Palestine question – GA emergency session – Verbatim record
Seventh emergency special session
GENERAL ASSEMBLY
PROVISIONAL VERBATIM RECORD OF THE TWELFTH MEETING
Held at Headquarters, New York,
on Tuesday, 20 April 1982, at 3 p.m.
President: Mr. KITTANI (Iraq)
Mr. KHADDAM (Syrian Arab -Republic) (interpretation from Arabic): The international community finds it necessary for the United Nations General Assembly to resume its seventh emergency special session to discuss Israel’s aggressive practices in the occupied Arab territories against the Arab people and the rights of the Palestinian people, pursuant to the Charter and resolutions of the United Nations.
A quick survey of the activities, documents and resolutions of our international Organization would undoubtedly confirm that discussions of Israeli policies and violations have occupied most of the time of both the Security Council and the General Assembly.
What always seems to happen is that we meet time and again and session after session only to witness thereafter Israel’s persistent escalation of aggression against Arab lands and the serious violations of the rights of the Palestinian people and brutal suppression inflicted by the Israeli authorities in the occupied Syrian and Palestinian territories.
Israel’s aggression has been consistently increasing indirect proportion to the successive meetings held here at the United Nations to discuss that aggression and to adopt appropriate resolutions to deal with it. This phenomenon leads one to pose the following question: Why should all this be happening in this manner? The clear, direct answer can be summarized in two facts:
Firstly, Israel flouts this international Organization, which gave it its birth certificate. Israel shows complete disregard for the principles of the United Nations Charter and resolutions. Whatever is said here only increases Israel’s disregard for international law and its defiance of the whole world.
Secondly, the United States of America is always ready with its veto weapon in the United Nations Security Council to paralyze the Council’s draft resolutions, thus protecting Israel from its measures and sanctions. This attitude encourages Israel to continue its acts of aggression against the Arab lands and peoples and to violate any measures, sanctions or resolutions adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. It is this umbrella of American protection which encourages Israel to pursue its policy of annexation of the occupied Arab and Palestinian territories.
I do not intend to review the hundreds of resolutions adopted by the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council with which Israel has refused to comply. I shall only recall the most recent resolutions, in order for us to examine Israel’s behavior.
Security Council resolution 476 (1980) declared all Israel’s measures in Jerusalem null and void. What did Israel do after this resolution was adopted? It not only rejected it, or just refused to comply with it, but it also followed that up by its decision to annex the occupied Syrian Golan Heights. In a subsequent resolution – resolution 497 (1981) – the Security Council demanded the rescission of that aggressive decision in the Golan Heights. Once more Israel was not satisfied with rejecting that resolution, it also began to escalate, in an unprecedented manner, its acts of aggression against the occupied Syrian and Palestinian lands, as a prelude to their annexation, and against the Arab inhabitants of those lands.
We meet here today to discuss the brutal acts of repression perpetrated by Israel against Arab youths, women, children and old people. Though those people were completely unarmed, scores of them fell dead or wounded under the hails of Israeli bullets. They were shouting their Protests against the repressive, unjust rule of Israeli occupation. They were protesting, Israel’s arbitrary measures when Israel forcibly dismissed the legitimately elected mayors. Israel’s troops are being used to intimidate the Arab citizens in the occupied Golan Heights, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The toll of Arab victims, martyrs and wounded continues to rise day by day.
Yet the racist grudge of the Israelis did not stop at that. It soon extended to places of worship and to holy religious shrines. They attacked worshippers, killing and wounding at random, before the very eyes of the whole world. The Israelis were not content or satisfied with violating the laws and statutes of the world. So they raised their blood-stained hands against the laws of Heaven, desecrating the sanctuaries and attacking worshippers.
I do not propose to review history and its various events. I should like only to refer to some historical phases which testify that that State, Israel, was established in our Arab land of Palestine in the absence of two thirds of the States in today’s world. Since the days of preparation, Israel had specific tasks linked to colonialism and world imperialism. This made Israel play a role no less unjust and worse than the role of the racist regime in South Africa.
During the First World War, the Zionist movement allied itself with Western imperialism. The reward offered by Balfour, the British Foreign Minister, was the Balfour Declaration promising the establishment of a Hebrew State in Palestine, as if Palestine were part of the possessions of the British Crown. During the Second World War, the Zionist movement allied itself with the leader of world imperialism, namely, the United States of America. The reward was the establishment of the Hebrew State in Palestine.
Between those two wars, the British imperialists in Palestine were very active in their encouragement of Jewish immigration, exerting pressure on and persecuting the Arab inhabitants. They also gave all forms of aid and support to the Zionist gangs until the day of the major catastrophe in 1948, when the establishment of the State of Israel was proclaimed on part of the soil of Palestine.
Israel is thus the result of a marriage of convenience between a racist movement, that is, Zionism, which adopts the mentality of superiority and distinction from the rest of mankind, and imperialism and colonialism, which came to our region to rule it, control it, impose hegemony on it and exploit its economic and human resources in order to utilize everything in this region for the service of the strategic interests of Zionism. A State based on a racist ideology and allied to the forces of imperialism and colonialism cannot but be both aggressive and unjust.
That State was admitted to membership in the United Nations provided that it would respect the Charter of the international Organization and commit itself to the implementation of United Nations resolutions. However, Israel used every means to violate the Charter, refused to implement United Nations resolutions and showed only utter contempt for this Organization and international law.
The organic link between Zionism and Israel, on the one hand, and imperialism and colonialism, on the other, has led to the following results. First, the Palestinian people were expelled from their homeland and the whole of Palestine and other Arab territories were occupied. Secondly, a state of constantly explosive tension was created which continues to threaten peace and security in the Middle East and in the whole world. Thirdly, in 1956 and within the framework of its alliance with the British and French Governments, Israel waged a war of aggression against Egypt simply because the latter had regained its right to control its national property and nationalized the Suez Canal. Thus Israel was used as a tool of vengeance, but at the same time Israel used its two allies to achieve some territorial gains. Fourthly, in 1967 Israel waged yet another war of aggression against three Arab countries, occupying the whole of Palestine and parts of the territories of Syria and Egypt. After that war, Israel began to establish settlements and to pursue a repressive policy of terrorism aimed at the displacement of the Arab inhabitants in order to evict the indigenous population of the occupied territories and create a demographic vacuum. It changed the landmarks and features of those occupied Arab territories. It perpetrated dozens of attacks on Lebanese towns and villages and villages end against the Palestinian groupings in Lebanon. It bombed the Iraqi nuclear reactor. It issued threats against Syria. Those threats nearly led to a military conflagration following the Israeli attacks on the Arab deterrent forces in Lebanon. Israel enacted two “laws” – one providing for the annexation of the Arab city of Jerusalem and the other for the annexation of the occupied Syrian Golan Heights.
All these acts corroborate the following facts.
First, Israel continues to carry out its aggressive plots, refusing to allow the development of any situation conducive to the establishment of a just and durable peace in the region. A just peace requires that Israel withdraw totally from all the occupied Arab territories and recognize the inalienable national rights of the Palestinian people, including the right to repatriation, self-determination and the establishment of their own independent State on their national soil. All this is contrary to the Zionist ideology whose objective is the establishment of a State based on racial discrimination, racial superiority and expansion.
Secondly, Israel utterly refuses to adhere to the United Nations Charter and refuses to implement or honor United Nations resolutions. The Charter rejects the principle of the use of force to annex territory. Israel’s Zionist ideology is based on continued expansion and the annexation of territory till the Hebrew State becomes commensurate with the principles and strategy of the Zionist movement.
Thirdly, Israel refuses to implement all the relevant United Nations resolutions. It refuses to abide by resolution 478 (1980) concerning its measures in Jerusalem, resolution 497 (1981) concerning its measures in the Golan Heights and resolution 446 (1979) concerning the establishment of Jewish settlements, which were all adopted by the United Nations Security Council. There are also hundreds of other resolutions, adopted by the General Assembly, all forming a strong body of decisive and irrefutable evidence of Israel’s utter contempt for the international Organization and all the values on which the United Nations is based.
These facts are corroborated by the historical development of Israeli aggression against the Arab nation, in general, and against the Palestinian people, in particular. They are also corroborated in the files of the international Organization whether they be those of the Security Council, the General Assembly or the specialized agencies of the United Nations
We believe that this highly abnormal phenomenon in the international situation, namely, the phenomenon of Israel is the result of the following factors:
Faced with this state of affairs, we at this session must pose a question: What is to be done to confront this irregular phenomenon in the international arena, and to impose respect for the Charter, the implementation of resolutions, to repel aggression and to assist the victims of the acts of that racist State? Should Israel be allowed to behave in that manner with no deterrence? Does anybody imagine that this bizarre, abnormal situation can continue in the Middle East?
In pursuing that aggressive policy, refusing to adhere to the United Nations Charter, continuing to occupy Arab lands and suppressing both private and public activities of the Arab citizens in the occupied territories, Israel is deliberately pushing the Middle East region towards explosion, day by day. Such an explosion poses a threat to peace and security, not only in the Middle East, but also in the world at large.
The failure of the United Nations Security Council to take appropriate measures in accordance with the United Nations Charter, thanks to the United States use of the veto, makes it incumbent upon the United Nations General Assembly, in accordance with the provisions of the Charter, to shoulder its responsibilities for safeguarding world peace and security, and to impose respect for the Charter and the implementation of the Organization’s resolutions.
Therefore, the United Nations General Assembly has no choice but to adopt a resolution revoking resolution 273 (III) adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1949, admitting Israel as a Member of the international Organization. The General Assembly, which adopted resolution 273 (III), has the authority to revoke a resolution – which it had the right to adopt in the first place – particularly since the party concerned with this resolution, that is, Israel, has not fulfilled its pledges defined by that resolution and by the United Nations Charter.
The adoption of such a resolution would restore confidence in the international organization and consolidate international legitimacy and would not permit the use of the universality of this Organization as a cover for aggression oppression and injustice. It would rather make the Organization a mainstay of justice, right and freedom.
As we present the Assembly with this picture, we affirm that the Arab nation will continue the just, legitimate struggle for the liberation of all its occupied territories, both Syrian and Palestinian, and for the restoration of the inalienable national rights of the Arab Palestinian people in their homeland, Palestine, including their right to repatriation, self-determination and the establishment of their own independent State under the leadership of the Palestine Liberation
Organization. From this international rostrum, we declare that we and our kin in the Golan, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and throughout Palestine will continue to offer sacrifices.
The struggle of our brethren in the occupied Arab territories is a basic part of the struggle waged by the nations suffering under occupation and imperialism to regain their freedom and national independence.
That struggle is in itself a defense of the people’s right to self-determination, as well as the rights and dignity of man everywhere.
Hence, the Arab people in the occupied Syrian and Palestinian territories look forward to the Organization’s aid and support of their legitimate struggle to regain their freedom and their rights.
The people’s struggle for their freedom cannot be defeated, no matter how long it takes. Injustice may prevail for a while, but it cannot prevail forever.
