". Here you are doing it again.

50. The manner in which the United Nations has been dealing with the Middle East problem is a tragedy of major international proportions. Its implications are terrifying and sinister. It should have been acting as a forum the purpose of which is to encourage negotiations, to strive for consensus and compromise, for that is the only manner in which the problem of the Middle East will be resolved. Instead, the United Nations, by allowing itself to be dominated by a group of intransigent extremists whose declared purpose is to fight against any move towards peace, is encouraging dissent instead of accord, intransigence instead of compromise, fanaticism instead of accommodation and conflict instead of peace. By taking a subject which can only be solved by compromise and bringing to it the type of discussion which we are obliged to listen to, the United Nations has been manoeuvred into forefront of those elements that would sabotage every effort in the Middle East towards peace. By the permission given to small groups of irresponsible extremists to dictate to the United Nations, the tragedy of the Middle East conflict is being prolonged.

51. I wish to emphasize in the strongest possible manner that there is no point whatsoever in discussing out of context the territories administered by Israel. Anyone who does so is consciously distorting the picture. Twice before, in 1949 and 1957, we withdrew from territories in the hope that this would encourage our Arab neighbours to move towards peace. We were given undertakings of an international nature at that time. Yet, when the Arabs decided to attack us in 1967, all the undertakings were forgotten. The sanctity of the 1967 borders, which is constantly invoked, was ignored.

52. Our experience led us to the conclusion that withdrawal, accommodation and concession could come only in return for a state of peace. We did not want war in 1967. We did not seek hostilities. We were living behind the 1967 borders. We were attacked and promised  annihilation.   We  will  not  agree  to the creation again of the situation which brought on the the previous wars, or indeed to any compromise unless it is in return for a move towards peace. That we are prepared for this type of advance has been adequately demonstrated in the Israel-Egyptian agreement in the Sinai [S/18181 Add.I of 2 September 1975}.

53. Furthermore, for 19 years, as I pointed out, we sat along the   1967  borders,  which have  suddenly become sacrosanct in the eyes of all and the solution for all evils in the Middle East. Did the Arab States make peace, or even talk peace? No. They made war in 1967. That war, which they made for the avowed purpose—it is all on the record—of throwing us into the  sea and destroying us all,  men,  women and children, to quote them at the time, is what brought; about the present situation whereby we administer these territories. Despite the problems we are proud of our administration of these territories. We are proud of the fact that, despite all the provocation, not once has the death sentence been carried out. We are proud of the fact that we have given a large Palestinian Arab population more freedom in relation to the Government under which they live than any other Arab in the Middle East enjoys. Nowhere in the entire Arab world today, now that the Lebanon has been-I regret—eclipsed to a great degree, is an Arab free to speak, write and vote against the Government of the country in which he lives. Only in Israel is this possible for an Arab. We are proud because in the West Bank and in Gaza, where we are engaged in a daily dialogue with a large Palestinian Arab population, we have consciously created a bridge to the Arab world which has in these weeks stood the test of the disturbances brought about by irresponsible incitement in which this Council meeting has regrettably played a part. Look at the events in the Middle East today, contemplate all that is happening domestically and internationally, and give events their correct proportions.

54. In the disturbances which occurred in parts of the West Bank and which were aroused by religious incitement  sparked  off by  the   story  of Al-Aqsa which has no basis in fact and in which the Government of Israel  was   protecting  Moslem  interests; indeed  nobody was more vociferous and active in pacifying the crowds than the Cadis and religious leaders at Al-Aqsa Mosque;  thanks to them the developments did not get out of hand—a number of salient facts are worthy of note. During these events, the bridges across the Jordan remained open to the movement of thousands of Arabs and others, in both directions, and to two-way trade. Seventy thousand Arab workers crossed daily into Israel, as they do every day to come to work. In no case was the use of firearms authorized. For the unfortunate shooting of a child by an off-duty soldier who fired the shot into the crowd, the soldier has been arrested and arraigned.  As I mentioned two days ago, the total number of wests in the West Bank during this period did not exceed 48.

55. Let us look at the picture in perspective. Despite the  disturbances, no Arab voice was raised in the West Bank calling for a cancellation of the elections. If the Palestinian Arabs want elections, they will be held. If they do not want them, it is up to them. Candidates file on the 29th of this month, namely, next Monday, and elections are scheduled for 12 April.

56.   So let us return the picture, which has been distorted by Arab rhetoric, to its true proportions. Remember that while we have been listening to this purposeless debate a casualty list of over 200 killed was recorded last night in the Lebanon, for a total of approximately 480 since our debate began. And still there is  silence  from  the  Security  Council while tragedy stalks the Lebanon. The Council continues to fiddle while the Lebanon burns.

57.   Not for a moment am I suggesting, or have I ever suggested in the meetings at the United Nations, that there are no problems. Not for a moment are we trying to avoid the issues facing us. They are there for us all to see, and our Government's policy as to their  solution has been made clear time and time again. But,  Mr. President and distinguished members of the Council, can you envisage the solution between parties to a problem without negotiations? Can you envisage any problems being decided without the involved  parties negotiating? Can you envisage any fruitful Development that could possibly emerge from the type of debate which we have heard in this chamber, or in any other chamber in this building? Do you honestly believe that any self-respecting individual, let alone any self-respecting country, would agree to be browbeaten like this and then be expected to make concessions and put its good faith in those who make these statements?

58. Two Arab representatives spoke in the Council chamber yesterday in terms of the destruction of a Member State. The representative of Libya, a member of the Security Council, an organ which is entrusted with the primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, called in this chamber yesterday for the destruction of a Member State. The Charter in Article 23 states:

"The General Assembly shall elect ten other Members of the United Nations to be non-permanent members of the Security Council, due regard being specially paid, in the first instance to the contribution of Members of the United Nations to the maintenance of international peace and security and to the other purposes of the Organization."

What moral standing can the Council have when on it sits a member who can come before it and call for the destruction of a Member State? The representative of Libya stated yesterday, "This racist entity in the Middle East must be destroyed and it will be destroyed one day." [1897th meeting, para. 184.] Yet, let it be recorded that the Security Council remained silent. Can this really be the Security Council of the United Nations?

59. Take the list of the Arab States whose representatives have spoken here. Look at their record, not towards Israel, but one towards the other. Consider for a moment their record of loyalty to their friends, to their fellow Arabs, to the countries that helped them in their hours of stress and need, both militarily and economically. Consider their inter-Arab relations. If I am not mistaken, there is not one treaty that has been signed between Arab countries that has not been broken on one or more occasions. Consider all this, and then in your heart of hearts ask yourselves whether you would recommend to Israel, recommend, indeed, to any country, to make concessions under such conditions. I know that you will not express yourselves, but at least let your true feelings, if not your statements and votes, be tempered by a degree of intellectual honesty when evaluating this situation.

60. Is it not time for the record which is played to us, day in and day out, an evil record of uncompromising hate and intransigent hostility, a record so cracked and worn out by long and constant usage, to be replaced by one emitting sounds of hope and even a small measure of good will?

61. Is it not intellectually degrading to have to sit and listen to this ceaseless outpouring of negation and barren and purposeless vituperation, uttered day in and day out, year in and year out, at times without reference to even the common courtesies applicable in international society? What is the purpose of this uncouth, insulting exhibition to which we are subjected? To  create  goodwill  and  a more  congenial atmosphere between us and our neighbours?

62. What is the purpose of all this? Is it not time that somebody posed that question? I can already hear the stream of rhetoric answering me. Let me make one point quite clear. It does not disturb me, for nothing could explain or justify our attitudes better than the remarks of my Arab colleagues. Indeed, every speech here made by an Arab representative vindicates our stand.  But I just fail to comprehend this bizarre phenomenon.

63. I ask you, Mr. President, does it make sense if one really wants peace to sit and listen to what we have had to listen to day in and day out in this building? Is this the method best calculated to influence us towards accommodation and compromise? What purpose is there in all this hateful exhibition to which we have been witness? Has not the time been reached when the members of the Council should demand, once and for all, an end to this continuous barren diatribe and outpouring of vitriol, which is getting us nowhere   and   is   only   strengthening   intransigence everywhere, and should insist that the parties to the conflict  sit down and discuss and negotiate in a civilized manner? Without this we shall never achieve anything. Why should not the representatives from the Arab countries, instead of vying with each other in levels of hostility, each one straining to outdo the tones of hatred and bitterness of his neighbour, in a futile exercise of one-upmanship, sit down with me to talk over matters, as civilized human beings—how ever hostile one to the other—should do?

64. Will resolutions help? Have they ever helped? Has any international accord been achieved by means of a one-sided resolution, in the drafting of which one of the sides did not even participate, let alone being consulted? Nobody has better summed up this issue than a former representative of the Soviet Union, Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Vyshinsky, who on 29 March 1954 addressed the Council as follows:

"You can submit whatever resolutions you like. But life does not call for resolutions; it calls for decisions which can promote the settlement of important international questions which are still outstanding.

"What is the proper method for this? The method is that of direct negotiation between the interested parties. On one side we have the representative of Israel and on the other the representative of Egypt; they are sitting opposite one another. Let them sit down together at one table and try to settle the questions which the Security Council cannot settle now. I am deeply convinced that they can find a better solution. That is why certain representatives and States show a stubborn disinclination to permit direct negotiations between the interested parties and are trying to interfere in and, unfortunately, to hinder those negotiations." [664th meeting para 95 and 96.]

65. I declare here and now that I am prepared to sit down with each and every one of the ambassadors from the Arab countries to this Organization, in an atmosphere of mutual respect. Let them overcome their difficulties in talking to me. Let the Council, instead of encouraging hatred, intransigence and incitement by its very deliberations, make a simple move forward by recommending that here, at least, we-the Arab representatives and I—should sit down and talk. I am prepared to do so at any moment.

66. I reject the thesis that Israeli occupation of the territories is obstructing the process of peace as a thesis based on an erroneous premise. That is not the main issue. If it was, why was peace not achieved before the territories fell into our hands in 1967?

67. Again I repeat the question I have asked time and again without receiving an answer.  For 19 years, from 1949 to 1967, the West Bank and Gaza were ruled by two Arab countries. What happened to the inalienable rights of the Palestinian Arabs in those years? Why did those Arab countries not do what they are asking Israel to do today? Why did they not accord  the  degree  of local  administration to the Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza which those Arabs enjoy today under Israel? For 19 years you ruled the West Bank and Gaza. What did you do for them? The answer is: nothing. So much for your concern.

68. The issue is not a question of territory, it is not a question of the Palestinian Arabs—although those are both important. It is a question of a change of heart in respect of Israel on the part of the Arab countries, Until that change of heart is achieved, no meaningful advance can really be made.

69. I repeat: at the heart of the conflict lies the Arab refusal to recognize the right of the Jewish nation to self-determination and national sovereignty. I cannot express this problem in a more succinct and incisive manner than did a former President of the General Assembly, Mr. Charles Malik of Lebanon, who said in an interview last year, as reported in the Saturday Review.

"The main essential for peace—indeed the quit-ssential—is the need for the Arab world to accept Israel's existence. [Malik] felt that this is the ultimate issue. Unless and until the Arab peoples have a genuine change of heart the Middle East will vibrate from  one   crisis   to  the   next.   [Malik]   repeated 'change of heart' in order to emphasize his belief that what is required is not just a temporary accommodation or an expedient political manoeuvre, but genuine acceptance of Israel as a State."

70. In our region the Arab nation has realized its sovereignty in 20 States comprising 100 million people in four and a half million square miles, with vast resources. The issue therefore is not whether the will come to terms with Arab nationalism. The question is at what point Arab nationalism, with its prodigious glut of  advantage, wealth and opportunity, will come to terms with the modest but equal rights of another Middle Eastern nation to pursue its life in security and peace.

71. Thus, in conclusion, let me re-emphasize once and for all: If the Arab States want peace they can have it.  We  are  ready  here  and now,  and have always been ready, to negotiate peace. But the operative word is "negotiate". In the course of the protracted struggle in the Middle East, nothing has been achieved without negotiation. On the other hand, no negotiation has ever taken place without something positive being achieved. Why not, therefore, encourage the process of negotiation which has achieved results? We are not ready to be dictated to and we will not accept a dictate. We want peace; we have stretched out our hand in an offer of peace; we are prepared to move towards peace within the framework laid down by Security Council resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973). We are prepared, I repeat, to enter into negotiations with the Arab States at any moment without any preconditions whatsoever. And in such negotiations all States will be free to make whatever proposals they wish to make.

72. We will negotiate only on the basis of a recognition of Israel's sovereign rights. We will not negotiate our own suicide. For that is what withdrawal without concrete moves towards peace means. If the Arab countries are serious about this, let them stop this horrible stream of hate and invective that we hear day in and day out in this building and let them begin to behave like mature nations. I reiterate once again Israel's willingness to begin at any moment negotiations with the Arab States designed to lead to peace,  fully aware of the fact that by their very nature negotiations must be based on mutual respect and compromise. Let the Security Council stop encouraging the type of useless debate which we have heard, move  away from the meaningless resolutions which only  serve the  cause  of intransigents everywhere,  and address itself to the purpose for which it exists, to the purpose of achieving peace.

73. The PRESIDENT (interpretation from French): the next speaker is the representative of Jordan, whom I invite to take a place at the Council table and to make his statement.

74. Mr.   SHARAF  (Jordan):   The  draft  resolution before the Council [S/72022] is a fair and restrained t. It obviously attempts to represent the common position of the members of the Council in the various  shades of their views and approaches, without sacrificing the basic theme. It is moderate and positive. Its basic theme is that of drawing attention to the general situation prevailing in the occupied territories as a result of Israel's occupation, which has lasted for almost a decade, with no peaceful end in sight. It restates principles and provisions of international law which govern the conduct of occupation by any occupying Power towards the civilian inhabitants of the occupied territories and the areas in which they live. It understates—rather than overstating or stating sufficiently—the grave concern of the largest sector of the international community at the Israeli violations of the rights of the people in the territories under occupation since June 1967 and enumerates objectively those violations. But it is a timely and necessary text, regardless of its basic understatement of the case, because the people of the occupied territories need it, because the occupying Power needs it, and because the preservation of the authority and conscience of the United Nations requires it.

75. The inhabitants of the occupied territories need to be told that their plight has not vanished from the consciousness of the world and that their rights still exist and cannot be abridged at the level of the ideals of the United Nations. They need to be reassured categorically and clearly that the Israeli occupation is temporary and transient, that their independence from that occupation is recognized as legitimate and inevitable.

76. Israel needs to be told that it is not above the laws of humanity, that it is not exempt from international accountability, that it is not to be preserved from the requirements of international responsibility simply because it can invoke  some  mystical and mythical  immunity  and can  pressure  others,  particularly in the. West, into silence by threatening to remind them of a latent guilt which is not relevant to the issue before us here.

77. The United Nations needs to act to maintain its moral authority, since so far it has been unable to exercise effective political power to end the occupation and to preserve in the meantime the human rights of those under occupation. As I said on an earlier occasion, the uprising which has taken place in the West Bank and in the rest of the occupied territories sends an urgent and agonized message to the world. It is a message to the nations of the world that the oppression of alien occupation has no place in the present world order. It is a message to the world that the struggle of the people of the world against foreign domination is indivisible. It is a reminder to the powerful and complacent supporters of the aggressor that their policy is deficient, their calculations wrong, and their sense of history absent. The urgency of the message cannot be diluted by Israeli assertions that the situation is normal in the occupied territories, that no aggression has been committed against the Arabs—that the situation is normal and that Israel is in a comprising mood.

78. Least of all can Israel's position be based on anything less than the Orwellian world, about which we were told and lectured by the Israeli representative. In the Orwellian world truth is untruth, justice is injustice, facts are non-facts. If we apply this yardstick we will find that the Israeli representative and his statement and the Israeli positions fit very well into this Orwellian world. For if, according to the Israeli representative, the situation in the occupied territories is normal, then we are living in an Orwellian world. How can the situation be normal when a country occupies a territory three times its size, when that territory is inhabited by over a million people and when the occupation lasts for nearly a decade? How can the situation be regarded as normal and natural when the occupying Power engages in expanding the area which it has officially annexed to become more than 30 per cent of the area of the West Bank which is under occupation?

79. It is an Orwellian world where, when people seek to visit their relatives in the occupied territories, the warden of the prison can claim that he is humane and fair because the relatives are not denied the right to go and visit their relatives in prison. Nor would Israel's assertions about the economic prosperity of the occupied territories pass as anything but Orwellian, for what takes place in the occupied territories economically cannot be isolated from the fact that there are nearly 65 Israeli settlements in the occupied territories and that these have been built during the last nine years.  How can it be regarded as economic prosperity and fairness when the exports of Israel exceed by five times Israel's imports from the occupied territories? When we are told about Israel's objection to the incitement of racial and religious hatreds, is not this again Orwellian? Is not this again an attempt completely to transform the situation? How can people who are under occupation, when they rise up against that occupation, be regarded as racists or as responding to racial incitement? Which is the party that can be characterized as racist: the party which claims a land that is not its own and then descends upon it by force and violence, displaces its people, keeps the rest of them under its military occupation and denies them their rights, and denies the world the right to investigate or look into that situation; or the party which rises up against that occupation  seeking its rights  and asking the world to pay attention to that situation, respond to it effectively, end the occupation and preserve  human rights during that period? Which party is the racist party?

80. Nor can we accept the Orwellian transformation of the facts that is made when Israel claims that the Palestinian people were victims not of Israel but of the Arabs and that the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people should have been exercised within the Arab world rather than against the people which displaced them and at the moment keep them under occupation.

81. Before Israel occupied the West Bank and the Gaza, the Palestinian problem and the inalienable right of the Palestinian people consisted of the right of those who had been forced, by Israel and its violence in 1948, from their homeland to return to their land. The fact that that was not achieved then, the fact that the United Nations could not implement that inalienable   right,   caused   the   continued   hostility between the Arab States and Israel for the 19 years to which the representative of Israel referred. At that time the inalienable right of the Palestinian people consisted of their right to go back to their homes. Between 1967 and today the inalienable right of the Palestinian people has become twofold: it still continues to be their right to go back to their homes in addition,  there is the  right to exercise their self-determination—the ending of the occupation.

82. How is this relevant to inter-Arab relations and how can this be interpreted as a distortion by the Arab side? And, finally, how can we speak of Israel's position regarding a peaceful settlement as one that is fair, just and that offers a compromise, but of the Arab position as intransigent and closed? Which party is, intransigent and closed? Is it the party which says: "All I am asking for is two things: that the occupying Power which at the moment occupies my national, soil end that occupation, and that this party, which has-displaced a nation consisting of hundreds of thousands of people and placed the rest of it under occupation end this abnormal situation"? That would automatically produce a situation of peace in which there would be coexistence and a just and lasting guarantee for future security. Is that the intransigent and totally closed party? Or is it the party which says: "What I aim at in effect is to expand at the expense of the national soil of the other party. I am by right in the land that I occupy and which is inhabited by people who have lived there for hundreds and thousands of years"? Is it the party which says; "Israel cannot have security if it seeks to expand at the expense of our national soil", or the party which seeks security always and exclusively in territorial terms, the party which pursues the policy of advancing its own security by the self-defeating approach of seeking more territory at the expense of the other party?

83. How can that party bring about peace? How can Israel expect the Arabs to reciprocate and say: "We are ready to make peace with you, and to include the cession of our own rights, land and territory and the giving up of our own national soil"? Is it that party, or the party which says: "We are ready to make peace; we are ready to negotiate for a peace; we are ready to accept its guarantees—if you end your illegal occupation brought about by violence on our national soil and respect the rights of our brethren whom you have displaced from their ancestral homeland and kept in exile"?

84. As for the call—personal or official, I do not know—by   the   Israeli   representative   to   the Arab  ambassadors to sit and discuss the issue, it is purely an attempt at creating an Orwellian world again. We are not dealing with procedure; we are dealing with substance. We are not dealing with instruments; we are dealing with ends, aims and goals. People do not sit and talk just for talking sake. They sit and talk so as to arrive at certain results, decided by the concepts  of natural justice—which he himself cited-and considerations of international law.

85. In 1949 the Arab parties sat and negotiated with the Israelis. Some of the Arab parties went to Geneva not long ago and sat down to negotiate. But that did not solve the problem. What would solve the problem  is a decision by the Israeli Government to make a drastic change of heart and of approach by accepting the  rights of the other side. If Israel decided in the context of peace to withdraw from the occupied territories and to accept the inalienable  rights of the Palestinian   people,   including   their   right   to   self-dermination, the problem would not remain one sitting, talking or negotiating. Several Arab parties have said repeatedly that the method by which peace can be brought about is a minor and secondary matter so long as we can agree on the substance and ultimate aims. We cannot sit and talk with a clearly prejudged position that, as a result of that talking, we should give up part or all of our territory. This is the position of the Arab parties.

86. At the same time as the Israeli representatives offer peace  and  negotiation  they  insist on  saying that they will not return to the 1967 borders. How can one reconcile the two positions? I want to have a compromise, provided you make the compromise. I want to negotiate with you, provided I negotiate you out of your rights. I will negotiate with you if will negotiate  with me—all that you have is negotiable; all that I have is not negotiable. That is the situation. That is what brought about the conflict and sustained it for two decades after 1948 and that is what is creating  the   present   stalemate;   and  it  is  the stalemate that the Security Council and the United Nations are called upon to solve decisively. They can solve it by taking strong and unanimous action to influence the intransigent and closed party to accept the requirements of the Charter and of natural justice.

87.  Therefore, the case, as the draft resolution before the Council states—or even understates—is a simple and uncomplicated one. There is an explosive and serious   situation   resulting  from  continued  Israeli occupation.   This   serious   situation   is   made   more explosive by the fact that the occupying Power is engaged in measures and actions aimed at changing the physical, cultural, demographic and religious character of the occupied territories.

88. The heart and soul of the occupied areas, Jerusalem, is suffering an immediate and direct  threat. It is being changed beyond recognition by Physical and other means, and its status as occupied territory is being ignored and attacked daily by these If We assures and by its annexation to Israel and its absorption—physically, demographically, administratively and legislatively.

89. In this draft resolution Israel is called upon to refrain from continuing with such policies and practices and to rescind measures undertaken to that effect. There is nothing in the text before the Council which is not factual or reasonable. There is reason to believe that such a moderate but unequivocal text would be unanimously supported by all members of the Council. This is dictated by the logic of the Charter, by the imperatives of wise judgement and by the requirements of consistency in policy of all members of the Council on the issues contained in the document. There is no reason to believe that any member of the Council would fail to stand by such a clear position of principle. Any failure to do so would be most unexpected and would be a failure to express respect for the Charter and its moral imperatives and would amount to an invitation to the people under occupation to despair of the peaceful channels of political settlement and to intensify their violent resistance.

90. We in Jordan have a deep emotional involvement with the hopes and agonies of the people of the occupied territories. For decades we have had ties of  fact and of feeling with the people in the areas under occupation. Our soldiers have spilled their blood to maintain intact what they could of Palestine and to continue to defend it as much as they could against the brutal expansionist force from the west. There is hardly a family in Jordan east of the river that has not lost a son in the battle for Palestine and for its people.

91. The people of Jordan joined their destiny with that of the Arabs of the West Bank. The echoes of pain in Jerusalem and Ramallah, in Nablus and Al-Khalil, in Jericho and Tulkarm, touch the heart of every Jordanian. We have striven since June 1967 to bring about an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories so that the people would exercise their right of self-determination. We join the rest of the Arab world in this effort. We hope that the whole world will join in the effort so that a peaceful Middle East can ultimately emerge from the present turmoil. It is necessary that the Council take action today that would push the cause of peace in the Middle East one step forward. All nations in the Council must join in this action. It is necessary for the cause of peace in the Middle East. It is necessary for the cause of world peace. It is indispensable for the credibility of the United Nations as an institution. It is equally necessary for the credibility of every individual member of the Council which has pronounced itself in favour of peace in the Middle East and the cause of human rights.

92. The PRESIDENT (interpretation from French): The list of those wishing to speak on the draft resolution is exhausted. Before we proceed to the vote on the  draft resolution, I shall call upon those representatives who wish to explain their votes before the vote.

93. Mr. SCRANTON (United States of America): I want once more to recognize and appreciate the comments that three or four of the representatives made this morning in giving me a warm welcome to the Council, and I am indeed grateful for their very kind remarks. This reminds me, incidentally, that their comments were in some contrast to the welcome I had outside the Council today. I dare say I have now written a new record for representatives to the Council, one I think nobody else can match, by having a demonstration requesting my ouster almost before I have sat down.

94. I should also like to say to the representative of Pakistan how much I appreciate the comments he made to me in a very quiet and deliberate way a few moments ago, quoting some of the comments I made on behalf of my Government on Tuesday. I shall try to respond and explain our vote in the same quiet and deliberate way, briefly.

95. The representative of Pakistan has quoted the three tests I laid out in that intervention on Tuesday, and I shall not repeat them. But they are the tests that have been carefully measured by my Government, and when I say "carefully" I mean just that. We have carefully measured the draft resolution now before members against these criteria and have concluded that it fails to meet them, especially because it reflects or implies judgement which on balance does not correspond to the actual situation in the area. Parts of the draft resolution, for example, are based on the judgement that Israel is persisting in a policy aimed at changing the religious character of the city of Jerusalem. We believe, my Government and I, that this conclusion is incorrect. Quite to the contrary. we think that Israel's administration of the Holy Places in Jerusalem has literally and actively minimized tensions.

96. Finally, and I think this extremely important, the Council will remember that one of the tests was whether the Council's action would help or hinder the peaceful settlement process. On Tuesday I said that my Government has committed itself to do all it can to bring about a settlement. We take a back seat to no nation in this regard. We are. as I said then, engaged at this moment in an effort to regain momentum in the negotiating process that has brought some unusual progress, and I think it is fair to say that there has been more progress in this effort than in anything that has been undertaken since the 1967 war, although we are as aware as everyone else that there must be more.

97. It is our belief and our strong feeling that this draft would  not  help  in that  peaceful  settlement process.  And therefore, because in our judgement the draft fails to meet the tests which I brought to the Council's attention on Tuesday, the United States will vote "no".

98. Mr. VINCI (Italy): I should like to say a few words in explanation of the affirmative vote my delegation will cast on the draft resolution contained in document S/12022. Our vote must be seen in the of the views I expressed yesterday in this debate [1897th meeting]. I trust that I made our position clear on the issue at stake, and therefore I do not deem it necessary to go into the substance of the matter again.

99. The draft resolution is quite clearly the result of a commendable effort by our non-aligned colleagues in the Council. Their efforts deserve to be acknowledged for the successful achievement of existing excessive language from the original text and making the final draft less unbalanced. I wish, in this connexion, to pay a tribute to all the sponsors for the spirit of understanding and accommodation they have shown in this case, as in previous cases, in taking into account the positions and opinions of many delegations, including my own.

100. However, in regard to the practices of the Israeli authorities in the occupied Arab territories I wish to state along the lines of what I said yesterday that the local populations naturally resent and oppose that occupation. It is an occupation that can be regretted, as we certainly regret it, but it is, in our view really overstretching the imagination to equate these practices with "Hitlerite atrocities" as some speakers have done in this chamber. We believe that, in spite of circumstances, in spite of some actions, regrettable as they may be, the Israeli presence, while making its imprint on the occupied territories, has managed not to deviate—at least in intention, if not always in practice—from the standards and values of its of its own society. The Israeli authorities in the occupied territories—unfortunately for the local Arab population and for them also—cannot escape some actions necessitated by their responsibilities following a prolonged occupation. As was rightly pointed out this morning by the representative of Tanzania—and I am paraphrasing his words—foreign occupation automatically generates opposition, and the longer the occupation the greater becomes the opposition, the greater the resistance of the local population.

101. That is why—and this is my final comment, which is in line with what I said yesterday—we hope more than ever that, in the interests of the local population and in the interests of Israel itself, the causes that tend to perpetuate that military occupation will be removed as soon as possible, and this could be done, as far as we can see, only by the early implementation of all the provisions contained in resolution 242 (1967) and the recognition of the rights of the Palestinian people.

102. Mr. LECOMPT (France) (interpretation from French): My delegation will vote in favour of the draft resolution before the Council, which reflects the concerns I expressed in my statement of 23 March [1895th meeting]. In the provisional situation which, in our view, as well as in the view of the international community, is that existing in the occupied territories and in Jerusalem, the occupying Power has the duty to respect the status quo in accordance with international law and particularly in accordance with the Geneva Conventions, which is constantly recalled in resolutions of the Organization.

103. All unilateral measures which might be taken are without validity and cannot change the future.  the future may emerge only from negotiations among all parties to seek a settlement in which withdrawal from occupied Arab territories is one of the fundamental elements. In particular, the creation of settlements in occupied territories represents a violation of the provision of the fourth Geneva Convention.  It is also a mistake in that it raises new obstacles  on the road to a settlement. This is a point I wish to stress. It is something that has been demonstrated, and we must call upon the Israeli authorities to give up their plans to establish a deep-water port in the south of the Gaza territory, as was mentioned by the representative of Egypt [ibid.].

104. In conclusion, we should like to pay a tribute to the, delegations of the non-aligned countries and to the delegation of Pakistan, which once again have made a considerable contribution to our work. We acknowledge their efforts, particularly the efforts to take into account the views that we put to them.

105. In our view, the text which is before us represents a praiseworthy effort to deal with an extremely sensitive matter by discarding any pointless summary  blame. The provisions in the resolution are a reiteration, in firm but not polemical terms, of the principles with which the occupying Power must bring its actions in Jerusalem and in the occupied territories into line. My delegation hopes that the Israeli delegation, which we are pleased to have heard and seen here, will see in it an urgent appeal to wisdom and to reason, which we feel can serve as a felicitous conclusion to this meeting of the Council.

106. The PRESIDENT (interpretation from French): As no other representatives wish to speak, I take it that the Council is prepared to proceed to a vote on the draft resolution contained in document S/12022. I shall put it to the vote.

A vote was taken by show of hands.

In favour: Benin, China, France, Guyana, Italy, Japan, Libyan Arab Republic, Pakistan, Panama,  Romania, Sweden, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern  Ireland, United Republic of Tanzania.

Against: United States of America.

The result of the vote was 14 in favour and I against.

The draft resolution was not adopted, the negative I vote being that of a permanent member of the Council.

107. Mr.  KIKHIA (Libyan Arab Republic):  First I should like to say a few words concerning the allegations of the representative of Israel. I want to say that the Zionist entity in the Arab land is a strange entity. By its very nature it is racist, expansionist and terrorist. I said that as long as Israel, the Zionist entity created by a colonial occupation, is racist and expansionist, it will not live in our midst. I did not say that the Jews would not live in our midst. We accept all the Jews who want to live in our Arab lands, but never a racist, expansionist  entity,  which will  be destroyed,  not necessarily from the outside, but perhaps from the inside by its very nature.

108. Secondly, I should like to say that Libya voted for the draft resolution submitted by our brothers from Benin, Guyana, Pakistan, Panama and Tanzania, in spite of the fact that it did not respond to all the requirements of the Libyan delegation. We did so in a spirit of accommodation and because our brothers who submitted the draft spent a great deal of time and effort in trying to accommodate other members. They also hoped to accommodate the United States, so that the Council could conclude its deliberations with a resolution  concerning  the  serious  situation  in  the occupied Arab territories.

109. However, the United States voted "no". Maybe the photograph of Ambassador Scranton raising his hand in voting against the draft resolution will be a good thing in an election year.

110. When I welcomed Ambassador Scranton the other day—and I shall speak about the vote of the United States, because it was an important vote, it was a veto—I said:

"… Ambassador Scranton arrives preceded by his excellent reputation as a man of great integrity, high morality and statesmanship. I hope that as a devoted son of his great nation he will contribute to the furthering of peaceful understanding and cooperation between his country and our developing nations and help to shape American policy in the real and genuine interest of his country, as well as in the interest of peace and justice in the world. We hope that that super-Power, the United States of America, in its bicentennial year, will be guided by a new light. We promise Mr. Scranton our full co-operation to achieve these goals and we wish him good luck." [1893rd meeting, para. 27.]

111. When we said that, we did not really expect that the United States would depart from its policy of commitment to the Zionist entity and to Zionist aggression in one day. We know that the change of a representative or a change of style does not mean that a policy has changed. Indeed, it is very important to establish better relations between human beings representing the different policies of their respective countries. It is very important to establish a humane and understanding approach between us. But what is more important is to change our policies to better and more just ones, because in the end we are all representatives of our Governments and their policies, good or bad.

112. We cannot say that we are happy that Ambassador Scranton initiated his activities in the Council with a negative action and a negative position. The negative United States vote in fact confirmed and aggravated once again the isolation of the United States and its hostile position regarding our Arab people and the just cause of our Palestinian brothers. We know that the American establishment is under tremendous pressure from the Zionists and their supporters,    their   blackmail   and   their   propaganda, especially in this election year. But in our view that does not justify and must not justify the unjust and destructive policy of the United States.

113. But I think that that negative United States vote is in the final analysis salutary and beneficial because it will dismiss any illusions about a possible change or even slight amelioration of American policy following the change of style or the change of person. In fact, the negative vote of the United States confirms—and I have stated this in the General Assembly and in the Council—the deep relationship between the establishment in America and Zionism, and particularly the sensitivity of the American authorities with respect to anything that might affect the Zionist entity from near or far, and that the defence of the Zionist entity is  put before the  defence of the interests of the American people itself. That is not new. We recall that recently, when Mr. Kissinger spoke of withdrawing assistance from the United Nations at the time we first spoke of expelling the Zionist entity from   the   Organization,   the   American   press   and congressmen competed to support the Zionist entity, and on many occasions did so not through conviction but through fear of Zionist influence on American political life.

114. I should like to recall for the record what was printed in The New York Times of 8 August 1975. These are extracts from what was said by some Congressmen:

"Another Democratic Senator said he would talk about the Israel lobby, but only in the background 'because they can deliver votes and they control a lot of campaign contributions. That's why I can't go on the record, or I'd be dead.

" 'It is the strongest lobby' he went on, adding: 'It doesn't dilute its strength by lobbying on other issues. A lot of the members resent it, but they don't feel they can do anything about it. That lobby wants to do Congress's thinking on Israel. They don't want any independent judgements.

" 'Last spring the Israel lobby rounded up those 76 Senators to sign the petition backing Israel,' another member of the Congress recalled, adding:

'A lot of guys said they were afraid not to sign even though they didn't want to. Some of them *^ told me it was the last time they would sign such™ petition. But if another one comes, I'll bet they'll be just as scared of the lobby and sign up But don't quote me by name.' "

115. The vote of the United States has confirmed this fact. It is indeed very unfortunate and regrettable that those who support this policy are the elite of American universities  and among the intellectuals and here I include Mr. Kissinger himself. We are fully convinced that the people of the United States will know the truth one day and will understand the real nature of the Zionists and their manoeuvres. If the intellectual elite to which I am referring were to talk about the problems of the third world and the Zionist objectively and sincerely, and if it were to enable the American people to understand and see both sides of the various questions and issues involved, we believe that the American giant would rid itself of these bad spirits. And we hope that will happen very soon.

116. The United States has bolstered the Israeli economy, supplying it with conventional and sophisticated weapons. The Arabs have suffered and continue to suffer from this unholy alliance between the Zionist regime and the formidable American might. The unjust and unlimited United States commitment to the Zionist cause constitutes the main obstacle to the formulation of a just and lasting peace in our region. Relations between the United States establishment and the Zionists have even become embarrassing to many Americans. The United States authorities are particularly sensitive to any development that could potentially challenge the Zionist entity. Some of those authorities—and   I   do   not   exaggerate—view  this defence of Zionist interests as more important, as I said, than the defence of their American interests.

117. Because of this unlimited support of zionism, the United States has created hostile and bitter relations with all the Arab nations and with most of the Arab leaders. Because of this commitment, the United States has threatened and insulted the United Nations. Responsible United States authorities have employed strong language and taken tough measures, as they say, against the countries of the third world. In reality, the United States, together with the Zionist regime, desires a return of the third world to a subservient position of obedience and allegiance.

118. On this occasion I should like to mention an issue which I mentioned earlier in the General Assembly. Our problem is with the United States Government and the United States establishment rather than we the American people and nation. We hope that one day soon the American people will stop to consider the sufferings  inflicted upon the  Arab nation by the United States governing establishment. We are fully convinced that the people of the United States will know the truth one day and will understand the very nature of zionism and discover the true dimensions of the catastrophic United States involvement in the Middle East.

119. Mr. OVINNIKOV (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) (interpretation from Russian): The draft resolution submitted to the Council was of ka moderate, I would say, an extremely moderate nature.  Its major advantage was that it expressed, as it seemed, the general opinion to the effect that, even if we could not come to an agreement on a maximum, there was at least a certain minimum which could not be contravened by Israel, a State which for almost nine years now has been occupying Arab lands.

120. The fact that even such a minimum does not exist, in the opinion of one delegation, is an alarming signal.  This signal is especially alarming in the light of the statement of the representative of Israel which we just heard.  The gist of this statement was that Israel intends to prolong its occupation of Arab lands and that it intends to continue its criminal practices there.  The representative of Israel stated here that Israel does not intends to continue its criminal practices there.  The representative of Israel stated here that Israel does not intend to be guided by anything but what he called natural law.  But there is another name for this nature law, that is the jungle.

121. Against this background, a legitimate question arises. How can Israel preach and follow the law of the jungle? Another question arises: What is the even-handed policy in the Middle East, of which we have heard so much recently?  Does it not consist in saying one thing and in fact doing exactly the opposite?

122. The PRESIDENT (interpretation from French): The next speaker is the representative of the Palestine Liberation Organization, on whom I now call.

123. Mr. TERZI (Palestine Liberation Organization): At the outset, I wish to express our gratitude for the 14 positive votes that were cast for the draft resolution, a result which in itself is a great victory for a great event.  The isolation of the Government of the United States was very clearly manifested.

124. When the Council invited the Palestine Liberation Organization on 22 March, we made it very clear in our statement that we placed high hopes in the Council. We said then:

"This Council is responsible. It must exercise its powers, powers conferred upon it by the Charter, powers cited in Article 36 or any other Article.  It is up to the Council to exercise its authority to fulfil its responsibility. " [1893rd meeting, para. 68]

we also said then that the cause of all that was going on was occupation that it was in that context that "the Council should view the present situation", and that a "remedy should be sought through the elimination of the cause, namely, termination of occupation, the sooner the better" [ibid., para. 66.]

125. However, our colleagues from the non-aligned countries, after very hard work did succeed in the task of producing a draft resolution which, in our opinion, is less than moderate, but in the Security Council one cannot achieve all aims. Yet, despite all of that, once again the Council has been prevented by the tyranny of the veto from adopting that draft resolution. But this is not really surprising; the negative vote was the vote of the United States Government.

126. In December 1975, that same Government had vetoed a draft resolution [S/11898] condemning the Zionist entity for its unwarranted and premeditated attack on  Lebanon.   In  that  attack,   100  innocent civilians died and hundreds of others suffered injuries as  the  result  of bombing  by  United  States-made planes piloted by Zionists who dropped United States- supplied bombs on innocent and peaceful civilians. The Council then, by an overwhelming majority, gave a positive vote. Yet the tyranny of the United States veto obstructed that vote.

127. Again in January the Government of the United States prevented the Council from adopting a draft resolution [S/11940] affirming our inalienable national rights comprising our right to return to our homeland, self-determination and independence in our Palestinian homeland. But, as was said then, and I shall say it again now, veto or no veto, it goes without saying that our national rights in Palestine are inherent. They derive their validity neither from recognition by other Powers nor from resolutions.

128. Today the United States Government has again utilized the tyranny of the veto, but we are not disillusioned, for the United States Government, which was instrumental in the creation and maintenance of Zionist colonialism and aggression and which is equally responsible for the continuing wars, bloodshed, misery and turmoil, is still determined to perpetuate this perilous situation in the Middle East and in the world.

In his statement on 23 March, the representative of the United States Government said:

"Events have taken place over the last several years which have deeply hurt us all: terrorist raids and equally senseless retaliations and reprisals. These and other events have meant human killing, and a good deal of it, and last but by no means least, very intense and very wide-spread human suffering. It seems to me that it is our responsibility in this international body not to add fuel to those fires as they individually or collectively arise, but to do everything we can to lessen tensions, to deal with facts, and to help in every way possible to bring peace there and everywhere else in the world." [1896th meeting, para. 54.]

He added:

"So long as the situation persists"—and I repeat the word "persists"—"we can expect continuing tension and occasional violence, however much we might and must regret it." [Ibid., para. 60.]

He also referred to the religious situation and said:

"The deep religious attachment of Moslems, Jews and Christians to the Holy Places of Jerusalem has added a uniquely volatile element to the tensions that inhere in an occupation situation." [Ibid., para. 65.]

129. The representative of the United States listed three tests by which his Government would evaluate any resolution presented to it. Naturally, each Government uses its own yardstick and criteria. However, we have been told that the negative vote of the United States Government is based on the inclusion of the expression "Israel persists"—and the word "persists" comes from his statement—"in its policy aimed at changing the  physical,  cultural,  demographic  and religious character of the City of Jerusalem". This is a nice pretext, but a poor one.

130. Ambassador Scranton spoke of the different forms of reception he had met inside the Council and outside. We are aware of the slanderous campaign of distortion launched against the statement made by the United States representative in the Council on 23 March, a campaign of distortion, yet a campaign that had left its impact. And one wonders, why this negative vote of the Government of the United States? Or I wonder—and here I return to a statement, already mentioned during this debate, about Mr. Churchill's having, when in opposition, accused the then incumbent Prime Minister of turning the Mother of Parliaments into a public convenience—does the Government of the United States wish to turn the Council into a public convenience during the election year?

131. The PRESIDENT (interpretation from French): The next speaker is the representative of the Syrian Arab Republic, and I invite him to take a place at the Council table and to make his statement.

132. Mr.   ALLAF   (Syrian   Arab  Republic):   The unanimous conclusion which emerges from this latest debate on the situation in the occupied Arab territories is that Israel's illegal occupation of those territories must immediately come to an end. Military occupation by force is a continued act of aggression against the political and human rights of the Arab inhabitants and a constant violation of the principles of the Charter of the United Nations and the principles of international law.

133. Israel's type   of  occupation   is   particularly inhuman and cruel because it is designed to achieve permanent usurpation of the occupied Arab territories through the progressive alteration of their physical, demographic, cultural and religious character. The feverish manner in which Israel is implanting more and more  new settlements in the territories under its occupation is clear proof of its colonialist, expansionist and racist nature. For, while the indigenous Arab Palestinians were uprooted and driven away from the territory in which they and their ancestors had lived for so many centuries, the Zionists are resorting to everything they can possibly resort to in order to gather in hundreds of thousands of Jews from every corner of the world and to settle them in the land usurped and expropriated from its legitimate Arab owners.

134. The Zionists have attempted in the past to justify their 1967 aggression against Syria, Egypt and what remained of Palestine by claiming the necessity of ensuring the security of their kibbutzim and settlements along the armistice line of 1949. After 1967, however, they established more new settlements, in various parts of the freshly usurped territories, particularly along the new, 1967 cease-fire lines. Claiming now that their new settlements in the Golan, the West Bank, Gaza and Sinai would be threatened if they withdrew their forces from the territories they occupied in  1967,  they are blocking every effort towards a peaceful solution and persisting in their refusal to comply with United Nations resolutions, using the same old pretext of security considerations.

135. If this state of affairs is permitted to go on, it is not excluded that Israel will resort once again to aggression against the Arab countries, occupying new territories under the pretext of the need to protect the present Israeli settlements on the existing cease-fire lines, establishing more settlements in the most recently occupied areas, resorting to further occupation in order to protect the latest series of settlements, and so on, without any end to this vicious circle.

136. Israel's occupation of the Arab territories is, then, unjustified and illegal. That was the most important fact confirmed in the present debate. Zionism desecration and aggression against the Moslem holy places and shrines have been only one of the aspects of the consequences of Israel's illegal occupation of the Arab territories. The Arab inhabitants of Palestine and other occupied Arab territories cannot accept the perpetuation of the alien occupation of their territories.  They are entitled,  under the Charter and all the principles of international and humanitarian law, to resist the foreign military occupation with all the means at their disposal. They are supported in their just struggle against the Zionist colonialist occupation by the overwhelming majority of the nations of the world.

137. The United Nations in general and the Security Council in particular must fulfill their responsibilities under the Charter and impose a speedy end to Israel's illegal occupation of the Arab territories.

138. The draft resolution just vetoed was the very minimum the Council could have done at this stage to try to stop the suffering endured by the Arab population as a result of Israeli occupation and Israel's  illegal and repressive measures against that population.  We believed that the crimes committed by Israel against the Arab people in the occupied territories should have been condemned in a much stronger manner, because any lack of firmness or determination might be misinterpreted by the Israeli aggressor as a sign of weakness by the international community or condonation of Israel's aggressive and illegal practices. However, we understand the reasons which led the sponsors of this draft resolution to accommodate various, sometimes exaggerated, changes and amendment order to secure the widest possible support for the draft resolution and thus enhance its moral significance and implications.

139. But once again a lone hand was raised in the Council chamber. It is very regrettable indeed to see the same super-Power which claims, that it is seeking a just and peaceful solution to the Middle East conflict going once again so far as to sabotage and block otherwise unanimous international effort to reduce tension in the region, to put an end to the suffering of its inhabitants and thus to pave the way to the establishment of a really just and lasting peace.

What is in this draft resolution that the United States could possibly use this time as a pretext for its veto, or that it could have used even for an abstention? Did not the United States representative himself say that occupation of territories in 1967 has always considered as "an abnormal state of affairs" [1896th meeting, para 61]?  Did not the United States representative affirm in his statement, that

"the presence of [the Israeli] settlements is seen by my Government as an obstacle to the success of the negotiations for a just and final peace between Israel and its neighbours" [ibid., para. 68]?

141. A while ago, the representative of the United States used as a pretext and justification for his veto the allegation that, if adopted, the draft resolution would have hindered the efforts towards peace. But earier in this series of meetings he said that what was  hindering these efforts towards peace was the establishment of the Israeli settlements in the occupied territories. Now he considers the request by the Council to Israel to cease establishing new settlements as a hindrance to peace. How can one hinder peace by requesting the cessation of the establishment of settlements which the united States representative himself said constituted an obstacle on the road to peace?

142. The United States representative set forth the conditions in which the United States could accept the draft resolution. It now is very clear that those conditions were put forward in such a way as to justify the United States veto, no matter what—I repeat, no matter what—words or phrases would have been used in the draft resolution.

143. He said the first condition is that what is in the draft resolution should be based on and should correspond to the actual situation in the occupied territories. If you turn again to the draft resolution, you will see that it really corresponds to the facts. It says that Israel is altering the demographic, cultural, political and religious character of the occupied territories. But this was stated by the United States representative himself. It says also that Israel is establishing settlements in the occupied territories. This again was mentioned by the United States representative and was considered by him illegal. The draft merely requests Israel to cease these illegal acts and these illegal measures tending to alter the nature and status of Jerusalem and the occupied territories.

144. The same thing may be said also about the second  condition—whether  the   Council  action  in practice advanced the proper administration of the areas  involved.  If the  draft resolution  had  been adopted, of course that would have advanced the proper administration of the areas involved, because then  the  occupier  would  have  been  unanimously requested by the Council to cease any illegal acts and not to take any action which would hinder their proper administration. But the blocking of that draft by the misuse and abuse of the veto will not help to ensure or secure the proper administration.

145. The last, and most important, condition was: would the Council action help or hinder the peaceful settlement process? That is the most important of all. If the Council had unanimously deplored the action of Israel and requested Israel not to establish settlements and not to alter the physical, cultural, demographic and political character of the occupied territories, of course Israel would have been obliged to comply   with   that   resolution—at  least   this   time, because it would have been a unanimous resolution of all the members of the Council.  And if Israel complied with that resolution, then no more settlements would be established and the old settlements would be dismantled, and the laws enacted and the measures taken by Israel in contravention of the status of Jerusalem and the other occupied territories would be abolished. And since all these measures to alter the characteristics of the occupied territories were considered, even by the representative of the United States, as blocking the way towards settlement, the logical conclusion would be that, if the draft resolution had been adopted, it would have paved the way towards a just and lasting settlement in the Middle East.

146. But the bitter fact is there; it was stated before. How many times now have we seen the United States isolated and isolating itself beside the isolated aggressor, which is Israel? We wonder how in future the United States will dare pretend that it is mediating in the Middle East and is unbiased, when on several successive   occasions   it   has   blocked   each   draft resolution, whether it contained the basic and essential elements for the establishment of a just peace in the region, or whether it simply requested that the aggressor cease its aggression and refrain from establishing new faits accomplis in the occupied territories.

147. As for the Zionist representative, I think what we heard from him before the vote on the draft resolution was just a new series of the customary, usual lies and falsifications that are repeated every time the representative of Israel takes the floor. I will not, of course, discuss those lies; it is very late. But I will confine my remarks to one or two of them in order to prove that if the representative of Israel, who has repeated certain allegations several times during this speech, was lying when he repeated those allegations, then of necessity, as usual, he was lying throughout his speech, as well as in previous speeches.

148. He kept repeating that Israel was attacked by the Arabs in  1967, but he has chosen the wrong argument. Everyone knows now that the Israeli war of aggression of 5 June 1967 is a fact admitted even by the Israelis themselves. It is also a fact that the late,   great  leader  of France,   General  de  Gaulle, imposed an embargo on Israel just because Israel had started the aggression of 1967; and General de Gaulle and the great Government of France, I think, were in a very good position to know who the aggressor was and who started the aggression. But I will quote from the statements of the Israeli authorities themselves:

"Sixteen years' planning had gone into those initial 80 minutes,"—meaning the 80 minutes of the attack on 5 June 1967 against the Arab countries—"We lived with the plan; we slept on the plan; we ate the plan. Constantly we perfected it."

That is the statement of Brigadier General Mordecai Hod, Commander of the Israeli air force in July 1967. The plan of the aggression in 1967 was practised and repeated and rehearsed for 16 years. Furthermore, General Rabin, who is now the head of the Israeli Government represented here, said:

"I do not believe that Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent into Sinai on 14 May would not have been enough to unleash an offensive against Israel. He knew it, and we knew it."

Furthermore, the report of the Secretary-General pointed out those who had provoked and prepared the war of aggression of 1967:

"In recent weeks… reports emanating from Israel have attributed to some high officials in that State statements so threatening as to particularly inflammatory in the sense that they could only heighten emotions and thereby increase tensions on the other side of the lines." [S/7896 of 19 May 1967, para. 8.]

So Israel started the war of aggression of 1967; Israel was planning that war for so many years. And the Zionist representative dares come here and say the Arabs had attacked them in 1967, and Israel was only responding.

149. The other lie which was repeated several times by the Zionist representative is that they want negotiations as a means of ensuring peace.  He said: "I am ready to meet with all the Arab ambassadors and sit with them to negotiate about peace."

150. Who is blocking negotiations towards a real peace? He said that he is ready to negotiate with the parties. Who is the main interested party in the Middle East conflict? Everybody knows now. The Security Council agreed on this during its previous debates The  United  Nations  has  adopted resolutions confirming this reality. The overwhelming majority of nations have  reaffirmed, time and again, that the Middle East conflict is the result of the Palestinian question and that the people of Palestine is the main interested party in the Middle East conflict. So let us not hear those lies.

151. I challenge the representative of the Zionist regime to declare here in this Council that he is ready to meet the representative of the Palestine Liberation Organization,  the  representative of the Palestinian people, and discuss peace with him. That would be the only proof of Israel's sincerity in what it claims.

152. But as representatives know, Israel does not want peace. Israel wants to usurp all the territories under its occupation. It has been known to all representatives here and to all the nations of the world all along that Israel has blocked each and every effort right from the beginning—the resolutions of the United Nations, the efforts of the wise African leaders, the mediation efforts of Mr. Jarring, and even the unilateral efforts of the United States. The Geneva Conference was blocked by what? By the insistence of Israel not to discuss directly and to the point the real problem, which is the establishment of a just and lasting peace, with the participation of all the interested parties based on its complete withdrawal from all the Arab territories   and   its   recognition   of  the  inalienable national rights of the Palestinian people.

153. Even during the Security Council debate last January, when the Council had before it a draft resolution embodying those two basic preconditions, for peace—total withdrawal by Israel from all the occupied Arab territories and  recognition of the  inalienable national  rights  of the  Palestinian  people—and in addition the right of every State in the region to live in peace, even with those comprehensive elements Israel boycotted the Council meetings, and the super Power which is protecting Israel vetoed that draft resolution.

154. The   Arabs   want  peace.   They   are  sincere because they are the victims of aggression. But they  want peace with justice; they want peace, but not kneeling at the feet of the occupiers. That will never happen. The revolt and uprising of the Arab inhabitants in the occupied territories and the struggle of the Arab countries and the Palestinian people to liberate their  territory never  cease»  whether  or  not  Israel remains alone in its isolation or has found the United States to console it in its isolation.

155. The PRESIDENT (interpretation from French): I invite the representative of Egypt to take a place at the Council table and to make his statement.

156. Mr. ABDEL MEGUID (Egypt): Mr. President, I thank you for giving me the floor again. Be assured I will try to be brief.

157. This evening the Israeli representative engaged the time of the Council — which, allegedly, he was very anxious to save — in acrobatic semantics in an attempt to justify the unjustifiable actions of the Israeli authorities in the occupied territories. He has qualified most of the statements made in the Council as "lies" and falsifications". It seems that the Israeli representative is a good student of Goebbels' propaganda, based on invented lies repeated over and over in the hope that perhaps some simple-minded persons will eve him.

158. But his attempts have failed. The Council knows the facts of the situation and cannot be an easy victim of Israeli propaganda methods. Whatever he tries, he cannot hide the fact that there is a popular uprising in the occupied territories against Israeli occupation. those are the same people he claims are happy under Israeli occupation and enjoying the blessings of the so-called Israeli democracy. All of us sitting around this table know what kind of democracy an occupying foreign Power would bring to an oppressed people.

159. I assure the members of the Council that I have no intention whatsoever of refuting all the allegations in that statement; indeed, I do not need to because  the facts are clear to all; they speak for themselves.  However, it may be opportune at this moment to refer to the question of the Egyptian administration of Gaza. As is well known to all of us, in 1955 Gaza. was administered by Egypt in accordance with a constitution. That constitution was decided on for the territory. It specified that Gaza forms an integral part Palestine and established a legislative body composed of elected members. It established also an executive council of 11 members, as well as an independent judiciary.

160. Let me repeat what I said here on 23 March:

"Furthermore, if the Israeli representative is so sure about his claim that the people of Gaza and other parts of the occupied territories are content with Israeli rule, why did his Government bar the Special Committee on the investigation of Israeli practices from visiting the occupied territories and verifying the situation for themselves? I dare him to say yes if he is so sure that the people in Gaza… are happy with Israeli occupation. What about the reports and decisions of the Commission on Human Rights, the Red Cross, Amnesty International, church leaders, distinguished correspondents, even the Israeli Human Rights Commission and many others? If the Israeli representative is so sure, let him invite the Special Committee." [1895th meeting, para. 34.]

161. I should like to take this opportunity to express Egypt's deep regret and disappointment that the Council failed to adopt the draft resolution sponsored by non-aligned countries because of the veto cast by the United States.

162. I should like to seize this opportunity to assure our brothers and sisters in Jerusalem and the rest of the occupied territories that Egypt stands with them in their struggle against Israeli occupation and repression. The battle is one and indivisible. History has always taught that, whatever the obstacles and difficulties, the people with their resistance attain victory in the end. Occupation cannot last against the will of the people, and the Israeli occupation is no exception.

163. In spite of the Council's failure to adopt this draft resolution, it is evident that the overwhelming majority of its members condemn the Israeli policy and measures in the occupied territories.

164. One last word of advice and, at the same time, warning to Israel.  As I said in my statement on 22 March:

"There can be no escaping the fact that if Israel persists in its present policy of brutal repression and coercion, then it will be solely responsible for the deterioration of the situation in the Middle East and the disruption of the processes of peace." [1893rd meeting, para, 95.}

I said also:

"Egypt will remain steadfast in its opposition to Israeli threats and policies against our people in the occupied territories, especially in the West Bank" [ibid., para. 96].

165. It is thus evident that the Israeli policy is doomed to failure. Whatever it tries to accomplish through repressive   measures,   shootings,   massive   arrests, expropriation of land, new settlements—all that will fail one day against the will and resistance of the people of the occupied territories.

The meeting rose at 8.25 p.m.