Mideast situation – General Assembly general debate – Verbatim record (excerpts)

CONTENTS

Agenda item 9:

General debate (concluded):

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9. Sir SEEWOO SAGUR RAMGOOLAM (Mauritius): My delegation considers the realization of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people as indispensable for the solution of the Palestinian problem.  We are glad that on the interminable question of the Middle East we note a constructive swing of the pendulum towards recognition of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as a symbol of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and independence.

10. We reject the enactment by Israel which proclaims Jerusalem its capital as a violation of international law and consider such activities on the part of Israel as serious impediments in the peace process.  We urge Israel to comply with Security Council resolution 465 (1980) and all resolutions relevant to the restoration of the historic character of the Holy City of Jerusalem.

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50. Mr. OULD MINNIH (Mauritania)): In the Middle East, the Camp David accords have been seen in their true light.  More than ever, they appear to be a way of strengthening the Zionist entity in its refusal to recognize the national rights of the Arab people of Palestine or to liberate the other occupied Arab territories.

51. There have been no positive developments with regard to the question of Palestine.  What is worse, certain negative developments have occurred because of Israel’s increasingly warlike attitude, one that has dangerously and superfluously complicated an already highly explosive situation.

52. The Israeli acts of aggression – the Assembly is aware if them – have extended to populated areas through reckless campaigns of collective reprisals that remind us unmistakably of the Nazi atrocities against the Warsaw ghetto and in other European cities during the Second World War.

53. In this connection, the Islamic Republic of Mauritania reaffirms its solidarity and sympathy with the fraternal people of Lebanon.  We also reaffirm our country’s attachment to the unity of the Lebanese people, the integrity of their national territory and their aspirations within the framework of the national objectives shared by the entire Arab nation.

54. In the same theatre of operations and with unparalleled arrogance, the Zionist entity, assuming its self-appointed role of policeman of the area, has begun a campaign of intimidation and preparations for aggression against Syria, threatening the world with a new and serious Israeli-Arab armed conflict.

55. However, beyond Palestine and its immediate neighbours, Israel has arrogantly and cynically bombed the atomic reactors at Tamuz, near Baghdad, which were for scientific purposes.  We take this opportunity to express our indignant condemnation of that infamous act, the purpose of which has not escaped the attention of our community of nations.  It was Israel’s intention to hold back all scientific progress among the Arab peoples in a vain attempt to perpetuate its supremacy.  We must emphasize that this action was taken in defiance of the rules laid down by IAEA for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy under international control.

56. Obviously, neither muscle-flexing nor racist aggression against the Arab history of Palestine and the aspirations of its people, much less furious attacks on the technological future of the Arab people, will move us forward towards peace.  On the contrary, we believe, along with the majority of Member States, that Israel must respect the universal consensus recognizing the inalienable and imprescriptible rights of the Palestinian people and calling for the return of the other occupied Arab territories and an end to State terrorism if it really wants to create a climate conducive to détente, then a genuine, just and comprehensive peace in the Middle East.  We reiterate our position on this subject.

57. First, we call for Israel’s total and unconditional withdrawal from all territories occupied as a result of the June 1967 aggression, particularly the Holy City of Al Quds.

58. Secondly, the international community must compel the usurper fully to restore to the Palestinian Arab people its inalienable rights including its imprescriptible rights to create its own independent State in the land of its ancestors.

59. Thirdly, there is an overriding obligation fully and completely to bring the PLO, sole representative of the Palestinian Arab people, into any genuine settlement.  Here we reaffirm our opposition to all partial settlements, especially the Camp David agreement.

60. Fourthly, my country considers null and void all attempts by  the occupying Power to modify the demographic composition, the environment and the Arab, Moslem and Christian nature of Palestinian lands and other occupied territories by the creation of settlements, the digging of a canal from the Dead Sea, or by other means.

61. Fifthly, the Islamic Republic of Mauritania vigorously condemns the excavations undertaken by the Zionist authorities in Al Quds.  To our mind, this act of sacrilege is a provocation of the Islamic community in a place which is holy and dear to all revealed religions.

62. Having reaffirmed our position, we take this opportunity to salute the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People and its chairman, our brother, Mr. Sarré, for their tireless efforts to bring about the triumph of the just cause of the Palestinians and of genuine peace in the Middle East.

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191. Mr. MROUDIAE (Comoros): The attack upon the Iraqi installation at Tamuz, which my country severely condemned at the time, clearly shows Israel’s deliberate will to continue to resort to force, in violation of the Charter.  The means put at its disposal make it possible for the Zionist forces to extend their grip by occupying Palestinian land, by shamelessly Judaizing the occupied territories and by high-handedly taking over Jerusalem, the Holy City, the sacred centre of all revealed religions.

192. Israel can no longer continue to ignore the Palestinian fact, the rights of that people to self-determination and to found an independent State upon its own soil.  I wish to take this opportunity to reaffirm once again the steadfast support of the Government of the Comoros for the just cause of the Palestinian people and for their sole representative, the PLO.

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250. Mr. WHITEMAN (Grenada): The situation in the Middle East remains tense, and recent events there have actually aggravated the conditions of instability which prevail.  This is manifested in Israel’s increased aggression against the Palestinian and Arab people, in its bombing of the Iraqi nuclear reactor, violating Iraq’s sovereignty and displaying utter disregard for international law, and also in its vicious and lethal raid on Beirut and southern Lebanon.

252. We also take this opportunity to reiterate our firm condemnation of any partial approach to, or agreement on, resolving the untenable situation in the Middle East.  We reaffirm our recognition of the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and express our irrevocable conviction that the PLO must be a party to any full and comprehensive plan for a just solution to the Middle East conflict. Such a solution must allow for a fully sovereign Palestinian State and for the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to their homeland.

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284. Mr. BLUM (Israel): In the course of these anti-Israel diatribes, many speakers feigned concern for the Palestinian Arabs and spoke of the alleged need for a homeland for the allegedly homeless Palestinian Arabs.  Slogans of this kind fit in well with the design of Arab States to draw attention away from the real cause of the Arab-Israel conflict.  For the conflict is not, and never has been, between Israel and a stateless people.

285. The Palestinian Arabs have achieved their self-determination in Jordan, which is the Palestinian Arab State by virtue of its history, geography, demography, religion, language, culture and all aspects of its national life.

286. The real cause of the Arab-Israel conflict is, and always has been, the refusal of Arab States to accept the existence of an independent and secure Sate of Israel and their avowed commitment to its destruction. There is no better illustration of this point than in the support by these Arab States for the terrorist PLO.

287. It should be recalled that in 1964, at a time when Jordan occupied Judea and Samaria, and Egypt occupied the Gaza district, the PLO as established by the Arab League as an instrument for pursuing its goal to eliminate the State of Israel.  It was then that the terrorist PLO proclaimed its so-called Palestinian National Covenant, aiming at the total repudiation of the existence of Israel. That criminal objective of the PLO has since been regularly reiterated and remains unaltered.

288. As long as our rejectionist neighbours continue to support the PLO and what it stands for, it is a sure sign that they are not interested in reconciliation and are continuing to aim at Israel’s demise.

289. The national rights of the Palestinian Arabs were fully realized more than three decades ago when the Palestinian Arab State of Jordan was established on 80 percent of the territory of Palestine.

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337. Mr. AL-ZAHAWI (Iraq): The statement was just heard from the Israeli representative brings to mind a passage recorded by General von Horn in his autobiography.  General von Horn was Chief of Staff of UNTSO in Palestine from 1958 until 1963.  In his book entitled Soldiering for Peace, he wrote the following in connection with an Israeli investigation of a truce incident:

“… we were amazed at the ingenuity of the falsehoods which distorted the true picture.  The highly skilled Israeli Information Service and the entire press combined to manufacture a warped, distorted version which as disseminated with professional expertise through every available channel to their own people and their sympathizers and supporters in America and the rest of the world.  Never in all my life had I believed the truth could be so cynically, expertly bent.”

338. That description applies word for word to the distortion of the facts of the Palestine question by the Zionist representatives here and outside.  Unfortunately, it seems that they have new support now.  They have a newly found strategic ally in the United States.

339. In the International Herald Tribune of 3 August 1981, an article appeared entitled “Sadat’s Consciousness-Raising Task in U.S. “. The writer stated:

“… it was not too long ago that a European foreign minister raised with Mr. Reagan the question of the ‘policy of the Palestinian problem’ and was plunged into despair by this response.

“There is no ‘Palestinian problem’, the President is said to have replied – it’s a matter of Arab refugees’ who ought to have been assimilated by the Arab world years ago.”

340. Members of the Assembly will remember that those are almost exactly the words that were uttered by Golda Meir in 1969. As reported in The Sunday Times of London on 15 June 1969, she had this to say: “ it was not as though there were as Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them.  They did not exist.”

341. I have had occasion to refer to the credentials of Mr. Shamir as a man of peace at the 22nd meeting, on 1 October, and I shall not repeat what I said then.  My remarks are contained in the verbatim record.  However, I should like to refer to some other Zionist leaders to see what kind of peacemakers they are. Mr. Begin, notwithstanding what his representative here says, said “I deeply believe in launching a preventive war against the Arab States without further hesitation.  BY doing so we will achieve two targets: Firstly, the annihilation of Arab power; and secondly, the extension of out territory…” That statement was made to the Israeli Parliament and was quoted in The New York Times of 25 April 1956.

342. A spokesman for the Herut Party, which is now the Likud, declared in New York in 1956, according to The New York Times of 25 January 1956:

“ Peace with the Arab countries is impossible with the present boundaries of Israel, which leave Israel open o attack, Israel should take the offensive immediately and capture strategic points along its border, including the Gaza Strip, and then should take over the British-backed Kingdom of Jordan.”

343. There has been a lot of talk here again of Camp David. It is significant that now the Israelis can speak openly of taking over the whole of the West Bank, dumping the Palestinians in Jordan and perhaps expanding into Jordan at a later stage.  But let us look at the record.

344. Since the Camp David accords, Israel has intensified the establishment of Jewish colonies – the so-called settlements – in the occupied Palestinian and other Arab territories.  Israel, in the face of universal objection and condemnation, has illegally annexed Arab Jerusalem.  Israel has escalated its aggressions against Lebanon in the Zionist efforts to dismember that country.  Israel has expanded the area of its aggression by staging the unprecedented attack on the nuclear installations near Baghdad.  Last but not least, Israel has escalated its genocidal war against the Palestinian people in what may be a drive fro a “final solution” to the whole Palestinian question.

345. Perhaps it would be appropriate here to cite the words of the eminent British historian, the late Arnold J Toynbee, who said in A Study of History.

“If the heinousness of sin is to be measured by the degree to which the sinner is sinning against the light that God has vouchsafed to him, the Jews had even less excuse in A.D. 1948 for evicting Palestinian Arabs from their homes than Nebuchadnezzar and Titus and Hadrian and the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisition had had for uprooting, persecuting and exterminating Jews in Palestine and elsewhere at divers times in the past.  In A.D. 1948 the Jews knew, from personal experience, what they were doing; and it was their supreme tragedy that the lesson learnt by them from their encounter with the Nazi German Gentles should have been not to eschew but to imitate some of the evil deeds that the Nazis had committed against the Jews.”

346. Mr. JUMA (Jordan): Many Palestinian people who were forcibly evicted from their historical home land came to Jordan in 1948 and 1967.  They lost almost everything except their longing to return to their original homeland, a longing and vision that remain strong and determined in the face of all attempts made by Israel to stifle Palestinian rights and Palestinian nationalism, as well as Israel’s futile desire to liquidate the distinct Jordanian and Palestinian identities.  To say that Jordan is a Palestinian State or homeland is an affront and an insult to the intelligence of the whole international community.

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414. The PRESIDENT: The Observer of the Palestine Liberation Organization has asked to be allowed to reply to a statement made by one of the speakers in the general debate.  I intend to call on him on the basis of General Assembly resolution 3237 (XXIX) of 22 November 1974.

415. I call on the Observer of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

416. Mr. TERZI (Palestine Liberation Organization): The representative of the Reagan Administration seems to forget, or more likely he is trying to find some cover for, the criminal acts of the Washington Administration, which has provided and continues to provide shelter and protection for scores of Nazi criminals thriving in this beautiful country of hope for men of goodwill.  Absconded war criminals still move at leisure in the streets of the United States.  Neo-Nazi criminal groups are flourishing under the protection of the so-called democratic system.  Racist and hate campaigns are almost a daily occurrence on television programmes and in other parts of the media.

417. What is still more grave is the fact that the Government of the United States continues to support and finance terrorists in different parts of the world.  In particular, I wish to refer to the terrorist acts committed by Israel, acts of State terrorism aimed at the elimination of the Palestinian people, acts of genocide as the final solution to the Palestinian refugee problem.  These terrorist acts are committed through the sue of American-financed and trained terrorist using American-donated F-15 and F-16 aircraft, cluster bombs and other weapons to eliminate the Palestinians and terrorize and kill our brothers in Lebanon.  Billions of United States dollars finance these acts of State terrorism committed by the strategic ally of the United States of America, racist Israel: The Government of the United States is no longer a mere accomplice; it is an ally.

418. A few days ago a criminal, one of the terrorists who, in one way or another, participated in the assassination of an envoy of peace, a mediator entrusted with a mission by the United Nations – Count Folke Bernadotte – spoke before the Assembly. That criminal is none other than Shamir, who was a leader of the notorious Stern Gang.  

419. Concerning the efforts for peace, I recall that the Security Council unanimously adopted resolution 465 (1980).  Among other things, the Council:

“Affirming once more that the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 12 August 1949, is applicable to the Arab territories occupied by Israel since 1967, including Jerusalem,

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“5. Determines that all measures taken by Israel to change the physical character demographic composition, institutional structure or status of the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem, or any part thereof have no legal validity and that Israel’s policy and practices of settling parts of its population and new immigrants in those territories constitute a flagrant violation of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War and also constitute a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East.”

420. That resolution was adopted unanimously, including the vote of the United States.  It expresses the unanimous opinion that Israel is illegally occupying Palestinian territory and that Israel’s policies and practices constitute a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East.

421. If the representative of the racist junta in Tel Aviv does not agree with the unanimous opinion of the Security Council and the international community, that is his business, but, after all, the represents a minority of one.  To both of the representatives of the new strategic alliance for aggression, that is, the United States and Israel, I would say: Do not daydream; the rest of the world has come out clearly in its assertion that your policy is an obstacle to peace.

422. Finally, I wonder this: Is it really the fault of the mirror that the image of the witch is reflected in such a monstrous way?

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