Threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts – Resumed SecCo meeting – Verbatim record (Excerpts)

Security Council
Sixty-third year

6034th meeting
Tuesday, 9 December 2008, 3 p.m.
New York

 

Agenda

  

Threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts 

 Letter dated 26 November 2008 from the Permanent Representative of Croatia to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General (S/2008/738)

 

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The meeting resumed at 3.15 p.m. 

 

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 The President : I call on the representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

 Mr. Khazaee (Islamic Republic of Iran): …

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  Before concluding, I wish to stress that my delegation rejects the distortions and allegations made against my country by the representative of the Israeli regime in the Council today. No amount of distortion, allegations or smear campaigns will be able to cloud the obvious fact that the Zionist regime continues to display the most single immediate threat to regional and global security through its war crimes and State terrorism against the innocent Palestinians and others in the region.

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Mr. Haroon (Pakistan): …

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  We must therefore promote political solutions to long-standing unresolved conflicts; here I would cite the situations in Kashmir and Palestine. Though these conflicts are unique in nature, they present similar challenges and opportunities. …

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  The President : I give the floor to the representative of the Syrian Arab Republic.

 Mr. Adi (Syrian Arab Republic) (spoke in Arabic ): …

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 The representative of Israel has once again used the venue of the Security Council to falsify facts about the terrorist acts that have been organized and carried out by her State for decades now. The representative of Israel thought that, through attacks against my country, she could distract attention from the problems of violence and terrorism in our region.

  The essential fact here is that Israel is occupying Arab territories and committing crimes against humanity. These acts have been carried out by successive Israeli Governments against the defenceless Palestinian people. Everyone knows that Israel is imposing an unfair embargo against Gaza and has adopted a slow-kill policy against more than 1.5 million Palestinians there. Israel has folded its arms when confronted with the terrorist acts of Israeli settlers committed against Palestinians in Hebron. The intervention by the representative of Israel cannot change the terrible past of terrorism — the archives, encyclopaedias and museums are filled with facts about ethnic cleansing, war crimes and genocide committed by Israel in the course of its bloody history against Palestinians, Syrians, Lebanese, Egyptians, Jordanians and nationals of other countries.

  Israel introduced State terrorism in the region. The terrorist gangs are well known to everyone. They include Shtren, Irgun, Stern Gang, Haganah and Balmakh, which have killed thousands of Palestinians and evicted millions of them from their land. Israel assassinated United Nations special envoy Count Bernadotte. By hijacking a Syrian civilian aircraft in 1954, Israel committed the first act of air piracy in history. Israel carried out political assassinations in Beirut in 1968, killing unarmed civilian intellectuals. In the 1980s, it carried out attacks against heads of Palestinian municipalities, using booby-trapped cars. Israel bombed the American intelligence vessel, USS Liberty , during the 1967 war, after it had intercepted orders for the mass execution of Egyptian prisoners in the Sinai. In 1971, Israel shot down a Libyan civilian plane.

  Israel attacked the headquarters of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon in southern Lebanon, killing 106 civilians who had taken refuge in the United Nations building. In 2006, Israel attacked observer positions in the areas of Maroun Al-Ras and Al-Khiam. Let us not forget the report issued by the Canadian Army, which investigated a terrorist crime that had led to the deaths of a Canadian commander and three Austrian, Chinese and Finnish observers. That report revealed that Israel had deliberately attacked their position. There were also other suspicious operations against peacekeeping forces in southern Lebanon.

  A Belgian commander, killed on 5 September 2008, was the most recent victim of Israeli attacks in our region. He was killed during a demining operation to remove mines planted by Israel in southern Lebanon. Israel continues to refuse to provide maps of where it has planted mines and cluster bombs in Lebanon, which have caused the deaths of hundreds of Lebanese, including dozens of women and children, despite repeated calls by the Security Council and the United Nations to provide such maps.

  That is the reality of the terrorist State of Israel, whose representative has unsuccessfully attempted to detract attention from its terrorist nature. The representative of Israel has also labelled Palestinian refugee organizations as terrorist groups — refugees whom the State of Israel has forced into exile from their lands and homes for decades. Those refugees are attempting to regain their rights and to have recourse to international legality through international resolutions. Arab States, including Syria, have hosted those brotherly refugees, providing them with the support they need while they wait to return to their country, Palestine. They have done so in line with resolutions of international legality, especially General Assembly resolution 194 (III), on the Palestinians’ right of return.

  Like the majority of States, Syria has supported the right of peoples to freedom and self-determination. For many years, Syria condemned the odious apartheid regime in South Africa, whose main partner was Israel.

  Let us not forget Israel’s terrorism against the rights of the Syrian people in the occupied Syrian Golan. That State terrorism has been condemned annually by the United Nations in most of its Main Committees, as well as by the yearly vote on and adoption of resolutions condemning Israel’s occupation of the Golan and its annexation of it in 1981. The United Nations has likewise condemned the repression of Syrian citizens by Israeli occupying authorities. Israel’s practices are tantamount to collective punishment and war crimes, and run counter to international law.

  Had Israel not pursued its occupation in the Palestinian, Syrian Golan and Lebanese territories for many decades, we would not be witnessing the legitimate acts of resistance that Israel and those who protect it deem to be terrorism. Had influential countries in the United Nations not continued to support Israel’s crimes in our region, international cooperation and efforts to combat terrorism would have been more effective, useful and productive.

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The meeting rose at 6.50 p.m.

 

 

 

 

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