CONTENTS
Provisional agenda (S/Agenda/1919/Rev.l)
Adoption of the agenda
The situation in the occupied Arab territories:
Letter dated 3 May 1976 from the Permanent Representative of Egypt to the United Nations addressed to the President of the Security Council (S/12066)
President: Mr. Louis de GUIRINGAUD (France).
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 I of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, United Republic of Tanzania, United States of America.
Provisional agenda (S/Agenda/1919/Rev.l)
1. Adoption of the agenda
2. The situation in the occupied Arab territories:
Letter dated 3 May 1976 from the Permanent Representative of Egypt to the United Nations addressed to the President of the Security Council (S/12066)
The meeting was called to order at 3.30 p.m.
Adoption of the agenda
The agenda was adopted.
The situation in the occupied Arab territories: Letter dated 3 May 1976 from the Permanent Representative of Egypt to the United Nations addressed to the President of the Security Council (S/12066)
1. The PRESIDENT (interpretation from French):
In accordance with the decisions taken by the Council earlier [1916th to 1918th meetings], I shall now invite the representatives of Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, the Sudan, the Syrian Arab Republic and Yemen, as well as the representative of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), to participate in the debate without the right to vote.
At the invitation of the President, Mr. Herzog (Israel) and Mr. Terzi (Palestine Liberation Organization) took places at the Council table and Mr. Abdel Meguid (Egypt), Mr. Sharaf (Jordan), Mr. Bishara (Kuwait), Mr. Baroody (Saudi Arabia), Mr. Hussen (Somalia), Mr. Medani (Sudan), Mr. Allaf (Syrian Arab Republic) and Mr. Sallam (Yemen) 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 the Sudan. I invite him to take a place at the Council table and to make his statement.
3. Mr. MEDANI (Sudan): Mr. President, we are fortunate that the Security Council is considering the situation in the occupied Arab territories under your able and wise leadership. Your country has contributed objectively and actively in the efforts to achieve a just and lasting peace in the Middle East. Therefore, we are confident that under your guidance the Council will take appropriate action on the item on the agenda.
4. I should also like to join previous speakers in welcoming Ambassador Malik of the Soviet Union back to the Council. I wish him and Mrs. Malik complete recovery and happiness. Indeed, we are happy to see him resume his activities and enrich the Council with his valuable contribution. My delegation would like also to welcome the representative of Japan and to wish him every success.
5. Since the Council meetings in March, developments in the Arab occupied territories have become immensely and increasingly grave and serious. The attempt by the Israeli authorities to establish new Israeli settlements in the occupied Arab lands, which the United States itself has criticized as an obstacle to resolving the Middle East problem, was the immediate cause for the demonstrations on the West Bank by the Palestinian people in which Arab students, women and even children have been and are being brutally assaulted and killed by the barbaric Zionist regime.
6. Yet regrettably the representative of Israel, in his statement of 5 May [1917th meeting], failed to explain the barbaric attacks of Israeli soldiers on unarmed Palestinians. Rather than explain to the international community the behaviour of his Government, he tried, as usual, to distract the Council's attention from the crimes of his Government in the occupied territories and the illegal occupation of Arab lands by giving his preposterous interpretation of events in Lebanon—the country where his Government has been killing people and destroying property acts for which it has so many times been condemned by the international community. He described the uprising of the Palestinians as some sporadic stone-throwing in the West Bank, while in past weeks newspapers and newscasts have been filled with reports of Israeli atrocities against the Arab population in the West Bank: strikes are spreading in the cities, violent street clashes are continuing, curfews are being imposed, local and foreign journalists are not allowed even to enter the scenes of violence and some are arrested in attempting to do so.
7. In the issue of Newsweek of 10 May, Mr. M. S. Rusan asked a very valid question. He said:
"Do you really want us to believe that the Israeli paratroopers shot and killed six Arab demonstrators because they were 'fearing for their lives'? Would they have done the same if the demonstrators were Israeli Jews? No, Sir. Arabs in Israel realize that racism is a fact of life in this often hailed 'democracy'."
Further, he said:
"Of course the Egyptians and other Arab countries are inciting the people… Of course the Palestinian Liberation Organization is actively calling for disturbances."
Yet, The New York Times, a newspaper not known particularly to favour the Arabs against Israel, reported on 25 March that:
"The disturbances are a genuinely indigenous phenomenon that reflects the accumulated grievances of a population that has been under occupation for eight years."
8. On the other hand, the representative of Israel again tried to mislead the Council by giving us a rosy picture of developments and conditions in the West Bank and Gaza, saying:
"We are proud of the fact that there has been a real growth in the gross national product in both territories of an average of 18 per cent annum; that per capita income has increased by 80 per cent in the West Bank." [Ibid., para. 99].
Only last week the representative of the Palestinian Liberation Organization reminded the Council of the October 1970 report of the Ministry of Defence Unit for Co-ordination of Activity in the Administered Areas, which includes the following:
"The areas are a supplementary market for Israeli goods and services, on the one hand, and a source of the factors of production, especially unskilled labour, for the Israeli economy, on the other." [Ibid., para. 179.]
9. The contention of the Israeli representative that the occupation is humane and has provided political and economic advantages to the oppressed people of Palestine is irrelevant and extremely superficial. The general strikes and demonstrations in the occupied territories are a reflection of the determination of the Palestinians to liberate themselves from the yoke of imperialism and Zionism. The result of the municipal elections has shattered the myth and plans of the Zionists. Once again the Palestinians have affirmed their unequivocal support of and commitment to the PLO, the only authentic representative of the people of Palestine.
10. The vast majority of Member States have, at certain intervals in their history, experienced foreign occupation and foreign influences. We were then told many similar tales of prosperity and progress under the benevolent guidance of our masters which we would not have enjoyed if left to ourselves. But history has shown the fallacy of this conception. It has shown that foreign occupation was the real evil and the real cause that retarded our political progress and economic development.
11. It is obvious, on this subject, that a similarity between the Israeli argument and that of the racist regimes of South Africa and Rhodesia cannot escape anyone in the Council. The racist regimes of South Africa and Rhodesia have constantly used the same distortion to justify their occupation and exploitation of the indigenous peoples of those lands. Only last April the Prime Minister of South Africa paid a visit to Israel and to the occupied Arab territories and exchanged views and experience with Israeli leaders on the ways and means of maintaining and prolonging occupation in their respective regions. The visit was condemned by all peace-loving nations and peoples in the world. Mrs. Jeanne Martin Cisse, representative of Guinea and Chairman of the Special Committee against Apartheid, condemned the visit on 7 April, expressing the hope that:
"all Governments and organizations will condemn the actions of the Government of Israel in developing closer collaboration with the Pretoria regime in defiance of United Nations resolutions, warn the Government of Israel that the Governments and peoples opposed to apartheid and racism cannot ignore such collaboration, and exercise their influence to persuade the Government of Israel to desist from the present course."
12. Once again the Israeli representative tries to appeal to the members of the Council by himself posing as the innocent victim among the majority of Arabs when he talks of the Arab representatives speaking one after another. If the Arabs take the initiative in bringing to the attention of the Council the problems of the occupied Arab territories, they do so because what is at stake is the future of a nation, the future of the Palestinian people—and, therefore, the future of the United Nations, the Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
13. On the other hand, any casual observer of the international scene must be aware that the majority of Member States consider the conflict in the Middle East to be an integral part of their own struggle. With the exception, perhaps, of a very few, no one is any longer indifferent to the aspirations of the Palestinian people for liberation, national independence, and sovereignty. It remains for those so very few to see the struggle in its true perspective.
14. In Africa, the visit of the Prime Minister of South Africa to Israel was widely condemned. In Ghana, for example, the Daily Graphic and the Ghanaian Times strongly condemned the visit in their editorials of 13 April. The Ghanaian Times stated in its editorial:
"It is not in vain that the United Nations had described racism and Zionism as being two sides of one coin, two symptoms of the same disease, two evil birds of the same feather."
The Daily Graphic said also:
"The world must see the Zionist-apartheid cooperation for what it is—a pursuit of common racist interests that must be condemned for the dangers they pose to Africa and the Middle East, and for the danger they pose to world peace in general."
The Pan Africanist Congress of Azania, in a statement issued on 7 April, revealed that the Zionist regime is prepared to forget Nazi crimes against the Jews if they can obtain the friendship and support of another isolated, racist and condemned regime. The statement suggests that:
"Vorster was detained by South Africa's wartime Government for being a self-confessed follower of Hitler and for engaging in pro-Nazi sabotage activities. Silence over Vorster's Nazi past when he is courting Zionist support for the suppression of the African majority in Azania… Will render as sham the continuing outcry against the Nazi massacre of 6 million Jews."
15. Only this morning The Christian Science Monitor, under the heading''Israel's dangerous course", stated:
"Friends of Israel will be mystified as to why that nation should deliberately opt for a course of action that invites conflict and tension. Yet the Israeli Government's plan to establish still more settlements in occupied Arab territory, including the volatile West Bank, does just that. This shortsighted move can only aggravate an already serious problem and pose a further barrier to the achievement of a final peace settlement with the Arabs."
16. In conclusion, I wish to reiterate the position of Sudan which I outlined in the Council last January [1877th meeting]. It is the firm belief of my country that the question of Palestine is the core of the conflict in the Middle East. It is crucial to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Lasting peace and a settlement cannot be achieved without the recognition of the inalienable rights of the Palestinians and the establishment of an independent Palestinian authority. The withdrawal of Israel from all occupied territories is a sine qua non condition for a genuine peace in the Middle East. The present Israeli policy of continued occupation, the establishment of new settlements and the practice of terror and suppression against unarmed Palestinians constitute a real threat to international peace and security, in contravention of the Charter an resolutions of the United Nations. The Security Council cannot remain silent about the crimes and aggression committed by the Zionist regime against the Palestinians.
17. In its issue of Monday last, The New York Times reported that the Israeli cabinet had decided that the ultra-nationalist settlers encamped in the heart of the occupied West Bank must move to a new site. The new site would be determined in the following weeks. The newspaper added that the Israeli cabinet had called for intensified Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank. This is new evidence confirming the intransigent position of Israel and its determination to maintain and consolidate its policy of occupation and exploitation in contravention of one of the principles of the Charter and resolutions of the United Nations —namely, the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war.
18. In this connexion I find it apt to quote the representative of Jordan, who said before the Council:
"Where the Arab parties right to come again to the Security Council? What is the alternative? One possibility is to rely exclusively on what is happening in the occupied territories, which is the subject of this debate, until it achieves its purpose: ending Israeli occupation. The resistance is going on there, and it is not deterred or defused by inaction or obstruction in the Council. But the cost in lives… is high, and it is the duty… of the Council to seek a peaceful alternative." [1917th meeting, para. 34.]
19. It is therefore extremely urgent that the Council condemn the expansionist policy of Israel and its repressive measures against the Palestinians. Israel must be compelled to abide by the fourth Geneva Convention,1 the Charter and United Nations resolutions.
20. The PRESIDENT (interpretation from French): The next speaker is the representative of Somalia, whom I invite to take a place at the Council table and to make a statement.
21. Mr. HUSSEN (Somalia): Mr. President, may I at the outset express my delegation's congratulations on your assumption of the presidency of the Council for the month of May.
22. On this occasion allow me also to address a word of welcome to Comrade Yakov Malik, representative of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, on the resumption of his normal activities after an unfortunate car accident which kept him away from us and from his office for some time. I should like to ask him to be kind enough to convey my best wishes for a speedy recovery to Mrs. Malik, also a victim of the accident.
23. With your permission, may I extend my delegation's warm welcome to the new representative of Japan, Ambassador Isao Abe, who has taken the place of another well-respected figure, Ambassador Shizuo Saito, who during his tenure of office earned the admiration and respect of his colleagues at the United Nations. I am confident that Ambassador Abe will make a useful contribution to the work of the Organization in the supreme interest of international peace and co-operation.
24. My delegation asked to be permitted to take part in this debate for two reasons. One is the Somali Government's long-standing opposition to the illegal, unjust and expansionist policies of Israel in the Middle East. The other is our belief that the latest manifestations of those Israeli policies are storm warnings that should not be treated lightly or ignored by the international community. We therefore wish to state our support for the view that the Security Council must once more concern itself directly with the fact and consequences of Israel's occupation of Arab territory.
25. When dealing with Middle East problems it is always difficult, if not impossible, to avoid going back to the past. While it is not my intention to tax the Council's time and patience with a historical survey, no one can consider these problems realistically unless he sees them within a context that has not fundamentally changed since the first decades of this century. It is important to realize, for example, that the attainment of a new level of repression and inhumanity towards the Arab people of the occupied areas and of Israel itself is part of a continuing process which began when the Zionists decided to establish an exclusively Jewish State in Palestine. The main obstacle to that goal has always been and continues to be the fact that the land coveted by the Zionists has been inhabited for many centuries by another people. The Zionist attempt to overcome the obstacle of a stubborn people which refuses to be eliminated has taken many forms. We have seen attempts at partitioning the land, armed provocation, mass terrorization and expulsion of the people and armed aggression and illegal conquest directed against Arab States. All these policies have been employed in pursuit of the Zionist objective.
26. In short, it is as relevant today as it was 30 years ago to remember that the Jewish State was established on the strange premise that the Jewish people had a superior title to Palestine because of its religious history and because of a previous tenancy almost 2,000 years ago. This premise poses a chronic threat to the peace of the Middle East and to international security. It explains not only the past but also what is happening today. It explains, for example, why Israeli troops provided protection for the thousands of Zionists who marched arrogantly through occupied Arab territory only a few weeks ago, claiming that Jews should be allowed to settle wherever they like in the so-called land of Israel. It explains the feverish effort to change the religious, cultural and demographic character of occupied Jerusalem and the determination of the Zionists to annex a city that is as sacred to Islam and to Christianity as it is to Judaism. It explains too why more than 60 Jewish settlements have been deliberately planted throughout occupied Arab territory and why 50 million Israeli pounds were spent last year alone on the secret purchase by an Israeli government agency of Arab lands in the occupied West Bank.
27. It is no secret that Arab communities have been uprooted, Arab property expropriated and Arab homes, villages and towns destroyed. These facts of the Israeli occupation are admitted by the Israelis themselves and have been widely reported by the international news media. We are all aware of these facts, but it is important, as I said before, that we continue to see them within their historical context.
28. The current phase of the Zionist expansion in the Middle East did not, of course, appear over night on the international scene. It began immediately after the war of 1967 and has already been the subject of considerable debate in the Security Council and other bodies of the United Nations. A series of Council meetings less than two months ago dealt with substantially the same question again before us today. The wide support for the draft resolution which emerged from those meetings [S/12022], calling on Israel to end its illegal and repressive measures against Arab territory and peoples, showed that the members of the Council are fully aware of the facts and the significance of the worrisome developments in the occupied Arab territories. They know that the Israeli administration callously disregards Geneva Conventions to which Israel is a party and ignores the norms of international law and the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations. Even the United States veto—obviously motivated by internal politics—had an air of unreality, since the United States position as outlined by its representative was basically in accord with the provisions of the draft resolution.
29. Since that series of Council meetings in March there have been several highly significant developments. One is that the Arab people of the occupied territories have shown in no uncertain manner their abhorrence of the occupation and their opposition to the creeping annexation of their land. They have thereby given the lie to Israeli attempts to have the world believe that they are happy under Israeli domination. Another development has been the bitter expression by Arabs in Israel itself of their resentment at being third-class citizens in a racist State which is attempting to reduce their status even further by the expropriation of their land.
30. It is important to note, too, that the Israelis have shown their determination to suppress the legitimate protest of the Arabs, both in Israel and in the occupied territories, with the harshest and most brutal measures. The Israeli occupation has always entailed extensive infringements of the human rights of the Arab people, and this fact has been carefully substantiated every year for the past seven years in the report of the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Population of the Occupied Territories. However, recent manifestations of Israeli brutality, directed even against women and children and involving many cold-blooded murders, have reached new depths of cruelty and inhumanity. The shooting of six Arabs and the wounding and imprisonment of hundreds of others for demonstrating against the expropriation of Arab-owned land in northern Galilee were examples of the true nature of what has been self-admiringly called the "only democracy in the Middle East". It cannot escape the Council's attention that the Palestinian population under Israeli rule is rising in anger and protest against armed occupation and unjust treatment and that new fuel has been added to an already explosive situation.
31. Perhaps the most significant development that has taken place since March has been the overwhelming confidence in the leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization expressed by the people of the West Bank in the recent municipal elections there. The Israeli representative has often tried to persuade the Council that the PLO is not a valid political entity or that it is without significant support among Arab peoples. Yet despite the threatening Israeli military presence the people of the occupied West Bank came out in full strength to show their unequivocal support of the PLO as their sole legitimate representative. In that respect it is worth quoting from a statement made by an influential figure in the West Bank Municipal Government, Mr. Karim Khalaf, as reported by the semi-weekly review of Agence France Presse of 16 April Speaking of the representativeness of the newly elected officials, Mr. Khalaf said, "We are not political men, and we are not trying to speak in the name of the Palestinians. It is the PLO which represents us."
32. Finally, it must be noted that since March we have seen the culmination of the progressive movement of Israel towards an open and unashamed alliance with the white minority regime in South Africa. Mr. Vorster's visit to Israel last month, during which he was accompanied by South African military experts, will undoubtedly result in increased co-operation between these two usurpers in their common opposition to the liberation struggle of the peoples of the Middle East and South Africa. This collaboration also increases the danger that these regimes will together develop and deploy nuclear weapons for the defence of their racist strongholds.
33. When the General Assembly at its thirtieth session decided that Zionism was a form of racism [resolution 3379 (XXX)], there was a loud outcry from some quarters, but the majority of third-world countries and other peace-loving nations at the United Nations held their ground, confident in the accuracy of their assessment. Today it is clear that third-world assessment has been vindicated: Israel and South Africa's minority regime have come together in a natural alliance of two regimes which have established the doctrine of racial exclusiveness as the centre of their national philosophy. They also have in common their contempt for the system of international law and respect for human rights—the basic principles and the ultimate goal of the United Nations. These observations are closely relevant to the question before the Council because the Zionist delusion of racial superiority and exclusiveness underlies Israeli policies towards the Arab people of the occupied territories and towards the Arab population in Israel.
34. I am sure that Council members are aware that recent developments in the Middle East have increased the chronic tensions of that area and their potential for threatening world peace and security. I doubt whether anyone will be taken in by the attempt of the Israeli representative to make light of recent events in the occupied Arab territories and in Israel or by his attempt to draw red herrings across the path of this debate. His performance called to mind the common practice of the lawyer whose client has a poor case, or no case at all, and who therefore tries to discredit the witnesses.
35. As I indicated earlier, in March an overwhelming majority of Council members showed their deep concern over the serious situation caused by the continued Israeli occupation of Arab territory. Even the representative of the United States admitted that Jewish settlements in Israeli-occupied Arab territories were an obstacle in the search for peace between Israel and its neighbours. The question is whether the determination of the majority of the members of the Council to take positive action will again be thwarted because of considerations which are irrelevant to the basic problems of the Middle East.
36. My delegation shares the belief of the majority of the Member States in both this Council and the world Organization that a just and durable peace in the Middle East can be established only when the Israeli occupation of Arab territory is ended and when the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination and national independence are accorded under the leadership of their choice—the PLO. The Palestinian people have shown unequalled courage and determination over the years in their struggle for justice and the recognition of their right to nationhood.
37. In my delegation's view, it is the inescapable duty of the Security Council to act in support of the oppressed victims of Israeli aggression and to use both its moral authority and the means provided by the Charter to compel Israel to respect the principles of international law and to abide by the relevant resolutions of the United Nations and by world public opinion. Any further delay on the part of the Council in taking adequate and urgent action to remove the basic cause of this long-standing and grave situation will further increase the tension in the area and augment the possibility of further military confrontation.
38. The PRESIDENT (interpretation from French):
The next speaker is the representative of Israel, on whom I now call.
39. Mr. HERZOG (Israel): We have sat through the usual barrage of Arab slander and abuse, and I cannot restrain myself again from asking this body: to what purpose? Do you really expect any sovereign State to react favourably to such statements? Would any of you here be moved to accommodate your opponents on the basis of the idiom which is used in these debates? Is it not time that someone had the courage to get up and say: "Enough; this is not the way to solve disputes, whether human or international"?
40. As I pointed out during the last Council debate in which I participated in March, I am not disturbed by the repetitive debate. On the contrary, if I could encourage my Arab colleagues to persevere in this policy I would do so, because nothing can demonstrate more clearly the hypocrisy of the Arab representatives and the true intent behind their remarks than the repeated diatribes to which we have to listen in these debates. Admittedly, they are tiresome, boring, repetitive; they are counter-productive, they are a waste of time and they are personally inconvenient to many of us. In short, they are a nuisance. But they do serve a purpose: whatever failings we Israelis may have in our public relations efforts, we are given invaluable help by our Arab colleagues at these debates.
41. Let me draw the Council's attention, once again, to the terrifying and sinister fact that not once has the word "negotiation" been mentioned in this debate so far, except by the representative of Israel—and this despite the Charter, which calls for the settlement of international disputes by negotiation; despite resolution 338 (1973), which called for direct negotiations between the States which are parties to the conflict. Is it not a sad and sombre commentary on the state of the world today that the Council, instead of promoting peace and security in the world, as befits its function, is becoming an active tool in the hands of Arab intransigence, has turned into a function of the internecine inter-Arab struggle and is becoming an element opposed to negotiation and to peace efforts.
42. Instead, we have been subjected to the rewriting of history by the Syrian representative, as witness his remarks in connexion with the Jewish nation's rights and position in the Middle East. The unbelievable contradiction in the Arab world and the amusing impasse into which my Arab colleagues have manoeuvred themselves is best expressed in the following official broadcast a few days ago, on 4 May, on Damascus Radio:
"What is happening between Cairo and the Security Council is a joke. Sadat, who claims to be the president of science and faith and who in fact) president of ignorance and heresy, has decided to flatter… the Arab nation… and the Palestinian people, whose rights he had trampled underfoot,
"In a demonstrative and childish act he instructed his representative to the United Nations to request an urgent meeting of the Security Council to discuss Israeli actions in the West Bank.
"Where was Sadat when the Syrian working paper submitted to the Security Council was changed twice?"
That was not an Israeli broadcast; that was a Syrian broadcast on Damascus Radio just eight days ago.
43. Perhaps I really should not be too hard on my Syrian colleague. He has provided us after all with some of the lighter moments in this dreary session. I refer to his remarks at the last meeting castigating Israel for not encouraging Ambassador Jarring's mission in the Middle East. To the best of my recollection, Ambassador Jarring was not received in Damascus. Indeed, I doubt if he even set foot in Syria, because the Syrian Government at that time rejected the very basis of his mission, which was resolution 242 (1967). I am indeed moved by his crocodile tears.
44. I do not mind, as I say, contemplating the continuation of this exhibition, including the rewriting of history. But what purpose does it serve? Is it bringing us any nearer to peace? We were summoned here urgently by the Egyptian representative to a meeting which is so obviously purposeless and which is being dragged out because it has no direction. It has no direction because my Egyptian colleague is apparently still awaiting his instructions. Those instructions are in turn dependent upon inter-Arab developments. And those developments are dependent upon the growing confrontation between the PLO and the Syrians, confrontations now being complicated by the activities of the Egyptians. And that vicious circle has brought us all here to this table.
45. So why don't we all let our Arab colleagues spend just a little longer resolving their Byzantine intrigues in the area, and then when they are ready we will, on their instructions, all come back and take up the discussion again. Indeed, if the issues in the Arab Middle East are becoming too involved, perhaps the Council ought to send out a mediator to help them to solve their own problems.
46. Despite what has been said at this meeting, the developments in Lebanon are most relevant to this discussion. We were officially informed yesterday by the PLO representative on the spot in Beirut that they are actively involved in the struggle against the Syrian attempts at hegemony in Lebanon. I apologize to the Chinese representative for borrowing a term on which he appears to have a copyright. This we have asserted all along, despite the PLO denials, and it is gratifying to be proved correct.
47. But, all this aside, the grim, tragic and irrefutable fact is that while the Security Council, supposedly devoted to the maintenance of peace and security in the world, has been engaged in this futile debate on isolated instances of stone throwing in the West Bank, since we began this meeting over 500 Lebanese have been killed, and thousands wounded, and yet not a word is heard from the Council or from this world body. To put things in perspective, in the whole period of nine years of Israeli administration of the West Bank and Gaza—since 1967—there have been fewer Arab and Jewish casualties together than in any given average hour in Lebanon during the past year. And those few casualties would not have occurred were it not for active external incitement.
48. Here I would suggest to the representative of the Soviet Union that, before he engages in unwarranted distortions when he talks about "racial genocide" and shootings, arrests and "the persecution of thousands and thousands of peaceful Arab inhabitants" [1918th meeting, para. 44], he verify the facts before he makes such baseless statements. I suspect that the representative of the Soviet Union gets his facts from the verbatim records of the Security Council. I submit that this is not the most reliable and credible source for anything. Indeed, he has a very good opportunity to verify the facts now from the Soviet delegation which, as reported in the press, has currently been visiting Israel, together, incidentally, with hundreds of thousands of other tourists—including thousands of Arab tourists. That delegation from the Soviet Union, which recently attended the annual memorial in the Red Army Forest in the Jerusalem hills commemorating the Allied victory over Nazi Germany, will doubtless be able to apprise Ambassador Malik of the true state of affairs in the West Bank.
49. Indeed, it is very sobering for me personally to reflect that while many of us here, including myself, were engaged actively in the Allied forces in the struggle against fascism and Nazi Germany, many of those for whom Ambassador Malik expresses so much concern today were actively supporting the Fascist and Nazi forces which caused such losses and misery to the Soviet Union.
50. The representative of the Soviet Union reacted to my raising the question of terrorism at this meeting, and he cited a number of threats which had been received by his delegation. The attitude of the Government of Israel to the fringe group led by Rabbi Kahane was clearly stated only this week by our Foreign Minister, Mr. Yigal Allon. He denounced in unequivocal terms the threats issued by that organization, pointing out that they were not only despicable in themselves but were also sabotaging the Jewis people's struggle for emigration from the Soviet Union and against the persecution of Jewish activists. These shameful threats made by a small and irresponsible group must not be confused with the efforts of the Jewish people to ensure the freedom of Soviet Jewry to emigrate and to be reunited with their families abroad in accordance with the spirit of the Final Act of the Helsinki Conference, which was agreed to by the Government of the Soviet Union.
51. Let me reiterate part of the statement made by our Foreign Minister this week, in which he called upon the Jewish people "to reject in spirit and in practice the reprehensible methods adopted by Kahane's group". Indeed, he was reiterating statements made in the past by representatives of the Government of Israel. Let me state quite unequivocally that the Government of Israel rejects any form of terrorism by whomever it is carried out. To this date, no such statement has been issued by any Arab representative about the wave of terror which has beset the world. Moreover, some Arab Governments actively arm, support and finance these activities and then give haven to the perpetrators of the terrorist atrocities. They are known to us all.
52. A few days ago, as I recounted at the 1917th meeting, a bomb was placed in a public thoroughfare in Jerusalem. Those injured included Jews, Arabs and diplomats, notably the Greek Consul-General and his wife. The PLO officially claimed credit for this act of "heroism" on 4 May in an official communique issued by the PLO in Beirut. I ask the representative of the Soviet Union how he reacted. Did he condemn this indiscriminate act of violence against diplomats, about whom he quoted the Latin classics, or did he and most of his colleagues here vote to seat those who claimed credit for the act of terrorism? How did the Security Council and how did he himself react publicly when American and Belgian diplomats, bound hand and foot in the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Khartoum, were shot in cold blood on direct orders from Yasser Arafat, as revealed by President Nimeiri of Sudan? Were there speeches of condemnation at this Council table? Not one. Instead, the man who gave the order to murder those diplomats was invited to address the General Assembly.
53. When Israeli diplomats were shot in various parts of the world, when Turkish, Bolivian and Spanish diplomats were shot down in Paris, when an attempt was made on the life of the Jordanian Ambassador in London by the PLO, what was the reaction? Did not the Soviet delegation join hands with the Arab delegates to kill and bury the item on international terrorism in the Sixth Committee of the General Assembly? The record is there for everybody to see and read.
54. A distinguished Soviet statesman, Maxim Litvinov, once said that peace was indivisible. I submit that terrorism too is indivisible; you cannot be selective about it. The nations of the world will either join hands to destroy this scourge which affects mankind today, or they will be destroyed by it. It is not enough to raise your voice in horror only when it affects you. If terrorism is bad, it is bad for everybody, in every case, and must be eliminated.
55. I could go on at great length to refute the baseless and vicious allegations being made here. They are all too familiar. Every member of the Council, I am convinced, can now repeat them by heart. Nothing could emphasize more clearly the absurdity of this whole debate than the efforts of the representative of the Sudan to lecture us, in a Council which literally ignored the massacre of half a million black Christians in the southern Sudan only a few years ago. What a sombre reflection: the representative of a Government whose hands are soaked with the blood of half a million black Christians sits here and lectures us.
56. Indeed, no debate took place in the Security Council then, for the same reason that no debate is taking place today on the Christian tragedy in Lebanon. If this is not sufficient to emphasize the incongruity of these proceedings, then we have the spectacle of the representative of Somalia, a country which has become a threat to the maintenance of peace and security in the area and the central subject of concern to its peaceful neighbours. It too feels free in this atmosphere to sermonize.
57. I ask again: can any sensible person imagine that all this childish and puerile repetition is going to have an effect on anybody, least of all on Israel?
58. Since the representative of the Soviet Union took the position he took in the Council, let me quote again a statement made by one of his predecessors at this very table, Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Vyshinsky, who said in the Council on 29 March 1954:
"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 Isreal"—this was in 1954—"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 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, paras. 95 and 96.]
59. This was the voice of reason. This, I submit is the only way. Until we, the representatives of the Arab Governments and the representative of Israel begin to sit down and negotiate across the table instead of maligning each other across the table in this purposeless manner, we shall never advance towards peace.
60. The PRESIDENT (interpretation from French) The next speaker is the representative of Egypt; I invite him to be seated at the Council table and to make his statement.
61. Mr. ABDELMEGUID (Egypt): We have listened just now to an insulting statement by the Israeli representative. This is not unusual from him. The Israeli representative has had the gall to speak about Ambassador Jarring's mission. Does he not know his Government's answer to the aide-memoire of Ambassador Jarring [S/10403 of 30 November 1971, annex ]?
I should like to remind him that the Israeli Government, in its answer to Ambassador Jarring [ibid., annex III], insisted on keeping the occupied Arab territories and refused to return to the 1967 borders. I thought he would have avoided such a subject.
62. Who here is shedding crocodile tears over the Jarring mission? The Israeli representative, certainly, as Council members have themselves witnessed, and I advise him to save some of these crocodile tears because he will need them often in the future to justify his Government's policy.
63. I should also like to advise the Israeli representative not to try again to play on the differences among the Arab countries. I think I have done so before, but I am doing so again. I want to assure him and every representative around this table that the peoples of the Arab world, especially the Egyptian and Syrian peoples, are united to liberate their land from Israeli occupation, and that, Egyptian and Syrian blood having merged during the October war of liberation, the Egyptian and Syrian peoples will again go hand in hand against Israeli occupation, expansionism and terrorism. The best words for the Israeli representative are those which the Chairman of the Foreign Correspondents' Association in Israel used to the Israeli Government two days ago: "Shut up".
64. Every day that passes proves to the whole world how Israel and its leaders are afraid of the truth. The Israeli representative tried unsuccessfully to deceive the Council about his Government's policies and measures in the occupied Arab territories and against the civilian population of those territories. In my statement of 4 May [1916th meeting] I referred to the harsh treatment by the Israeli authorities, military and political, of foreign newsmen and television crewmen, and though this is consistent, standard Israeli policy and behaviour, it has nevertheless become blatant during the last year. Physical measures have been used to intimidate foreign correspondents, including detention, arrests, roughing up by soldiers and the destruction of equipment and films. All this contradicts the Israeli representative's vain efforts to convince the Council and the world at large of how democratic his Government is and how it cherishes freedom of the press, and so forth. In fact, the Israeli authorities went very far in using absurd arguments, such as their accusations that foreign newsmen had asked the Arabs on the West Bank to stage demonstrations in exchange for payment. The utter absurdity of that allegation was evident to everyone.
65. But the foreign press association in Israel was swift and decisive in answering such a silly allegation and issued an official statement accusing the Israeli authorities of waging a calculated campaign blaming foreign reporters for Arab demonstrations and telling the Israeli officials to "put up or shut up". Mr. Steve Delaney, Chairman of the Foreign Correspondents' Association, challenged the military authorities quoted in the Israeli press either to back up these charges or to drop them. The Israeli authorities declared only a few days ago through a military spokesman that an American television network correspondent, Mr. Avron Saritsky, the NBC Bureau Chief in Tel Aviv who was arrested on 7 May while filming children burning tyres, had accused the Israeli army of holding him at the Military Governor's headquarters in Jenin before telling him that he had been arrested for filming inside a closed area. Mr. Saritsky charged that a soldier had hit one of his television crew members in the chest with a rifle in a struggle to take his camera away.
66. The New York Times of 8 May said that in recent weeks Israeli authorities have barred reporters from entering cities in the West Bank when disturbances were under way. It went on to say that if violent clashes broke out while cameramen were there, they were ordered to leave the area or to stop filming. Even the Israeli Government's own newspaper, The Jerusalem Post, found it difficult to swallow the absurd charges which have been made and about which it was very sceptical. This is what it said:
"In retrospect it seems clear that neither the Israeli TV crews nor their foreign colleagues contributed to the friction. In fact, the recent West Bank unrest flared up long before many newsmen realized its seriousness. Nonetheless, officials found it easier to make a scapegoat of the media than to analyse where their own concepts went wrong."
67. It is clear now that these measures did not succeed in hiding the truth which Israel is very afraid will become known. The Israeli authorities have also used the same tactics in Gaza for the past several years, but in vain, seeing that the truth cannot be barred whatever the occupying Power tries. The Nazis in the Second World War used every measure to hide the fact of the resistance in the areas they occupied, but the more they tried the more they failed. So I advise the Israeli representative once again not to belittle the intelligence of Council members by pretending that his country is not afraid of the truth and that it is the champion of freedom of the press and freedom of expression.
68. The Israeli manosuvres go on and on unabated. In the middle of the Council's debate, the Israeli Government is trying to placate Council members by pretending that it is changing its policy on the settlement issues. According to press dispatches, the decision the Israeli Government is making a big fuss about is that barring 30 families of settlers near Nablus in the occupied West Bank from establishing a permanent settlement there. But I wonder who the Israeli Government is trying to fool. In the same statement announcing this decision, the Israeli Government called for intensified Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank. These settlers will even be given another site in the West Bank by the Israeli Government to establish a settlement. It is significant, however, that these settlers are living now in an army camp, that is to say that they are sheltered, financed, fed and guarded by the Israeli Army itself. So it is nonsense to say that the Israeli Government is embarrassed or is in a delicate position concerning the settlement issue.
69. Settlements are being established with the complete knowledge of the Israeli Government, if not directly by it. This settlement policy cannot find any support outside Israel. Only recently the Foreign Minister of the Netherlands, Mr. vahderStbel, joined other statesmen in warning of the consequences of such a policy when he told Menachem Begin; the leader of the fascist Herut party in Israel, that his Government did not support Israel's settlement policy and was in fact concerned about it. However, it seems that the Israeli Government is bent on ignoring, as usual, such opinions or such advice, however friendly they are. In its blind course it tries to brush aside all the words of warning about the consequences of this policy. Mr. Michael Adams, the well-known British journalist, described in clear terms these consequences when he said:
"The search for peace in the Middle East involves circumventing or surmounting many obstacles. None of them is more formidable than the barricade which the Israelis have deliberately erected and to which they are hurrying to put the finishing touches in the shape of some 60 Israeli settlements in the occupied Arab territories. The establishment of more and more settlements in the territories, from which the world has long since decided that Israel will have to withdraw, is futile and self-defeating. It perpetuates the very hostility which it should be Israel's object to disarm."
No wonder Lord Caradon referred in The Times of London of 1 July 1975 to the 50 Israeli settlements, before they mushroomed and became almost 70, as "the 50 sign-posts to destruction".
70. So the latest Israeli manoeuvres will deceive nobody, for more and more people are aware, as we are in Egypt, of such manoeuvres. The Israeli policy of establishing settlements in Egyptian occupied territory is well known to us. Immediately after the 1967 aggression the Israeli authorities carried out a plan of establishing several settlements in Sinai, but the appetite of the Israeli Government grew stronger and stronger. Thus, by the beginning of 1973 a project of unprecedented ambition had begun to take shape in north-eastern Sinai, where plans had been drawn up for the creation of a new town, called Yamit, the centre-piece of a complex of settlements between El Arish and the Gaza Strip. Yamit was the vision of Moshe Dayan, the then Minister of Defence in the Government of Golda Meir, where Dayan himself an the Minister without Portfolio, Israel Galili, were the principal enthusiasts for the colonization of the occupied territories—of course, with the blessing and encouragement of Mrs. Meir herself. The plans for Yamit, on a scale so grandiose that they aroused anxious debate inside Israel even before the shock of the October war, were prepared in secret by Dayan's Defence Ministry and only revealed to the Knesset in September 1975. They envisaged a city of a quarter of a million inhabitants, which would make it the third largest city in so-called Greater Israel, with a major deep-water port, an international airport, a nuclear power station and great potential for tourist development along the unspoiled coasts of northern Sinai. If these projections, even in the euphoric days of Israeli self-confidence before the October war, seemed inflated to the point of fantasy, Dayan was perfectly hard-headed about the political objective that Yamit was designed to achieve. As one of his collaborators explained to The New York Times of 26 December 1972:
"The new town would serve as an Israeli buffer between the concentrated Arab population living in the Gaza Strip and Egypt. A substantial Israeli presence there would prevent collaboration between the Gazans and the Egyptians."
In other words, Yamit itself, to be built on occupied land, would be used to extend Israel's borders westwards and to consolidate the Israeli hold on another occupied area, the Gaza Strip. Dayan himself confirmed this when he told listeners to the Israeli radio a few weeks before the October war: "I have proposed the establishment of Yamit so that it may serve as one of the factors enabling us to establish the border further to the west."
71. After the war Dayan continued to develop this theme, insisting that Yamit, like any other Israeli settlement, had "an essential role to play in the Israeli programme of colonization". He was reported by The Jerusalem Post to have told an election meeting at the end of December 1973:
"Borders are not set by markings on a man-borders are determined by settlement, and I say that we must establish the city of Yamit."
The Yamit project also involved conspicuously cruel disregard for the rights of the people of the area. The whole project and the establishment of the complex of settlements involved the eviction and displacement of a very substantial number of persons, the process began as long ago as 1969, when as area of 3,000 acres was expropriated. At the beginning of 1972 further confiscations took place with total disregard not only for the rights of the inhabitants but also for the most elementary humanitarian considerations. According to Mr. Ammon Kapeliouk, an Israeli journalist and the author of the book La fin des mythes, published last year in Paris;
"The Israeli soldiers drove off some 10,000 farmers and Bedouins, bulldozed their crops and filled in their wells. At that time, a further 8,800 acres were expropriated and surrounded with a barbed wire fence, which the dispossessed people were forbidden to cross."
72. The Israeli Government, according to statements by government officials to a correspondent of The New York Times reported on 11 May, is drawing up plans for the establishment of a large number of new settlements in the occupied Arab territories over the next several years. The settlements will range from small villages to industrial towns and will be along the lines of the existing 68 settlements. The only difference between estimates of the number of these new settlements, according to these officials, is that some claim that they will be hardly more than a dozen, while others say that the programme will eventually include several dozen. The New York Times correspondent also revealed that the plans for these new settlements were outlined during the Israeli Cabinet meeting on 10 May, complete with maps, charts and budget estimates.
73. I wonder whether the Israeli representative needs more facts than these to demonstrate his Government's policy against peace—he uses that word too much. And whom should we believe? The Israeli representative or the Government of Israel?
74. Today an editorial in The Christian Science Monitor put this dangerous Israeli policy in its true perspective. It has been quoted earlier by my colleague, the representative of Sudan, but allow me to quote it again:
"Friends of Israel will be mystified as to why that nation should deliberately opt for a course of action that invites conflict and tension. Yet the Israeli Government's plan to establish still more settlements in occupied Arab territory, including the volatile West Bank, does just that. This short-sighted move can only aggravate an already serious problem and pose a further barrier to the achievement of a final peace settlement with the Arabs."
I" The New York Times yesterday was similar in its I indignation when it said in an editorial:
"By underscoring a misguided determination to move ever more Israeli settlers into the occupied Arab territories… the Rabin Government is only piling up problems for future policy makers and for the course of Israel-United States relations."
75. That is only a general outline of the Israeli policy of trying to establish faits accomplis is one part of the occupied Arab territories or another. In my statement I have already outlined other aspects of this deliberate Israeli policy. But it seems that instead of stopping this dangerous and provocative policy, the Israeli Government is determined to ignore all warnings about the consequences of the course it is following. It also seems to be anxious lately to encourage marches by extreme elements to the occupied territories to provoke the local Arab inhabitants, like the one last month by the so-called Gush Emunim movement, whose advertisements in Israeli newspapers read: "Owners of fire-arms and musical instruments are asked to bring them", or merely to stand by while, as Newsweek of 26 April described, "a group of armed vigilantes from the Kiryat Arba settlement went to Hebron and unleashed trained attack dogs on teenage Arab demonstrators". It is exactly like what the Nazis did when, among other measures, they used to intimidate any resistance by unleashing attack dogs against civilians or organizing armed marches in the areas they occupied.
76. It seems also that the Israeli Government is continuing in its policy of contempt and disregard for the Security Council and the United Nations as a whole. During the Council's debate on the situation in the occupied Arab territories, the Israeli Government found fit to demonstrate publicly its policy of the depletion of natural resources of the occupied territories by announcing the signing of an agreement with a foreign company to explore and exploit oil resources in the Sinai. The irony in this is that the only opposition to this agreement came from some opposition members in the Knessel. They were not opposing it because it would mean exploiting and depleting Egyptian oil or because it would contravene United Nations resolutions, but because some foreign investors would take a share and they preferred that all the loot should go to Israel alone—another clear analogy with Nazi practices when they looted the natural resources of the areas they occupied.
77. But none of these measures, practices or policies will undermine the will of the Arab peoples to liberate every inch of their territories, and Israel will one day have to pay dearly for everything it has looted from these territories, if it really wants to live in peace in the area. No matter how the Israeli Government tries to establish fait accompli situations, this will not deter the Arabs from liberating their lands and the Palestinians from regaining their national inalienable rights.
78. The PRESIDENT (interpretation from French):
The representative of the Syrian Arab Republic has asked to speak in exercise of the right of reply. I invite him to take a place at the Council table and to make his statement.
79. Mr. ALLAF (Syrian Arab Republic): Insults, insults, insults directed at everyone—al the Arab States at the members of the Council and even at the Council itself, which was described as being an active tool in the hands of the Arab States. By now we are accustomed to this Traditional Israeli reaction to every single debate or discussion of Israeli crimes in the occupied Arab territories. Time and again the Israeli representative has asked: "For what purpose are you meeting? Why are you wasting your time in discussing what we are doing in the occupied territories? Leave us in peace. Give us lime to complete the settlement of the occupied territories and to finish the number of settlements and colonies that we want to put there."
80. What the Zionists are doing in the occupied territories is no longer a secret. It is on the first page of every newspaper every morning, including the Zionist newspapers, the Jewish newspapers. I have before me the Jewish Press of today, which has a large headline, "Israel plans dozens of new settlements", accompanied by an explanatory map. Why should the Security Council discuss this matter? That would hinder the expansionist efforts of the Zionist regime and of the Zionist establishment. Please do not disturb them. Let them proceed with their creeping expansion and let them complete the control and usurpation of every inch of the Arab territories.
81. As usual, the Zionist representative did not mention even one word about why the Council was requested to meet. What is the fate and the future of the millions of Arab Palestinians, of the millions of human beings who are either under the yoke of ugly Zionist occupation or in refugee camps? Those millions of people do not exist as far as the Zionist regime is concerned.
82. The Israeli representative wondered how Syria, which did not receive Ambassador Jarring, could mention the Jarring efforts. But the Israeli representative himself furnished the answer right away. Syria at that time did not receive Ambassador Jarring because at that time it did not accept resolution 242 (1967). When Syria did accept that resolution, it accepted it with two conditions, conditions which the Zionist representative constantly prefers not to remember. Syria said it would accept resolution 242 (1967) only if the following two conditions were met: the liberation of every inch of Arab territory and the restoration of all the national rights of the Palestinian people. We did not accept that resolution until we were given assurances that that resolution would lead to the fulfilment of those two conditions.
83. We have now been proved right. That is what the Council decided during its debates in January. Everyone here agreed that resolution 242 (1967) was not sufficient by itself to ensure the establishment of a just and lasting peace and that there was an important element missing from that resolution, namely, the rights of the Palestinian people. That has been repeated time and again in every debate since then. The three basic principles for the establishment of a just peace in the region are Israel's withdrawal from all the occupied territories, the restoration of the full national rights of the Palestinian people and guarantees for the States then in the region to live in peace.
84. But the Zionist regime accepted resolution 242 (1967), as did some other parties to the conflict. Therefore, if we did not receive Ambassador Jarring at that time or if we did not send a reply—in fact, he did not even address a question to us—it was because we were not committed to that resolution. But the Zionist regime was committed to resolution 242 (1967). They repeat over and over that the Arabs do not want to implement resolution 242 (1967). So, having accepted that resolution, why did they respond negatively to the aide-memoire of Ambassador Jarring?
85. It is amazing that the representative of the most terrorist regime now existing in the world, apart from the regime in South Africa, should describe the heroic resistance of the Arab inhabitants as terrorism. Perhaps Mr. Herzog is an expert on the matter, because he himself was the Military Governor of the occupied West Bank, and at his hands thousands of Arabs were tortured, expelled and uprooted and suffered what Mr. Herzog and his regime learned during their tragic experience under the Nazi regime. But that is the tragedy in Palestine now. The people who suffered the most from Nazi crimes are applying those same methods and even crueller methods against the Arab population. I am not the only one who says this; several non-Arabs, including Professor Toynbee and some of the Israelis themselves who have a free conscience, have been wondering how a people that suffered so much from Nazi crimes can now repeat those crimes against the Arab Palestinians.
86. Resistance and the heroes of resistance movements cannot be described as terrorists except by aggressors and racists, and you yourself, Mr. President, as one of the heroic French people who fought against Nazi occupation, and most of the members here—be they from Western Europe, the Soviet Union and the socialist countries, which fought against aggression, or from African countries that have participated in the struggles of national liberation movements—very well know that acts of resistance against the occupier and the aggressor are heroism and not terrorism. They are terrorism only to those racist regimes, those aggressors who want to usurp the territory and control the people.
87. I wonder what Mr. Herzog is doing here, speaking on behalf of a regime installed in Palestine. Why does he not return to Dublin, whence he came? Those who now address the Council about Palestine and what is happening there are Palestinians. They were born in Palestine. They are not aliens in that land. But Mr. Herzog himself, as well as many of the leaders of his regime, are aliens who come from South Africa or Poland or the Soviet Union or the United States. They have nothing to do with the Palestinian territory. Here are the people of the territory of Palestine, and they are the ones requesting the Council's help.
88. Time and again the Israeli representatives try to avoid the real issue; they repeat themselves and speak about external matters, matters not under consideration by the Council. The Israeli representative repeatedly refers to what is happening in Lebanon and continues to say that there the Christians are being subjected to genocide; the Moslems are fighting the Christians; the Christians are fighting the Moslems. I think I can understand that coming from the representative of a racist regime, which is completely and wholly based on religious exclusivism and discrimination. He would think that everywhere else in the world, even in the neighbouring Arab countries, things are like that: Christians are against Moslems, and Moslems are against Christians. That is not true. Everybody knows it. Tragically, what is happening in Lebanon is a conflict between brothers belonging to the same country, between people from the right and people from the left. Many among the rightists are Moslems; many among the leftists are Christians; and they are not fighting because of their religion or faith.
89. As for my delegation, it contains two Christian diplomats and many non-Christian non-diplomats from Syria. The man seated beside me at this table, who represents the struggling heroic Palestinian people, is a Christian. We do not know the difference between Christians and Jews and Moslems. That is the basis of the Israeli State, which is based on racism and religious discrimination. It is not the basis for Arab thinking or Arab tradition. On the contrary, most of our tragedies and sufferings have come about because of Arab tolerance. The Arab countries have right been from the beginning, and still are, a haven for all minorities. We have Druses; we have Christians; we have Armenians; we have Moslems; we have Jews. Everybody lives in harmony, and we all coexist, because there is an Arab saying which is very dear to us: "Religion is for God, but the homeland is for everyone". But the Zionist racists would never be able to understand that, because their State is based solely and exclusively on the theory of the superiority of the Jewish religion.
90. We, in our countries, honour Judaism. As a matter of fact, Islam is, we believe, derived from Christianity and Judaism, and in our prayers we daily repeat the names of the Jewish and Christian prophets. As Moslems, five times a day we repeat the name of Moses and the name of Jesus, together with the name of Mohammed, with all respect and honour, while the Zionists believe in their superiority. Only last week, in the Jewish Press, I read an editorial which said that Mohammed who gave us the Islamic religion 380 years ago brought to the world a racist religion. So they do not respect even the religions derived from their own. But we Moslems respect Judaism and we respect Christianity. What we are against is racism and Zionism.
91. Again, the representative of the Zionists tried to drive a wedge between brothers, between the Arab countries. He referred to broadcasts from here and press clippings from there saying that Egypt was criticizing Syria and Syria was criticizing Egypt. I can assure him of one thing: if we differ, we differ on one thing, and that is on how to get rid of Zionist aggression and uproot it from our land, how best to deliver our territory and our people from Zionist racist aggression.
92. The Egyptians, Syrians, Iraqis, Palestinians, Jordanians, Libyans, Moroccans and Algerians who shed their blood together on the same ground in the same battles in 1947, 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973 will continue to shed it in the unified and united battle against Zionism and racism.
93. The PRESIDENT (interpretation from French):
The representative of Sudan wishes to exercise his right of reply. I invite him to take a place at the Council table and to make his statement.
94. Mr. MEDANI (Sudan): In my statement this afternoon I said that the representative of Israel had failed to explain the barbaric and brutal assaults by his Government against the unarmed Palestinians. We listened carefully to the statement he made a few minutes ago, and again he failed to submit any justification for the crimes committed by his country against the Palestinian people.
95. As usual, in an attempt to distract the Council's attention and international public opinion from the crimes his Government is committing in the occupied territories, the representative of Israel referred to developments in certain Arab countries. In reference to my country he said—and I find myself compelled to quote his words, which smack of racism and contempt:
"Nothing could emphasize more clearly the absurdity of this whole debate than the effort of the representative of the Sudan to lecture us, in a Council which literally ignored the massacre of half a million black Christians in the southern Sudan only a few years ago. What a sombre reflection: the representative of a Government whose hands are soaked with the blood of half a million black Christians sits here and lectures us." [Para. 55 above.]
Out of respect for the Council I shall not sink so low as the representative of Israel did by using such unbecoming language. I shall concentrate on the facts.
96. We do not claim that there was no problem in Sudan. But once that has been stated, two facts must be very clear. First, the problem was not of our own making. It was the product of a long, well-designed and calculated policy, which we inherited on the eve of our independence. Secondly, the problem was perpetuated and aggravated by foreign intervention, and especially the intervention of the Zionist regime. The representative of Israel is a general, and he was in charge of his army's intelligence. He must be well aware of Israel's part in and responsibility for that conflict. He must be well aware also of Israel's intervention in the internal affairs of many African States which found it necessary to expel Israeli representatives from their countries.
97. Yet, in spite of all the difficulties, challenges and conspiracies—particularly from the Israeli regime—the people of Sudan, under industrious and dynamic leadership, succeeded in an exemplary manner in concluding the Addis Ababa accord in 1972—that is, almost five years ago—thereby achieving the unity of all the people of the Sudan by peaceful means. Since then, the Sudan has been involved in carrying out a gigantic economic development plan.
98. The representative of Israel, instead of directing his attention to a problem which we have managed to solve successfully and in an exemplary manner, should at least notice the positive decisions taken by the Sudan regarding the Sudanese Jews. President Nimeiri of Sudan, in his statement on 1 January 1975, urged the Sudanese Jews who had emigrated to Israel to return to their country and live under its constitution, which provides for equality in rights and duties between Sudanese citizens without discrimination of any kind on the basis of origin, race, locality, sex, language or religion. Some of the Sudanese Jews responded; they left Israel and returned to live in the Sudan. The decision of the Sudan Government which appears in document SO.200 GEN., dated 8 March 1976, has been widely appreciated and commended. That is an example of positive measures which are desperately required to help in and contribute to establishing a lasting peace and a settlement in the Middle East.
99. On the other hand, the negative and intransigent attitude of the Israeli Zionist racist regime is well known to all Council members. I believe I do not have to labour the obvious. It is sufficient to look at the decisions taken last Sunday by the Israeli Cabinet which call for the establishment of a large number of new settlements in occupied Arab territories. The Christian Science Monitor of 11 May reported that Professor Neeman suggested:
"We want to populate the West Bank with Jews in order to make it impossible for the Government ever to evacuate this area—even in return for peace."
That confirms the fact that the ultimate objective of the Zionist racist regime is the perpetual occupation of the Arab lands, and not, as the representative of Israel would have us believe, peace in the Middle East. Israel must understand that the Arab nation is determined to liberate all the occupied territories, including Jerusalem, whatever difficulties and sacrifices it may have to face.
100. Only yesterday The New York Times described this expansionist attitude of Israel in these words:
"Diplomatically, the expansion of Jewish population centres into occupied territories contains the roots of future conflict with the neighbouring Arab States and the United States."
The New York Times added:
"Whatever their emotional longings and frustrations, Israel's leaders must ask themselves whether they are really serving their country's interests by heading straight into such a confrontation."
101. The representative of Israel is the last one who can speak about human rights and religious freedom. His country's record is well known to United Nations organs, which have condemned Israel so many times. Israel's violation of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War is common knowledge. I could submit a score of cases of racial and religious discrimination in Israel, but I do not feel it necessary to do so at this time.
102. Again referring to the racial expressions used by the Israeli general, I wish to confirm for his benefit that what is now called the Addis Ababa accord of 1972 was hailed at the highest summit of the Organization of African Unity. It has been hailed, too, by all the presidents in the continent of Africa. It has been cited as an example, a model for solving internal problems and affairs. But, of course, the Israeli representative cannot understand—or, rather, swallow—such a move. On the other hand, the All-Africa Conference of Churches has hailed the accord. Outside Africa too the accord has been praised—in such respectable capitals of Europe as London, Paris and Stockholm. It has been praised also by the socialist countries—by the great Soviet Union in Moscow, by Prague, Budapest and Belgrade by China. It has been praised by all friendly States' Needless to say, Israel has not been very happy that. Only in November of last year The Economist of London went even further and nominated the President of Sudan for the Nobel Peace Prize.
103. I could go on and quote many incidents and many quarters which have praised and hailed the accord between the south and the north of the Sudan. It is not actually their affair, but we never the less appreciate it.
104. But what is Israel's record? I am sure that the Israeli representative will not find anything in Israel's record to cheer about. The Council is therefore excused if it fails to follow the line of his fallacious reasoning"
105. The PRESIDENT (interpretation from French); I give the floor to the representative of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, who has asked to speak in exercise of the right of reply.
106. Mr. MALIK (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) (interpretation from Russian): I cannot fail to draw attention to the strange way in which the discussion is being conducted here by the Israeli representative. If we heed his judgement, then everything he says is the absolute truth and is fact, while everything said by other representatives—in particular by the representatives of the Arab countries—is a barrage of untruth and fiction. With such an approach it is impossible to discuss this matter in the Security Council at all.
107. The Israeli representative has reproached the Soviet delegation for getting information and material from the Council's verbatim records on acts of terrorism committed by the Israeli occupying forces in the occupied Arab territories. But if that is so, is that criminal? Here we have listened to the official representatives of all States, including the Arab States, and we regard their statements as official statements of their Governments. The Council has no reason to disbelieve the facts and the material cited by them in their statements as proof of the terrorist practices of the Israeli occupation forces in Arab territories. Naturally, those facts do not please the Israeli representative. But they do not cease to be facts for that reason.
108. Therefore, let us cast aside this contrived challenge of the Israeli representative about where we get this information concerning the terrorism practised by the Israeli occupying forces in Arab territories. Everybody knows about it. It has been published even in the American press, which, as former Vice-President Agnew said yesterday or the day before, was entirely in the hands of American Zionists. A great deal has been published in The New York Times concerning the terrorism and shooting of demonstrators in the occupied territories. That is where the facts come from. The entire world press has written about it. That is why the question is now being discussed in the Security Council. Therefore, no attempt on the part of the Israeli representative to belittle the significance of the facts and arguments which have been quoted and the statements of Arab representatives can succeed.
109. He has referred to some Soviet delegation or other which was recently in Israel. I would state here that I have no information about such a delegation, I am quite certain that if that delegation was in Israel at all, it was not there at the time when Israeli occupation forces were firing on Arab workers at a May Day demonstration.
110. On the question of terrorism, there are of course various forms of terrorism. The forced eviction of the indigenous population of a nation from its homeland is also terrorism. That these expulsions are in fact being carried out can be read by Mr. Herzog, in today's issue of his favourite newspaper, The New York Times. The representative of Syria snowed us a banner headline on the first page of an American newspaper to the effect that Israeli occupation forces are expelling the indigenous population from the Arab territories and populating those parts with Israeli citizens. That is one form of terrorism. The forced annexation of land belonging to someone else—is that not also terrorism? Seizing the property of the Arab population is also a form of terrorism. Their expulsion and deprivation of their means of livelihood are also forms of terrorism. Furthermore, it is genocide. It means that people expelled from their hearth and homeland are doomed to die because they have no means of livelihood. That is Israel's policy towards the population in the occupied Arab territories, and no ploys on the part of the Israeli representative to try to justify this policy by referring to other States will help.
111. We are not discussing the situation of other States; we are discussing and condemning the policy of Israel in the occupied Arab territories. That policy has been frequently condemned by the United Nations, both in resolutions of the General Assembly and decisions of the Security Council. But Israel has ignored them. The Israeli representative referred to a quotation from the late Andrei Vyshinsky, but I do not think that that quotation can justify Israel's actions or will help him to find any justification for them. It makes a clear distinction between resolutions and decisions of the Organization. The Israeli representative, as a new representative, perhaps, is not sufficiently informed. But, according to the Charter, a decision of the Security Council is binding upon Member States. Many such decisions condemning Israel's policies and requiring certain action on the Part of Israel have been adopted in the Organization, but they have all been ignored by Israel. Therefore, hen Israel speaks about words and deeds and resolutions and decisions, it should be so good as to implement the decisions already adopted, decisions binding upon all Member States. It should show us deeds and not simply indulge in verbal tricks, because they cannot convince anyone.
112. You use the term "persecution of Jews" in the Soviet Union. This is a hostile, inaccurate and vicious fiction on the part of the Zionists. There is no persecution of Jews in the Soviet Union, there never has been and there never will be. We are a multinational State: we have more than 120 nationalities in our country. To cite an example, I am a Ukrainian and I represent the Soviet Union. One of my alternates is an Armenian, another a Jew. This demonstrates the equality of nationalities in the Soviet Union. Furthermore, any discrimination, any refusal to respect other nationalities, is punished strictly according to the law in our country. Therefore, to attribute to us any persecution of Jews in the Soviet Union is a vicious and hostile fiction invented by American, Israeli and international zionism. It is designed to distract our attention from the terrorism from the aggression—practised by Israel against the Arab States. But the entire world surely understands the falsity of those assertions.
113. We condemn terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. We reject out of hand the fiction propagated by the Zionists that the Soviet Union represses Jews and that Soviet diplomats, in America and elsewhere, should therefore be killed. We condemn this policy encouraged by zionism, zionism which has turned into a terrorist organization and preaches terrorism.
114. Zionism has included terrorism in its arsenal. The statements of the Soviet delegation in the Security Council produced unequivocal and incontrovertible facts. The head of the terrorist band calling itself the Jewish Defence League, Rabbi Kahane, was quoted. But here is a communique from the Daily News Bulletin of 11 May:
"Kahane warns Jewish militants in USA may kidnap Soviet diplomats in an effort to aid Soviet Jews."
That is what the Zionist terrorists say from Tel Aviv. Apparently, Kahane was there. Israel showed hospitality to this terrorist. He is a criminal. He was imprisoned, then released and sent to the United States in order to organize trouble among American Jews, with the wild, invented slogan of "Let my people go".
115. What right have American and Israeli Zionists to call Soviet, British, American or French Jews "their people"? Soviet Jews are not American or Israeli citizens. They are Soviet citizens, and it is we who have the right to speak for them, not American or Israeli Jews.
1 Quoted in English by the speaker.
116. By claiming to represent Jews throughout the world the Israeli Zionists are showing their own racism—preaching the racist theory of a "chosen people". The United Nations was quite correct when it condemned Zionism as a form of racism and racial discrimination. It is borne out by your policies. In New York, for instance, someone is financing young people, boys and girls, paying them to participate in picketing, giving them lists of select Russian swear words, transcribed phonetically, which they yell at the top of their lungs as they stand in the streets. This is shameful to decent Jews and to the American people. Furthermore, these boys and girls gather on the balcony and roof of a synagogue opposite the Soviet Mission to yell these select Russian swear words. There are Soviet women and children passing by, but obviously the organizers of this criminal spectacle have sunk so low in their cultural and moral level that they do not even take this into account. How can one conceive of a synagogue, which is a house of prayer, which is respected by every Jew, being used as a platform for such vile invective? One might say that the words were in Russian, not understood by Americans, but they are still invective. Thus that house of prayer, that synagogue has been turned by the Zionists into a house of foul abuse. One can stoop no lower than that. Yet the Zionists encourage this, justifying it by the hostile invention that there are allegedly repressions of Soviet Jews in the Soviet Union. Malicious lies, hostile inventions. Jews enjoy an extremely privileged position in the Soviet Union. As a Ukrainian, I can say that among the Ukrainian population there are fewer people with higher education, perhaps, than among the Jews in the Soviet Union. Where is the discrimination? The Jews work as journalists for the newspapers, on television, radio and in educational institutions; 99.9 per cent of them are white-collar workers; they are not involved in agriculture; they do not work in the coal mines. And you accuse us of persecuting them? When they arrive in Israel and are sent to a Kibbutz, they make a fuss and run back home to the Soviet Union.
117. We are fighting criminals. It is the right of every State to fight criminals. What were we supposed to do with the group of Zionist criminals who tried to hijack a plane from Leningrad; thank them for it? Kiss them for it? We condemned them, and we imprisoned them. That was consistent with the legislation of the Soviet Union. These laws are applicable to criminals of any nationality, including Jews. What right have the American and Israeli Zionists to interfere in our internal affairs? This is a malicious policy of the Government of Israel and its patrons.
118. You, Mr. Herzog complain that Arab representatives accuse and condemn Israel for terrorism in Arab territories. But how do you expect them to speak to those who are aggressors and occupiers? Do you expect them to thank you, go down on their knees, kiss you? You will not hear any other language; aggressors and occupiers are spoken to only in way; they have to be condemned for their actions. Therefore, let them not expect any thanks from Arab representatives; let them not expect the Arabs to thank them for their occupation and for usurping their lands, for expelling people from their homeland, and for confiscating their property, for terrorism. Would you have thanked the aggressor if you had been in the Arabs' shoes? Would you have thanked those who had occupied your territory? Of course not; you would have condemned them. So resign yourself to these condemnations and draw the appropriate conclusions, instead of abusing them.
119. The Israeli representative spoke about negotations; he stated that in Security Council discussions no one had referred to talks. That is wrong; I myself spoke about talks, and I referred to the machinery for such negotiations. I spoke about the conditions for the conduct of those negotiations. I said there were three conditions: first the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the territories occupied in 1967; secondly-recognition of the legitimate and inalienable right of the Palestinian people to exist and to create their own State; and thirdly, a guarantee of the independence and freedom of all States in the Middle East. But he was silent about those proposals. So on what basis can we speak with an aggressor and occupier?
120. We were victims of aggression; I have some idea of what aggression means. Hitler's troops were close to Moscow, Leningrad and Stalingrad; they broke through to the Caucasus. If Hitler had at that time proposed talks, what would the conditions have been for us and for him? He had almost half of the most densely populated and economically developed part of our country, and all we had were losses and defeats. Therefore, before negotiating with an aggressor, one must speak about the basis for such talks. The basis set forth in the statement of the Soviet Government of 28 April [5/72063] is a realistic and reasonable one, but Israel rejects it. In order to undermine the negotiations in Geneva Israel thought up a pretext: non-recognition of the Palestinian people and its inalienable rights; because it does not wish to conduct these negotiations. Together with its patrons, Israel has tried to substitute shuttle diplomacy and a step-by-step solution for talks. But what has shuttle diplomacy and a step-by-step approach produced? It has simply produced a deadlock and has made the position even more complicated. The situation has not been improved by this diplomacy and this approach; rather it has deteriorated. The explosive situation is now even more dangerous than it was before that shuttle diplomacy. These are the facts, and everybody knows them.
121. So drop the verbal gymnastics, Mr. Herzog, and agree with the basic provisions for the start of negotiations. If you ceased to object to the participation of the Palestinians, those victims which have suffered most from Israeli aggression, negotiations could start tomorrow. But apparently this is not part of your plans. You and your patrons are trying to keep on postponing a solution to the main questions relating to a Middle East settlement, and to justify this you put forward all sorts of artificial arguments, even the new argument we have to wait until the presidential election is over in the United States. Some have stated that conditions for a settlement in the Middle East are not let ripe. It is obvious to anyone who is objective that this is said simply in order to drag things out, and not enter into negotiations. In words you favour negotiations, but in deeds you are against them. This is your position and the position of your patrons as well. This strange practice has been applied in the work of the Security Council recently, even with regard to the question of the admission to the United Nations of the People's Republic of Angola, which now apparently ids on elections taking place in one of the council's member States. That is how things stand with the Israeli position on negotiations.
122. Stop these verbal gymnastics, Mr. Herzog, and agree with the Arab party on the basis for negotiations, on the withdrawal of troops and on recognizing the Arab people of Palestine as a fully fledged participant in the negotiations, and agree that all countries in the Middle East should be guaranteed normal conditions for a free and independent existence, peace without aggression and without one another being attacked. We believe that in these circumstances it would be possible to find some basis for negotiations and to start those talks. If the Israeli representative were to approach the matter in this way then the problem could be resolved and the Security Council could make its own weighty contribution to finding a solution of this problem.
123. The PRESIDENT (interpretation from French):
The representative of the Palestine Liberation Organization has asked to make a statement in reply, and accordingly I now call on him.
124. Mr. TERZI (Palestine Liberation Organization):
I should like to recall here that when Chairman Arafat was invited to address the General Assembly in 1974, the invitation was extended by 105 members of the international community and of this Organization. Mr. Arafat was invited as the representative of a national liberation movement. This national liberation movement, the Palestine Liberation Organization, has been granted full membership in the Group of non-aligned Countries and in the Group of 77. This recognition of the PLO meant and still means greater isolation of the Zionists and some of their friends.
125. The Council has been reminded of the debate on terrorism in the Sixth Committee of the General Assembly. If I recall properly one of the recommendations which the Committee had to discuss was that the roost dangerous form of terrorism is that exercised by States—and which are those States. The terrorism that was translated into air raids over Lebanon, the terrorism that was translated into the bombing of civilian aircraft is the terrorism that is exercised by States. It is similar to the terrorism exercised by imperialist States, which helped to fight against the people of Viet-Nam and against the people of the Dominican Republic and other places. But it is even more dangerous when we know that this terrorism exercised by States is a continuation of the terrorism exercised by a movement which has materialized into a State.
126. We all recall the terrorism exercised by the Zionist movement against its benefactor, the British, the Mandatory Power, and against its own people, as I mentioned the other day, in the case of the ship, Patria. This terrorism finds its origin in the teaching of the father of zionism, and I shall quote him: "We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border." Now, spiriting the penniless population of a country across the border is, I think, the gravest and most blatant form of terrorism. It was not just a statement made by Theodor Herzl, it is a concept that is still being carried out. As I stated the other day [1917th meeting, para. 14], on 25 December 1975 an ex-commander of Zionist paratroopers, Dr. Davidi Aharon, was lecturing at Arie Ben Eliezer National College in Tel Aviv. Among other things, he said:
"If we really want to spare Jewish and Arab blood, then the final solution that we must strive for is that of transfer, i.e., the removal of all Arabs from here to the Arab countries, which should of course be achieved by reasonable ways and means."
This is terrorism—the transfer of an entire population, either of its own will or through force. We all recall the massacre at Deir Yassin as well as other criminal acts of the Zionists.
127. It was said in the Council that Rabbi Kahane was just one representative of one sector. I am not concerned about Rabbi Kahane, but I am concerned about the tactics of the Zionist movement. I recall that, when the King David Hotel in Jerusalem was blown up, the Jewish Agency almost condemned the act. But what do we find out? When the Zionist movement became a State, some of the perpetrators of that crime became cabinet ministers. How can we explain this, except by the fact that the Zionist movement itself is in concept a terrorist movement? What our people is doing is exercising its right to live and to resist being massacred. It is engaged in a campaign against a planned genocide. If its fate is that it should be spirited away from its country then it is its duty and right to resist with arms.
128. We have been told that nobody had spoken about negotiations. I cannot conceive of any negotiations between the forces of invasion and occupation and the oppressed people living under occupation. The only language that could be understood between the forces of occupation and the oppressed people, who are bent on liberating themselves, is that of resistance, armed resistance.
129. It has been stated that there were some isolated incidents of stone-throwing in the West Bank. I would remind the Council of the comment we made the other day, that those isolated incidents of stone-throwing would not necessarily call for curfews and for the intervention of paratroopers. The fact is that this resistance is not merely isolated incidents. It is full-scale, armed resistance against the forces of occupation. The question we have to deal with here is the occupation and not what happens among Arab States.
130. We have been told here something about the fate of the poor Christians. The representative of Syria let it be known here that I, the representative of the PLO, am a Christian. I can claim no particular pride in that—I was born a Christian and I was raised as a Christian—but there is one thing I can pride myself on. I have been knighted as a member of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre for my defence of the faith. This is just to let you know that Christians in the Arab world can also be appointed to represent their countries in the United Nations. But I would remind the Council about the concern of His Holiness the Pope. I am paraphrasing, because I do not recall the exact words, but His Holiness expressed great concern about the future of the holy shrines in the Holy Land. He expressed concern that those shrines would eventually become museums for lack of worshippers. What happened to those worshippers? They did not become atheists. They were compelled to leave their home towns. This in itself speaks clearly of how the Christians are being treated under the forces of occupation in the Holy Land.
131. The Zionists are not really the representatives of the Jews. I have just been informed that the Zionist authorities in Jerusalem have demolished the slaughterhouse of the Neturei Karta. They have a special slaughterhouse where they use their particular ritual for their religion, and the Mayor of Jerusalem—we listen to him very often on the radio inviting people to visit Jerusalem under his rule—has decided to demolish their slaughterhouse. These are the defenders of the Jews—at least they claim to be so.
132. I sincerely hope that the Council in its deliberations will always take into consideration the point on the agenda. That calls for consideration of the situation in the occupied Arab territories.
133. The PRESIDENT (interpretation from French): The representative of Somalia wishes to speak in exercise of his right of reply. I invite him to take a place at the Council table and to make a statement.
134. Mr. HUSSEN (Somalia): I apologize for asking to be allowed to speak again at this late hour, but I could not help doing so in order to refute the false allegations directed by the representative of zionism at my country.
135. The Israeli representative charged my country with being a threat to the peace in the area in which we live and also to our neighbours. First of all, I must categorically reject this baseless allegation. If this allegation sheds light on anything, it sheds light on the ignorance of the Israeli representative about the facts of the situation in our part of the world. Contrary to the false and malicious allegations and propaganda spread in some quarters by some Governments in the hope of achieving certain pre-calculated policy objectives, my country has always followed a policy of peace, justice and international understanding. Unlike the racist Zionist authorities in the occupied Arab territories, my Government has always had the fullest respect for the principles of international law and human rights.
136. I am sure that Council members can easily understand that the real purpose behind the Israeli representative's allegations against my country, and others is to divert the debate from the proper perspective of the question at hand. The question before the Council today is the usurpation and creeping annexation by the Zionists of the illegally occupied Arab lands. The representative of Israel cannot deny the establishment of purely Jewish settlements in Arab, territories, the uprooting of numerous Arab communities, the deportation of Arab peoples from their, own lands, the expropriation of Arab property and the terrorizing and murder of Arabs, which are the doings of his Government and troops. These abhorrent activities are the ingredients making the situation one of tension and explosiveness, and it is because of the tension and explosiveness that my delegation urges the Council to take effective measures to compel Israel to desist from its oppressive and fascist policies and to abide by the Charter of the United Nations and the principles of international law.
The meeting rose at 6.10 p.m.
Note
1/ United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 75, p. 287.
Document Type: Meeting record, Provisional verbatim record
Document Sources: Security Council
Subject: Agenda Item, Occupation, Palestine question, Situation in the OPT including Jerusalem
Publication Date: 12/05/1976