YEARBOOK
OF THE
UNITED
NATIONS
1972
OFFICE OF PUBLIC INFORMATION
UNITED NATIONS, NEW YORK
The situation in the Middle East
During 1972, the situation in the Middle East continued to receive consideration by various United Nations organs.
Communications and reports concerning the status of the cease-fire between Israel on the one hand, and Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and the Syrian Arab Republic on the other, were received by the Security Council, which met in February, June, July and September to consider complaints by Lebanon and the Syrian Arab Republic and by Israel. The Council also considered the question of increasing the number of United Nations observers in the Israel-Lebanon sector.
The Secretary-General reported on the efforts of his Special Representative to the Middle East, Ambassador Gunnar V. Jarring, to carry out the mandate entrusted to him by the Security Council in its resolution of 22 November 1967. 1/ At its 1971 session, the General Assembly had asked the Secretary-General to reactivate the mission of the Special Representative. The Secretary-General reported that an agreed basis for discussions under Ambassador Jarring's auspices did not seem to exist, but that efforts would continue.
At its twenty-seventh session, which opened on 19 September 1972, the General Assembly again discussed the situation in the Middle East and on 8 December adopted a resolution sponsored by 21 Members. By this, the Assembly among other things reaffirmed its resolution of 13 December 1971 2/ and deplored Israel's non-compliance with that resolution, which called on Israel to respond favourably to the peace initiative of the Special Representative. The Assembly also declared once again that the acquisition of territories by force was inadmissible and territories thus occupied must be restored. It reaffirmed provisions of the Security Council's resolution of 22 November 1967, namely, that the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East should include: (a) withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the 1967 conflict; and (b) termination of claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and its right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.
The Assembly also invited Israel to declare publicly its adherence to the principles of non-annexation of territories through the use of force, and called on it to rescind all measures carried out in the occupied Arab territories in contravention of the 1949 Geneva Conventions and to desist from all policies and practices affecting the physical character or demographic composition of the occupied territories. In that connexion, the Assembly called on all States not to recognize any such measures and to avoid actions–including actions in the field of aid–that could constitute recognition of the occupation. The Assembly recognized that respect for the rights of the Palestinians was an indispensable element in the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East. It also asked the Security Council–in consultation with the Secretary-General and his Special Representative–to take all appropriate steps with a view to the full and speedy implementation of the Council's resolution of 22 November 1967.
During the year, several communications were received by the Security Council and the Secretary-General concerning the status of the City of Jerusalem and the Holy Places.
Also during the year, the question of the treatment of the civilian population of the Arab territories occupied by Israel was again considered by the Commission on Human Rights and the General Assembly, both of which took decisions based on the findings of the three-member Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Population of the Occupied Territories.
Also received during the year were communications concerning the hijacking of civilian aircraft and other incidents of violence.
Details of these and related matters are described in the sections that follow.
Status of the cease-fire
Israel-Lebanon sector
Communications to Security Council
(January-February 1972)
In a letter dated 11 January 1972, Lebanon charged that on 10 and 11 January Israeli forces had twice penetrated into Lebanese territory and destroyed several houses. Artillery fire from Israel had destroyed other houses and wounded Lebanese citizens.
In letters on 12 and 13 January, Israel stated that in recent weeks there had been a marked increase in acts of terror from Lebanese territory against Israel. It listed a number of incidents that had taken place between 10 December 1971 and 13 January 1972 in which civilian installations had been attacked from Lebanese territory. Israel said it could not acquiesce in acts of armed aggression against its territory and population, and was duty-bound to take all necessary measures of self-defence; the Government of Lebanon was obliged to put an immediate end to such armed attacks or be held responsible for violations of international law, the Charter of the United Nations and the 1967 cease-fire.
On 14 January, Lebanon charged that a detachment of Israeli commandos had entered a Lebanese village nine kilometres inside the border and had destroyed four houses. Israel was reported to have undertaken military preparations on the Lebanese border and was threatening to undertake large-scale military operations in southern Lebanon, thus endangering the peace and security not only of Lebanon but of the entire Middle East.
Also on 14 January, Lebanon stated that Israel had delivered to the Lebanese representatives of the Israel-Lebanon Mixed Armistice Commission a "severe warning" that if terrorist activity from Lebanon against Israel was not stopped, Israel might stay permanently in the region in one form or another, which might force the Lebanese people to leave the area. Lebanon protested Israel's threats, which gravely endangered international peace and security; if Israel followed that course, it must assume full responsibility for its acts. Unless Israel desisted forthwith from pursuing those threats, the Security Council would be duty-bound to assume its responsibilities.
On 24 February, Israel charged that two Israeli civilians had been killed by a rocket fired by a terror squad that had entered Israel from Lebanese territory, and reiterated that it was the duty of Lebanon to end such armed attacks from its territory.
On 25 February, Lebanon complained about Israel's persistent acts of aggression against Lebanese territory, culminating that morning in a large-scale air and ground attack. In view of the extreme gravity of the situation, endangering the peace and security of Lebanon, the representative of Lebanon requested an urgent meeting of the Security Council.
Also on 25 February, Israel, after referring to its complaint of 24 February about terrorist attacks from Lebanese territory against its villages, said that on the previous day terrorists had entered Israel from Lebanese territory. During a clash between them and an Israeli patrol, eight Israelis had been wounded, one of them fatally. In the face of those attacks by terrorists, who had acknowledged that they had perpetrated still another attack, Israel had been compelled on 25 February to take self-defence measures against the terrorists' encampments. In view of the gravity of the attacks, the representative of Israel requested an urgent meeting of the Security Council.
Consideration by Security Council (February 1972)
On 26 February 1972, the Security Council met to consider the complaints by Lebanon and Israel, whose representatives–and subsequently those of the Syrian Arab Republic and Saudi Arabia–were invited, at their request, to participate in the discussion without the right to vote.
Lebanon's spokesman charged that on 25 February an Israeli force, consisting of 60 tanks and armoured cars, had crossed the border under heavy air-force cover and attacked several Lebanese villages. Israeli aircraft had bombarded other Lebanese villages and caused death and destruction. Moreover, Israel had on the same day delivered–through the Mixed Armistice Commission–a warning to Lebanon that the action of the Israeli forces was against terrorists who had come from and returned to Lebanon and that Israel would continue its incursions into Lebanon if the terrorist activities did not stop.
The Lebanese representative went on to say that–in addition to the ground and air attacks–Israeli bulldozers were opening roads inside Lebanese territory and paving the way for further military operations. Lebanon, he said, had hoped that previous condemnatory Council resolutions would restrain Israel from any further incursions, but Israel had disregarded them and defied the Council's authority. Lebanon rejected Israel's allegations that the incidents on Israeli-held territory had originated from Lebanon; if Israel had not paralysed the Mixed Armistice Commission, the international observers would have been able to determine the origin of the incidents. In the circumstances, it had become incumbent upon the Council to adopt the measures which would prevent Israel from resorting to its chronic acts of aggression against Lebanon or any other Arab State, including the application of the appropriate sanctions provided for in Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter. 3/
The representative of Israel stated that Lebanon had long permitted terrorist organizations not only to set up their headquarters in Beirut but also to establish bases and encampments in or near Lebanese villages from which to carry out attacks against Israel. The Government of Lebanon had even gone so far as to enter into a written agreement with the professed leader of the terrorist organizations, Yasser Arafat.
Israel, he said, had on many occasions brought to the attention of the Council literally hundreds of attacks by terrorists operating from Lebanese territory against Israeli towns, villages, civilians and military personnel. However, nothing had been done by the Council to impress upon Lebanon that it could not co-operate with the terrorists and, at the same time, expect Israel to refrain from protecting its citizens and property.
In January, he went on the say, Israel had drawn the Council's attention to new acts of terror; on 23 and 24 February, the latest outrages had resulted in the death of two civilians. About the same time, in an incident involving Israeli border police and terrorists, eight men had been wounded, three of whom died later. He stressed that Israel, in protecting its citizens, had taken minimal action directed only against the terrorists and their encampments; Israeli forces had returned to their bases immediately after the operation.
The representative of Israel concluded by saying that as long as Lebanon was unwilling or unable to prevent armed attacks from its territory against Israel, it could not complain against actions taken in self-defence. Lebanon must not be given comfort and encouragement by any resolutions of the Council in utter disregard of the factual and legal situation. On the contrary, Lebanon should be condemned for flouting the cease-fire and be ordered to take immediate action to put a stop to all terrorist activities from its territory against Israel.
During the debate, the USSR representative said that the large-scale armed attack perpetrated by Israel against Lebanon was part of Israel's continued attempts to thwart a peaceful settlement of the Middle East conflict so that it could retain control of the Arab territory it had seized and consolidate its position. The attack had been carried out on the very day the Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Ambassador Gunnar V. Jarring, had arrived in Israel to hold talks with Israeli leaders on a settlement in the Middle East. Israel had thus once again thrown down the gauntlet to the United Nations and world public opinion.
The USSR representative went on to say that the struggle of the Arab patriots for the liberation of their lands was the natural reaction of the population of an occupied territory towards alien usurpers, and only the withdrawal of the Israeli forces from the illegally seized Arab territories could open the way to peace and security in the Middle East. The Security Council should condemn Israel more severely than ever for its latest armed attack against Lebanon; it should take effective measures to restrain the Israeli aggressors and put into effect its previous decisions by applying the provisions of Chapter VII of the Charter.
The spokesman for France recalled that since 1968 the Security Council had adopted no less than five resolutions denouncing Israeli military interventions into Lebanon. However, because of its scope and violence the current military action by Israel went beyond previous ones. France did not doubt that the Lebanese Government was doing all it could to control the activities of the fedayeen in its territory, but it could not be held responsible for what happened in Israeli territory. An end should be put to the military actions and Israeli troops should immediately be withdrawn from Lebanese territory.
The representative of China said that Israel's action was naked aggression, and he asked the Council to condemn Israel and demand that it cease its armed operations and withdraw its forces.
Other members of the Council–Italy and Belgium among them–expressed the view that, although acts of violence were to be deplored regardless of their origin, Israel's military action had by far exceeded the events that had allegedly prompted it. Israel should stop the attacks and withdraw its forces. Some members, including Japan and Belgium, noted the lack of a United Nations presence in the area and recalled a proposal made by the Secretary-General in August 1968 that observers should be stationed on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border.
On 27/28 February, the Security Council met again at the request of Lebanon, which had informed the President of incursions by Israeli forces into Lebanese territory carried out during the day.
The representative of Lebanon informed the Council that squadrons of the Israeli air force and units of Israeli heavy artillery had, on the morning 27 February, bombarded areas of southern and south-eastern Lebanon. Later, Israeli armoured units had crossed the border and had been engaged by Lebanese forces, and Israeli Skyhawk jet aircraft had bombarded a Palestinian refugee camp, killing 10 persons and wounding 30, most of them children. The Israeli attacks had resulted in the destruction of scores of houses in various towns, subsequently occupied by the invaders, and the population of the area had begun a large-scale exodus towards the central and northern parts of Lebanon. The time had come, he said, for the Council to act swiftly in order to force the aggressor to withdraw its troops immediately from Lebanese territory.
According to Israel's spokesman, Israeli troops had withdrawn from Lebanon on 26 February. On the following morning, however, terrorists based in Lebanon had opened fire against Israeli troops that were then outside Lebanon. The fire had been returned and appropriate action taken against the terrorist bases, in the exercise of Israel's inherent right of self-defence as recognized by the law of nations and embodied in the Charter. He regretted if the fighting had resulted, as alleged, in civilian casualties; the responsibility fell on the terrorists who placed their military positions in and near Lebanese villages. As a sovereign State and United Nations Member, Lebanon had the obligation to prevent the us of its territory by irregular or any other forces for aggression against another Member State.
Many speakers condemned Israel for its new attacks on Lebanon and urged the Council to take prompt and effective measures to stop the Israeli aggression. Several representatives deplored the loss of life on both sides and pointed out that the continuation of attacks by guerrilla infiltrators, which had precipitated the Israeli attack, did not serve the interests of the people in the area and only delayed the achievement of a just and lasting peace.
The representative of Italy introduced a draft resolution sponsored by Belgium, France, Italy and the United Kingdom which, he said, represented the minimum action the Council could take. By this text, the Security Council, after deploring all actions which had resulted in the loss of innocent lives, would demand that Israel immediately desist and refrain from any ground and air military action against Lebanon and forthwith withdraw all its military forces from Lebanese territory. Oral amendments were proposed concerning the preambular paragraph of the draft resolution (by which the Council would deplore all actions which had resulted in the loss of innocent lives), including a suggestion by Yugoslavia, supported by the USSR and China, that the preambular paragraph be deleted. The United States proposed that the preambular paragraph be amended to have the Council deplore all actions which had resulted in the loss of innocent lives "on both sides." The proposal was later withdrawn.
The representative of Italy said that the sponsors–after holding consultations on the suggestions made–felt that it would be difficult for them to agree to delete the preambular paragraph. However, they suggested that the preambular and operative paragraphs of the draft resolution should each be voted on separately, and it was so agreed. The vote on the preambular paragraph–by which the Council would deplore all actions which had resulted in the loss of innocent lives–was 8 in favour, 4 against, and 3 abstentions; having failed to obtain the required majority, the paragraph was not adopted.
The draft resolution, as modified by the deletion of the preambular paragraph, was then put to the vote and adopted unanimously, as resolution 313 (1972).
The Security Council thus demanded that Israel immediately desist and refrain from any ground and air military action against Lebanon and forthwith withdraw all its military forces from Lebanese territory.
(For text, see DOCUMENTARY REFERENCES below.)
Security Council consensus of 19 April 1972
On 19 April 1972, the Security Council issued the text of a consensus reached by its members on the question of increasing the number of United Nations observers in the Israel-Lebanon sector in response to a request by Lebanon.
The consensus said that the Council President had held a number of consultations with the members of the Council and with the Secretary-General on the Lebanese request; a formal meeting of the Council had not been considered necessary. The Secretary-General was invited to proceed in the manner outlined in a memorandum he had addressed to the Council President on 4 April. He was further invited to consult with Lebanon on arrangements and report periodically to the Council on the matter.
The Secretary-General's memorandum of 4 April was annexed to the text of the consensus. In it he referred to a request by Lebanon on 29 March to the President of the Council by which Lebanon said that, because of repeated Israeli aggression and because the work of the Israel-Lebanon Mixed Armistice Commission had been paralysed since 1967, Lebanon wished that the Council would take the necessary action to strengthen the United Nations machinery in the sector by increasing the number of observers, on the basis of the Armistice Agreement of 1949. Following consultations with Council members, the President had informed the Secretary-General on 31 March that it was the members' view that the request of Lebanon should be met. Pending a final decision, he had asked the Secretary-General to determine the number of additional observers required. The Secretary-General had accordingly instructed the Chief of Staff of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization in Palestine (UNTSO) to consult with the authorities concerned and recommend what arrangements should be made. The Secretary-General had made it clear that the action requested was of a preliminary nature for the sole purpose of informing the Council before a final decision was taken.
On 3 April, the memorandum continued, the Chief of Staff had informed the Secretary-General that Lebanon had proposed the establishment of three static observation posts only, at Naqoura, near Bent Jbail and in the Marjayoun area. The number of observers assigned to the Mixed Armistice Commission would have to be increased from 7 to 21, with more added if necessary. All the required personnel and equipment would be provided from existing UNTSO resources to the extent possible. The Chief of Staff had pointed out that the three observation posts proposed by Lebanon could not provide comprehensive coverage of the Armistice Demarcation Line and would have to be considered as a limited United Nations presence on one side of the line, providing only a measure of observation and a somewhat more rapid supply of information from UNTSO sources than that currently provided.
By a note dated 19 April, the President of the Security Council circulated–at China's request–a statement made by China during the consultations on the Council's consensus. As a result of its illegal exclusion from the United Nations over a long period, China said it found it difficult to make an over-all appraisal of the Lebanon-Israel Armistice Agreement of 1919, although in China's view the Agreement had been signed in circumstances unfavourable to the Arab people. China maintained that the strengthening of the United Nations machinery of observers was not an effective method for preventing Israel's aggression. However, China would not oppose the Council's agreement to the Lebanese request.
Communications to Security Council (April-June 1972)
On 25 April 1972, reporting on the implementation of the Security Council's consensus of 19 April, the Secretary-General said that, following discussions between the UNTSO Chief of Staff and the Commander-in-Chief of the Lebanese army, the sites of the proposed observation posts had been selected and full agreement had been reached with the Lebanese authorities on various arrangements for ensuring the effective functioning of the extended Israel-Lebanon Mixed Armistice Commission operation and the security of UNTSO personnel. The Chief of Staff had informed the Israeli authorities of the arrangements for the three new observation posts, which became operational on 24 April. Relevant information based on the observers' reports would be circulated to the Security Council as occasion required and the Secretary-General would report to the Council periodically on the need for continuing the measures taken in implementation of the consensus and on their scale.
Beginning on 25 April, the Secretary-General issued supplemental information reports on incidents in the Israel-Lebanon sector. In the reports, the observers operating in the new observation posts transmitted complaints by Lebanon that a number of Israeli soldiers had crossed and recrossed the borders on 25, 26, and 28 April. They also reported occasional overflights of Lebanese territory by Israeli aircraft.
During May and the first part of June, the observers reported on a variety of aerial and ground activities and transmitted complaints filed by Lebanon regarding violations of its air space and territorial waters, as well as border crossings by Israeli forces. Some of the Lebanese complaints had not been confirmed by the observers because the incidents had occurred outside the observation range of the posts.
On 5 June, Lebanon charged that on that date 11 Israeli military aircraft had violated Lebanese air space and flown over towns situated in both northern and southern Lebanon. The letter drew attention to earlier complaints of a similar nature that Lebanon had filed with UNTSO, which had been reported in the supplemental information reports issued by the Secretary-General since 26 April. Israel, the letter stated, had now intensified its violations of Lebanese air space to extend over wider areas and was continuing its campaign of threats against Lebanon, which the Lebanese Government strongly protested.
On 20 June, Israel drew attention to attacks carried out by terrorists operating from Lebanese territory and said that terror organizations were in full control of the south-eastern part of Lebanon, where the attacks had originated. Israel reiterated its demand that Lebanon take effective measures to suppress the terror operations conducted against Israel from Lebanese territory.
Between 15 and 30 June, the Secretary-General continued to circulate supplemental information on the basis of reports received from the UNTSO Chief of Staff concerning the Israel-Lebanon sector. The reports indicated that there had been flights by Israeli jet aircraft over localities in southern Lebanon and contained complaints by Lebanon that Israeli forces had on many occasions crossed the border and directed their artillery or mortar fire to Lebanese territory, causing casualties and damage. The complaints were not always confirmed by United Nations observers because, the reports said, the alleged incidents had occurred outside the observation range of the posts.
On 21 June, the Chief of Staff reported that Israeli jet aircraft had been observed attacking general target areas in the southern region of Lebanon with bombs. The report contained complaints by Lebanon alleging that on the same day Israeli armoured forces had penetrated Lebanese territory and attacked a vehicular column, killing five military personnel and capturing five Syrian officers, one Lebanese officer and three gendarmes. The complaint also alleged that Israeli aircraft had bombed two towns and a village, killing 9 civilians and wounding 24, and also destroying or damaging 40 houses and 16 civilian vehicles.
On 22 June, the Syrian Arab Republic complained to the President of the Security Council that on 21 June five Syrian officers were, while visiting colleagues in the Lebanese army, ambushed and abducted inside Lebanon by an Israeli armoured force. The Council President was asked to initiate steps for the immediate release of the five officers.
On 23 June, the representative of Lebanon informed the President of the Council that Israel's persistent aggression against Lebanon had culminated in a large-scale air and ground attack which had taken place on 21, 22 and 23 June against his country. In view of the extreme gravity of the situation, Lebanon requested an urgent meeting of the Security Council.
On the same day, the representative of Israel requested an urgent meeting of the Council to consider the continuous armed attacks, shelling, sabotage, acts of air piracy and other acts of terror and violence being perpetrated from Lebanese territory against Israel, its people, property and communications.
Consideration by Security Council (June 1972)
On 23 June 1972, the Security Council met to consider the complaints by Lebanon and Israel. The two countries–and subsequently Egypt, Kuwait, Jordan and the Syrian Arab Republic–were invited, at their request, to participate in the debate without the right to vote.
Lebanon's spokesman told the Council that on 21 June a military delegation of seven Syrian officers with their Lebanese escorts had been ambushed by an Israeli military armoured unit composed of five tanks and three half-tracks which had opened fire on the travelling party. Four Lebanese military policemen had been killed; a fifth had been injured and abducted by the Israeli forces and had later died of his wounds in Israel. Five Syrian officers and a Lebanese officer had been kidnapped. A Syrian officer was wounded and another had managed to escape. The visiting party had been travelling in civilian vehicles.
Later that day, the Lebanese representative said, the Israeli air force had bombed several villages, killing 9 persons and injuring 17. Many houses had been destroyed or damaged. There had been other incidents of mortar and artillery shellings, as well as Israeli overflights and bombing in other areas, causing death, injury and material damage. The town of Dir-el-Assayr was heavily bombed, killing 17 Lebanese civilians and injuring 12.
The Lebanese spokesman went on to say that Lebanon had done everything in its power to promote conditions of peace in the area; that was why it had asked for the strengthening of the United Nations machinery under the Armistice Agreement by increasing the number of United Nations observers on the Lebanese border. Israel, however, had refused to co-operate with the Council and had refused to allow United Nations observers to operate on its territory. The reports of the observers had not contained a single Israeli complaint against Lebanon or any reference to activity undertaken from Lebanese territory. On the contrary, they contained ample evidence of consistent violations by Israel of Lebanese sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Lebanon, he said, was now seeking from the Council a very strong condemnation of Israel for its repeated acts of aggression, and it requested that the Syrian and Lebanese officers abducted by Israeli forces on 21 June be returned immediately to Lebanon. Non-action, or a non-decisive action, would be tantamount to a recompense for the acts of the aggressor.
The representative of Israel said that on 20 June Arab terror organizations based in Lebanon had served notice that they intended to pursue their murderous operations: an Israeli civilian bus was fired on by bazookas, wounding two elderly passengers; later, two Israeli soldiers were injured by a mine explosion.
The so-called Palestine Liberation Organization–the umbrella organization of the Arab terror groups–had claimed responsibility for the attacks, and on 21 June the Israeli air force and artillery had reacted in self-defence against the terrorist concentrations. At the same time, an Israeli patrol had encountered a military convoy, approximately 100 metres from the border, which had opened fire; in the ensuing clash five Syrian officers, one Lebanese officer, a soldier and four gendarmes had been taken prisoner. Terror squads had again opened bazooka fire from Lebanon early on 23 June; Israeli forces had returned the fire and, later, Israeli aircraft had struck at a terrorist base.
Israel's representative said his Government continued to hope that Lebanon would decide to abide by its international obligations and put an end to the criminal activities of the terror organizations, thus making it unnecessary for Israel to exercise its right of self-defence by measures of its own against the terror groups and their bases. For almost two decades, the Israel-Lebanon frontier had served as an example of tranquillity and coexistence, and had remained so until the Lebanese Government allowed the terror groups to turn Lebanon into their base of operations and to establish headquarters in Beirut, from which their tentacles reached abroad.
The Israeli representative recalled the Lod airport massacre on 30 May which, he said, had been initiated, planned and perpetrated from Lebanese territory. (See also pp. 190-93.) Lebanon was duty-bound to ensure that its territory was not used as a spring-board for aggression against a neighbouring State. That was a fundamental obligation under international law and the Charter, and when Lebanon repudiated that obligation it left Israel no alternative but to act in self-defence.
The spokesman for the USSR said that the continuation of Israel's aggressive and adventuristic policy in the Middle East–repeatedly condemned by the Security Council and the United Nations–led to the preservation in that area of a state of dangerous military tension fraught with serious consequences for international peace. Israel was committing new acts of aggression precisely at a time when certain important international problems were being solved on a realistic basis and improvement was taking place in the international climate. The Security Council, he said, must categorically condemn Israel's new acts of aggression and confirm its opinion and its demands, expressed during unofficial consultations of all 15 members of the Council, as to the need for the immediate release of the members of the Syrian delegation taken prisoner by Israeli raiders.
Other speakers–including Argentina, China, Egypt, Guinea, Japan, Jordan, Somalia, the Syrian Arab Republic and the United Kingdom–also called for the immediate release of military personnel abducted in Lebanese territory.
The United States believed that the solution lay in direct liaison and co-operation between the parties to provide the most reliable assurance possible as to the security of each side. Both Israel and Lebanon should have more frequent recourse to the international facilities that existed for the exchange of information and consultation on border matters, and there should be an end to cross-border attacks and terrorism without which the cycle of action and reaction could not be broken. To obtain United States concurrence, any draft resolution before the Council would have to be balanced and show concern about terrorist acts as well as Israeli attacks.
Belgium's representative said his Government had never ceased to repudiate the military reprisal actions undertaken by Israel against Lebanon. At the same time, Belgium would ask the Lebanese Government to contain and effectively control the activities of the Palestinian fighters and thus avoid acts of sabotage and ambush being organized from its territory against civilian targets.
In the view of the United Kingdom, the senseless escalation of violence and reprisals could best be ended through a just and durable settlement in accordance with the Security Council's resolution of 22 November 1967 (242 (1967)). 4/ Israel had said that it was Lebanon's responsibility to take measures to ensure that Lebanese territory was not used for hosthe action against Israel, but acts of reprisal were not an appropriate or even effective method of encouraging such measures. Such actions had gone beyond what could be justified as a legitimate exercise of self-defence. At the same time, he hoped that Lebanon would step up its efforts towards preventing terrorist activity from being launched against Israel from Lebanese territory.
On 26 June, a draft resolution submitted by Belgium, France and the United Kingdom was adopted by the Security Council by a vote of 13 to 0, with 2 abstentions (Panama and the United States) as resolution 316 (1972).
By this, the Council, after deploring the tragic loss of life resulting from all acts of violence and retaliation and expressing grave concern at Israel's failure to comply with previous Security Council resolutions:
(1) called upon Israel to abide by the afore-mentioned resolutions and refrain from all military acts against Lebanon;
(2) condemned, while profoundly deploring all acts of violence, the repeated attacks of Israeli forces on Lebanese territory and population in violation of the principles of the United Nations Charter and Israel's obligations thereunder;
(3) expressed the strong desire that appropriate steps would lead to the release in the shortest possible time of all Syrian and Lebanese military and security personnel abducted by Israel's armed forces on 21 June on Lebanese territory; and
(4) declared that if the above-mentioned steps did not result in the release of the abducted personnel or if Israel failed to comply with the resolution, the Council would convene at the earliest to consider further action.
(For text, see DOCUMENTARY REFERENCES below.)
A draft resolution put forward by the United States was not put to a vote in view of the adoption of the three-power text. By the preambular part of the United States proposal, the Security Council would, among other things, have expressed grave concern at recent terrorist and military acts of violence in the area which had brought about a deterioration in the situation, deplored the tragic and unjustifiable loss of life and property resulting therefrom and expressed its conviction that the cause of peace required the exercise of the utmost restraint by all parties concerned. By the operative part of the text, the Council would have: condemned acts of violence in the area; called for an immediate cessation of all such acts; and called on all Governments concerned to repatriate all armed forces prisoners they held in custody.
When the representative of France introduced the three-power text, he said he did not believe that the Israeli operations–against a peaceful country–could facilitate a return to peace in the region. It was of course up to the Lebanese Government to control the activities of the fedayeen on its territory as best it could, but the situation was the direct result of Israel's occupation of territories conquered by force. One condition for a lasting peace was respect for the integrity and independence of Lebanon.
Explaining its abstention, Panama said that the three-power text lent greater weight to the condemnation of one aspect of violence than to another. There should be a condemnation of recent acts of terrorism against Israel as well as a repudiation of the military incursions against Lebanon.
The United States said that a resolution to have been fair should have been balanced and should have been concerned with terrorist attacks as well as with Israeli attacks. It should have asked for the repatriation of all armed forces prisoners. The three-power resolution had not met those requirements and the United States had been forced to abstain.
The United Kingdom considered that the three-power resolution fairly reflected the situation that had precipitated the current meetings.
According to Israel, the text adopted by the Council was inequitable and immoral. By failing to address itself to the armed attacks against a Member State–which were the subject of Israel's complaint to the Council–by subverting the right of self-defence enshrined in the Charter, by striking at Israel's right to equal treatment, the resolution was contrary to basic Charter principles. Israel would continue to insist that Lebanon abide by its obligations and would hold that Government responsible if it failed to do so.
The Syrian Arab Republic said that the Council, by asking Israel to release the Syrian officers as well as the Lebanese officers and security personnel, had done the minimum that could be done in the circumstances. Otherwise, a grave erosion of international law would have taken place.
Lebanon said it was grateful to the sponsors of the resolution and to those who voted for it, but the text adopted did not fully satisfy Lebanon, because the Council on previous occasions had warned Israel against repetition of its aggression and attacks against Lebanon and Israel had ignored those resolutions.
In separate letters dated 5 July, Lebanon and the Syrian Arab Republic requested a meeting of the Security Council in view of Israel's refusal to abide by Security Council resolution 316 (1972) of 26 June, which had expressed the strong desire that appropriate steps would lead to the release in the shortest possible time of all Syrian and Lebanese military and security personnel abducted by Israeli forces on 21 June 1972 in Lebanese territory.
On 17 July, Israel requested an urgent meeting of the Council to consider the mutual release of all prisoners of war, in accordance with the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, of 12 August 1949.
In a letter to the President of the Security Council on 10 July, Mauritania expressed indignation at the kidnapping of Syrian and Lebanese officers by Israeli armed forces on Lebanese territory, and asked the Council to take all appropriate steps to ensure the immediate implementation of its resolution of 26 June. Any delay in the unconditional release of the officers would only serve to strengthen the contemptuous attitude of the Israeli authorities towards relevant resolutions of the Council.
Consideration by Security Council (July 1972)
On 18 July 1972, after a procedural debate regarding the provisional agenda, the Security Council, on the recommendation of the President, decided to consider the requests of Lebanon and the Syrian Arab Republic, then to schedule a later meeting to consider the Israeli request. Afghanistan, Lebanon, Mauritania, Morocco and the Syrian Arab Republic, at their request, participated in the discussion without the right to vote.
The President read a message from the Secretary-General on the implementation of the Council's resolution of 26 June. Lebanon and the Syrian Arab Republic had, the Secretary-General said, requested his good offices for the return of the Lebanese and Syrian officers abducted by Israeli forces on 21 June. It appeared that in the current circumstances a generally acceptable solution was not yet in sight, but he said he would pursue his efforts with all the parties concerned by any means available, and hoped that his efforts, together with those being made by the President of the Council and others, might yet result in arrangements acceptable to all the parties concerned.
The President then said that, like the Secretary-General, he was bound to report to the Council that so far it had not been possible to find a solution to the problem.
The representative of Lebanon said when the resolution of 26 June was adopted his Government had not entertained any false hopes that Israel would abide by it. Since the incident of 21 June, the Syrian and Lebanese military personnel remained hostages in Israel in defiance of the Council's resolution and in violation of international law and the Lebanese-Israeli Armistice Agreement. Furthermore, the Israeli authorities had said privately and publicly that they would release the abducted military personnel only within the context of a general exchange of prisoners of war. But, he said, the question of the abductees could not and should not be confused and connected with any other question not before the Council and relating to prisoners of war captured in other areas.
He then recalled that the Council's resolution of 26 June had stated that if Israel failed to release the military personnel, the Council would "reconvene at the earliest to consider further action." Lebanon was now requesting the Council to take that further action, and was of the opinion that the application of effective measures, even sanctions, was the logical next stage.
The spokesman for the Syrian Arab Republic said that the abduction of the Syrian and Lebanese military personnel was in flagrant violation of the sovereignty of a Member State, and Israel's claim that they were subject to exchange of prisoners of war on the basis of the 1949 Geneva Convention was a bankrupt claim already rejected by the Council. Israel had, in fact, taken hostages and its demands so far had amounted to blackmail. Israel should be condemned for its non-compliance with the Council's resolution and should be called upon to release the abducted Syrian and Lebanese personnel without any conditions whatsoever. Failing that, sanctions should be applied.
On 21 July, a draft resolution sponsored by Guinea, India, Somalia, Sudan and Yugoslavia was adopted by the Security Council by a vote of 14 to 0, with 1 abstention (United States), as resolution 317 (1972).
By this text, the Council, having noted the efforts made by its President and by the Secretary-General following the adoption of the resolution of 26 June (316 (1972)):
(1) reaffirmed that resolution;
(2) deplored the fact that despite those efforts, effect had not yet been given to the Council's strong desire that all Syrian and Lebanese military and security personnel abducted by Israeli armed forces from Lebanese territory on 21 June should be released in the shortest possible time;
(3) called upon Israel for the return of the above-mentioned personnel without delay; and
(4) requested the President of the Security Council and the Secretary-General to make renewed efforts to secure the implementation of this resolution.
(For text, see DOCUMENTARY REFERENCES below.)
The United said it had voted in favour of the resolution although it had serious doubts about the wisdom of having further recourse to the Council at a time when efforts were still being made to obtain the release of the personnel. The United Kingdom regretted that it had not been possible to agree on a text covering progress towards a general release of prisoners of war.
The French representative hoped the new appeal of the Council would be heeded by Israel. He also hoped the Council would in the near future consider the problem of a general exchange of prisoners of war by mutually agreed procedures.
Lebanon agreed with the principles expressed in the Council regarding prisoners of war. Yet there was also the matter of the 2,500 to 3,000 combatants from the Gaza Strip, Sinai, the West Bank of Jordan and the Golan Heights who were languishing in Israeli prisons. They too were prisoners of war.
Communications to Security Council
(July-September 1972)
Between July and early September 1972, the Chief of Staff of UNTSO continued to report aerial flights by Israeli aircraft over southern Lebanon, as well as border crossings. On many occasions the Lebanese complained, and United Nations military observers confirmed, that Israeli forces had penetrated into Lebanese territory and had remained there in dug-in positions.
On 8 September, the Chief of Staff reported a complaint by Lebanon that Israeli jet aircraft had launched rocket attacks against the towns of Rashayya-el-Wadi and Rafid, and the refugee camp of Nahr-el-Bared, north of Tripoli, where 17 persons were killed and 35 wounded. Israeli forces had previously penetrated Lebanese territory several times and blown up a house.
The Chief of Staff reported on 10 September that observers had, at Lebanon's request, undertaken an inquiry into casualties and damage allegedly caused by the Israeli attacks, and had been shown damage done to three buildings in Rashayya. In Rafid they noted that two houses had been demolished and many others, including one described as a school, had been damaged. The Lebanese authorities stated that 10 persons had been killed and 2 wounded in Rafid. At the refugee camp, the observers had been shown damaged houses and railway tracks, and a destroyed plantation. Casualties were said to be 3 Lebanese and 7 Palestinians killed, 2 Lebanese and 22 Palestinians wounded.
In a letter dated 8 September, Lebanon complained to the President of the Security Council that on that date Israeli aircraft had raided the communities mentioned above, killing 12 civilians and wounding 34. The Syrian Arab Republic complained on the same date that Israeli military aircraft had bombarded four villages in the Syrian coastal region, killing one woman and wounding several other civilians. On 9 September, the Syrian Arab Republic requested an urgent meeting of the Security Council to consider Israel's attacks. On 10 September, Lebanon also requested an urgent meeting of the Council.
Consideration by Security Council (September 1972)
The Security Council considered the complaints of Lebanon and the Syrian Arab Republic at two meetings on 10 September 1972, and invited the representatives of the two countries, at their request, to participate in the discussion without the right to vote. The President of the Council announced that he had been informed by the Israeli representative that, because 10 September was the Jewish New Year, the Israeli delegation would not be able to attend the meetings, in accordance with Jewish religious law.
The representative of the Syrian Arab Republic said that on 8 September Israel's air force had launched rockets against several places populated by civilians. The bombing of the Syrian coast, of Muzayrib casino and Al-Hamah village, a suburb of Damascus, had killed and wounded many civilians–most of them women and children. Israel had resumed its attacks on 9 September. He added that those aerial operations had been described by the Vice-Premier of the Israeli Council of Ministers as a first stage in a total offensive. The Security Council, he said, had before it the facts of culpable, clear-cut aggression carried out by Israel against the peaceful Syrian population, without any motive or justification apart from Israel's determination to hold on to territory it acquired illegally during its aggression of 5 June 1967. He asked the Security Council to compel Israel to halt all military operations immediately, to condemn it for its attacks and take all appropriate measures to prevent a renewal of aggression.
The representative of Lebanon said that on 8 September, 24 Israeli military aircraft had carried out an indiscriminate raid against the communities of Rashayya-el-Wadi and Rafid and a refugee camp at Nahr-el-Bared, resulting in the killing of several Lebanese civilians. Israel, he said, had claimed it was aiming at commando camps, yet in Rashayya the targets were civilian and in Rafid there were neither refugee nor commando camps. The camp attacked near Tripoli was a refugee camp run by the United Nations. Lebanon had long suffered from Israeli acts of aggression and had sought from the Security Council measures to stop the atrocities committed against Lebanon's civilian population. Each time the Council had warned Israel against a repetition of these acts, by which Israel continued to foment trouble and turmoil and to nullify every effort made to promote conditions conducive to a solution of the Middle East problem. Once again Lebanon was requesting the Council to condemn Israel for this premeditated and unprovoked attack and to take all appropriate measures to prevent any recurrence of such attacks.
The United States representative said the Council was once again seized of a problem it had repeatedly failed to come to grips with in an equitable way. It was meeting on a complaint by the Syrian Arab Republic–a complaint that made no reference to the tragic events that had occurred during the Olympic Games in Munich (Federal Republic of Germany). (See also page 193.) The Syrian Arab Republic, which failed to condemn the murder of innocent Israeli athletes, continued to harbour and encourage terrorist organizations which openly championed such acts.
He went on to say that the root of the problem was, of course, the absence of peace in the Middle East, which must not be exploited as a pretext for violence on any side. The United States was engaged in a major effort, along with other members of the international community, to put an end to terrorism and violence. Though the United States would continue to work for a just and lasting peace in the Middle East, it considered that one-sided resolutions of the type that the Council had so frequently adopted in recent times would not contribute to the goal of peace but would encourage perpetrators of acts of terrorism. The kind of resolution that could be helpful was one that would address itself to the problem, express concern about the renewal of terrorist attacks and deplore the loss of innocent lives on both sides.
Somalia introduced a draft resolution–later sponsored also by Guinea and Yugoslavia–by which the Security Council would, after expressing its deep concern about the deteriorating situation in the Middle East, call on the parties concerned to cease immediately all military operations and to exercise the greatest restraint in the interest of international peace and security.
Another draft resolution was submitted by the United States. By the preambular paragraphs of this text, the Security Council would: express itself as gravely concerned at the renewal of terrorist attacks on innocent persons; deplore the loss of innocent lives on both sides and the outbreak of renewed violence in the Middle East; and express its conviction that acts of terrorism, and any encouragement and support for such acts, were totally unacceptable in a civilized society and were inimical to the maintenance of the cease-fire in the Middle East.
By the operative part of the United States draft, the Council would: (1) condemn the senseless and unprovoked terrorist attack in Munich on 5 September by terrorists of the so-called Black September organization which resulted in the loss of life of numerous innocent victims; and (2) call upon those States harbouring and supporting such terrorists and their activities to cease their encouragement and support of terrorists and to take all necessary measures to bring about the immediate end of such senseless acts.
The USSR expressed surprise at the pretext under which the representative of Israel had refused to take part in the Council's discussion. The holiday he had invoked had not prevented Israel and its armed forces from beginning and continuing further acts of aggression against the Syrian Arab Republic and Lebanon. The USSR considered it advisable to vote on the three power draft resolution immediately. As for the statement of the United States, the USSR said there was no basis for linking the new acts of aggression by Israel with the distressing incidents in Munich. The Syrian Arab Republic and Lebanon bore no responsibility for those events. What was at issue was a deliberate act of provocation planned by Israel, and no artificial motivations could be used to justify it.
Guinea said it could not understand why the Syrian Arab Republic and Lebanon should be made responsible for acts committed by commandos. The death of the Israeli athletes at Munich had to be deplored, but hundreds of lives must not be sacrificed as a result. The international community could not allow a State to attack others merely because of its strength and the support it received. Guinea hoped the Council would be able to adopt at once a resolution calling for an immediate cessation of Israeli aggression against the peaceful populations of the Syrian Arab Republic and Lebanon.
At the second meeting of the Council on 10 September, the United Kingdom introduced amendments–also sponsored by Belgium, France and Italy–to the three-power draft resolution. One of these amendments would have provided for a second preambular paragraph by which the Council would deplore deeply all acts of terrorism and violence and all breaches of the cease-fire in the Middle East. The operative paragraph would have been amended so that the Council would have called on "all parties concerned to take all measures for the immediate cessation and prevention of all military operations and terrorist activities and to exercise the greatest restraint in the interest of international peace and security."
[The three-power text would have had the Council call on the parties concerned to cease immediately all military operations and to exercise the greatest restraint in the interest of international peace and security.]
Somalia said that if the amendments were accepted the whole purpose of the original three-power draft would be altered. The draft neither condemned nor condoned acts of violence but simply addressed itself to the necessity of an immediate cessation of all military operations in the area.
Sudan said that inasmuch as the Council was faced with a situation of naked aggression in which civilians had lost their lives, it must prevent any further deterioration of the situation. Sudan regretted the attempt to inject the question of terrorism into what was a straightforward question of security.
India said there was no justification for Israel's recent actions by which it had violated international law and the cease-fire. India had condemned the Munich events, but the situation in the Middle East had involved similar events from the days before the establishment of Israel. It was not possible to select only one or two links in a long chain and ignore the others. To consider the entire chain of events would take time and would not eliminate the immediate threat that confronted Lebanon and the Syrian Arab Republic. Furthermore, a distinction must be drawn between acts of terrorism by private groups and acts of military vendetta by organized Governments. India rejected the four-power amendments, and considered that the United States draft resolution was unbalanced and entirely silent on the recent Israeli attacks.
Panama said it had categorically condemned the massacre of Israeli athletes at Munich. The world was also moved at seeing that reprisals for those crimes had left a sad balance of desolation and death in Lebanon and the Syrian Arab Republic. Panama believed that the acts were closely linked and therefore would support any draft resolution that would condemn with equal emphasis acts of terrorism and reprisal; however, it would abstain on the two draft resolutions before the Council, neither of which was likely to achieve useful results.
The USSR said that everyone deeply deplored the events at Munich, but to put those events on the same footing as the new Israeli acts of aggression would be to condone Israel's aggressive policy. The Council must reject as entirely unfounded any reference whatsoever by Israel and its supporters to certain events at the Olympic Games to justify Israeli provocation. To draw a parallel between acts of terror committed by persons in a desperate situation and those of a State that had become an aggressor would remove from that State the responsibility for the murder of hundreds of innocent people. The Security Council's task was to call an immediate halt to military operations; then it could proceed to a discussion of other questions.
Japan said it censured, in the strongest terms, all acts of violence and terrorism, regardless of their origin or motive and would, therefore, accept the four-power amendments. The recurrence of violence in the Middle East demonstrated once again the urgent need to eliminate the source of tension in that area.
The United States said it would vote in favour of the four-power amendments. They were the very least that was required on the part of the Council, if it was to address itself to the problem as it existed.
The Council then proceeded to vote, first on the four-power amendments and then on the three-power draft resolution. A separate vote on each part of the amendments was requested by India.
The first part of the amendments–which would add a new preambular paragraph by which the Council would deplore deeply all acts of terrorism and violence and all breaches of the cease-fire in the Middle East–received 8 votes in favour, 4 against (China, Guinea, Sudan and Yugoslavia) and 3 abstentions (India, Somalia and the USSR), and was not adopted, having failed to receive the required majority.
The second part of the amendments–which would have the Council, in the operative paragraph of the three-power text, call on "all parties concerned" instead of "the parties concerned"–received 9 votes in favour and 6 against (China, Guinea, Somalia, Sudan, the USSR and Yugoslavia) and was not adopted, owing to the negative vote of two permanent members of the Council.
The third part of the amendments–by which all parties concerned would be called on to "take all measures for the immediate cessation and prevention of all military operations and terrorist activities" instead of to "cease immediately all military operations"–received 8 votes in favour and 7 against (China, Guinea, India, Somalia, Sudan, the USSR and Yugoslavia) and was not adopted, having failed to obtain the required majority.
The three-power draft resolution was then voted on and was not adopted, owing to the negative vote of a permanent member of the Council. The vote was 13 in favour, 1 against (the United States), and 1 abstention (Panama).
The United States informed the Council it would not insist on a vote on its draft resolution at that time.
Explaining its negative vote on the three-power text, the United States said the Council would have done neither the parties nor itself any good by adopting a draft resolution that ignored realities by addressing itself to only one form of violence. It was a double standard to suggest that States must control their own forces but need not control irregular forces in their territory.
The representative of Belgium said that he had voted in favour of the draft resolution to demonstrate his country's concern following the tragic events that had occurred in the Middle East and continued dangerously to increase tension in that part of the world. It was the Council's duty to end any military activity likely to jeopardize international peace and security. He regretted the rejection of the four-power amendments, which had the merit of balancing the text of the draft resolution by not ignoring the problem of blind terrorism. Similar views were expressed by the representatives of Argentina, Italy and the United Kingdom.
Guinea, Sudan and Yugoslavia indicated that the events at Munich could not have any direct connexion with what had been happening in the Middle East for years. All attempts to solve the problems of that region had failed because of Israel's constant refusal to respond positively to United Nations resolutions. The Council must reject the Israeli concept of a self-arrogated right to conduct major aggressive military operations against the territories of its Arab neighbours.
The USSR said it was inadmissible to put on equal footing individual acts of terror committed by people who had been placed in an extremely desperate situation, and acts of aggression committed by States. Israel was committing an international crime by ordering its armed forces to intrude into the air space of Lebanon and the Syrian Arab Republic. Though the events at Munich merited the deepest possible regret, they were just one more episode, one more consequence, of the war of aggression still being waged by Israel against Arab countries. To prevent a recurrence of events like the one at Munich, Israel had to comply with United Nations resolutions. Further disregard by Israel of the positions of the absolute majority of Members of the United Nations and the decisions and demands of the Security Council would make it necessary to apply sanctions against Israel as an aggressor. According to the USSR, the United States, by its veto, had rejected a just proposal and bore a very heavy responsibility for the further development of events in the Middle East.
The President, speaking as the representative of China, said that Israel's armed aggression against the Syrian Arab Republic and Lebanon was utterly intolerable to all countries that defended the principles of the Charter and to all the peoples who upheld justice. The history of the Middle East since the Second World War had been one of incessant aggression and expansion by Israeli zionism and of the continuous fight of the Palestinian and other Arab peoples against that aggression and expansion. Israel had tried to use the Olympic event as a pretext to expand its war of aggression against Arab countries. The Security Council must severely condemn Israeli zionism for its aggression against the Syrian Arab Republic and Lebanon and demand that Israel immediately stop all its aggression. It must ask Israel earnestly to implement the relevant Security Council resolutions. China, he said, had voted for the three-power draft resolution, even though it failed to condemn Israeli zionism. It regretted that even so minimum a draft resolution had failed of adoption because of the veto of a permanent member.
The representative of the Syrian Arab Republic said his country was showing restraint and respected the cease-fire, but it could not allow the enemy to continue its aggression and permit the massacre of hundreds of peaceful citizens. That was why his Government had asked for the convening of the Council, in order to safeguard peace and security in the Middle East. The three-power draft resolution could not have prevented Israel from continuing its aggression, because it had not condemned Israel and had not confronted Israel with its responsibilities in accordance with the Charter. Israel would continue to push the Middle East towards war.
The Lebanese representative said that the three-power draft resolution had been weak, yet even so it had been defeated because of a certain psychosis that had been created in the Council to link what had happened in Lebanon and the Syrian Arab Republic to what had happened at Munich. Why was it, he asked, that Lebanon always had to pay the price for what happened somewhere else in the world? He hoped that the negative vote of the United States would not be used as a green light for Israel to continue its attacks against Lebanon.
Communications to Security Council
(September-December 1972)
On 11 September 1972, Egypt transmitted to the Secretary-General the text of a statement by the official spokesman of the Egyptian Government concerning Israel's acts of aggression against the Syrian Arab Republic and Lebanon. The statement pointed out that Israel had chosen the most populous refugee camps on which to conduct its aerial raids, using American Phantom jet aircraft. The crimes committed by Israel with American arms continued to demonstrate Israel's persistent defiance of the United Nations, its Charter and its resolutions, as did Israel's refusal to restore to the Palestinian people their legitimate rights and relinquish territory it had occupied.
On 14 September, the representative of the Syrian Arab Republic said that the United States veto in the Security Council on 10 September of an interim resolution for immediate cessation of military operations had offered the Israelis carte blanche to commit more crimes against the Syrian Arab Republic. As evidence of Israel's aggressive intentions, he cited a statement by the Israeli Prime Minister on 12 September proclaiming openly that Israel would strike whenever it wanted to. He stressed the clear responsibility of the Security Council to bear its obligations for the maintenance of peace and security, and to compel Israel to halt its aggression and refrain from launching any new attacks against the Syrian Arab Republic.
On 16 September, Israel complained of terror attacks against Israel by murder squads which had penetrated from Lebanon, and said that attacks carried out on 6, 14 and 15 September against Israeli military patrols had resulted in the death of three Israeli soldiers and the wounding of two. Israel said the murder squads were concentrating along the Lebanese frontier in preparation for further attacks.
Also on 16 September, Lebanon complained that that morning Israeli forces–composed of two infantry and armoured brigades–had launched a massive land and air attack against southern Lebanon, penetrating some 25 kilometres inside the Lebanese territory. Twenty-four Israeli aircraft had participated in the initial assault, followed by waves of bombers. Fifteen towns and villages, as well as three military positions, had been bombed from the air and attacked by land. A Palestinian refugee camp near Al-Nabatiyah had been bombed and napalm had been used on Mount Al-Jarmaq. Lebanese armed forces had engaged the invading Israeli forces and preliminary reports indicated that 61 Lebanese soldiers had been killed or wounded.
The letter went on to say that a state of emergency had been declared in Lebanon. It had not been possible to assess the number of civilian casualties or the extent of property damage. At nightfall, large Israeli contingents were still on Lebanese territory. Lebanon strongly protested against Israel's barbarous aggression: Israel's calculated policy of resorting constantly to force, to war, to violence, to terrorism, was to be condemned by the international community and the civilized world.
On 16 September, the Chief of Staff of UNTSO reported heavy ground and air activity by Israeli forces in the vicinity of observation posts (OP) Ras (near Bent Jbail) and Khiam (in the Marjayoun area). It was also reported that Israeli jet aircraft had–the same day–made four strikes in the vicinity of OP Khiam with bombs and rockets. Also recorded was a complaint by Lebanon that an Israeli armoured brigade, supported by aircraft, had attacked along two axes in the southern region. The complaint was partially confirmed by United Nations military observers, who also confirmed that Israeli forces were still in Lebanese territory as of 1200 hours GMT. Lebanon also complained on 17 and 18 September that Israeli forces were continuing their action inside Lebanese territory. Those complaints were not confirmed by United Nations military observers.
In a letter of 17 September, Israel said that on the previous day Israeli forces had struck against bases and concentrations of murder organizations which had been pursuing a campaign of bloodshed and atrocities from Lebanese territory. As a result of its measures, 130 structures serving as bases and hideouts of the terror groups had been demolished and 40 of their members had been killed. The fact that the targets of the Israeli action were indeed centres of murder squads had been corroborated by communiqués issued throughout the day by the terror organizations themselves and broadcast from the Syrian Arab Republic and Egypt. The action undertaken by Israeli forces, the letter added, was part of Israel's defence effort against terror organizations operating from Lebanese territory, while Lebanon shirked its international obligations and its responsibilities towards its own citizens by harbouring terror squads in the midst of its population.
In a letter on 21 September, Lebanon said that Israel's attack on 16 September had resulted in 18 Lebanese military personnel killed, 49 wounded and 5 missing, as well as 25 civilians killed and 40 wounded. Over 100 houses in 16 towns and villages had been totally destroyed, 324 homes damaged and 2 bridges destroyed. Water, electricity and irrigation installations had been bombed and hundreds of civilian automobiles destroyed. The Israeli forces later embarked on a campaign of terrorization and looting of the civilian population.
The letter went on to say that the Security Council had repeatedly warned Israel that measures would be taken against it if its acts of aggression were repeated. In the absence of effective measures by the Council, Israel had persisted in its campaign of organized terror and the Council therefore assumed a grave responsibility for its failure to give to one of the peaceful and faithful Member of the United Nations its shield of protection.
In a letter on 27 September, Israel stated that Lebanon had tried to cover up its responsibility for permitting the use of its territory as a base for terrorist attacks against civilians in Israel and other countries. As long as Lebanon did not fulfil its international obligations and put an end to the killings initiated from its territory, it would remain an accomplice in such crimes. The letter stressed that Israel's action had been directed against terrorist bases; it denied Lebanon's charges that there had been looting by Israeli forces and maintained that the only structures destroyed had been those used as terrorist centres. Israel could not acquiesce in the continuation of terrorist activities from Lebanese territory. The Lebanese Government must bear responsibility for continuing to refuse to halt those activities.
On 16 October, Lebanon charged that on the previous day Israeli aircraft had bombed four locations in south and south-eastern Lebanon, killing and wounding several persons and inflicting severe damage to houses and public utilities. In the past, Israel had offered pretexts for its attacks, but the attack of 15 October showed–as Mrs. Golda Meir, the Israeli Prime Minister, had said–that Israel intended to feel free to attack wherever there were Palestinians. That policy of systematic and unprovoked aggression, Lebanon said, would inevitably endanger the independence, security and integrity of Lebanon and keep its civilian population under the constant threat of terror. It was a flagrant violation of all the principles and values upon which the United Nations was founded. In the circumstances, the Security Council could not remain indifferent and was obliged to find appropriate means to deal with the situation.
On 18 October, Israel stated that air action had been taken against two terrorist bases from which attacks on Israeli civilians had been initiated and against a terrorist sea base and a motor pool on the Mediterranean coast of Lebanon. With regard to action taken in the Syrian Arab Republic, it had been directed against an Al-Fatah training camp. In its war against terror organizations, Israel had every right and was duty-bound to take measures to bring their activities to an end. The Arab Governments which provided the terrorist organizations with shelter and financial and political support could not be absolved of responsibility for the terror warfare. An avowed objective of the terror organizations was the destruction of the State of Israel, and Israel–as its Prime Minister had said–had no choice but to strike at those organizations wherever they could be reached.
From late September to the end of December, the reports of the Chief of Staff of UNTSO indicated that overflights of Lebanese territory by Israeli jet aircraft, as well as penetration by Israeli forces into Lebanese territory, had continued. The reports contained complaints by Lebanon, not confirmed by United Nations observers, to the effect that Israeli ships had entered Lebanon's territorial waters. On 15 October, there was a report of intensified air activity in southern Lebanon. On that occasion, Lebanon complained, and the observers confirmed, that 20 Israeli jet aircraft overflew the area of southern Lebanon and the Bekaa region, bombing several localities and causing injuries to three civilians.
On 30 October, the President of the Security Council informed the Secretary-General that he had consulted with Council members on the subject of two memoranda by the Secretary-General to the President on 25 and 27 October. After referring to the Security Council s consensus of 19 April 1972 (see above), the President said there had been no objection to acceding to Lebanon's request for an increase in the number of observation posts in the Israel-Lebanon sector.
In his memorandum of 25 October, annexed to the President's letter, the Secretary-General said that as a result of the Security Council's consensus of 19 April on the subject of additional observers in the Israel-Lebanon sector, three United Nations observation posts had been set up in southern Lebanon and the number of observers increased from 7 to 21. On 23 October, he added, he had received from Lebanon a request for an increase in the number of observation posts and observers in that sector. He had then asked the Chief of Staff of UNTSO to submit to him recommendations on the arrangements to be made, in particular the number of additional observation posts to be established and the number of additional observers, supporting staff and equipment required for that purpose.
The Lebanese letter, appended to the above memorandum, said that in view of the situation in the southern part of the country, Lebanon was requesting an increase in the number of United Nations observation posts and observers, as the extension of the scale of the observation system would provide UNTSO with wider observation coverage of the Armistice Demarcation Line.
In his second memorandum, dated 27 October and also annexed to the President's letter, the Secretary-General said the Chief of Staff had informed him that, after consultations with the Lebanese authorities and a joint reconnaissance of the possible areas for additional posts, he had recommended that two additional observation posts be set up, one at Marouahine and the other south-east of Markaba. The Chief of Staff had also recommended that OP Naq (at Naqoura) be relocated to Labboune. The new arrangement would require an increase in the number of observers from 21 to 34, in addition to four field-service officers, who could be provided from other UNTSO sectors for a limited period. The eventual need for additional observers would have to be assessed later. The new arrangements would increase the coverage of the Armistice Demarcation Line and thus make the cease-fire observation more effective.
During the consultations between the members of the Security Council on 30 October, China expressed its firm support of the Arab peoples in their just struggle to resist aggression and safeguard their sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as of the Palestinian people in their struggle to restore-their national rights. China said it had always held different views in principle on the question of sending United Nations observers. However, in view of the request made by the country concerned and the prevailing circumstances, China would not oppose the proposal for an increase in the number of observers.
On 2 November, the Secretary-General reported that he had instructed the UNTSO Chief of Staff to proceed immediately with the implementation of the proposed arrangements. Israel, he added, had been informed by the Chief of Staff of the new arrangements.
In a letter of 3 November, India said that while it concurred with the decision regarding the new arrangements, it had reservations regarding the procedure followed for reaching that decision.
Israel-Syrian Arab Republic sector
In a letter dated 17 January 1972, Israel charged that since 1 January, 11 violations of the cease-fire had been committed from Syrian territory, resulting in the death of two civilians. In the course of 1971, there had been 149 violations of the cease-fire from Syrian territory by shelling, shooting, laying of mines and aerial intrusions, for which the Syrian Arab Republic was responsible in view of the support it had given to the terrorist organizations.
On 21 January, the Syrian Arab Republic replied that it was a matter of record that in 1971 Israeli forces had committed 1,491 violations of the cease-fire, which had all been confirmed by United Nations military observers. With regard to the allegations that it had committed 11 violations of the cease-fire since 1 January 1972, the Syrian Arab Republic indicated that the reports of the UNTSO Chief of Staff between 3 and 20 January had made it clear that Israeli forces had continuously violated the cease-fire and that the complaints submitted by Israel to UNTSO had not been confirmed by United Nations observers, while those submitted by the Syrian Arab Republic had.
On 22 June, the Syrian Arab Republic complained that Israeli forces had ambushed and abducted, inside Lebanese territory, five Syrian officers who had been on a visit to their colleagues in the Lebanese army, and requested that the Security Council initiate steps for their immediate release. (See above, pp. 161-65, for consideration of this question in the Security Council.)
Between 15 June and early September, the Secretary-General continued to circulate information based on reports received from the Chief of Staff of UNTSO on the situation in the sector. The reports related to firing incidents, crossing of the cease-fire line and overflights by aircraft of the two countries.
On 10 September, the Security Council met to consider complaints by the Syrian Arab Republic and Lebanon of Israeli attacks on localities in the two countries. (See above, pp. 165-69, for Council consideration and related communications.)
On 17 and 30 October, the Syrian Arab Republic complained that Israeli aircraft had bombarded a number of villages in its territory, causing death and injuries to many civilians. With regard to an attack on 15 October, the Syrian Arab Republic added that Israeli official statements had indicated that the attack was not in retaliation for any specific act but the first move in carrying out a sterner policy towards the enemy. Its attacks against populated areas were in pursuance of a campaign of terror against the Palestinian people.
On 1 November, Israel replied that its action was part of its war on Arab terror warfare conducted by murder squads protected by the Syrian Arab Republic, and noted that in its letter the Syrian Arab Republic had omitted any reference to principles of international law and the United Nations Charter, which obliged the Syrian Arab Republic to reach peaceful agreement with Israel and to refrain from protecting terror organizations.
Between mid-September and December, the Chief of Staff of UNTSO continued to report almost daily firing incidents in the sector involving artillery, mortar and automatic-weapons fire, as well as air activity involving overflights by either Syrian or Israeli jet aircraft. The Chief of Staff reported that during November the incidents had intensified. On 9 November, he said that he had followed with deep concern the increasing frequency of serious incidents–both in the Israel-Syrian Arab Republic and Israel-Lebanon sectors–which had resulted in a further worsening of the situation. On 22 November, after reporting a series of incidents in both sectors, the Secretary-General said he was gravely concerned at the scale of the incidents, which had been even more serious than those of 9 November, and which constituted a further aggravation of the situation in the area.
Suez Canal sector and Israel-Jordan sector
With regard to the situation in the Suez Canal sector, no complaints were submitted to the Security Council by Egypt or Israel in 1972 regarding cease-fire violations. However, the Secretary-General continued to circulate supplemental information on the basis of reports he received from the UNTSO Chief of Staff which occasionally contained complaints of cease-fire violations.
With regard to the Israel-Jordan sector, no complaints were received during the year from Jordan or Israel concerning violations of the cease-fire in that area.
Documentary references
Israel-Lebanon sector
COMMUNICATIONS TO SECURITY COUNCIL (JANUARY-FEBRUARY 1972)
S/10502. Letter of 11 January 1972 from Lebanon.
S/10505, S/10507. Letters of 12 and 13 January 1972 from Israel.
S/10508, S/10509. Letters of 14 January 1972 from Lebanon.
S/10543. Letter of 24 February 1972 from Israel.
CONSIDERATION BY SECURITY COUNCIL (FEBRUARY 1972)
Security Council, meetings 1643, 1644.
S/10546. Letter of 25 February 1972 from Lebanon (request to convene Council).
S/10549. Letter of 25 February 1972 from Lebanon (request to participate in Council's discussion).
S/10550. Letter of 25 February 1972 from Israel (request to convene Council).
S/10551. Letter of 25 February 1972 from Israel (request to participate in Council's discussion).
S/10552. Belgium, France, Italy, United Kingdom: draft resolution.
Resolution 313 (1972), as proposed by 4 powers, S/10552, adopted by Council on 28 February 1972, meeting 1644, as follows: preambular paragraph of S/10552 rejected by 8 votes in favour (Argentina Belgium, France, Italy, Japan, Panama, United Kingdom, United States) to 4 against (China, Guinea, Sudan, Yugoslavia), with 3 abstentions (India, Somalia, USSR), having failed to obtain the required majority vote; operative paragraph adopted unanimously.
The Security Council,
Demands that Israel immediately desist and refrain from any ground and air military action against Lebanon and forthwith withdraw all its military forces from Lebanese territory.
SECURITY COUNCIL CONSENSUS OF 19 APRIL 1972
S/7930/Add.1583, 1788. Supplemental Information received by Secretary-General, dated 26 April and 2 November 1972.
S/10611. Consensus of 19 April 1972 of members of Security Council. (Annex: Memorandum of 4 April 1972 from Secretary-General to President of Security Council.) S/10612. Note, dated 19 April 1972, by President of Security Council (circulating statement by China).
COMMUNICATIONS TO SECURITY COUNCIL (APRIL-JUNE 1972)
S/7930/Add.1582, 1583 (reissue), 1584, 1585, 1587, 1588. Supplemental information received by Secretary-General, April 1972.
S/7930/Add.1593, 1595-1601, 1603, 1604, 1610, 1611, 1613-1620. Supplemental information received by Secretary-General, May 1972.
S/7930/Add.1621, 1622, 1624-1628, 1630, 1632, 1633, 1635-1637, 1640-1648, 1650, 1694. Supplemental Information received by Secretary-General, June 1972.
S/10617. Report of Secretary-General on implementation of consensus of Security Council of 19 April 1972.
S/10677/Rev.1, S/10679. Letters of 2 and 5 June 1972 from Lebanon.
S/10683, S/10690. Letters of 6 and 9 June 1972 from Israel.
S/10695. Letter of 12 June 1972 from Lebanon.
S/10696. Letter of 13 June 1972 from Israel.
S/10702. Letter of 16 June 1972 from Lebanon.
S/10706, S/10712. Letters of 20 and 23 June 1972 from Israel.
S/10710. Letter of 22 June 1972 from Syrian Arab Republic.
CONSIDERATION BY SECURITY COUNCIL (JUNE 1972)
Security Council, meetings 1648-1650.
S/10715. Letter of 23 June 1972 from Lebanon (request to convene Council).
S/10716. Letter of 23 June 1972 from Israel (request to convene Council).
S/10720. Letter of 26 June 1972 from Syrian Arab Republic.
S/10722. Belgium, France, United Kingdom: draft resolution.
S/10723. United States: draft resolution.
Resolution 316 (1972), as proposed by 3 powers, S/10722, adopted by Council on 26 June 1972, meeting 1650, by 13 votes to 0, with 2 abstentions (Panama, United States).
The Security Council,
Having considered the agenda contained in document S/Agenda/1650/Rev.1,
Having noted the contents of the letters of the Permanent Representative of Lebanon, the Permanent Representative of Israel and the Permanent Representative of the Syrian Arab Republic,
Recalling the consensus of the members of the Security Council of 19 April 1972
Having noted the supplementary information provided by the Chief of Staff of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization contained in documents S/7930/Add.1584 to Add.1640, of 26 April to 21 June 1972, and particularly documents S/7930/Add.1641 to Add.1648, of 21 to 24 June 1972,
Having heard the statements of the representatives of Lebanon and of Israel,
Deploring the tragic loss of acts of violence and retaliation,
Gravely concerned at Israel's failure to comply with Security Council resolutions 262 (1968) of 31 December 1968, 270 (1969) of 26 August 1969, 280 (1970) of 19 May 1970, 285 (1970) of 5 September 1970 and 313 (1972) of 28 February 1972 calling on Israel to desist forthwith from any violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Lebanon,
1. Calls upon Israel to strictly abide by the aforementioned resolutions and to refrain from all military acts against Lebanon;
2. Condemns, while profoundly deploring all acts of violence, the repeated attacks of Israeli forces on Lebanese territory and population in violation of the principles of the Charter of the United Nations and Israel's obligations thereunder;
3. Expresses the strong desire that appropriate steps will lead, as an immediate consequence, to the release in the shortest possible time of all Syrian and Lebanese military and security personnel abducted by Israeli armed forces on 21 June 1972 on Lebanese territory;
4. Declares that if the above-mentioned steps do not result In the release of the abducted personnel or if Israel fails to comply with the present resolution, the Council will reconvene at the earliest to consider further action.
CONSIDERATION BY SECURITY COUNCIL (JULY 1972)
Security Council, meetings 1651-1653.
S/10730. Letter of 5 July 1972 from Syrian Arab Republic (request to convene Council).
S/10731. Letter of 5 July 1972 from Lebanon (request to convene Council).
S/10732. Letter of 6 July 1972 from Israel.
S/10735. Letter of 10 July 1972 from Mauritania.
S/10739. Letter of 17 July 1972 from Israel (request to convene Council).
S/10742. Guinea, India, Somalia, Sudan, Yugoslavia: draft resolution.
Resolution 317 (1972), as proposed by 5 powers, S/10742, adopted by Council on 21 July 1972, meeting 1653, by 14 votes to 0, with 1 abstention (United States).
The Security Council,
Having considered the agenda adopted by the Security Council at its 1651st meeting held on 18 July 1972,
Having noted the contents of the letters of the Permanent Representative of the Syrian Arab Republic and the Charge d'affaires ad interim of Lebanon,
Having heard the statements of the representatives of Lebanon and of the Syrian Arab Republic,
Having noted with appreciation the efforts made by the President of the Security Council and by the Secretary-General following the adoption of resolution 316 (1972) of 26 June 1972,
1. Reaffirms resolution 316 (1972) adopted by the Security Council on 26 June 1972;
2. Deplores the fact that despite these efforts, effect has not yet been given to the Security Council's strong desire that all Syrian and Lebanese military and security personnel abducted by Israeli armed forces from Lebanese territory on 21 June 1972 should be released in the shortest possible time;
3. Calls upon Israel for the return of the above-mentioned personnel without delay;
4. Requests the President of the Security Council and the Secretary-General to make renewed efforts to secure the implementation of the present resolution.
COMMUNICATIONS TO SECURITY COUNCIL
(JULY-SEPTEMBER 1972)
S/7930/Add.1656-1659, 1661, 1663-1665, 1667, 1670-1684. Supplemental information received by Secretary-General, July 1972.
S/17930/Add.1685-1688, 1690-1698, 1699 and Corr.1, 1700-1716. Supplemental information received by Secretary-General, August 1972.
S/7930/Add.1717-1752. Supplemental information received by Secretary-General, September 1972.
CONSIDERATION BY SECURITY COUNCIL (SEPTEMBER 1972)
Security Council, meetings 1661, 1662.
S/10780. Letter of 8 September 1972 from Lebanon.
S/10781 (A/8785). Letter of 8 September 1972 from Syrian Arab Republic.
S/10782. Letter of 9 September 1972 from Syrian Arab Republic (request to convene Council).
S/10783. Letter of 10 September 1972 from Lebanon (request to convene Council).
S/10784. Guinea, Somalia, Yugoslavia: draft resolution, rejected by Council, owing to negative vote of a permanent member, on 10 September 1972, meeting 1662, by 13 votes in favour to 1 against (United States), with 1 abstention (Panama).
S/10785. United States: draft resolution.
S/10786. Belgium, France, Italy, United Kingdom: amendments to 3-power draft resolution, S/10784.
COMMUNICATIONS TO SECURITY COUNCIL
(SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER 1972)
S/7930/Add.1753-1761, 1763-1786. Supplemental information received by Secretary- General, October 1972.
S/7930/ Add.1 787-1 795, 1797-1808, 1811-1814, 1816-1821. Supplemental information received by Secretary-General, November 1972.
S/7930/Add.1822-1847, 1849-1853. Supplemental information received by Secretary- General, December 1972.
S/10787 (A/8804). Letter of 11 September 1972 from Egypt (transmitting statement of 10 September 1972).
S/10790. Letter of 14 September 1972 from Syrian Arab Republic.
S/10794. Letter of 16 September 1972 from Israel.
S/10795. Letter of 16 September 1972 from Lebanon.
S/10796. Letter of 17 September 1972 from Israel.
S/10799. Letter of 21 September 1972 from Lebanon.
S/10801. Letter of 27 September 1972 from Israel.
S/10808. Letter of 16 October 1972 from Lebanon.
S/10811. Letter of 18 October 1972 from Israel.
S/10818. Letter of 30 October 1972 from President of Security Council to Secretary-General. (Annex l: Memorandum of 25 October 1972 from Secretary-General to President of Security Council, appending letter of 23 October 1972 from Lebanon; Annex II: Memorandum of 27 October 1972 from Secretary-General to President of Security Council.)
S/10819. Note, dated 30 October 1972, by President of Security Council (circulating statement of 30 October 1972 by China).
S/10824 and Add.1. Report of 2 November 1972 of Secretary-General concerning increase in number of United Nations observation posts and military observers in Israel-Lebanon sector, and addendum of 22 February 1973.
S/10825. Letter of 3 November 1972 from India.
Israel-Syrian Arab Republic sector
S/7930/Add.1471-1498. Supplemental information received by Secretary-General, January 1972.
S/7930/Add.1499-1503, 1505-1514, 1516-1523, 1525-1528. Supplemental information received by Secretary-General, February 1972.
S/7930/Add.1529-1531, 1532 and Corr.1, 1533-1538, 1540-1558. Supplemental information received by Secretary-General, March 1972.
S/7930/Add.1559-1589. Supplemental information received by Secretary-General, April 1972.
S/7930/Add.1590-1592, 1594, 1596-1615, 1618-1620. Supplemental information received by Secretary-General, May 1972.
S/7930/Add.1621-1623, 1625-1640,1643, 1644, 1647, 1649-1652, 1654. Supplemental information received by Secretary-General, June 1972.
S/7930/Add.1655-1672, 1674-1684. Supplemental information received by Secretary-General, July 1972.
S/7930/Add.1685-1687, 1689, 1691-1698, 1699 and Corr.1, 1700-1708, 1710-1716. Supplemental information received by Secretary-General, August 1972.
S/7930/Add.1717-1722, 1724-1728, 1731-1736, 1738-1744, 1746-1752. Supplemental information received by Secretary-General, September 1972.
S/7930/Add.1753-1761, 1763-1766, 1768-1786. Supplemental information received by Secretary-General, October 1972.
S/7930/Add.1787-1815, 1817-1821. Supplemental Information received by Secretary- General, November 1972.
S/7930/Add.1822, 1826, 1829, 1831-1834, 1836, 1841-1843, 1845, 1847-1850, 1852, 1853. Supplemental information received by Secretary-General, December 1972.
S/10511 (A/8656). Letter of 17 January 1972 from Israel.
S/10518 (A/8659). Letter of 21 January 1972 from Syrian Arab Republic.
S/10698, S/10710. Letters of 13 and 22 June 1972 from Syrian Arab Republic.
S/10724. Letter of 28 June 1972 from Israel.
S/10781 (A/8785), S/10790, S/10809 (A/8848). Letters of 8 and 14 September and 17 October 1972 from Syrian Arab Republic.
S/10811. Letter of 18 October 1972 from Israel.
S/10820 (A/8865). Letter of 30 October 1972 from Syrian Arab Republic.
S/10823 (A/8870). Letter of 1 November 1972 from Israel.
Suez Canal sector
S/7930/Add.1504, 1515, 1524. Supplemental information received by Secretary-General, February 1972.
S/7930/Add.1539. Supplemental information received by Secretary-General, March 1972.
S/7930/Add.1583. Supplemental information received by Secretary-General, April 1972.
S/7930/Add.1596, 1598, 1605, 1620. Supplemental Information received by Secretary- General, May 1972.
S/7930/Add.1626, 1631, 1633. Supplemental information received by Secretary-General, June 1972.
S/7930/Add.1657, 1673, 1677. Supplemental Information received by Secretary-General, July 1972.
S/7930/Add.1738, 1743. Supplemental information received by Secretary-General, September 1972.
S/7930/Add.1758, 1762, 1770, 1772, 1773. Supplemental information received by Secretary-General, October 1972.
S/7930/Add.1788. Supplemental information received by Secretary-General, November 1972.
S/7930/Add.1826, 1830. Supplemental Information received by Secretary-General, December 1972.
S/10741. Letter of 19 July 1972 from Executive Secretary of OAU to United Nations (transmitting texts of resolutions adopted by Assembly of Heads of State and Government of OAU at its 9th session, Rabat Morocco, 12-15 June 1972, and by Council of Ministers of OAU, Rabat, 5-12 June 1972).
Search for a peaceful settlement of the Middle East problem
Report of Secretary-General
On 15 September 1972, the Secretary-General, in a report to the Security Council and the General Assembly, said that in accordance with his man date under the Council's resolution of 22 November 1967 (242 (1967)), 5/ he had continued to report on the activities of Ambassador Gunnar V. Jarring, his Special Representative to the Middle East. He recalled that the General Assembly, on 13 December 1971, 6/ had asked him to reactivate the mission of his Special Representative and to report to the Council and the Assembly on the progress made.
The Secretary-General reported that immediately after the adoption of the Assembly's resolution, Ambassador Jarring had held meetings in New York with the Ministers for Foreign Affairs of Egypt and Israel, as well as with the Permanent Representative of Jordan, to discuss arrangements for the reactivation of his mission. From 10 to 27 January 1972, further, inconclusive, talks had taken place in New York. At the end of January, Ambassador Jarring had visited West Africa and met with President Léopold Sédar Senghor of Senegal and President Moktar Ould Daddah of Mauritania in connexion with the initiative of the Organization of African States in 1971 concerning the Middle East situation. 7/
After further meetings with the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Egypt in Cairo on 19 and 20 February, the Special Representative had held discussions with the Jordanian authorities at their request on 23 February and with the Israeli authorities at his suggestion on 25 February. He had then returned to New York, where he continued to see representatives of the parties until 24 March. Subsequently, he had returned to United Nations Headquarters from 1 to 4 May and from 1 to 12 August for a review of the positions of the parties and consultations with all concerned.
In spite of these continued efforts, the Secretary-General concluded that it had not been possible to make any substantial progress. An agreed basis for discussions under Ambassador Jarring's auspices did not seem to exist at that time. Despite that situation, efforts would continue, the Secretary-General said.
Consideration by General Assembly
On 23 September 1972, the General Assembly included the item "The situation in the Middle East" in its agenda and decided that it should be discussed in plenary meetings. The item was considered at 11 meetings held between 29 November and 8 December.
Opening the debate, the representative of Egypt said that the real reasons for the six-day war in 1967, and its real objectives, were now clear. The myth created by Israel and its supporters that Israel had been exposed to the danger of extermination by Egypt and the Arabs had been invented by Israel to justify annexation of the occupied Arab territories. The Israeli Prime Minister, he said, had made it clear that Israel had no intention of returning the territories it occupied, and had ruled out the possibility of a return of the Palestinian refugees or the creation of a Palestinian state between Israel and Jordan.
The Egyptian representative went on to say that Israel continued to reject all United Nations resolutions, as well as the efforts of the Special Representative, Ambassador Jarring. Another grave problem, he said, was the continuous supply of arms by the United States, making it possible for Israel not only to perpetuate its defiance of the United Nations and to defend the areas it had occupied by force but also to carry out repeated strikes against its neighbours.
However, the Egyptian representative continued, the essence of the problem remained the plight of the Palestinian people. No solution could be found to the situation without an equitable settlement for the Palestinian nation. The General Assembly must take a clear stand whereby all measures and acts taken by the Israeli occupying authorities were considered invalid, with no possible rights to anyone at any time ensuing therefrom. The United Nations should warn Israel that its continued flouting of the fundamental principles of the United Nations Charter could result in action under Articles 5 and 6. 8/ Most nations had only the Charter to ensure the protection of their lands and peoples; Egypt was one of them and would do all in its power to protect the Charter. Nevertheless, it would not hesitate to avail itself of Article 51, 9/ which clearly recognized the right of victims of aggression to defend themselves and to restore their rights and territorial integrity.
The representative of Israel said that the avalanche of attacks directed in every United Nations debate against the Jewish people, their civilization and their statehood, as well as the spate of resolutions unmindful of Israel's position, reflected the numerical disadvantage Jews had lived with since time immemorial. Those resolutions, by their inequity and partisan hostility, had in effect created impediments to a settlement. The Arab Governments had looked upon debates in the United Nations organs as a substitute for and an escape from the need for negotiation.
The negation by Arab States of fundamental Jewish rights, he went on to say, had found expression in the Arab refusal to make peace with Israel and in the terror warfare against Israel, carried out by organizations whose proclaimed goal was the destruction of the Jewish State and the annihilation of its people.
Recent statements by Arab leaders had not concealed their hosthe attitude, the Israeli representative said. Israel had reason to believe that when the Egyptian Government called for a return to the vulnerable 1967 military lines, it intended to leave the door open to the possibility of continuing hostility towards Israel from advantageous positions. Israel had been subjected to the Arab assault for 25 years; today it was clear that it was not over, that the Arab Governments were still after Israel's blood, its life. That was the primary issue.
Contrary to Arab allegations, he went on, the changes which had taken place in the Israeli-held territories was the most hopeful sign that peaceful coexistence in the region was possible.
The Israeli representative said that the main obstacle to peace was still the Arab Governments' attitude towards Israel, their longing for Israel's downfall, and their resort to and identification with means that envisaged Israel's ultimate destruction and the destruction of its people. Another obstacle to peace was the Arab view that there might be no need to work out an agreement with Israel, that it might be possible to impose a solution in accordance with Arab terms.
The goal of the United Nations in the Middle East conflict, he said, was to promote agreement between the parties on a just and lasting peace. The only way to peace was through a dialogue between the parties. Israel was ready to negotiate peace without pre-conditions, in accordance with the principles expressed in its official statements. It was prepared to engage in proximity talks on an agreement to reopen the Suez Canal. It was not seeking to freeze the existing situation or to perpetuate the cease-fire lines, but to replace them in peace with secure and agreed boundaries to be established through negotiation with each of its Arab neighbours.
In the course of the debate, the majority of speakers held the view that the Security Council's resolution of 22 November 1967 (242 (1967)) still offered the best and the only realistic basis for a a just and lasting peace in the Middle East. Some representatives attributed lack of progress towards its implementation to the various interpretations of its principles by the parties concerned. However, they believed that a settlement based on mutual accommodation was possible. They noted that political developments over the past five years showed some progress towards the goal of peace.
The United Kingdom representative said that one example of progress over the past five years was Egypt's public acceptance of the commitment to enter into a peace agreement with Israel, and a recent restatement by Israel's Prime Minister of Israel's willingness to negotiate a measure of withdrawal in advance of a peace settlement.
The United Kingdom, he went on, believed that arrangements for reopening the Suez Canal could conceivably unlock the door to an eventual settlement of the whole dispute. But an interim agreement, no less than a final settlement, would need to be agreed upon by the parties; it could not be imposed. Interim arrangements would, furthermore, have to be recognized as no more than a stage in the search for a comprehensive settlement.
Any final settlement, according to the United Kingdom, had also to be focused on the fate of the Palestinian refugees, who should be shown that the world had not forgotten them. Their legitimate aspirations must be noted and acted upon, a concern in no way inconsistent with support for the integrity of the State of Israel, to which the United Kingdom remained committed.
The United Kingdom representative suggested that a first step towards a solution of the refugee problem might be an agreement by Israel to allow the return to the West Bank of Jordan of the persons displaced in 1967. Such an agreement could provide the refugees with a stake in the future, thus reducing the despair which bred hatred and violence. It might also give momentum to the search for an over-all solution.
That proposal was supported by France, whose spokesman also stressed that the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinians had to be taken into account in any equitable settlement. France favoured any preliminary settlement that did not lose sight of the final objective.
The United States representative said that the Security Council's resolution of 22 November 1967 continued to be the basic framework for the long-sought peace in the Middle East. The heart of that resolution was that a just and lasting peace in the area should include two principles: withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the 1967 conflict; and termination of all claims or states of belligerency, and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and its right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.
He went on to say that the inability of the countries in the area to move forward towards a settlement despite the efforts of Ambassador Jarring resulted from varying interpretations of the principles contained in the resolution. However, the United States was convinced that the difficulties were not insurmountable. The most hopeful and practical means of initiating a reasonable process of discussion and accommodation was through practical, interim steps, such as the so-called interim Suez Canal agreement. The United States had publicly and privately indicated its willingness to help the parties negotiate such an agreement.
The United States representative stressed that the Assembly must preserve the measure of agreement underlying the Security Council's resolution. It could not seek to redefine the essentials for peace, or try to impose courses of action on the countries concerned, either by making new demands or by favouring the position of one side or the other. It must ensure that its conclusions would reinforce the willingness of the parties to enter into a diplomatic process which alone could lead to a just and lasting settlement.
Many Members emphasized that any settlement of the Middle East conflict must provide for a just solution of the Palestine refugee problem in accordance with United Nations resolutions. Greece, for example, said that the vicious circle of violence and reprisals in the Middle East would not be broken unless the human bomb made of Palestinians could be defused. Their legitimate aspirations must be met in an over-all settlement in accordance with the Council's resolution of 22 November 1967, which continued to enjoy the support of the overwhelming majority.
Spokesmen for Arab States held the view that there were two fundamental prerequisites for the establishment of peace in the Middle East: the right of the Palestinian people to their land must be recognized; and there must be a complete, immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Israeli forces from all the occupied territories.
The representative of Jordan said that all international efforts in the Middle East had failed because they did not take into account the nature of Arab and Israeli claims. For 25 years, efforts by the United Nations had focused on the relief and sustenance of the Palestinian refugees, but not on the enforcement of their right to return to their homeland. Since 1967, he said, efforts of the international community had been frustrated by the intransigent attitude of Israel, which wanted to dupe the United Nations into sanctioning foreign occupation. Negotiation was an irrelevant and inapplicable concept when the occupying power spoke openly and officially of remaining in some, most, or perhaps all of the occupied territories. No peace could be achieved on such a basis.
The representatives of Lebanon and Sudan said the General Assembly had to consider the very extensive military, economic and financial assistance which Israel was receiving from outside the area, particularly from the United States, in perpetuating its occupation of Arab lands. Others making this point included the Byelorussian SSR, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Somalia.
Poland said the United Nations had to demand the evacuation of the occupied territories. In no circumstances could it remain passive when confronted with the policy of consolidation of the consequences of aggression, of steps aimed at the factual annexation of the occupied territories, and of the eradication of Arab culture and the expulsion of the Arabs from their homes. The United Nations was duty-bound to declare null and void all legislative, administrative and other changes carried out by Israel in the occupied Arab territories.
The spokesman for China asserted that Israeli zionism had gone unchecked in its wanton aggression in the Middle East. The crux of the matter lay in the creation by the two super-powers of a "no war, no peace" situation in which they used the territories and sovereignty of the Arab countries, and the Palestinian people's right to existence, as stakes for making political deals to control the Arab countries, suppress the Palestinian revolution and divide spheres of influence. It was the people of the Middle East alone, and not the two super-powers, who would decide the destiny of the region. China had consistently held that Israeli zionism should withdraw completely from Egypt, the Syrian Arab Republic and all other Arab territories it had occupied. The Palestinians must regain their right to return to their homeland and their right to national existence.
Several spokesmen for African and Asian countries accused Israel of hindering international efforts aimed at a peaceful settlement of the Middle East conflict. Israel's policy of "creating facts"–faits accomplis–in the occupied territories and its demands for substantial border changes were incompatible with the provisions of the Security Council's resolution of 22 November 1967 (242 (1967)), and presented a serious obstacle to peace. Some of these speakers emphasized the need for a resumption of Ambassador Jarring's mission; others felt that recourse to more decisive measures was required to translate the provisions of the resolution into reality.
According to Somalia, every attempt by the United Nations over the past 25 years to implement resolutions concerning the Palestinian refugees had been strenuously opposed by Israel. Israel had continued to refuse to return to the boundaries that existed before 6 June 1967 and had refused to negotiate an agreement within the framework of United Nations initiatives. The General Assembly must go further and try to develop a framework for peace, based on the principles contained in the resolution of 22 November 1967, which the Special Representative might use in renewed talks with the parties.
The spokesman for the United Republic of Tanzania said that what was required was to halt the seriously disturbing trend of inaction on the part of the international community faced with the challenge of a recalcitrant Member State. In the five years since the 1967 war, Israel had exposed itself as an occupying and expansionist power. For years the General Assembly had called in vain on Israel to remedy the wrongs and injustices it had committed against the Palestinians. What was needed was the implementation of the relevant resolutions.
The USSR representative said the only way out of the pointless and criminal war was a settlement based on the elimination of the consequences of the 1967 aggression, complete liberation of all occupied territories, and a cessation by Israel of its policy of aggression against the Arab countries.
The USSR, he said, shared the view that Israel could not expect to go on indefinitely abusing the long-suffering patience of Member States while enjoying the advantage of membership in the United Nations. It must stop its armed provocations, withdraw its troops from all occupied territories and allow a peaceful settlement in the area on the basis of resolution 242 (1967). If Israel continued to ignore the decisions of the Security Council, the Council was entitled to apply sanctions. Since Israel had boycotted the United Nations, was it not time, he asked, for the United Nations to consider not only boycotting Israel but expelling it from the ranks of Member States?
Japan said that Council resolution 242 (1967) continued to provide the most appropriate framework within which the Middle East question could be settled peacefully.
Belgium said that the duty of the General Assembly was to set in motion procedures leading to a settlement of the conflict on the basis of that resolution. In Belgium's view, setting a negotiation process in motion would be facilitated if the parties to the conflict would repeat formally their adherence to the principles expressed in the resolution, which stressed both the inadmissibility of acquiring territories by war and, equally, the need to work for a just and lasting peace, enabling each State in the region to live in security.
On 8 December, the General Assembly adopted a resolution (2949 (XXVII)), sponsored by 21 Members and revised during the debate to incorporate amendments by Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom. The vote, by roll call, was 86 in favour, 7 against, with 31 abstentions.
The sponsors of the 21-power text were: Afghanistan, Chad, the Congo, Cyprus, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea, India, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Senegal, Somalia, Uganda, the United Republic of Tanzania, Yugoslavia and Zambia.
By the preambular part of the text, the Assembly among other things reaffirmed that the Security Council's resolution of 22 November 1967 (242 (1967)) must be implemented in all its parts. It was perturbed that that resolution and its own resolution of 13 December 1971 (2799 (XXVI)) 10/ had not been implemented and that consequently the envisaged just and lasting peace in the Middle East had not been achieved.
The Assembly also reiterated its grave concern at the continuation of the Israeli occupation of the Arab territories since 5 June 1967 and reaffirmed that the territory of a State would not be the object of occupation or acquisition by another State resulting from the threat or use of force. Changes in the physical character or demographic composition of occupied territories were, the Assembly affirmed, contrary to the purposes and principles of the Charter, as well as to the relevant international conventions.
Finally, by the preamble to this text the Assembly expressed its conviction that the grave situation prevailing in the Middle East constituted a serious threat to international peace and security and reaffirmed United Nations responsibility to restore peace and security in the area in the immediate future.
By the operative part of the text, the Assembly:
(1) reaffirmed its resolution of 13 December 1971 (2799 (XXVI));
(2) deplored Israel's non-compliance with that resolution, which in particular called on Israel to respond favourably to the peace initiative of the Special Representative;
(3) expressed its full support for the efforts of the Secretary-General and his Special Representative;
(4) declared once more that the acquisition of territories by force was inadmissible and that, consequently, territories thus occupied must be restored;
(5) reaffirmed that the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East should include the application of both the following principles: (a) withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict; (b) termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and its right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force;
(6) invited Israel to declare publicly its adherence to the principle of non-annexation of territories through the use of force;
(7) declared that changes carried out by Israel in the occupied Arab territories in contravention of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 were null and void, and called on Israel to rescind forthwith all such measures and to desist from all policies and practices affecting the physical character or demographic composition of those territories;
(8) called on all States not to recognize any such changes and measures carried out by Israel in the occupied Arab territories and invited them to avoid actions, including actions in the field of aid, that could constitute recognition of that occupation;
(9) recognized that respect for the rights of the Palestinians was an indispensable element in the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East;
(10) requested the Security Council, in consultation with the Secretary-General and his Special Representative, to take all appropriate steps with a view to the full and speedy implementation of Council resolution 242 (1967), taking into account all the relevant resolutions and documents of the United Nations in this connexion;
(11) requested the Secretary-General to report to the Council and the Assembly on the progress made by him and his Special Representative in the implementation of the Council's resolution and of the present resolution; and
(12) decided to transmit the present resolution to the Security Council for its appropriate action and asked the Council to keep the Assembly informed.
Prior to the vote on the draft, the United States requested a separate vote on the eighth operative paragraph, by which the Assembly would call upon all States not to recognize any changes and measures carried out by Israel in the occupied Arab territories and invite them to avoid actions, including actions in the field of aid, that could constitute recognition of the occupation. According to the United States, that paragraph completely ignored the relationship established by Security Council resolution 242 (1967) between withdrawal from occupied territories and agreement between the parties on the terms of a just and lasting peace. The motion for division was rejected by a recorded vote of 25 in favour to 64 against, with 34 abstentions.
Documentary references
General Assembly–27th session
Plenary meetings 2092, 2094, 2095, 2097-2103, 2105.
A/8651 (S/10495). Letter of 5 January 1972 from Syrian Arab Republic.
A/8652 (S/10496). Letter of 3 January 1972 from Iraq.
A/8656 (S/10511). Letter of 17 January 1972 from Israel.
A/8657 (S/10517). Letter of 20 January 1972 from Jordan.
A/8659 (S/10518). Letter of 21 January 1972 from Syrian Arab Republic.
A/8667 (S/10565). Letter of 15 March 1972 from Egypt.
A/8671 (S/10570). Letter of 21 March 1972 from Israel.
A/8674 (S/10582). Letter of 29 March 1972 from Egypt.
A/8675 (S/10587). Letter of 3 April 1972 from Israel.
A/8677 (S/10590). Letter of 6 April 1972 from Egypt.
A/8678 (S/10598). Letter of 14 April 1972 from Jordan.
A/8679 (S/10614). Letter of 20 April 1972 from Egypt.
A/8682 (S/10628), A/8684 (S/10639). Letters of 2 and 11 May 1972 from Israel.
A/8685 (S/10663). Letter of 23 May 1972 from Egypt.
A/8686 and Add.1 (S/10665 and Add.1). Letter of 26 May 1972 from Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Guinea, Indonesia, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libyan Arab Republic, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
A/8687 (S/10667), A/8690 (S/10687). Letters of 30 May and 8 June 1972 from Israel.
A/8692 (S/10694). Letter of 12 June 1972 from Egypt.
A/8694 (S/10697). Letter of 12 June 1972 from Libyan Arab Republic.
A/8695 (S/10700), A/8696 (S/10701). Letters of 15 and 16 June 1972 from Israel.
A/8699 (S/10704). Letter of 20 June 1972 from Syrian Arab Republic.
A/8701. Report of Secretary-General on work of the Organization, 16 June 1971-15 June 1972, Part One, Chapter I.
A/8701/Add.1. Introduction to report of Secretary-General, August 1972, Section VII, 5th para.
A/8702. Report of Security Council, 16 June 1971-15 June 1972, Chapter 3.
A/8733 (S/10707). Letter of 20 June 1972 from Libyan Arab Republic.
A/8734 (S/10713). Letter of 23 June 1972 from Israel.
A/8735 (S/10717), A/8736 (S/10725). Letters of 23 and 28 June 1972 from Egypt.
A/8737 (S/10726). Letter of 29 June 1972 from Jordan.
A/8738 (S/10727). Letter of 3 July 1972 from Israel.
A/8755 (S/10760). Letter of 10 August 1972 from Jordan.
A/8766 (S/10765), A/8784 (S/10779). Letters of 18 August and 8 September 1972 from Israel.
A/8785 (S/10781). Letter of 8 September 1972 from Syrian Arab Republic.
A/8804 (S/10787), A/8806 (S/10788). Letters of 11 September 1972 from Egypt.
A/8812 (S/11791). Letter of 14 September 1972 from Israel.
A/8815 (S/10792). Report, dated 15 September 1972, of Secretary-General on activities of Special Representative to Middle East.
A/8848 (S/10809). Letter of 17 October 1972 from Syrian Arab Republic.
A/8858 (S/10814) Letter of 23 October 1972 from Jordan.
A/8865 (S/10820) Letter of 30 October 1972 from Syrian Arab Republic.
A/8870 (S/10823). Letter of 1 November 1972 from Israel.
A/8875 (S/10827). Letter of 8 November 1972 from Egypt.
A/8887 (S/10829). Letter of 10 November 1972 from Israel.
A/8930. Telegram of 30 November 1972 from Minister of Foreign Affairs of German Democratic Republic to President of General Assembly.
A/8932 (S/10845). Letter of 25 November 1972 from Egypt.
A/L.686. Afghanistan, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea, India, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Pakistan, Senegal, Somalia, Uganda, United Republic of Tanzania, Yugoslavia, Zambia: draft resolution.
A/L.686/Rev.1 and Rev.1 /Add.1. Afghanistan, Chad, Congo, Cyprus, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea, India, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Senegal, Somalia, Uganda, United Republic of Tanzania, Yugoslavia, Zambia: revised draft resolution.
A/L.688. Belgium, France. Italy, Luxembourg, United Kingdom: amendments to 19-power draft resolution, A/ L.686.
Resolution 2949 (XXVII), as proposed by 21 powers, A/L.686/Rev.1, adopted by Assembly on 8 December 1972, meeting 2105, by roll-call vote of 86 to 7, with 31 abstentions, as follows:
In favour: Afghanistan, Argentina, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Bhutan, Botswana, Bulgaria, Burma, Burundi, Byelorussian SSR, Cameroon, Chad, Chile, Congo, Cuba, Cyprus, Czechoslovakia, Dahomey, Ecuador, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Gambia, Greece, Guinea, Guyana, Honduras, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Jamaica, Japan Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Mongolia, Morocco, Nepal, Netherlands, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Peru, Poland Qatar, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, Ukrainian SSR, USSR, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United Republic of Tanzania, Upper Volta, Yemen, Yugoslavia, Zaire, Zambia.
Against: Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Israel, Nicaragua, Uruguay.
Abstaining: Albania, Australia, Barbados, Brazil, Canada, Central African Republic, China, Denmark, El Salvador, Fiji, Gabon, Ghana, Guatemala, Haiti, Iceland, Ivory Coast, Laos, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi New Zealand, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden, Togo, United States, Venezuela.
The General Assembly,
Having considered the item entitled "The situation in the Middle East,"
Having received the report of the Secretary-General of 15 September 1972 on the activities of his Special Representative to the Middle East,
Reaffirming that Security Council resolution 242 (1967) of 22 November 1967 must be implemented in all its parts,
Deeply perturbed that Security Council resolution 242 (1967) and General Assembly resolution 2799 (XXVI) of 13 December 1971 have not been implemented and, consequently, the envisaged just and lasting peace in the Middle East has not been achieved,
Reiterating its grave concern at the continuation of the Israeli occupation of Arab territories since 5 June 1967,
Reaffirming that the territory of a State shall not be the object of occupation or acquisition by another State resulting from the threat or use of force,
Affirming that changes in the physical character or demographic composition of occupied territories are contrary to the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, as well as to the provisions of the relevant applicable international conventions,
Convinced that the grave situation prevailing in the Middle East constitutes a serious threat to international peace and security,
Reaffirming the responsibility of the United Nations to restore peace and security in the Middle East in the immediate future,
1. Reaffirms its resolution 2799 (XXVI);
2. Deplores the non-compliance by Israel with General Assembly resolution 2799 (XXVI), which in particular called upon Israel to respond favourably to the peace initiative of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General to the Middle East;
3. Expresses its full support for the efforts of the Secretary-General and his Special Representative;
4. Declares once more that the acquisition of territories by force is inadmissible and that, consequently, territories thus occupied must be restored;
5. Reaffirms that the establishment of a Just and lasting peace in the Middle East should include the application of both the following principles:
(a) Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict;
(b) Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and Its right to live In peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force;
6. Invites Israel to declare publicly its adherence to the principle of non-annexation of territories through the use of force;
7. Declares that changes carried out by Israel in the occupied Arab territories In contravention of the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 are null and void, and calls upon Israel to rescind forthwith all such measures and to desist from all policies and practices affecting the physical character or demographic composition of the occupied Arab territories;
8. Calls upon all States not to recognize any such changes and measures carried out by Israel in the occupied Arab territories and invites them to avoid actions, including actions in the field of aid, that could constitute recognition of that occupation;
9. Recognizes that respect for the rights of the Palestinians is an indispensable element in the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East;
10. Requests the Security Council, in consultation with the Secretary-General and his Special Representative, to take all appropriate steps with a view to the full and speedy implementation of Security Council resolution 242 (1967), taking into account all the relevant resolutions and documents of the United Nations in this connexion;
11. Requests the Secretary-General to report to the Security Council and the General Assembly on the progress made by him and his Special Representative in the implementation of Security Council resolution 242 (1967) and of the present resolution;
12. Decides to transmit the present resolution to the Security Council for its appropriate action and requests the Council to keep the General Assembly informed.
A/8975 (S/10848). Letter of 14 December 1972 from Jordan.
A/8977. Letter of 14 December 1972 from Tunisia.
A/8995 (S/10851). Letter of 20 December 1972 from Israel.
The situation in and around Jerusalem and its Holy Places
During 1972, the President of the Security Council and the Secretary-General received a number of communications relating to the status of the City of Jerusalem and the Holy Places. These are summarized below.
The Security Council did not meet on the question during the year.
By a letter dated 20 January 1972, the representative of Jordan transmitted a statement containing Jordan's views on Israel's letter to the Secretary-General of 15 November 1971 and annexed to his report of 19 November 1971. 11/
Among other things, Jordan said that the Arabs of Jerusalem had never accepted the dismemberment of their City. Contrary to Israel's claim regarding population, what had come to be known for two decades as New Jerusalem and presumed Jewish had, in fact, been a predominantly Arab city, occupied and despoiled by Israel in violation of all international conventions and decisions of the United Nations. What was not occupied and sequestered in 1918 was occupied in 1967 and construction activity on an unparalleled scale was begun. It had become an established fact that Israel's plan of action was aimed at the eventual–if not the immediate–extinction of Jerusalem's heterogeneous character.
The problem of Jerusalem was an integral part of the problem of terminating Israeli occupation of all Arab territories, the statement went on, and Jordan rejected Israel's claim that all citizens in the City had a voice in its administration. With regard to the laws enacted by Israel for the protection of the Holy Places, Jordan insisted that no one party should arrogate to itself the privilege of redrafting legislation covering 2,000 years of history, traditions and rights.
In conclusion, Jordan said that no matter how Israel tried to justify its illegal annexation, the measures taken to change the status and character of the City were contrary to international conventions, as well as to United Nations resolutions and the United Nations Charter. Consequently, it devolved upon the Security Council to shoulder its solemn responsibilities and ensure that a life of freedom, peace, dignity and harmony was guaranteed for all.
In a letter to the Secretary-General on 10 August 1972, Jordan drew attention to new measures taken by Israel in violation of United Nations resolutions pertaining to Jerusalem and aimed at completing the Judaization of the Old City. In the preceding month, the letter said, hundreds of Arab inhabitants of the Old City had received evacuation notices from the "Company for the Development of the Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem," a company entrusted by the Israeli occupation authorities with the task of evacuating Arab inhabitants from the expropriated areas, the demolition of Arab buildings and the planning and construction of new buildings for Jewish inhabitants.
In a reply on 18 August, Israel said that the Jewish Quarter of eastern Jerusalem, the subject of Jordan's complaint, had been captured by the Jordanian army in 1948, systematically destroyed, and its entire Jewish population uprooted and exiled. During 19 years of Jordanian occupation, no Jews were permitted to set foot in the Jewish Quarter. It was the height of arrogance, Israel said, for the State that had ravaged Jerusalem to use United Nations facilities to vent its opposition to the revival and restoration of the City.
In a letter on 23 October, Jordan again protested Israeli measures in occupied Jerusalem which it said were designed to change the character of the City and obliterate its Arab identity. Jordan said that Israel was building 13 Jewish quarters on the ruins of Arab villages and quarters that had been or were being demolished in the area. Construction had also been continuing on confiscated Arab land inside and outside the walls of the Holy City, in order to encircle the remaining Arabs of Jerusalem with residential, industrial and military buildings inhabited by Israelis.
Jordan's letter said that once the 13 quarters had been completed they would comprise 35,000 housing units, capable of accommodating 122,000 new Israeli Jewish residents, almost double the present Arab population of Jerusalem. The result would be a radical and very serious change in the demographic and cultural composition of the City, as well as physical mutilation of its historic character. This planned cultural and demographic strangulation of the Arabs of Jerusalem was the obvious aim of the Israeli measures. It was the duty of the international community to take speedy action to halt such development and to enforce the repeated resolutions of the Security Council and the General Assembly in that regard.
On 25 November, Egypt transmitted the text of a resolution adopted on 17 November by the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, urgently calling on Israel to take the necessary measures for the scrupulous preservation of all sites, buildings and other cultural properties–especially in the Old City of Jerusalem–and to desist from any alteration of the features of the City, as well as from any archaeological excavations.
In a letter dated 14 December, Jordan protested against measures recently taken by the Israeli Military Governor of Hebron, on the West Bank, among them measures to increase the area allocated to Jews in the Ibrahimi Mosque, one of the most prominent holy places of Islam. The measures were designed to turn the Mosque into a synagogue by gradually obliterating its Islamic character and excluding Moslems from worshipping in it.
Israel replied on 20 December that the Jordanian complaint on the question of freedom of worship and the protection of holy sites was a distortion for propaganda purposes that ignored Jordan's notorious record during its 19 years' occupation of West Bank areas, including part of Jerusalem. Jordan's letter ignored the fact that the Hebron site was holy also to Judaism. The Machpela Cave contained the tombs of the patriarchs of the Jewish people–the most ancient holy site of Judaism.
Documentary references
S/10517 (A/8657), S/10760 (A/8755). Letters of 20 January and 10 August 1972 from Jordan.
S/10765 (A/8766). Letter of 18 August 1972 from Israel.
S/10814 (A/8858). Letter of 23 October 1972 from Jordan.
S/10845 (A/8932). Letter of 25 November 1972 from Egypt (enclosing resolution adopted by General Conference of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Paris, France, 17 November 1972).
S/10848 (A/8975). Letter of 14 December 1972 from Jordan.
S/10851 (A/8995). Letter of 20 December 1972 from Israel.
A/8701. Report of Secretary-General on work of the Organization, 16 June 1971-15 June 1972, Part One, Chapter 1 E.
A/8702. Report of Security Council, 16 June 1971-15 June 1972, Chapter 3 C.
The treatment of the civilian population in Israeli-occupied
territories and related matters
During 1972, the question of the human rights of the civilian population of the Israeli-occupied territories was again considered by United Nations bodies.
A number of communications to the Security Council and the Secretary-General from Arab countries alleged that there had been violations of human rights in the territories; Israel replied to them. The Security Council did not meet on the question during the year.
The Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Population of the Occupied Territories submitted its third report to the General Assembly in September 1972. Earlier in the year, the Commission on Human Rights, after considering the Special Committee's 1971 reports, adopted a resolution by which, among other things, it strongly called on Israel to rescind all measures and desist from all practices affecting the demographic structure or the physical character of the occupied Arab territories and the human rights of the inhabitants, and called on it to comply fully with its obligations under the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (the fourth Geneva Convention of 12 August 1949).
In its third report, the Special Committee said that evidence available since its previous reports confirmed its impression that Israeli policies and practices violating the human rights of the population of the occupied territories had continued, and would make the territories socially, economically, politically and juridically part of Israel unless some form of supervision of the occupation was put into effect to arrest such a trend.
The Special Committee expressed disappointment that advantage had not been taken of the offer of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to take upon itself all the tasks envisaged for the protecting power under the terms of the 1949 Geneva Conventions.
The General Assembly, at its 1972 session, adopted resolution 3005 (XXVII) on 15 December by which, among other things, it called on Israel to rescind and desist from certain practices and policies in the occupied territories and asked the Special Committee to continue its work, and to consult as appropriate with ICRC. Israel was called upon to co-operate with the Special Committee and to facilitate its task.
Details of these and other related matters are to be found in the sections that follow.
Communications
During 1972, a number of communications from Arab States, and replies from Israel, concerning the treatment of the civilian population in Israeli-occupied territories were received by the President of the Security Council and the Secretary-General.
On 3 January, Iraq transmitted a petition signed by 251 Palestinian Arabs in exile urging the Secretary-General to persevere in the implementation of the General Assembly's resolution of 11 December 1948, which among other things called for the return of the refugees to their homes and the payment of compensation for the property of those choosing not to return. 12/
During March and April, communications were received from Egypt and Israel concerning the condition of the civilian population in the Gaza Strip and Sinai.
On 15 March, Egypt drew attention to what it called the increasingly deteriorating situation in the occupied territories of Sinai and the Gaza Strip as a result of Israel's systematic and premeditated policy to depopulate those territories and change their demographic structure in order to fit them into Israel's expansionist plans to annex the occupied Arab territories. Egypt said that during January Israel had deported more than 10,000 Egyptian citizens inhabiting Sinai and had forcibly transferred them to other areas. During February, it had destroyed many homes and expropriated lands in the Rafah area, with a view to establishing agricultural settlements. These actions constituted grave breaches of the United Nations Charter, of United Nations resolutions and of the fourth Geneva Convention of 1949. Egypt said it was incumbent upon the United Nations, and particularly the Security Council, to shoulder the responsibility for protecting the basic rights of the population of the occupied territories.
Israel replied on 21 March that its policy and actions in the Gaza and Sinai areas had always been directed towards ensuring "the safety, welfare and security of the inhabitants of the areas" in accordance with international law and the Security Council's resolution of 14 June 1967. 13/ In view of a persistent campaign, fomented by Egypt and other Arab States, aimed at sowing terror, violence and death in those areas to undermine normal civilian life, Israel had had to take security measures in conformity with its international obligations and its responsibility for the safety of the local population.
Egypt reiterated its charges against Israel in letters of 29 March and 6 April; Israel again denied the charges, characterizing them as falsehoods and fabrications.
On 14 April, Jordan drew attention to what it described as new Israeli measures of forcible expulsion of Arab inhabitants from the occupied territories. Fourteen persons from different towns and villages of Jordan's occupied West Bank and from Gaza had been expelled; these successive deportations of the indigenous population and the injection of alien elements to settle on absentee property continued, in direct violation of the fourth Geneva Convention of 1949. Jordan emphasized that effective measures in accordance
with the Charter were required to stop such policies.
On 13 June, the Syrian Arab Republic said that Israel, in order to justify its military action against the Arab States, was using the situation of the Jews in the Syrian Arab Republic as part of a world-wide campaign to have Jews emigrate to Israel because of alleged persecution and anti-Semitism. That campaign was, as it had always been, a military mobilization whose aims could only be achieved by settlement of Arab territory and further expansion–the continuation of conquest through immigration.
The Syrian Arab Republic charged that, as against four Syrian Jews jailed in the Syrian Arab Republic, there were 4,000 Arabs rotting in jails in Israel. It also recalled that since 1967 the General Assembly and some of its principal organs had condemned Israel at least 16 times for flagrant violations of Arab human rights.
In a letter dated 20 June, the Syrian Arab Republic said that unequivocal statements had been issued by the Israeli leaders following the 1967 war, affirming Israel's annexation of occupied Arab territories. The letter then quoted from documents and articles affirming Israel's intention to retain the occupied territories and to settle them with new immigrants. Such a course was in utter opposition to the clear-cut, inalienable right of the Arabs of Palestine and the newly displaced persons from occupied Arab territories to go back to their lands, towns, villages and farms.
Israel, in a letter dated 28 June, maintained that the Jews of the Syrian Arab Republic lived in constant fear for their lives. They were subjected to frequent violence by the authorities and by the Arab population and to numerous discriminatory and repressive measures. Israel said it would pursue its efforts to free the Syrian Jews from oppression.
In letters dated 15 and 23 June, Israel and Egypt exchanged further charges regarding the conditions of the local inhabitants in the Gaza and Sinai areas. Israel said that, contrary to Egypt's claims, life in those areas was marked by tranquillity and constructive development. Egypt was trying to divert attention from the responsibility it and other Arab Governments bore for the existence and activities of the Arab terror organizations.
Egypt replied that the Israeli claims were refuted by official Israeli statements and by ICRC, which, during April and May, had reported acts of mass deportation, mass destruction, detention of civilians and expropriation of property in the occupied territories of Sinai and Gaza.
On 29 June, Jordan informed the Secretary-General of further deportations of Arab inhabitants from territories under Israel's occupation: during the latter part of May and in June, 14 persons from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip had been forcibly expelled and deported. In view of these systematic expulsions, it was urgent that more effective measures be taken to put an end to such actions, which violated the fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and Security Council resolution 237 (1967) of 14 June 1967. 14/.
Egypt stated on 28 June that Israeli and Zionist leaders had for years followed an established policy designed to attain Israel's expansionist and colonial aims. The aim was to spread terror and fear, thus compelling the civilian population to leave in order to make room for alien immigrants to settle on the land rightfully owned by the Arab people. Israel's terror warfare against innocent civilians had resulted in many massacres which the Zionist propaganda machine claimed were made in the name of Israel's peace and security.
Israel said on 3 July that Egypt had distorted Israel's statements regarding Israeli policy against terror warfare in the Gaza region and elsewhere. Egypt's ire at Israeli policies in the Gaza and Sinai areas was due to the frustration of Egypt's schemes to keep these regions in constant terror and turmoil.
Decision by Human Rights Commission
At its twenty-eighth session in March-April 1972, the Commission on Human Rights had before it, among other things, the 1971 reports of the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Population of the Occupied Territories. On 22 March, it adopted a resolution on the question of the violation of human rights in the territories occupied as a result of hostilities in the Middle East.
By the preambular part of this resolution, the Commission among other things expressed concern at all acts and policies affecting the status or the character of the occupied territories and the basic rights of the inhabitants, such as: (a) the declared intention of annexing certain parts of the occupied Arab territories; (b) the establishment of Israeli settlements in those territories and the transfer into them of parts of the civilian population; (c) the evacuation, transfer, deportation and expulsion of their inhabitants; (d) the destruction and demolition of villages, quarters and houses and confiscation and expropriation of property; (e) the denial of the right of refugees and displaced persons to return to their homes; (f) the collective punishment and ill-treatment of prisoners and detainees; and (g) the administrative detention and holding of prisoners incommunicado.
The Commission noted with regret that those acts had not been rescinded, in spite of numerous resolutions adopted on the subject, and deplored Israel's persistent defiance and disregard of all United Nations resolutions on the protection of human rights of the inhabitants of the occupied territories and on the preservation of the demographic composition and geographic character thereof.
The Commission took note of the fact that the fourth Geneva Convention of 12 August 1949 (having to do with the protection of civilian persons in time of war) considered that unlawful deportation or transfer, unlawful confinement, deprivation of the rights of fair and regular trial, taking of hostages and extensive destruction and appropriation of property all constituted grave breaches of that Convention.
By the operative part of the text, the Commission:
(1) strongly called upon Israel to rescind forthwith all measures and to desist from all policies and practices affecting the demographic structure or the physical character of the occupied Arab territories and the human rights of the inhabitants;
(2) called upon Israel to permit all persons who had fled those territories or who had been deported or expelled therefrom to return to their homes without conditions;
(3) reaffirmed that all measures taken by Israel to annex or settle the occupied territories were null and void;
(4) called on Israel, once more, to comply fully with its obligations under the fourth Geneva Convention;
(5) also called on Israel once more to respect and implement the resolutions of the Commission and other competent organs on the protection of human rights of the inhabitants of the occupied territories;
(6) requested all States Members of the United Nations and all States parties to the fourth Geneva Convention to do their utmost to ensure that Israel respected the principles of human rights and fulfilled its obligations under that Convention;
(7) considered that grave breaches of the fourth Geneva Convention committed by Israel in the occupied Arab territories constituted war crimes and an affront to humanity; and
(8) decided to place the question on the provisional agenda of its 1973 session as a matter of high priority.
Report of the Special Committee in 1972
The Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Population of the Occupied Territories presented its third report to the Secretary-General on 25 September 1972. The report was based on information gathered by the Special Committee from the Israeli press and other sectors of the foreign press, as well as press reports of statements by Israeli Government members and other Israeli leaders. In addition, the Committee took note of information contained in United Nations documents, some of which contained the texts of letters from the Governments of Egypt, Israel, Jordan and the Syrian Arab Republic, as well as information communicated to it by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and contained in ICRC publications. At a series of informal meetings at United Nations Headquarters in June 1972, the Special Committee considered it unnecessary at that stage to undertake a field mission for the purpose of hearing further evidence. It met in Geneva (Switzerland) from 21 August to 1 September, and again in New York from 18 to 25 September 1972 to adopt its report.
The Special Committee said that the Israeli Government had continued to refuse to co-operate with the Committee or to allow it access into the occupied territories.
The Special Committee went on to say that the evidence available to it, since its previous report on 10 December 1971, had confirmed its impression that policies and practices violating the human rights of the population of the occupied territories had continued. It noted with concern that since the 1967 hostilities Israel had established at least 43 settlements in the occupied territories. Periodic mass transfers of people had taken place, such as those in Gaza and northern Sinai during 1972, involving the displacement of some 11,000 persons. Israel continued to refuse to allow the return to their homes of hundreds of thousands of people who had fled the territories during the hostilities. The measures taken by Israel in the occupied territories would make those territories socially, economically, politically and juridically part of Israel unless some form of supervision of the occupation was put into effect to arrest such a trend.
The Special Committee expressed disappointment that thus far advantage had not been taken of the offer of ICRC to take upon itself all the tasks envisaged for the protecting power under the terms of the 1949 Geneva Conventions.
In its analysis of the evidence before it, the Special Committee gave details concerning allegations of: annexation and settlement, transfer of population and expropriation of property; demolition of houses; deportation; denial of the right to return; and ill-treatment while under detention.
The Special Committee concluded that this evidence confirmed the existence of a policy of the Israeli Government designed to effect radical changes in the physical character and demographic composition of several areas of the territories under its occupation by the deliberate eradication of a distinct Palestinian national identity.
There was, the Special Committee said, a deliberate policy of annexation and settlement of the occupied territories–a policy which was in contravention of the human rights of the population of those territories.
The Special Committee reiterated the recommendations it had made in 1970 and again in 1971: that the States whose territory was occupied by Israel appoint immediately a neutral State or States, or an international organization offering all guarantees of impartiality and effectiveness, to safeguard the human rights of the population of the occupied territories; that suitable arrangements be made for the proper representation of the interests of the large population in those territories which had not yet been given the opportunity of exercising the right of self-determination; and that a neutral State or international organization be nominated by Israel and be associated in this arrangement. The State or States or organization so nominated might be authorized to undertake: (a) to secure the scrupulous implementation of the provisions relating to human rights contained in the third and fourth Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 (the third Convention having to do with the treatment of prisoners of war, the fourth with the protection of civilian persons in time of war) and particularly to investigate allegations of violations of the human rights provisions of those Conventions or of other applicable international instruments; (b) to ensure that the population of the occupied territories was treated in accordance with the applicable law; and (c) to report on its work to the States concerned and to the General Assembly.
The Special Committee reaffirmed its belief that one of the most effective means of safeguarding the human rights of the population of the occupied territories was to arrange for a direct and on-the-spot investigation of allegations of violations. When an occupation had persisted for as long as five years, it became imperative to establish a mechanism whereby effective international supervision was assured, in conformity with the spirit of the fourth Geneva Convention.
Regret was expressed by the Special Committee that, despite the specific recommendation made repeatedly in its reports, its mandate had been renewed with no attempt nor any action to provide machinery for supervising the implementation of the international law pertaining to the human rights of the population of the occupied territories. It noted that at the General Assembly's 1970 and 1971 sessions a large segment of the membership of the United Nations did not appear to pay earnest consideration to the Special Committee's recommendation; in the Committee's view, that attitude of indifference had not served the cause of humanity and bad not helped to discourage the occupying power from persisting in its disregard for the provisions of the fourth Geneva Convention.
The Special Committee said it had not been able to carry out its functions in the same manner as would a protecting power duly appointed under the Convention. The Committee felt that the arrangement it had proposed should be secured with the least possible delay. The fourth Geneva Convention had not only been ratified by the parties concerned without relevant reservations but was applicable in occupied territories since all the conditions for its applicability had been satisfied. The Committee added that ICRC had repeatedly expressed the same opinion and had on several occasions attempted to secure a formal application of the Convention.
Consideration by General Assembly
On 15 December 1972, at its twenty-seventh session, the General Assembly adopted a resolution (3005 (XXVII)) on the 1972 report of the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Population of the Occupied Territories.
By the preamble to this text, the Assembly among other things considered that a system of investigation and protection was required for ensuring effective implementation of the international instruments which provided for respect for human rights in armed conflicts. The Assembly also considered that implementation of the fourth Geneva Convention of 12 August 1949 could not and should not be left open in a situation involving foreign military occupation and the rights of the civilian population of the territories under the provisions of the Convention and in accordance with the principles of international law.
By the operative parts of the resolution, the General Assembly:
(1) commended the Special Committee for its efforts in performing the tasks assigned to it;
(2) strongly called upon Israel to rescind forthwith, and desist from, all such policies and practices as: (a) the annexation of any part of the occupied territories; (b) the establishment of Israeli settlements in those territories and the transfer of parts of an alien population into the occupied territories; (c) the destruction and demolition of villages, quarters and houses and the confiscation and expropriation of property; (d) the evacuation, transfer, deportation and expulsion of the inhabitants of the occupied territories; and (e) the denial of the right of displaced persons to return to their homes;
(3) reaffirmed that all measures taken by Israel in contravention of the fourth Geneva Convention to settle the occupied territories, including occupied Jerusalem, were null and void;
(4) affirmed the principle of the sovereignty of the population of those territories over their national wealth and resources;
(5) called upon all States, international organizations all specialized agencies not to recognize or co-operate with, of assist in any manner in, any measures undertaken by the occupying power–Israel–to exploit the resources of the occupied territories or to effect any changes in their demographic composition, geographic character or institutional structure;
(6) requested all States parties to the fourth Geneva Convention to do their utmost to ensure that Israel respected and fulfilled its obligations under that Convention;
(7) requested the Special Committee, pending the early termination of Israeli occupation of Arab territories, to continue its work and to consult as appropriate with ICRC to ensure the safeguarding of the welfare and human rights of the population of the occupied territories;
(8) requested the Secretary-General to render all necessary facilities to the Special Committee, including those required for its visits to the occupied territories with a view to investigating Israeli policies and practices affecting the human rights of the population, especially: (a) measures concerning the establishment of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories and moving into them an alien population, contrary to the provisions of the fourth Geneva Convention; (b) the situation concerning the annexation of any part of the territories occupied by Israel since 5 June 1967; (c) exploitation and looting of their resources; (d) changes in their physical character, demographic composition or institutional structure, including the transfer or deportation of the population thereof or the demolition of houses and towns therein; (e) pillaging of the archaeological and cultural heritage of the occupied territories; and (f) interference in the freedom of worship in the Holy Places of those territories;
(9) called upon Israel to co-operate with the Secretary-General and the Special Committee and to facilitate their tasks;
(10) requested the Secretary-General to ensure the widest circulation of the reports of the Special Committee by all means available through the United Nations Office of Public Information;
(11) requested the Special Committee to report to the Secretary-General as soon as possible and whenever the need arose thereafter;
(12) requested the Secretary-General to report to it at its twenty-eighth (1973) session on the task entrusted to him; and
(13) decided to include the item in the provisional agenda of its 1973 session.
The Assembly took these decisions when it adopted, on 15 December 1972, resolution 3005 (XXVII)–by a recorded vote of 63 to 10, with 49 abstentions–on the recommendation of its Special Political Committee, which had approved the text on 7 December by a roll-call vote of 60 to 10, with 44 abstentions. The text was sponsored in the Special Political Committee by Afghanistan, Guinea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania and Pakistan, and revised by them.
(For text of resolution, see DOCUMENTARY REFERENCES below.)
During the debate in the Special Political Committee, the Chairman of the Special Committee, presenting the report, pointed out that Israel, as in previous years, had denied the Special Committee entry into the occupied territories, impeached its integrity and impugned the validity of General Assembly resolutions.
The Special Committee's investigation, he went on to say, had been based almost entirely on published statements by Israeli leaders and reports in the Israeli press, none of which had been contradicted or challenged as far as their substance was concerned; thus, the sources of evidence were unimpeachable since they were the spokesmen and the press of Israel itself.
The Chairman of the Special Committee then reviewed the various policies and practices outlined in the report which were held to be in contravention of the fourth Geneva Convention. He urged the Assembly to act firmly and promptly to stop further action towards the deliberate eradication of a distinct Palestinian nationality and to declare all measures so far taken–or any similar measures taken in the future–to be completely null and void. He also appealed to the Assembly to give serious consideration to the Special Committee's recommendation to establish machinery for continued investigation by a body that was not open to assailment by the Government of Israel, as the Special Committee was.
Many Arab Members–including Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and the Libyan Arab Republic–commended the Special Committee for the objectivity and impartiality of its report and criticized Israel for refusing to co-operate with it. Israel was condemned for its practices and policies carried out in contravention of the fourth Geneva Convention. Lebanon, for example, said that the Special Committee had served the cause of humanity by bringing to the attention of the world community the measures taken and deeds perpetrated by Israel in the occupied territories. Egypt said that foreign occupation in itself was a grave violation of international law. The Special Committee's report revealed the true face of Israel, whose policy would have the effect of obliterating Arab culture and the Arab way of life in the occupied areas, replacing them with a Zionist culture and a Zionist State. With that end in view, according to Egypt, Israel was trying to create faits accomplis and impede all efforts for a peaceful settlement of the Middle East problem.
In Tunisia's view, Israeli practices in the occupied territories constituted the worst form of colonialism. Israel's claim that it was promoting the economic development of the occupied territories and improving the living standards of the Arab population was no legal or moral justification for the occupation, or for denying the inhabitants their right to freedom and self-determination.
Israel's representative maintained that the Special Committee had been irregularly constituted and that none of the three countries which made up the Committee had diplomatic relations with Israel. Those countries obviously could not conduct an impartial inquiry; their undisguised aim was to exploit the mandate of the Special Committee for a campaign of vilification against Israel.
Refuting the charges by the Special Committee, the representative of Israel gave what he described as a factual description of the situation in the areas administered by Israel since 1967. From that description it could be seen, he said, that the human rights of the population were fully respected, and indeed protected against those who wished to disrupt the return to normal life. The realities, he stressed, were those of an open society enjoying calm and tranquillity, in which the economy, housing, educational facilities, public health and other social services were improving and in which all freedoms were assured. That was the real situation, which bore little resemblance to the fanciful tableau painted by the Special Committee.
Israel's spokesman also said that his Government was applying the provisions of the fourth Geneva Convention, although it reserved its position concerning the Convention's applicability. The International Committee of the Red Cross, he added, had confirmed many times that Israel observed the Convention's provisions.
Other Members–including Afghanistan, Bulgaria, China, Czechoslovakia, India, Malaysia, Mali, the Ukrainian SSR and the USSR–commended the Special Committee for its report and criticized Israel. The Ukrainian SSR said that the Israeli myth of "prosperity" in the occupied territories was reminiscent of the propagandist ruses employed by the racists of southern Africa to whitewash the sins of colonialism. The USSR said it was extending effective and friendly political and economic assistance to the Arab countries and helping them strengthen their defensive potential. It also supported the struggle of the Arab people of Palestine, whose just rights would inevitably triumph.
According to China, the crimes committed in the occupied territories represented only one side of the Israeli aggressor's crimes against the Palestinian and other Arab peoples. The crucial reason why the Middle East question had remained unsolved lay in the super-powers' perpetuation of a "no war, no peace" situation in the region, which enabled them to compete for spheres of influence.
Some speakers–among them France, the United Kingdom and the United States–expressed their concern at certain steps that had been taken by the occupying power, and agreed that allegations of human rights violations in the occupied territories should be investigated. However, they had reservations about the effectiveness of the Special Committee as an investigating body, since it was not able to enter the occupied territories, and suggested that an alternative arrangement be made to enable an investigation to be carried out in those territories. The United Kingdom considered that the fourth Geneva Convention, if implemented, could ensure more effectively than any committee of the United Nations that the human rights of the inhabitants were protected. If it was not feasible to appoint a protecting power, the most satisfactory solution would be to appoint ICRC to carry out those functions. The United States shared that view and felt that such an action would in no way prejudice the position relating to the occupied territories.
During the debate, the Special Political Committee, at the request of Afghanistan, Indonesia, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and in accordance with the practice established at previous sessions, heard a statement by a representative of the "Palestine Arab delegation."
Documentary references
Communications
S/10495 (A/8651). Letter of 5 January 1972 from Syrian Arab Republic.
S/10496 (A/8652). Letter of 3 January 1972 from Iraq (attaching petition addressed to Secretary-General by "Palestinian Arabs in exile").
S/10511 (A/8656). Letter of 17 January 1972 from Israel.
S/10518 (A/8659). Letter of 21 January 1972 from Syrian Arab Republic.
S/10565 (A/8667). Letter of 15 March 1972 from Egypt.
S/10570 (A/8671). Letter of 21 March 1972 from Israel.
S/10582 (A/8674). Letter of 29 March 1972 from Egypt.
S/10587 (A/8675). Letter of 3 April 1972 from Israel.
S/10590 (A/8677). Letter of 6 April 1972 from Egypt.
S/10598 (A/8678). Letter of 14 April 1972 from Jordan.
S/10614 (A/8679). Letter of 20 April 1972 from Egypt.
S/10628 (A/8682). Letter of 2 May 1972 from Israel.
S/10663 (A/8685). Letter of 23 May 1972 from Egypt.
S/10665 and Add.1 (A/8686 and Add.1). Letter of 26 May 1972 from Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Guinea, Indonesia, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libyan Arab Republic, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen (transmitting resolution adopted at Third Islamic Conference, Juddah, Saudi Arabia, 29 February-3 March 1972).
S/10667 (A/8687). Letter of 30 May 1972 from Israel.
S/10694 (A/8692). Letter of 12 June 1972 from Egypt.
S/10698. Letter of 13 June 1972 from Syrian Arab Republic.
S/10700 (A/8695). Letter of 15 June 1972 from Israel.
S/10704 (A/8699). Letter of 20 June 1972 from Syrian Arab Republic.
S/10717 (A/8735). Letter of 23 June 1972 from Egypt (attaching resolution adopted at 9th ordinary session of Assembly of Heads of State and Government of Organization of African Unity, held at Rabat, Morocco, 12-15 June 1972).
S/10724. Letter of 28 June 1972 from Israel.
S/10725 (A/8736). Letter of 28 June 1972 from Egypt.
S/10726 (A/8737). Letter of 29 June 1972 from Jordan.
S/10727 (A/8738), S/10732. Letters of 3 and 6 July 1972 from Israel.
Decision by Human Rights Commission
E/5113. Report of Commission on Human Rights on its 28th session, Headquarters, New York, 6 March-7 April 1972, Chapters III and XIII A (resolution 3 (XXVIII).
Consideration by General Assembly
General Assembly–27th session
Special Political Committee, meetings 849-855.
Fifth Committee. meeting 1552.
Plenary meeting 2112.
A/8701. Report of Secretary-General on work of the Organization, 16 June 1971-15 June 1972, Part One, Chapter I D.
A/8702. Report of Security Council, 16 June 1971-15 June 1972, Chapter 3 B.
A/8828. Report of Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting Human Rights of Population of Occupied Territories. Note by Secretary-General.
A/SPC/158. Letter of 27 October 1972 from Afghanistan, Indonesia, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to Chairman of Special Political Committee (request for hearing of "Palestine Arab delegation").
A/SPC/L.258 and Rev.1. Afghanistan, Guinea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Pakistan: draft resolution and revision, approved by Special Political Committee on 7 December 1972, meeting 855, by roll-call vote of 60 to 10, with 44 abstentions, as follows:
In favour: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Bahrain, Bulgaria, Burma, Burundi, Byelorussian SSR, Cameroon, Chad, China, Congo, Cuba, Cyprus, Czechoslovakia, Democratic Yemen, Egypt, Greece, Guinea, Guyana, Honduras, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libyan Arab Republic, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Mongolia, Morocco, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Peru, Poland, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Spain, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, Ukrainian SSR, USSR, United Arab Emirates, United Republic of Tanzania, Yemen, Yugoslavia, Zambia.
Against: Barbados, Bolivia, Canada, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Israel, Nicaragua, Swaziland, United States, Uruguay.
Abstaining: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bhutan, Botswana, Brazil, Central African Republic, Colombia, Denmark, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Gabon, Ghana, Guatemala, Haiti, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Ivory Coast, Jamaica, Japan, Khmer Republic, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Portugal, Rwanda, Singapore, Sweden, Thailand, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, United Kingdom, Upper Volta, Venezuela, Zaire.
A/SPC/L.260. Administrative and financial implications of 7-power draft resolution, A/SPC/L.258. Statement by Secretary-General.
A/C.5/1498, A/8708/Add.24, A/8973. Administrative and financial implications of draft resolution recommended by Special Political Committee in A/8950. Statement by Secretary-General and reports of Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions and Fifth Committee.
A/8950. Report of Special Political Committee.
Resolution 3005 (XXVII), as recommended by Special Political Committee, A/8950, adopted by Assembly on 15 December 1972, meeting 2112, by recorded vote of 63 to 10, with 49 abstentions, as follows:
In favour: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Bahrain, Bulgaria, Burma, Burundi, Byelorussian SSR, Cameroon, Chad, China, Congo, Cuba, Cyprus, Czechoslovakia, Democratic Yemen, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Gambia, Greece, Guinea, Guyana, Honduras, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libyan Arab Republic, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mongolia, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Peru, Poland, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Somalia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, USSR, United Arab Emirates, United Republic of Tanzania, Yemen, Yugoslavia, Zambia.
Against: Barbados, Bolivia, Canada, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Israel, Liberia, Nicaragua, United States, Uruguay.
Abstaining: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bhutan, Botswana, Brazil, Central African Republic, Colombia, Dahomey, Denmark, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Gabon, Ghana, Guatemala, Haiti, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Ivory Coast, Jamaica, Japan, Laos, Lesotho, Luxembourg, Malawi, Malta, Mexico, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Philippines, Portugal, Rwanda, Singapore, Sweden, Thailand, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, United Kingdom, Upper Volta, Venezuela, Zaire.
The General Assembly,
Guided by the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations,
Invoking the provisions and principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
Bearing in mind the provisions of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 12 August 1949,
Recalling Security Council resolutions 237 (1967) of 14 June 1967 and 259 (1968) of 27 September 1968, as well as other pertinent resolutions of the United Nations,
Having considered the report of the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Population of the Occupied Territories,
Considering that a system of investigation and protection is required for ensuring effective implementation of the international instruments, such as the Geneva Convention of 12 August 1949, which provide for respect for human rights in armed conflicts,
Recalling that, in accordance with article 1 of that Convention, the States parties have undertaken not only to respect, but also to ensure respect for, the Convention in all circumstances,
Considering that implementation of the Geneva Convention of 12 August 1949 cannot and should not be left open in a situation involving foreign military occupation and the rights of the civilian population of these territories under the provisions of that Convention and in accordance with the principles of international law,
1. Commends the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Population of the Occupied Territories for its efforts in performing the tasks assigned to it;
2. Strongly calls upon Israel to rescind forthwith, and desist from, all such policies and practices as:
(a) The annexation of any part of the occupied territories;
(b) The establishment of Israeli settlements in those territories and the transfer of parts of an alien population into the occupied territories;
(c) The destruction and demolition of villages quarters and houses and the confiscation and expropriation of property;
(d) The evacuation, transfer, deportation and expulsion of the inhabitants of the occupied territories;
(e) The denial of the right of the displaced persons to return to their homes;
3. Reaffirms that all measures taken by Israel in contravention of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 12 August 1949, to settle the occupied territories, including occupied Jerusalem, are null and void;
4. Affirms the principle of the sovereignty of the population of the occupied territories over their national wealth and resources;
5. Calls upon all States, International organizations and specialized agencies not to recognize or cooperate with, or assist in any manner in, any measures undertaken by the occupying Power to exploit the resources of the occupied territories or to effect any changes in the demographic composition or geographic character or institutional structure of those territories;
6. Requests all States parties to the Geneva Convention of 12 August 1949 to do their utmost to ensure that Israel respects and fulfils its obligations under that Convention;
7. Requests the Special Committee, pending the early termination of Israeli occupation of Arab territories, to continue Its work and to consult, as appropriate, with the International Committee of the Red Cross in order to ensure the safeguarding of the welfare and human rights of the population of the occupied territories;
8. Requests the Secretary-General to render all necessary facilities to the Special Committee, including those required for its visits to the occupied territories with a view to investigating Israeli policies and practices affecting the human rights of the population of the occupied territories, especially:
(a) The measures concerning the establishment of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories and the moving into the occupied territories of an alien population, contrary to the provisions of the Geneva Convention of 12 August 1949;
(b) The situation concerning the annexation of any part of the territories occupied by Israel since 5 June 1967;
(c) The exploitation and the looting of the resources of the occupied territories;
(d) The changes in the physical character or demographic composition or institutional structure of those territories, including the transfer or deportation of population thereof or the demolition of houses and towns therein;
(e) The pillaging of the archaeological and cultural heritage of the occupied territories;
(f) The interference in the freedom of worship in the holy places of the occupied territories;
9. Calls upon Israel to co-operate with the Secretary-General and the Special Committee and to facilitate their tasks;
10. Requests the Secretary-General to ensure the widest circulation of the reports of the Special Committee by all means available through the Office of Public Information of the Secretariat;
11. Requests the Special Committee to report to the Secretary-General as soon as possible and whenever the need arises thereafter;
12. Requests the Secretary-General to report to the General Assembly at its twenty-eighth session on the task entrusted to him;
13. Decides to include in the provisional agenda of its twenty-eighth session the item entitled "Report of the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Population of the Occupied Territories."
Other matters relevant to the Middle East situation
Communications concerning hijacking
of civilian aircraft and related incidents
In a letter dated 11 May 1972, Israel informed the Secretary-General that, on 8 May, armed agents of the terror organization Black September had captured a civilian aircraft of the Sabena Belgian World Airlines during a regular flight from Belgium to Israel. Ninety passengers and 10 crew members were aboard. After landing the aircraft at Lod airport, in Israel, the hijackers had threatened to blow it up with its passengers and crew if Israel did not release members of Arab terror organizations detained in Israel. On the following day, a unit of the Israel Defence Forces had gained control of the aircraft and freed all the passengers; in the course of this action, two of the hijackers had been killed and two others captured.
Israel noted that the Arab Governments and Arab information media had supported the hijackers; when the 100 persons aboard the aeroplane were finally saved, the Arab reaction was openly one of disappointment. The terror organizations responsible for such crimes continued to enjoy the support of Arab Governments–in particular Egypt, the Syrian Arab Republic, Algeria and Lebanon–which continued to harbour on their territory the bases from which the organizations operated and where they received military assistance, training and political backing. The act of air piracy foiled by Israel reflected not only the criminality of the activities of Arab terror organizations but also the involvement and responsibility of the Arab Governments. The international community, Israel insisted, could not permit the continuation of such activities.
In a letter dated 31 May, Israel informed the President of the Security Council that, on the previous day, an armed attack had taken place at Lod airport, when three men who had arrived by an Air France flight had entered the airport lounge and opened fire indiscriminately on the crowd at the terminal, killing 25 persons and wounding 70, 10 of them critically. Two of the assailants were killed; the third, who was caught alive, had declared that he and his colleagues were Japanese nationals hired by an Arab terror organization known as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine–which shortly thereafter had issued a communiqué from its Beirut headquarters claiming responsibility for the mass murder.
Israel said it had repeatedly drawn attention to the responsibility of Arab Governments, particularly Lebanon, for the criminal operations conducted by Arab terror organizations, which maintained offices in Beirut and in other Lebanese towns and refugee camps. Israel insisted that the Arab Governments, and especially Lebanon–from whose territory and under whose patronage the terror organizations continued to operate in complete freedom–put an immediate and effective end to these activities.
In another letter of 31 May, Israel transmitted excerpts from a statement by Israel's Prime Minister, Mrs. Golda Meir, in which, after deploring the attack at Lod airport, she recalled that dozens of air incidents had taken place since the Swissair disaster two years earlier, not only in the Middle East but throughout the world. It was no secret that Lebanon was responsible for harbouring and supporting the terrorist organizations which plotted and carried out such crimes. She warned that Israelis were not the only targets, and she appealed to all Governments and airlines to co-operate and to take the necessary measures to keep the plague from spreading.
In a letter dated 31 May, the representative of Lebanon said that by attributing the responsibility for the Lod airport incident to a Palestinian organization that had its headquarters in Beirut, Israel sought to place responsibility on Lebanon. The Lebanese Government, he said, condemned acts of violence against innocent civilians and was in no way implicated in the incident. Israel's attempt to impute responsibility to Lebanon could only aggravate the situation in the Middle East.
Israel replied on 1 June that Lebanon had not denied that Beirut was the location of the headquarters of the organization responsible for the Lod airport massacre and reiterated that Lebanon was fully responsible for harbouring organizations engaged in the slaughter of innocent civilians and for failing in its international obligation to put an end to their activities.
In a letter dated 2 June, Israel said that the Egyptian Government had given its official approval to the massacre at Lod airport in a declaration broadcast by Cairo radio by the Prime Minister of Egypt. After recalling Egypt's role in operations carried out by terror organizations, Israel charged that Egypt's involvement in, and identification with, their activities had reached new depths of criminality; Egypt's responsibility was clear.
In a reply dated 8 June, Egypt said that Israel was trying to shift the responsibility for what happened at Lod airport to a number of Governments. Its official statements and threats of reprisals had the objective of furthering its aggression against the Palestinian people and furthering its expansionist designs against the Arab States in the area. In the light of those statements, Israel must be held responsible for the grave consequences of any action it might undertake in the future.
By a letter dated 2 June, the Lebanese representative transmitted the text of a statement by the President of Lebanon denying his country's responsibility for the Lod incident and asked how Lebanon could be held responsible for the action of foreign commandos transported to Israel from a foreign capital by a foreign company. The fact that a communiqué had been issued in Beirut by a Palestinian organization claiming responsibility for the incident meant only that Beirut was a centre for the world-wide dissemination of information. However, the Lebanese President said, new measures had been taken to prevent Lebanon from being a centre for that organization's information activities.
Israel, in a letter dated 6 June, said that southeastern Lebanon had become the base for 5,000 members of terror organizations and that Beirut was the seat of those organizations, where attacks were initiated, planned and directed–including the massacre at Lod airport. Therefore, to claim that Lebanese territory was not involved in the incident was only an attempt on the part of Lebanon to misconstrue facts and evade the obligation to put an end to terror operations. Israel then cited statements made in 1969 by the former President of Lebanon and in January 1972 by Lebanon's Prime Minister, indicating that Lebanon supported terror warfare against Israel. By invoking the refugee problem as an excuse for terror operations against Israel, Lebanon was using any pretext to justify its support for terror warfare.
In a reply dated 8 June, Lebanon rejected Israel's charges and stated that Israel was deliberately distorting the statements made by the former President and by the Prime Minister of Lebanon.
On 9 June, Israel said that neither Egypt nor Lebanon had denied that innocent civilians had been massacred at Lod airport by Arab terror organizations operating from Lebanon. Both continued to support terror organizations and had failed to put an end to their activities. In fact, since an agreement in 1969 between Lebanon and those organizations, 548 attacks had been perpetrated from Lebanese territory, resulting in the killing of 44 Israelis and the wounding of 190. Moreover, 73 civilians had been killed and about 90 injured as a result of assaults against international aviation by Arab terrorists originating from Lebanon.
Lebanon said in a letter dated 12 June that Israel had once again tried to implicate the Lebanese Government in the Lod airport incident, this time presenting a list of allegations and accusations against Lebanon which had been used many times before in the Security Council and dismissed on each occasion. Lebanon then said that since Israel's attack on the Beirut airport in 1968, Israel had committed hundreds of acts of aggression involving violations of Lebanon's air space and territorial waters, and had shelled and raided its territory. As a consequence, 42 civilians and 4 military personnel had been killed, 128 civilians and 16 military personnel wounded, and 45 civilians and 11 military personnel abducted. Instead of making repetitive and false charges against Lebanon, Israel should implement United Nations resolutions aimed at establishing peace based on justice in the area.
In a reply dated 13 June, Israel said that Lebanon continued to turn its back on the fundamental fact that Lebanon continued to serve as a centre and operational base for the organizations responsible for an international campaign of terror, murder and air piracy. Lebanon had taken no measures against the terror organizations and did not even address itself in a responsible manner to its international obligation to take such measures.
By a letter dated 6 June, the representative of the Libyan Arab Republic transmitted the text of a memorandum issued by the Palestine Liberation Organization saying that the airport incident should be viewed as part of a protracted conflict that had resulted from the usurpation of the land of Palestine and the denial of the rights of the Palestinians. The tension in the area was a direct result of the violence that had been introduced and practiced by the Zionist movement and, later, by the State of Israel, to which the Palestinians had responded with armed resistance. The acts of violence committed by the Zionist movement and Israel before and after the establishment of the State of Israel had resulted in hundreds of innocent civilian victims; the purpose had always been to consolidate the spoils of earlier aggressions and to extend those aggressions still deeper into the Arab world. Therefore, the responsibility for the airport incident did not lie with any Arab State but with the Zionist movement and Israel. While expressing regret for the loss of innocent lives, the memorandum warned that the Middle East was in a state of war and that, as in any war zone, travellers entered at their own risk.
In a letter dated 8 June, Israel stated that the so-called Palestine Liberation Organization was the roof organization of Arab terror groups openly engaged in a campaign of murder against civilians. The entire civilized world had been shocked by the attack at Lod airport; in the Arab States there had been jubilation and attempts to whitewash the crime. The submission of the memorandum by the Libyan Arab Republic was a further example of the Arab Governments' identification with the terror organizations and of those Governments' responsibility in the matter.
In a letter dated 12 June, the Libyan Arab Republic reiterated that Israel was responsible for the continued violence in the area. The policy of the Libyan Arab Republic had been and continued to be one of support for the struggle of the people of Palestine to regain their usurped national rights and liberate their homeland.
By a letter dated 26 May, the representatives of 27 States transmitted to the Secretary-General the text of a resolution on the Middle East problem adopted at the Third Islamic Conference, held at Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, from 29 February to 3 March 1972. By the resolution, the Conference: condemned Israel for its aggression of 1967 against Arab countries and its violation of the United Nations Charter; insisted on the withdrawal of Israel from all the occupied Arab territories; and requested the permanent members of the Security Council to take all appropriate measures to persuade Israel to withdraw from those territories and to refrain from providing it with any military or economic support so that it might not persist in refusing to withdraw. The signatories of the letter were Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Guinea, Indonesia, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, the Libyan Arab Republic, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, the Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
In letters dated 16 and 23 June 1972, Israel continued to hold the Arab Governments responsible for the activities of Arab terror organizations which had culminated in the massacre at Lod airport on 30 May.
In letters dated 16 and 20 June, Lebanon and the Libyan Arab Republic rejected that responsibility. Lebanon said it could not be responsible for the actions of "non-Lebanese" travelling to Israel from a foreign country on a foreign airline. Furthermore, the three Japanese who had perpetrated the outrage at Lod airport had never set foot on Lebanese soil. According to the Libyan Arab Republic, the incident could not be considered as an isolated occurrence but was, rather, part of the continuous conflict in the Middle East, for which the Zionist aggression against the Palestinian people was responsible.
In communications dated 28 June and 3 July, Egypt and Israel exchanged charges and counter-charges regarding terrorism in the middle East. Egypt charged that Israel had followed an established policy designed to attain its expansionist and colonial aims and practiced terrorism in the name of Israel's peace and security. Israel replied that Egypt had, in 1948, denied to a neighbouring people the right to life and in subsequent years had sought to destroy Israel and annihilate its people. It had initiated and given full financial, military and political support to the various Arab terror organizations and had identified itself with their operations. Its Prime Minister had praised the Lod massacre.
In a letter of 8 September, Israel said that the campaign of atrocities and bloodshed pursued by Arab terror organizations against Israel had reached new depths of inhumanity in the murder of 11 Israeli sportmen carried out on 5 September at the Olympic Games in Munich (Federal Republic of Germany). The entire civilized world had strongly condemned this new outrage and its perpetrators. But the information media of Egypt and other Arab States praised the Munich outrage and, despite requests by the Federal Republic of Germany, Egypt had refused to co-operate in any steps that might have averted the tragedy.
The letter went on to say that the Arab policy of terror and murder was a grave threat to the general desire in the world to seek solutions of problems through negotiations and coexistence. It was incumbent on the family of nations–which had already raised its voice against the act of savagery at Munich–to take fundamental and unfaltering action to eliminate the plague of terrorism. Influence must be exerted on Arab Governments which backed and assisted the terror organizations to terminate that policy.
Israel, the letter concluded, insisted that the Arab States put an end to the activities of the terror organizations by terminating the support given them and by taking effective measures to prevent the existence and operations of terror organizations in and from the territory of those States.
In a letter of 11 September, Egypt said in reply that the general desire in the world to seek solutions of problems through negotiation had in fact been threatened mainly by Israel, which persisted in its denial of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people. Israel's policy of retaining the Arab territories it occupied, and of attacking and bombarding Arab villages in Lebanon and the Syrian Arab Republic, could not be considered a means of coexistence. It was Israel and its Zionist terror organization that had introduced terror and terrorism into the Middle East. Peace would be achieved in the area only when Israel shed its negative attitudes: its policy of non-compliance with United Nations resolutions, its persistent denial of the rights of the Palestinians and its policy of official terrorism and naked aggression.
In a letter of 14 September, Israel said that Egypt attempted to blur the shock and revulsion felt throughout the world at the atrocities committed by Arab murder organizations, culminating in the Munich killings. It was Egypt that had initiated terror warfare by establishing in the early 1950s the so-called fedayeen squads, and today extended to them political, ideological and material support. Despite significant developments in the world and in the middle East itself, Egypt had persistently rebuffed all Israeli peace initiatives and refused to participate in any meaningful negotiations.
In letters dated 8 and 10 November, Egypt and Israel again accused each other of introducing terrorism into the Middle East. Egypt said again that since its establishment Israel had practiced terrorism against the Arab population and continued to do so by bombarding civilian centres. Israel reiterated that it was a matter of common knowledge who had carried out and continued to carry out throughout the world acts of murder, terror and atrocities against Israel, Israeli citizens and even against Jews and Jewish institutions in general. Egypt's letter had the obvious purpose of diverting attention from its grave responsibility for the spread of terrorism.
In a letter dated 26 October, Israel stated that the Netherlands authorities at the Amsterdam airport had on 23 October detained a man, travelling to Brazil and carrying an Algerian diplomatic passport, when it was discovered that his luggage contained booby-trapped letters, grenades, fuses and explosives. The letter added that the man was known to be a Palestinian member of Al-Fatah, and represented that terror organization in Latin America, pursuing his activities under cover of his Algerian diplomatic passport. Those facts constituted further irrefutable evidence of the close co-operation between the Arab terror organizations and Arab Governments, which even gave diplomatic cover to terrorist agents and to the smuggling of deadly material for use in criminal terror operations.
In a further letter, dated 30 October, Israel drew attention to the hijacking on 29 October of a Lufthansa aircraft by members of Arab murder squads, underscoring anew the Arab Governments' responsibility for terror warfare. The aircraft had departed from Damascus (Syrian Arab Republic) and had stopped at Beirut airport, where it was boarded by three agents of terror organizations and hijacked after taking off. Together with the three Arab murderers responsible for the Munich killings, the plane was then flown to Tripoli (Libyan Arab Republic), where the Libyan authorities and press had received the hijackers and the Munich murderers in triumph and jubilation. The reaction in other Arab capitals, the letter added, had also been one of praise and glee. The grave responsibility of the Arab Governments for the continuation of the terror warfare was, Israel said clear and unpardonable.
(See also pp. 639-50; see also above, pp. 165-69.)
Communications relating to prisoners of war
On 20 April 1972, Egypt stated that, according to an Israeli military communiqué reported in the press, Israeli troops had fired on Egyptian prisoners of war, killing one of them. After referring to the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War (the third Geneva Convention of 12 August 1949), Egypt strongly protested this grave breach of the Convention. It asked the Secretary-General to investigate the conditions under which the incident had occurred, as well as the conditions under which the Egyptian prisoners of war were detained, and to ensure that they were treated in full compliance with the provisions of the Convention.
Israel replied on 2 May that, following the escape of three Syrian prisoners of war, a search for hidden weapons in the prisoner-of-war camp had been carried out, during which the men had attacked the military police, wounding two Israeli officers, and had then set fire to their quarters and tried to break out. After the prisoners had refused to obey the military police, warning shots had been fired in the air, one of which ricocheted off a wall wounding a prisoner who subsequently died. A commission of inquiry was established to investigate the incident and the International Committee of the Red Cross was notified.
Israel noted that Red Cross representatives regularly visited the prisoners of war and their reports clearly demonstrated that the provisions of the third Geneva Convention were fully observed by Israel and that the prisoners were treated humanely and with due respect for all their rights. In Israel's view, the most humanitarian solution of the problem would be the exchange of all prisoners of war between Egypt and Israel; Israel reiterated the proposal to that effect which it had made to Egypt on numerous occasions.
During the Security Council's debates in June and July on the question of the release of Syrian and Lebanese military and security personnel abducted by Israeli armed forces from Lebanese territory on 21 June, several representatives raised the question of a general exchange of prisoners of war. (See above, pp. 161-65.)
In a letter dated 6 July, Israel said that Egypt at that time held 10 Israeli prisoners of war, including 4 abducted by Egyptian forces from the Israeli-held side of the Suez Canal. These Israelis had been in captivity for two years or more. The Syrian Arab Republic held three Israeli prisoners of war who had also been in captivity for more than two years. In Israel there were 61 prisoners of war from Egypt, 45 from the Syrian Arab Republic and 5 from Lebanon, all of whom fell into Israel's hands during incidents involving the use of armed force and who were therefore covered by the provisions of the 1949 Geneva Convention relative to prisoners of war.
The letter went on to say that Israel had repeatedly stated its desire for a general release and repatriation of all prisoners of war held by the parties, but its efforts to arrange for such a release had been rejected by Egypt and the Syrian Arab Republic, contrary to their obligations under the Convention.
Documentary references
Communications concerning hijacking
of civilian aircraft and related incidents
S/10639 (A/8684). Letter of 11 May 1972 from Israel.
S/10665 and Add.1 (A/8686 and Add.1). Letter of 26 May 1972 from Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Guinea, Indonesia, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libyan Arab Republic, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen. S/10668. Letter of 31 May 1972 from Israel.
S/10670. Letter of 31 May 1972 from Lebanon.
S/10671, S/10673, S/10675. Letters of 31 May and 1 and 2 June 1972 from Israel.
S/10677/Rev.1. Letter of 2 June 1972 from Lebanon.
S/10683. Letter of 6 June 1972 from Israel.
S/10684. Letter of 6 June 1972 from Libyan Arab Republic.
S/10687 (A/8690). Letter of 8 June 1972 from Israel.
S/1068 B. Letter of 8 June 1972 from Egypt.
S/10689 and Corr.1. Letter of 8 June 1972 from Lebanon.
S/10690. Letter of 9 June 1972 from Israel.
S/10695. Letter of 12 June 1972 from Lebanon.
S/10696. Letter of 13 June 1972 from Israel.
S/10697 (A/8694). Letter of 12 June 1972 from Libyan Arab Republic.
S/10701 (A/8696). Letter of 16 June 1972 from Israel.
S/10702. Letter of 16 June 1972 from Lebanon.
S/10707 (A/8733). Letter of 20 June 1972 from Libyan Arab Republic.
S/10713 (A/8734). Letter of 23 June 1972 from Israel.
S/10725 (A/8736). Letter of 28 June 1972 from Egypt.
S/10727 (A/8738). Letter of 3 July 1972 from Israel.
S/10779 (A/8784). Letter of 8 September 1972 from Israel.
S/10788 (A/8806). Letter of 11 September 1972 from Egypt.
S/10791 (A/8812). Letter of 14 September 1972 from Israel.
S/10816 and Corr.1, S/10817. Letters of 26 and 30 October 1972 from Israel.
S/10827 (A/8875). Letter of 8 November 1972 from Egypt.
S/10829 (A/8887). Letter of 10 November 1972 from Israel.
Communications relating to prisoners of war
S/10614 (A/8679). Letter of 20 April 1972 from Egypt.
S/10628 (A/8682). Letter of 2 May 1972 from Israel.
S/10732. Letter of 6 July 1972 from Israel.
Assistance to refugees in the Near East
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) maintained its programmes of relief, health and education services for Palestine refugees in Jordan, the West Bank of Jordan, Lebanon, the Syrian Arab Republic and the Gaza Strip throughout 1972.
The financial situation of the Agency was again a preoccupation throughout the year. The Secretary-General made an appeal for funds in March, the Chairman of the Working Group on the Financing of UNRWA visited a number of Arab capitals in April and May, and the Agency followed up various approaches it had made on its own initiative, particularly with the European Economic Community, and with the specialized agencies and other bodies of the United Nations system.
At its 1972 session, the General Assembly called upon all Governments, as a matter of urgency, to make contributions to the Agency. The Assembly also asked the Working Group on the Financing of UNRWA to continue its efforts with regard to the financing of the Agency for a further period of one year.
The Assembly also took a number of other decisions concerning the refugees. Among other things, it expressed regret that repatriation or compensation of the refugees, as provided for in its resolution 194 (III) of 11 December 1948, 15/ had not been effected, and asked the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine to exert continued efforts towards the implementation of that resolution.
The Assembly declared that Israeli actions in territories occupied since 1967, as well as measures carried out in the Gaza Strip by Israeli military authorities, were in violation of the provisions of the 1949 Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. The Assembly again called upon Israel to take immediate steps for the return of the persons displaced in the 1967 hostilities and to desist from all measures affecting the physical, geographic and demographic structure of the occupied territories.
Also, the Assembly affirmed that the people of Palestine were entitled to equal rights and self-determination, in accordance with the United Nations Charter, and recognized that full respect for and realization of the rights of the people of Palestine were indispensable for the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East.
Activities in 1972
The number of refugees registered with UNRWA rose to 1,523,035 as at the end of December 1972.
Some 829,000 of these persons received basic rations, and an additional 500,245 were eligible for health and education services. The Agency continued to provide assistance, in co-operation with the Government of Jordan, for persons other than refugees displaced to east Jordan as a result of the 1967 hostilities.
The Agency maintained its comprehensive health care programme and continued to provide curative and preventive medical services, nursing care, environmental sanitation and nutritional support for eligible refugees. Special attention was given to maternal and child welfare. Improvements in medical facilities included the construction of a new health centre in the Syrian Arab Republic, the extension of a health centre in the West Bank of Jordan and the establishment of a rheumatic diseases clinic in Gaza.
At the beginning of the 1972-1973 school year, 267,108 children were registered in the schools run jointly by UNRWA and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). An additional 4,038 students were attending UNRWA/UNESCO vocational and teacher training centres. The total teaching staff numbered some 7,500 persons. Since 1954, nearly 17,000 students had graduated from the Agency's training centres.
A modest programme of school building was continued, financed by special contributions. A new training centre near Amman, Jordan, with 700 places for men and women, was formally opened by King Hussein, and an extension of the Kalandia Vocational Training Centre for men, near Jerusalem, was under way. The UNRWA/UNESCO Institute of Education was co-operating more closely with Ministries of Education in the region, particularly in the in-service training of teachers.
The Agency's international staff numbered 114 members (of whom 83 were a charge on the Agency's budget). Of the 14,469 local staff–virtually all of whom were Palestine refugees–more than half were employed in the education and training programme.
Consideration by General Assembly
The question of the situation of refugees in the Near East was referred by the General Assembly at its 1972 session to the Special Political Committee, which discussed it at meetings held from 2 to 20 November 1972.
The following reports were before the Special Political Committee: (1) the annual report of the Commissioner-General of UNRWA; (2) two reports by the Secretary-General concerning implementation by Israel of General Assembly resolutions; (3) a report of the Working Group on the Financing of UNRWA; and (4) a report of the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine.
REPORT OF COMMISSIONER-GENERAL
In his annual report to the General Assembly, covering the period 1 July 1971-30 June 1972, the Commissioner-General of UNRWA stated that there was no assurance of the financial support required to maintain the programmes to be carried out under the Agency's mandate, which had been extended to 30 June 1975.
The Commissioner-General noted further that the various United Nations resolutions adopted in the past quarter of a century regarding the Palestine refugees remained unimplemented. Since the adoption of General Assembly resolution 2252 (ES-V) of 4 July 1967, 16/ which called on Israel to return those inhabitants who had fled the areas since the outbreak of hostilities in 1967, only about 40,000 out of more than 200,000 refugees had been allowed to return to their homes. During the period under review, there had been a mood of pessimism about the progress of official and unofficial peace initiatives. It was against that background of frustration and disillusionment that the refugees heard warnings of an imminent reduction or even breakdown in the services provided by the United Nations.
The Commissioner-General reported that the Advisory Commission of host Governments, which reviewed the finances of the Agency in early March 1972, concluded that the services provided for the Palestinian refugees had reached the minimum tolerable humanitarian limit, and that all possible efforts had to be made to avoid further reductions. As a result of the urgent appeal made on 20 March 1972 by the Secretary-General for additional voluntary contributions, the tour of Arab countries by the Chairman of the Working Group on the Financing of UNRWA, and discussions with the European Economic Community, the deficit of the Agency fell to $1.8 million as at the end of June 1972, and the threat of imminent reductions of vital services receded.
However, the estimates for 1973 would produce a deficit of some $3.6 million. This was more than the Agency's working capital could support, the Commissioner-General reported; moreover, the Agency had not yet absorbed the full effects of inflation into the 1972 budget. If the Agency's services were to be maintained in full, income must be increased still further.
Reviewing the Agency's activities during the year, the Commissioner-General noted that operations continued undisturbed in Jordan, Lebanon and the Syrian Arab Republic. However, in Lebanon, a number of UNRWA buildings in camps were still occupied by Palestinian organizations. The Government of Lebanon had given assurances that efforts were under way to implement an agreement concerning the return of those Agency properties. Also, in February, an Israeli air attack destroyed some Agency shelters and installations in Nabatieh camp.
Negotiations continued with the Syrian authorities over formalities required for the travel of international staff to the Syrian Arab Republic.
In Jordan, the Agency was able to maintain distributions of rations to the refugees, despite the closure of the frontier between Jordan and the Syrian Arab Republic. In the West Bank, Agency services were maintained despite shortages of semi-skilled and unskilled labour and a continuing rise in the cost of living.
Israeli military operations in Gaza during the second half of 1971 resulted in the destruction of 7,729 rooms and the displacement of 15,855 persons, the Commissioner-General stated. Although there were no further demolitions during the first half of 1972, no housing had been constructed to replace the demolished shelters.
The Commissioner-General reported that in 1971-1972 there had been 47 cases of arrest and detention of members of the Agency's staff in east Jordan and 18 cases in Gaza. Following protests to the Government of Jordan, the Agency had been informed that, in future, it would be notified in the event of a staff member's arrest.
In conclusion, the Commissioner-General pointed out that in recent years the senior staff of UNRWA had devoted most of its efforts to the financial crisis. It was important that an effective means of maintaining the improvement in income be devised so that the Agency's senior staff could devote more attention to its primary task of improving the efficiency of the Agency's operations and the quality of its programmes.
REPORTS OF SECRETARY-GENERAL
In two reports, the Secretary-General submitted to the General Assembly information he had requested from Israel concerning Israel's implementation of Assembly resolutions adopted on 6 December 1971.
The first report concerned a resolution calling upon Israel to take immediately effective steps for the return of the displaced persons who had fled the Israeli-occupied areas since the outbreak of hostilities of June 1967. 17/
Israel stated, in a note verbale of 8 August 1972, that although it was aware of the humanitarian aspects of the problem, the conditions prevailing in the area did not permit a large-scale return of the displaced persons. Permits granted in recent years for the return of the displaced persons had in many cases been exploited for the purpose of infiltrating into Israel terrorists, saboteurs and espionage agents, Israel held. Nevertheless, Israel had continued to facilitate the return of displaced persons; since 1967, more than 40,000 displaced persons had returned to their homes.
The second report concerned the Assembly's resolution with regard to operations carried out by Israeli military authorities in the Gaza Strip in mid-1971. The Assembly called upon Israel to desist from further destruction of refugee shelters and from removal of the refugees, and to take immediate steps to return the refugees to their camps and to provide adequate shelter for their accommodation. 18/
Israel, in a note verbale of 8 August 1972, stated that the extreme gravity of the security situation which had prevailed in the Gaza area until the summer of 1971 had created an atmosphere of violence and insecurity which could not be tolerated. The measures taken by the Israeli authorities had been designed to end the reign of terror and murder and to ensure the safety, welfare and security of all the inhabitants of the area. Those measures, Israel declared, had met with success, and the security situation had greatly improved.
In conveying this reply, the Secretary-General also reported that the large-scale demolitions which had begun on 20 July 1971 had continued until 26 August of that year. No further demolitions had taken place, although until January 1972 there had been some demolitions of individual shelters as a punitive or deterrent measure.
REPORT OF WORKING GROUP ON FINANCING OF UNRWA
The Working Group on the Financing of UNRWA, established by the General Assembly in 1970, reported to the Assembly in 1972 on ways to improve the Agency's financial condition.
The Working Group agreed that so long as a just and lasting settlement of the problem of the Palestine refugees had not been achieved, UNRWA'S services must be maintained at least at their current minimal level. The continuation of those services was dependent on voluntary contributions from Governments which, in the opinion of the Working Group, must continue to be the principal source of UNRWA's funds.
Some members of the Working Group felt that the UNRWA budget should be totally or in part incorporated into the United Nations regular budget. This view was opposed by other members, however, and the Working Group reported that it was unable to reach agreement on the question in the present circumstances.
The Working Group concluded that further vigorous and constant fund-raising activities on behalf of UNRWA should be made through the following methods: (a) by the Secretary-General, in close consultation with the Commissioner-General of UNRWA, through means considered most suitable, including co-operation with interested Governments; (b) by the Working Group, if its mandate were extended; (c) by an inter-governmental group set up for the purpose; and (d) in any other manner the General Assembly might deem appropriate.
REPORT OF PALESTINE CONCILIATION COMMISSION
The twenty-sixth report of the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine was prepared in pursuance of a General Assembly request of 6 December 1971 19/ that the Commission exert continued efforts towards the implementation of paragraph 11 of the Assembly's resolution 194 (III) of 11 December 1948 (calling for repatriation of refugees or compensation for those choosing not to return). 20/
The Commission stated that in its two previous reports, covering the periods December 1965 to September 1966 and October 1966 to September 1967, it had noted that examination of various ways to implement paragraph 11 of resolution 194 (III) had compelled the conclusion that all the ways envisaged presupposed substantial changes in the situation. Far from there having been any evidence of such changes, the events which had occurred in 1967 had further complicated an already very complex problem.
Although various developments had taken place since the submission of the Commission's last report, the situation described in that report remained essentially unchanged. While regretting that it had not been in a position to carry forward its work, the Commission nevertheless remained determined to resume its endeavours as soon as that was possible. The Commission noted that its ability to do so depended not only on the amelioration of the situation but also on the willingness of the parties to co-operate with it.
General Assembly discussion
In accordance with decisions taken by the Special Political Committee on 3 and 13 November 1972, spokesmen for the "Palestine Arab delegation" and the Palestine Liberation Organization participated in the Committee's discussion. The Special Political Committee authorized their participation on the understanding that this did not imply any recognition whatsoever of either delegation. Israel expressed reservations concerning the procedure.
In presenting his annual report to the Special Political Committee, the Commissioner-General of UNRWA provided additional and up-to-date information concerning the Agency's activities.
The Commissioner-General pointed out that although there were over 1.5 million refugees registered with the Agency, many others had never registered but provided for themselves from their own resources or with the help of others. Only 40 per cent of the refugees lived in camps, 10 of which were emergency camps established in 1967 and which accommodated displaced persons who were not UNRWA-registered refugees. Over 200,000 of the refugees for whom the Agency provided services in east Jordan and the Syrian Arab Republic had entered their sixth year of displacement from the areas to which they had fled in 1948.
Of the 1.5 million registered refugees, less than 850,000 received full rations from the Agency, and the Commissioner-General noted that the full ration was not an adequate daily diet.
Unfortunately, there had been no progress in rehousing refugees in the Gaza Strip whose homes had been demolished in mid-1971, the Commissioner-General reported. The Israeli authorities had provided no information about their plans for building housing for those refugees and had refused payment of $417,000 claimed by the Agency as compensation for the demolitions.
The Commissioner-General expressed gratitude for the generous response to the Secretary-General's appeal in March 1972, and for the impetus given to fund-raising by the Working Group on the Financing of UNRWA. As a result of these efforts, the deficit of the Agency had been reduced from $4.5 million to $1.8 million. He warned, however, that it would be a grave mistake to think that the future of the Agency's programmes was assured, particularly in view of the continuing inflation in the region. Revised estimates called for a deficit of some $4.4 million for 1973. The Commissioner-General added that he would welcome the advice and support of an inter-governmental body that would reflect a continuing concern and responsibility for financial matters on behalf of the General Assembly.
During the Committee's discussion, many Members expressed appreciation for the efforts of the Commissioner-General and staff of UNRWA, as well as satisfaction that the deficit of the Agency had been reduced during the previous year.
They noted, however, the Commissioner-General's statement that the Agency still faced financial difficulties. Argentina, Canada, Iran, Ireland, Japan, Turkey and the United States, among others, said that further efforts should be made to obtain contributions from those Governments which had not contributed to UNRWA. The representative of Turkey noted that the list of Governments contributing to the Agency accounted for barely half of the 132 United Nations Member States, and that, since the inception of the programme, over 90 per cent of the Government contributions had consistently emanated from one regional group. The financing of UNRWA should be the common responsibility of all Members, Turkey said.
The United States called for more assistance from non-governmental sources, if UNRWA was to avoid major cuts in its programmes.
Lebanon held that the budget of UNRWA should be totally incorporated into the United Nations regular budget. A number of Members favoured further study of the question; these included Argentina, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Jordan, Norway, Spain, the Syrian Arab Republic and Yugoslavia.
Jordan called for the establishment of a $5 million fund, set up on a voluntary basis and administered by UNESCO, to support a more effective higher education programme for the refugees.
Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Romania stated that they provided bilateral assistance to the refugees. Romania noted that it also contributed to the refugees through UNESCO. Yugoslavia said it would continue to contribute directly to UNRWA, as well as to provide bilateral assistance to the victims of the 1967 Israeli aggression.
Several States–including Argentina, Greece, Ireland, Turkey and the United Kingdom–expressed concern about the measures taken by Israeli authorities in the Gaza Strip and expressed regret that Israel had not paid the claims submitted by UNRWA for compensation for demolished shelters.
While most States declared that, in the circumstances, the Agency must continue its programmes, many of them also expressed regret that no progress had been made in the past year to the solution of the underlying problem in the area.
Jordan, speaking as a host country, stated that over the years opinion had frequently been divided on whether the Committee should confine its deliberations to the operational aspects of UNRWA or should discuss the political roots of the refugee problem. In Jordan's view, the two aspects were complementary. The uprooting of the Palestine refugees had been the tragic consequence of an ill-conceived political decision, namely, the establishment of Israel, Jordan said. The exile of the refugees had been perpetuated by Israel's fanaticism and violence, and they could regain their rights only as the result of a political ratification. All States had the duty to assist the Palestinian people by ensuring their survival and the restoration of their national rights.
Jordan continued by saying that the report of the Palestine Conciliation Commission showed up the inability of the international community to come to grips with the core of the problem, namely, the implementation of the General Assembly's resolution 194 (III) of 11 December 1948 (calling for the repatriation or compensation of the refugees). 21/ It was clear, Jordan said, that the Commission's assignment would be extremely difficult, in view of the refusal of Israel to comply with that or any other United Nations resolution.
The Syrian Arab Republic declared that the report of the Conciliation Commission was an exercise in evasion, as it did not reelect the positive stand of the Arab side or the negative position of Israel. The United States had played an obstructionist role in the Commission in this regard, Syria stated.
Egypt and Lebanon also said that the Conciliation Commission's report should have clearly stated that Israel was the only party refusing to co-operate with the Commission.
Israel held that the Arab refugee problem was a direct result of the aggression launched by the Arab States after the adoption of General Assembly resolution 181 (II) of 29 November 1947 (the plan for the partition of Palestine with economic union). 22/ The Arab leadership had urged the Arab population of Israel to leave their homes and seek temporary shelter in the neighbouring Arab countries. Since that time, the Arab Governments had opposed any constructive approach to the refugee problem, preferring to keep the problem open for political reasons, Israel continued. Had the Arab host countries shown the smallest measure of goodwill, the problem of the refugees could have been solved long ago. Israel had received and integrated many Jewish refugees from Arab lands, and the Arab countries, with their vast resources, could easily have provided the necessary funds to help their brethren.
Israel charged that the Arab Governments were currently using the refugees as the spearhead of their continued warfare against Israel and that terrorist Palestinian organizations were using internationally owned and financed camps for their activities. In the circumstances, Israel could not agree to an unrestricted influx of refugees or of the 1967 displaced persons. Israel had over the years admitted more than 50,000 refugees of the 1948 war, and another 50,000 Arabs displaced by that war within Israel had been resettled. Special arrangements for family reunion and hardship cases had also continued, Israel stated.
The Israeli representative cited various measures taken by the Government of Israel, as well as by UNRWA, to improve the well-being of the refugees. The over-all picture of the Palestine refugees was not as gloomy as it was often made to appear for political reasons, he said. The refugee problem could be solved if it were approached in a spirit of goodwill and co-operation.
A number of States declared that a just solution of the refugee problem should be developed within the framework of relevant General Assembly and Security Council resolutions. Many States affirmed support for Security Council resolution 242 (1967) of 22 November 1967, which called for the withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the 1967 hostilities and for respect for the territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and its right to live in peace, free from threats or acts of force. 23/ Among these States were Afghanistan, Bulgaria, the Byelorussian SSR, Czechoslovakia, France, Guinea, Hungary, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Pakistan, Romania, the USSR, the United Kingdom, the United States and Yugoslavia.
Many of these States also affirmed support for Assembly resolution 194 (III) of 11 December 1948, which called for repatriation or compensation of the refugees, 24/ and for Security Council resolution 237 (1967) of 14 June 1967, 25/ which called on Israel to facilitate the return of persons displaced by the hostilities in 1967.
The United States representative said an over-all peace settlement within the framework of the Security Council's resolution of 22 November 1967 (242 (1967)) must take into account the legitimate concerns and aspirations of the Palestinians. When the parties to the dispute were determined to make peace with justice for all the peoples of the area, a realistic context for a solution would exist. The United States expressed regret that substantial numbers of displaced persons were unable to return to their former places of residence in the areas occupied since 1967. The United States supported the Security Council's resolution of 14 June 1967 (237 (1967)) and subsequent resolutions calling for their return, and hoped that future developments would permit progress in that regard.
The USSR held that the problem of the Palestine refugees had been growing steadily worse since 1948. It currently represented a crucial aspect of the dangerous conflict in the Middle East and threatened to cause serious complications in the international situation as a whole. The measures taken by Israeli authorities vis-à-vis the Arab population of the Gaza Strip and of Jerusalem were undisguised examples of racism and genocide. The USSR continued to believe that the political and legal basis of any settlement of the Palestine refugees problem and the Middle East conflict must be sought in General Assembly resolution 194 (III) of 11 December 1948, Security Council resolution 242 (1967) of 22 November 1967 and the decisions of other United Nations organs; the USSR representative also expressed confidence in the victory of the just cause of the Arab peoples, and, in particular, of the liberation struggle of the Palestine Arabs.
China held that the plight of the Palestine refugees was entirely due to imperialism and colonialism and was a result of the aggression launched against the Palestinian and other Arab peoples by Israeli zionism, with the support of the super-powers. On the one hand, the super powers sought to maintain tension in the Middle East in order to expand their respective spheres of influence; on the other, they sought by means of collusion with each other to avoid direct conflict so as to perpetuate their division of the region. In the final analysis, it was the Arab peoples alone who would decide their destiny, China declared. With the support and assistance of countries and people who upheld the cause of justice, the Palestinian and other Arab peoples would recover their occupied homelands and regain their national rights.
The spokesman for the Palestine Arab delegation said that the only good thing the Palestinian people had ever received from the United Nations was the humanitarian service rendered them by UNRWA. The Palestinians would never have needed that meagre clarity if the United Nations had honoured its Charter and refrained from aiding and abetting the Jewish invaders whose usurpation had reduced the Palestinians to the status of a refugee nation, the spokesman added.
The spokesman for the Palestine Liberation Organization said that the United Nations had been rendered ineffective in dealing with the problem of the Palestinians, the crux of which was not assistance to the refugees but the inalienable right of a people suffering at the hands of Israeli zionism and imperialism. It was of some small comfort that the United Nations had recently adopted resolutions recognizing the inalienable right of the people of Palestine to self-determination in their homeland and recognizing the right of the Palestinian resistance movement to struggle for the attainment of that right.
Both of the above spokesmen declared their intent to continue their struggle for the self-determination of the Palestinian peoples and the liberation of Palestine.
Decisions by General Assembly
Eight draft resolutions were submitted to the Special Political Committee. Seven of these were approved by the Committee on 20 November 1972; the eighth was not pressed to a vote.
On 13 December 1912, the General Assembly adopted the seven texts recommended by the Special Political Committee.
By the first, the Assembly noted with deep regret that repatriation or compensation of the refugees, as provided for in paragraph 11 of its resolution 194 (III) of 11 December 1948, 26/ had not been effected, and that no substantial progress had been made in the programme it endorsed in its resolution 513 (VI) of 26 January 1952 27/ for the reintegration of refugees, either by repatriation or resettlement, and that, therefore, the situation of the refugees continued to be a matter of serious concern.
The Assembly noted with regret that the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine was unable to find a means of achieving progress in the implementation of paragraph 11 of General Assembly resolution 194 (III). It asked the Commission to exert continued efforts towards the implementation of the resolution and to report to it no later than 1 October 1973.
The Assembly also directed attention to the continuing critical financial position of UNRWA, and noted with concern that, despite the commendable and successful efforts of the Commissioner-General to collect additional contributions to help relieve the serious budget deficit of the past year, contributions to the Agency continued to fall short of the funds needed to cover essential budget requirements. The Assembly called upon all Governments, as a matter of urgency, to make the most generous efforts possible to meet the anticipated needs of the Agency, and urged non-contributing Governments to contribute and contributing Governments to consider increasing their contributions.
Those decisions, among others, were set forth in resolution 2963 A (XXVII), adopted by a vote of 124 to 0, with 1 abstention. The text, proposed by the United States, was approved by the Special Political Committee by a recorded vote of 110 votes to 0, with 1 abstention.
(For text of resolution see DOCUMENTARY REFERENCES below.)
By another action, the General Assembly endorsed the efforts of the Commissioner-General of UNRWA to continue to provide humanitarian assistance, as far as practicable, on an emergency basis and as a temporary measure, to other persons in the area who were displaced and in serious need of continued assistance as a result of the June 1967 hostilities. It strongly appealed to all Governments, as well as to organizations and individuals, to contribute generously for the above purposes to UNRWA and to the other inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations concerned.
These decisions were embodied in resolution 2963 B (XXVII), which was adopted by a vote of 125 to 0. The text was approved by the Special Political Committee by a recorded vote of 112 to 0. It was sponsored by the following 20 States: Afghanistan, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Ghana, Greece, India, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Norway, Sweden, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey and Yugoslavia.
(For text of resolution, see DOCUMENTARY REFERENCES below.)
By a third resolution, the Assembly declared that measures by the Government of Israel involving the physical and demographic structure of the Gaza Strip–including the destruction of refugee shelters and the forcible transfer of population–contravened the provisions of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 12 August 1949, as well as the basic principles for the protection of civilian populations in armed conflicts, set forth by the Assembly on 9 December 1970. 28/ The Assembly strongly deplored these actions by Israel. It called upon Israel to desist forthwith from all measures that affected the physical structure and demographic composition of the Gaza Strip, and to take immediate and effective steps for the return of the refugees concerned to the camps from which they were removed and to provide adequate shelters for their accommodation.
The Secretary-General was asked to report as soon as possible, but no later than the opening of the Assembly's 1973 session, on Israel's compliance with and implementation of the resolution.
These decisions were set forth in resolution 2963 C (XXVII), adopted by a recorded vote of 95 to 6, with 24 abstentions. The text was sponsored by Afghanistan, Guinea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Pakistan, Somalia and Yugoslavia and orally amended by Sweden. It was approved by the Special Political Committee by a roll-call vote of 83 to 5, with 27 abstentions.
(For text of resolution, see DOCUMENTARY REFERENCES below.)
A fourth resolution adopted by the Assembly concerned persons displaced in the hostilities of 1967.
By the preamble, the Assembly noted that Israeli occupation authorities had persisted in changing the physical, geographic and demographic structure of the occupied territories by the displacement of inhabitants, the destruction of towns, villages and homes, and the establishment of settlements, in violation of the provisions of the 1949 Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, as well as the pertinent United Nations resolutions.
The Assembly then affirmed the right of the displaced inhabitants to return to their homes and camps. It expressed its grave concern over the failure of the Israeli authorities to take steps for the return of the displaced inhabitants, in accordance with earlier Assembly resolutions. It called once more upon Israel immediately to take steps for the return of the displaced inhabitants, and to desist forthwith from all measures affecting the physical, geographic, and demographic structure of the occupied territories.
The Secretary-General was asked to report in detail to the General Assembly on the implementation of the resolution.
The Assembly took those decisions in adopting resolution 2963 D (XXVII), by a recorded vote of 93 to 5, with 26 abstentions. The text was approved by the Special Political Committee by a roll-call vote of 83 to 6, with 26 abstentions. It was sponsored by Afghanistan, Guinea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Pakistan, Somalia and Yugoslavia.
(For text of resolution, see DOCUMENTARY REFERENCES below.)
By a fifth resolution, the Assembly: (1) affirmed that the people of Palestine were entitled to equal rights and self-determination, in accordance with the United Nations Charter; (2) expressed once more its grave concern that the people of Palestine had not been permitted to enjoy their inalienable rights and to exercise their right to self-determination; and (3) recognized that full respect for, and realization of, the inalienable rights of the people of Palestine were indispensable for the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East.
Those decisions were set forth in resolution 2963 E (XXVII), adopted by a roll-call vote of 67 to 21, with 37 abstentions. The text was sponsored by Afghanistan, Guinea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Pakistan, Somalia and Yugoslavia, and approved by the Special Political Committee by a roll-call vote of 63 to 21, with 31 abstentions.
(For text of resolution, see DOCUMENTARY REFERENCES below.)
The United States explained its abstention in the vote on three of the above resolutions. With regard to the resolution concerning Israeli operations in the Gaza Strip, the United States said that, while it regretted that UNRWA had not been forewarned of the operations and that there had been no progress in rehousing the refugees, it also regretted the terrorist acts which had led the Israeli authorities to take the action they did. The United States abstained in the vote on this resolution–as well as on the resolution calling for the return of persons displaced in the 1967 hostilities–because both resolutions alleged Israeli violations of the 1949 Geneva Convention, without calling for an impartial determination thereof. The United States abstained in the vote on the resolution affirming the right of the Palestinians to self-determination because, it said, the resolution did not take into account the sovereign existence of the State of Israel and undermined the Security Council's resolution 242 (1967) of 22 November 1967 as a basis for a peaceful settlement in the Middle East.
By a further decision, the Assembly decided to include Japan in the membership of the Advisory Commission of UNRWA. The Assembly took this action in adopting, without objection, resolution 2963 F (XXVII). The text–sponsored by Belgium, Egypt, France, Jordan, Lebanon, the Syrian Arab Republic, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States–was approved without objection by the Special Political Committee.
(For text of resolution, see DOCUMENTARY REFERENCES below.)
The Assembly also took several decisions concerning the Working Group on the Financing of UNRWA. The Assembly thereby, among other things, endorsed the conclusion of the Working Group that further vigorous and constant fund-raising activities on behalf of UNRWA were essential, and asked the Working Group to continue its efforts for the financing of the Agency for a further period of one year, in co-operation with the Secretary-General and the Commissioner-General of UNRWA.
The Assembly took these decisions in adopting resolution 2964 (XXVII), by a vote of 122 to 0. The text was approved by the Special Political Committee by a recorded vote of 112 to 0. The sponsors were Belgium, Denmark, Iran, Mexico and Sweden.
(For text of resolution, see DOCUMENTARY REFERENCES below.)
A draft resolution sponsored by Afghanistan, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Pakistan, Somalia, the Syrian Arab Republic and Yugoslavia was submitted to the Special Political Committee but not pressed to a vote, on the understanding that its text would be included in the Committee's report to the General Assembly. The draft would have had the General Assembly instruct the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine to provide Member States, upon request, with copies of all documents and material in its possession and in the possession of the Technical Office relating to Property in Palestine.
Pledges and payments for 1972
For the calendar year 1972, 66 countries and territories pledged the equivalent of $46,978,419, and inter-governmental organizations pledged the equivalent of $3,118,575, towards UNRWA'S budget. As at 31 December 1972, the equivalent of $39,193,825 and $1,633,598, respectively, had been received from countries and from inter-governmental organizations.
In addition, non-governmental organizations, private individuals and business corporations contributed a total of $1,109,800 to UNRWA during the year.
PLEDGES AND CONTRIBUTIONS TO UNRWA
FOR YEAR ENDING 31 DECEMBER 1972
(Showing equivalent in U.S. dollars of pledges and contributions in cash, kind and services)
|
Contribution |
||
|
Pledging Government |
Pledge |
received |
|
Australia |
213,665 |
42,190 a/ |
|
Austria |
30,559 |
30,559 |
|
Bahrain |
10,000 |
10,000 |
|
Belgium |
382,407 |
159,864 b/ |
|
Cameroon |
5,000 |
5,000 |
|
Canada |
1,554,550 |
1,554,550 |
|
Chile |
1,000 |
– |
|
Cyprus |
781 |
781 |
|
Dahomey |
250 |
250 |
|
Democratic Yemen |
750 |
750 |
|
Denmark |
913,568 |
835,068 c/ |
|
Dubai |
20,000 |
– |
|
Federal Republic of Germany |
3,430,165 |
3,281,821 b/ |
|
Finland |
185,000 |
185,000 |
|
France |
1,261,669 |
96,550 b/ |
|
Gaza Authorities |
76,582 |
76,582 |
|
Ghana |
4,000 |
– |
|
Greece |
131,500 |
131,500 |
|
Holy See |
3,000 |
3,000 |
|
Iceland |
10,500 |
10,500 |
|
India |
12,093 |
– |
|
Indonesia |
5,000 |
5,000 |
|
Iran |
18,000 |
18,000 |
|
Iraq |
104,006 |
– |
|
Ireland |
65,000 |
65,000 |
|
Israel |
463,383 |
463,383 |
|
Italy |
197,716 |
185,678 |
|
Japan |
761,718 |
761,718 |
|
Jordan |
304,161 |
304,161 |
|
Kuwait |
400,000 |
400,000 |
|
Lebanon |
66,645 |
66,645 |
|
Liberia |
7,000 |
7,000 |
|
Libyan Arab Republic |
600,000 |
600,000 |
|
Luxembourg |
16,000 |
14,000 |
|
Madagascar |
586 |
586 |
|
Malaysia |
5,047 |
5,047 |
|
Monaco |
192 |
192 |
|
Morocco |
48,946 |
48,946 |
|
Netherlands |
179,827 |
179,827 |
|
New Zealand |
69,273 |
44,953 d/ |
|
Nigeria |
5,600 |
– |
|
Norway |
691,370 |
691,370 |
|
Oman |
10,000 |
– |
|
Pakistan |
20,863 |
20,863 |
|
Philippines |
1,250 |
– |
|
Qatar |
32,000 |
20,000 |
|
Republic of Korea |
10,000 |
10,000 |
|
Republic of Viet-Nam |
3,000 |
3,000 |
|
Saudi Arabia |
347,000 |
50,000 |
|
Senegal |
3,988 |
3,988 |
|
Singapore |
1,500 |
1,500 |
|
Spain |
743,901 |
743,901 |
|
Sri Lanka |
1,000 |
1,000 |
|
Sudan |
5,740 |
5,740 |
|
Sweden |
3,000,000 |
3,000,000 |
|
Switzerland |
926,776 |
667,363 b/ |
|
Syrian Arab Republic |
94,952 |
72,929 |
|
Thailand |
8,250 |
8,250 |
|
Togo |
1,000 |
1,000 |
|
Trinidad and Tobago |
1,630 |
1,630 |
|
Tunisia |
6,000 |
6,000 |
|
Turkey |
15,000 |
– |
|
United Arab Emirates |
200,000 |
200,000 |
|
United Kingdom |
4,886,250 |
4,886,250 |
|
United States |
24,376,000 |
19,204.941 a/ |
|
Yugoslavia |
25,000 |
– |
|
Total |
46,978,419 |
39,193,825 |
a/ Part of the remainder of the pledge ($87,552) was deposited In UNRWA's procurement account for the purchase of supplies in Australia, and part ($83,923) was payable in Lebanese pounds in Beirut.
b/ The remainder of the pledge to be made in shipments of flour.
c/ The remainder of the pledge represents one-half of the pledge made for the year 1972/73. The pledge for the year 1971/72 was received in full.
d/ The remainder of the pledge (N.Z. dollars 20,000), payable in non-convertible currency, to be transferred to the United Nations Development Programme, against credit in U.S. dollars.
e/ Since the United States Government's fiscal year ends in June, the pledge shown comprises one-half the United States allocation or 1971/72 and one-half the allocation for 1972/73. The contribution shown as received is limited to the amount paid against this pledge in calendar year 1972 (and excluding payments received against the previous year's pledge).
Documentary references
General Assembly–27th session
Special Political Committee, meetings 829-842.
Ad Hoc Committee of General Assembly for Announcement of Voluntary Contributions to United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in Near East (UNRWA), meeting 1.
Fifth Committee meeting 1539.
Plenary meeting 2108.
A/8672. Letter of 20 March 1972 from Secretary-General to all States Members of United Nations or members of specialized agencies.
A/8701. Report of Secretary-General on work of the Organization, 16 June 1971-15 June 1972, Part One, Chapter IV M.
A/8713 and Corr. 1, 2. Report of Commissioner-General of UNRWA (for period 1 July 1971-30 June 1972).
A/8786. Report of Secretary-General.
A/8814. Report of Secretary-General.
A/8830. Report of United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine. Note by Secretary-General.
A/8849. Report of Working Group on Financing of UNRWA.
A/SPC/154. Letter of 27 October 1972 from Afghanistan, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia (request for hearing of "Palestine Arab derogation").
A/SPC/155. Revised budget estimates for UNRWA for 1972 and 1973. Note by Commissioner-General.
A/SPC/156. Letter of 10 November 1972 from Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Bahrain, Barbados, Bulgaria, Byelorussian SSR, China, Congo, Cuba, Cyprus, Czechoslova- kia, Democratic Yemen, Egypt, Fiji, Guinea, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libyan Arab Republic, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Mongolia, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Poland, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Somalia, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, Uganda, Ukrainian SSR, USSR, United Arab Emirates, Yemen and Yugoslavia (request for hearing of delegation of Palestine Liberation Organization). A/SPC/L.247. United States: draft resolution, approved by Special Political Committee on 20 November 1972, meeting 841, by recorded vote of 110 to 0, with 1 abstention, as follows:
In favour: Afghanistan, Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Barbados, Belgium, Bhutan, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burma, Burundi, Byelorussian SSR, Cameroon, Canada, Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, Colombia, Congo, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Czechoslovakia, Democratic Yemen, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Egypt, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Gabon, Ghana, Greece, Guatemala, Guinea, Guyana, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Italy, Ivory Coast, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libyan Arab Republic, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Mexico, Mongolia, Morocco, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Somalia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Sweden, Syrian Arab Republic, Thailand, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, Ukrainian SSR, USSR, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United Republic of Tanzania, United States, Upper Volta, Uruguay, Venezuela, Yemen, Yugoslavia, Zaire, Zambia.
Against: None.
Abstaining: Israel.
A/8915. Report of Special Political Committee, draft resolution I A.
Resolution 2963 A (XXVII), as recommended by Special Political Committee, A/8915, adopted by Assembly on 13 December 1972, meeting 2108, by 124 votes to 0 with 1 abstention.
The General Assembly,
Reaffirming its resolution 2792 A (XXVI) of 6 December 1971 and all previous resolutions referred to therein, including resolution 194 (III) of 11 December 1948,
Taking note of the annual report of the Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, covering the period from 1 July 1971 to 30 June 1972,
Taking note also of the appeal made by the Secretary-General on 20 March 1972,
1. Notes with deep regret that repatriation or compensation of the refugees as provided for in paragraph 11 of General Assembly resolution 194 (III) has not been effected, that no substantial progress has been made in the programme endorsed by the Assembly in paragraph 2 of resolution 513 (VI) of 26 January 1952 for the reintegration of refugees either by repatriation or resettlement and that, therefore, the situation of the refugees continues to be a matter of serious concern;
2. Expresses its thanks to the Commissioner-General and to the Staff of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East for their continued faithful efforts to provide essential services for the Palestine refugees, and to the specialized agencies and private organizations for their valuable work in assisting the refugees;
3. Notes with regret that the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine was unable to find a means of achieving progress in the implementation of paragraph 11 of General Assembly resolution 194 (III) and requests the Commission to exert continued efforts towards the implementation thereof and to report thereon as appropriate, but no later than 1 October 1973;
4. Directs attention to the continuing critical financial position of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, as outlined in the Commissioner-General's report;
5. Notes with concern that, despite the commendable and successful efforts of the Commissioner-General to collect additional contributions to help relieve the serious budget deficit of the past year, contributions to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East continue to fall short of the funds needed to cover essential budget requirements;
6. Calls upon all Governments as a matter of urgency to make the most generous efforts possible to meet the anticipated needs of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, particularly in the light of the budgetary deficit projected in the Commissioner-General's report, and therefore urges non-contributing Governments to contribute and contributing Governments to consider increasing their contributions.
A/SPC/L.248. Afghanistan, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Ghana, Greece, India, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Norway, Sweden, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Yugoslavia: draft resolution, approved by Special Political Committee on 20 November 1972, meeting 841, by recorded vote of 112 to 0, as follows:
In favour: Afghanistan, Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Barbados, Belgium, Bhutan, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burma, Burundi, Byelorussian SSR, Cameroon, Canada, Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, Colombia, Congo, Costa Rica, Cuba, Cyprus, Czechoslovakia, Democratic Yemen, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Egypt, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Gabon, Ghana, Greece, Guatemala, Guinea, Guyana, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Ivory Coast, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libyan Arab Republic, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Mexico, Mongolia, Morocco, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Somalia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Sweden, Syrian Arab Republic Thailand, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, Ukrainian SSR, USSR, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United Republic of Tanzania, United States, Upper Volta, Uruguay, Venezuela, Yemen Yugoslavia, Zaire, Zambia.
Against: None.
A/8915. Report of Special Political Committee, draft resolution I B.
Resolution 2963 B (XXVII), as recommended by Special Political Committee, A/8915, adopted by Assembly on 13 December 1972, meeting 2108, by 125 votes to 0.
The General Assembly,
Recalling its resolutions 2252 (ES-V) of 4 July 1967, 2341 B (XXII) of 19 December 1967, 2452 C (XXIII) of 19 December 1968, 2535 C (XXIV) of 10 December 1969, 2672 B (XXV) of 8 December 1970 and 2792 B (XVI) of 6 December 1971,
Taking note of the annual report of the Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, covering the period from 1 July 1971 to 30 June 1972,
Taking note also of the appeal made by the Secretary-General on 20 March 1972,
Concerned about the continued human suffering resulting from the June 1967 hostilities in the Middle East,
1. Reaffirms its resolutions 2252 (ES-V), 2341 B (XXII), 2452 C (XXIII), 2535 C (XXIV), 2672 B (XXV) and 2792 B (XVI);
2. Endorses, bearing in mind the objectives of those resolutions, the efforts of the Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East to continue to provide humanitarian assistance, as far as practicable, on an emergency basis and as a temporary measure, to other persons in the area who are at present displaced and in serious need of continued assistance as a result of the June 1967 hostilities;
3. Strongly appeals to all Governments and to organizations and individuals to contribute generously for the above purposes to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East and to the other intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations concerned.
A/SPC/L.250. Afghanistan, Guinea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Pakistan, Somalia, Yugoslavia: draft resolution, as orally amended by Sweden, approved by Special Political Committee on 20 November 1972, meeting 841, by roll-call vote of 83 to 5, with 27 abstentions, as follows:
In favour: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Bulgaria, Burma, Burundi, Byelorussian SSR, Cameroon, Chad, Chile, China, Congo, Cuba, Cyprus, Czechoslovakia, Democratic Yemen, Denmark, Egypt, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Greece, Guinea, Guyana, Honduras, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libyan Arab Republic, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Mexico, Mongolia, Morocco, Netherlands, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Poland, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Sweden, Syrian Arab Republic, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, Ukrainian SSR, USSR, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United Republic of Tanzania, Venezuela, Yemen, Yugoslavia, Zambia.
Against: Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Israel, Nicaragua.
Abstaining: Argentina, Australia, Barbados, Bhutan, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Central African Republic, Colombia, Gabon, Ghana, Haiti, Iceland, Ivory Coast, Jamaica, Malawi, Nepal, New Zealand, Philippines, Portugal, Rwanda, Singapore, Thailand, United States, Upper Volta, Uruguay, Zaire.
A/8915. Report of Special Political Committee, draft resolution I C.
Resolution 2963 C (XVII), as recommended by Special Political Committee, A/8915, adopted by Assembly on 13 December 1972, meeting 2108, by recorded vote of 95 to 6, with 24 abstentions, as follows:
In favour: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Botswana, Bulgaria, Burma, Burundi, Byelorussian SSR, Cameroon, Chad, Chile, China, Congo, Cuba, Cyprus, Czechoslovakia, Democratic Yemen, Denmark, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Gabon, Greece, Guinea, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libyan Arab Republic, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Mongolia, Morocco, Netherlands, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Peru, Poland, Qatar, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Swaziland, Sweden, Syrian Arab Republic, Thailand, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, Ukrainian SSR, USSR, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United Republic of Tanzania, Yemen, Yugoslavia, Zambia.
Against: Barbados, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Israel.
Abstaining: Argentina, Australia, Bhutan, Brazil, Canada, Central African Republic, Colombia, Dahomey, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Jamaica, Laos, Malawi, Nepal, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Philippines, Portugal, Singapore, United States, Upper Volta, Uruguay, Zaire.
The General Assembly,
Having considered the report of the Secretary-General of 15 September 1972 regarding the effect on the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip of the continued Israeli policies and measures in the Strip,
Noting that both the Secretary-General and the Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East have expressed great concern about the effect on Palestine refugees of these operations in which shelters in refugee camps were demolished and thousands of persons displaced, some of them to places outside the Gaza Strip,
Noting with regret the failure of Israel to comply with the provisions of General Assembly resolution 2792 C (XXVI) of 6 December 1971,
Deeply concerned at the continued measures by Israel which prejudice the rights of the population and the demographic composition and the status of the Gaza Strip,
1. Declares that such measures involving the physical and demographic structure of the Gaza Strip, including the destruction of refugee shelters and the forcible transfer of population, contravene the provisions of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 12 August 1949, as well as paragraph 7 of General Assembly resolution 2675 (XXV) of 9 December 1970, entitled "Basic principles for the protection of civilian populations in armed conflicts";
2. Strongly deplores these actions by Israel;
3. Calls upon Israel to desist forthwith from all measures that affect the physical structure and the demographic composition of the Gaza Strip;
4. Calls upon Israel to take immediate and effective steps for the return of the refugees concerned to the camps from which they were removed and to provide adequate shelters for their accommodation;
5. Requests the Secretary-General, after consulting with the Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, to report as soon as possible and whenever appropriate thereafter, but in any case not later than the opening date of the twenty-eighth session of the General Assembly, on Israel's compliance with and implementation of the present resolution.
A/SPC/L.251. Afghanistan, Guinea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Pakistan, Somalia, Yugoslavia: draft resolution, approved by Special Political Committee on 20 November 1972, meeting 841, by roll-call vote of 83 to 6, with 26 abstentions, as follows:
In favour: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Bulgaria, Burma, Burundi, Byelorussian SSR, Cameroon, Canada, Chad, Chile, China, Congo, Cuba, Cyprus, Czechoslovakia, Democratic Yemen, Denmark, Egypt, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Greece, Guinea, Guyana, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libyan Arab Republic, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Mexico, Mongolia, Morocco, Netherlands, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Poland, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Sweden, Syrian Arab Republic, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, Ukrainian SSR, USSR, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United Republic of Tanzania, Venezuela, Yemen, Yugoslavia, Zambia.
Against: Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Haiti, Israel, Nicaragua.
Abstaining: Argentina, Barbados, Bhutan, Bolivia, Brazil, Central African Republic, Colombia, El Salvador, Gabon, Ghana, Honduras, Iceland, ivory Coast, Jamaica, Malawi, Nepal, New Zealand, Philippines, Portugal, Rwanda, Singapore, Thailand, United States, Upper Volta, Uruguay, Zaire.
A/8915. Report of Special Political Committee, draft resolution I D.
Resolution 2963 D (XXVII), as recommended by Special Political Committee, A/8915, adopted by Assembly on 13 December 1972, meeting 2108, by recorded vote of 93 to 5, with 26 abstentions, as follows:
In favour: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Botswana, Bulgaria, Burma, Burundi, Byelorussian SSR, Cameroon, Canada, Chad, Chile, China, Congo, Cuba, Cyprus, Czechoslovakia, Democratic Yemen, Denmark, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Greece, Guinea, Guyana, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libyan Arab Republic, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Mongolia, Morocco, Netherlands, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Peru, Poland, Qatar, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Somalia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Swaziland, Sweden, Syrian Arab Republic, Thailand, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, Ukrainian SSR, USSR, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United Republic of Tanzania, Yemen, Yugoslavia, Zambia.
Against: Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Israel, Nicaragua.
Abstaining: Argentina, Barbados, Bhutan, Bolivia, Brazil, Central African Republic, Colombia, Dahomey, El Salvador, Gabon, Ghana, Haiti, Ivory Coast, Jamaica, Laos, Malawi, Nepal, New Zealand, Paraguay, Philippines, Portugal, Singapore, United States, Upper Volta, Uruguay, Zaire.
The General Assembly,
Recalling Security Council resolution 237 (1967) of 14 June 1967,
Recalling also its resolutions 2252 (ES-V) of 4 July 1967, 2452 A (XXIII) of 19 December 1968, 2535 B (XXIV) of 10 December 1969, 2672 D (XXV) of 8 December 1970 and 2792 E (XXVI) of 6 December 1971, calling upon the Government of Israel to take effective and immediate steps for the return without delay of those inhabitants who had fled the areas since the outbreak of hostilities,
Having considered the report of the Secretary-General of 13 September 1972 concerning the implementation of resolution 2792 E (XVI),
Noting that the Israeli occupation authorities have persisted in changing the physical, geographic and demographic structure of the occupied territories, by the displacement of inhabitants, the destruction of towns, villages and homes, and the establishment of settlements in violation of the provisions of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 12 August 1949, as well as the pertinent United Nations resolutions,
Gravely concerned about the plight of the displaced inhabitants,
Convinced that the plight of the displaced inhabitants could be relieved only by their speedy return to their homes and to the camps which they formerly occupied,
Emphasizing the necessity of full implementation of the above-mentioned resolutions,
1. Affirms the right of the displaced inhabitants to return to their homes and camps;
2. Considers that the plight of the displaced inhabitants continues since they have not yet returned to their homes and camps;
3. Expresses its grave concern over the failure of the Israeli authorities to take steps for the return of the displaced inhabitants in accordance with the above-mentioned resolutions;
4. Calls once more upon Israel immediately to take steps for the return of the displaced inhabitants;
5. Calls again upon Israel to desist forthwith from all measures affecting the physical, geographic and demographic structure of the occupied territories;
6. Requests the Secretary-General to follow the implementation of the present resolution and to report in detail thereon to the General Assembly.
A/SPC/L.252. Afghanistan, Guinea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Pakistan, Somalia, Yugoslavia: draft resolution, approved by Special Political Committee on 20 November 1972, meeting 841, by roll-call vote of 63 to 21, with 31 abstentions, as follows:
In favour: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Bahrain, Bulgaria, Burundi, Byelorussian SSR, Cameroon, Chad, Chile, China, Congo, Cuba, Cyprus, Czechoslovakia, Democratic Yemen, Egypt, Greece, Guinea, Guyana, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libyan Arab Republic, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Mongolia, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Poland, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, Ukrainian SSR, USSR, United Arab Emirates, United Republic of Tanzania, Venezuela, Yemen, Yugoslavia, Zambia.
Against: Barbados, Belgium, Bolivia, Canada, Costa Rica, Denmark, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Iceland, Israel, Italy, Lesotho, Liberia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Rwanda, United States.
Abstaining: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bhutan, Brazil, Burma, Central African Republic, Colombia, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Gabon, Ghana, Ireland, Ivory Coast, Jamaica, Malawi, Mexico, Nepal, Norway, Philippines, Portugal, Singapore, Sweden, Thailand, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, United Kingdom, Upper Volta, Uruguay, Zaire.
A/8915. Report of Special Political Committee, draft resolution I E.
Resolution 2963 E (XXVII), as recommended by Special Political Committee, A/8915, adopted by Assembly on 13 December 1972, meeting 2108, by roll-call vote of 67 to 21, with 37 abstentions, as follows:
In favour: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Bahrain, Bulgaria, Burma, Burundi, Byelorussian SSR, Cameroon, Chad, Chile, China, Congo, Cuba, Cyprus, Czechoslovakia, Democratic Yemen, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea, Guyana, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libyan Arab Republic, Madagascar, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mongolia, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Peru, Poland, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Swaziland,* Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, Ukrainian SSR, USSR, United Arab Emirates, United Republic of Tanzania, Yemen, Yugoslavia, Zambia.
Against: Barbados, Belgium, Bolivia, Canada, Costa Rica, Denmark, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Iceland, Israel, Italy, Lesotho, Liberia, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, United States.
Abstaining: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bhutan, Botswana, Brazil, Central African Republic, Colombia, Dahomey, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Gabon, Ghana, Greece, Ireland, Ivory Coast, Jamaica, Laos, Malawi, Malta, Mexico, Nepal, Norway, Paraguay, Philippines, Portugal, Rwanda, Singapore, Sweden, Thailand, Togo Trinidad and Tobago, United Kingdom, Upper Volta Uruguay, Zaire.
*Subsequently Swaziland advised the Secretariat that it had intended to vote against.
The General Assembly,
Recognizing that the problem of the Palestinian Arab refugees has arisen from the denial of their Inalienable rights under the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
Recalling its resolution 2535 B (XXIV) of 10 December 1969, in which it reaffirmed the inalienable rights of the people of Palestine, its resolutions 2672 C (XXV) of 8 December 1970 and 2792 D (XXVI) of 6 December 1971, in which it recognized that the people of Palestine are entitled to equal rights and self-determination in accordance with the Charter, and its resolutions 2649 (XXV) of 30 November 1970 and 2787 (XXVI) of December 1971, In which it recognized that the people of Palestine are entitled to the right of self-determination,
Bearing in mind the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples enshrined in Articles 1 and 55 of the Charter and more recently reaffirmed in the Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and in the Declaration on the Strengthening of International Security,
1. Affirms that the people of Palestine are entitled to equal rights and self-determination, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations;
2. Expresses once more its grave concern that the people of Palestine have not been permitted to enjoy their inalienable rights and to exercise their right to self-determination;
3. Recognizes that full respect for and realization of the inalienable rights of the people of Palestine are indispensable for the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East.
A/SPC/L.254. Belgium, Egypt, France, Jordan, Lebanon, Syrian Arab Republic, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States: draft resolution, approved without objection by Special Political Committee on 20 November 1972, meeting 842.
A/8915. Report of Special Political Committee, draft resolution I F.
Resolution 2963 F (XXVII), as recommended by Special Political Committee, A/8915, adopted without objection by Assembly on 13 December 1972, meeting 2108.
The General Assembly,
Having noted that the present membership of the Advisory Commission of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. established pursuant to its resolutions 302 (IV) of B December 1949 and 720 B (VIII) of 27 November 1953 is composed of Belgium, Egypt, France, Jordan, Lebanon, the Syrian Arab Republic, Turkey, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America,
Noting further that it is in the general interest that other contributing countries join the Advisory Commission,
Decides to include Japan in the membership of the Advisory Commission of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.
A/SPC/L.249. Belgium, Denmark, Iran, Mexico, Sweden: draft resolution, approved unanimously by Special Political Committee on 20 November 1972, meeting 841, by recorded vote of 112 to 0, as follows:
In favour: Afghanistan, Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Barbados, Belgium, Bhutan, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burma, Burundi, Byelorussian SSR, Cameroon, Canada, Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, Colombia, Congo, Costa Rica, Cuba, Cyprus, Czechoslovakia, Democratic Yemen, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Egypt, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Gabon, Ghana, Greece, Guatemala, Guinea, Guyana, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Ivory Coast, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libyan Arab Republic, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Mexico, Mongolia, Morocco, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Somalia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Sweden, Syrian Arab Republic, Thailand, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda Ukrainian SSR, USSR, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United Republic of Tanzania, United States, Upper Volta, Uruguay, Venezuela, Yemen, Yugoslavia Zaire, Zambia.
Against: None.
A/SPC/L.255, A/C.5/1476, A/8920. Administrative and financial implications of draft resolution II recommended by Special Political Committee in A/8915. Statements by Secretary-General and report of Fifth Committee.
A/8915. Report of Special Political Committee, draft resolution II.
Resolution 2964 (XXVII), as recommended by Special Political Committee, A/8915, adopted by Assembly on 13 December 1972, meeting 2108, by 122 votes to 0.
The General Assembly,
Recalling its resolutions 2656 (XXV) of 7 December 1970, 2728 (XXV) of 15 December 1970 and 2791 (XVI) of 6 December 1971,
Having considered the report of the Working Group on the Financing of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East,
Taking into account the annual report of the Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East covering the period from 1 July 1971 to 30 June 1972,
Recognizing with grave concern that the financial situation of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East continues to be acute, thereby endangering the already minimum services being provided to Palestine refugees,
Emphasizing the continuing need for extraordinary efforts in order to maintain, at least at their present level, the activities of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East,
1. Commends the Working Group on the Financing of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East for its work;
2. Notes with appreciation the report of the Working Group;
3. Endorses the conclusion of the Working Group that further vigorous and constant fund-raising activities on behalf of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East are essential;
4. Requests the Working Group to continue its efforts in co-operation with the Secretary-General and the Commissioner-General, for the financing of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East for a further period of one year;
5. Requests the Secretary-General to provide the necessary services and assistance to the Working Group for the conduct of Its work.
A/SPC/L.253. Afghanistan, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Pakistan, Somalia, Syrian Arab Republic, Yugoslavia: draft resolution.
Notes
1/ See Y.U.N., 1967, pp. 257-58, text of resolution 242 (1967).
2/ See Y.U.N., 1971, pp. 176-77, text of resolution 2799 (XXVI).
3/ For text of Chapter VII of the Charter, see APPENDIX II.
4/ See Y.U.N., 1967, pp. 257-58, text of resolution 242 (1967).
5/ See Y.U.N., 1967, pp. 257-58, text of resolution 242 (1967).
6/ See Y.U.N., 1971, pp. 176-77, text of resolution 2799 (XXVI).
7/ See Y.U.N., 1971, pp. 167-77.
8/ For texts of Articles 5 and 6 of the Charter, see APPENDIX II.
9/ For text of Article 51 of the Charter, see APPENDIX II.
10/ See footnote 6.
11/ See Y.U.N., 1971, pp. 186-87.
12/ See Y.U.N., 1948-49, pp. 174-76, text of resolution 194 (III).
13/ See Y.U.N., 1967, pp. 190-91, text of resolution 237 (1967).
14/ Ibid.
15/ See Y.U.N., 1948-49, pp. 174-76, text of resolution 194 (III).
16/ See Y.U.N., 1967, pp. 221-22, text of resolution 2252 (ES-V).
17/ See Y.U.N., 1971, p. 209, text of resolution 2792 E (XXVI).
18/ Ibid., pp. 207-8, text of resolution 2792 C (XXVI).
19/ Ibid., pp. 206-7, text of resolution 2792 A (XXVI).
20/ Para. 11 of General Assembly resolution 194 (III) states, inter alia, "that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property…" For full text of resolution 194 (III), see Y.U.N., 1948-49, pp. 174-76.
21/ Ibid.
22/ See Y.U.N., 1947-48, pp. 247-56, for text of resolution 181 (II).
23/ See Y.U.N., 1967, pp. 257-58, text of resolution 242 (1967).
24/ See footnote 6.
25/ See Y.U.N., 1967, pp. 190-91, text of resolution 237 (1967).
26/ See footnote 6.
27/ See Y.U.N., 1951, pp. 315-16, for text of resolution 513 (VI).
28/ See Y.U.N., 1970, pp. 542-43, text of resolution 2675 (XXV), especially para. 7.
Document Type: Yearbook
Document Sources: United Nations Department of Public Information (DPI)
Subject: History, Palestine question
Publication Date: 31/12/1972