On October 2, 1974, in Al-Qabas,
Yesterday, Abdul-Halim Khaddam, the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Syria, delivered a speech before the United Nations General Assembly, in which he specifically stated that Israel, due to its violation of the commitments it made when joining the United Nations in 1949, especially its disregard for the UN partition resolutions and the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes, has become “unfit to join the international community.”
The Syrian minister pointed out that Israel is a “racist entity” created by imperialist and Zionist interests, accompanied by the expulsion of Arabs from Palestine. These Arabs have been deprived of their rights to return since then, according to the demands of the United Nations. Khaddam requested that the United Nations declare “without hesitation” that there can be no just peace in the Middle East unless Israeli forces withdraw from the Arab territories occupied since 1967, and unless all changes introduced by Israel to the demographic, economic, and cultural structure of the occupied territories are reversed.
The Syrian minister continued, stating that if Israel does not comply with these demands, the United Nations must immediately take the actions stipulated in its charter to deprive it of its status as a member of the United Nations, and to compel it to completely withdraw from all occupied territories and restore the national rights of the Palestinian people.
The Syrian minister urged the United Nations General Assembly to delve into the explosive situation in the Middle East, considering the return of national rights and other rights to the Palestinian people as inevitable for the establishment of a just and lasting peace.
In this context, Khaddam pointed out that the exercise of the Palestinian people’s undeniable right to self-determination, as stated in United Nations resolutions, requires the Palestinians’ right to return to their homes and compelling Israel to annul all measures taken to deprive the Palestinian people of their national and human rights.
