YouSaid · the spoken record

EBAN

lines on the record: 663
first: 1949-09-24
most recent: 1973-09-24
sittings or episodes: 14
sources: un-general-debate

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Earlier in the year, when the Jerusalem problem had been a subject of profound international interest, the President of Israel had made a public pronouncement, to the terms of which the Israel Government still faithfully adhered. He had said: "The Government and people of Israel are conscious of the international interest in the safety of the Holy Places and the right of free access to them. We pledge ourselves to ensure full security for religious institutions in the exercise of their functions; to grant the supervision of the Holy Places by those who hold them sacred: and to encourage and accept the fullest international safeguards and controls for their immunity and protection.”
1949-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 4 (1949)
“Having already taken from the shoulders of the international community the major burden of the refugee problem bequeathed by the racial persecutions perpetrated by nazism, Israel had become the first Government to make a tangible offer towards the solution of another humanitarian problem produced by the military action of other States. In a continuation of that effort, the Israel Government was preparing to co-operate closely with the United Nations Economic Survey Mission which was exploring the possibilities of development and resettlement in the Near East. A fuller discussion of that problem might well await the report of that group. 196. The agenda included another item of vital importance to the relations between the United Nations and its newest Member, namely the question of Jerusalem and the Holy Places.”
1949-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 4 (1949)
“Moved by those considerations, and eagerly desirous of creating conditions of co-operation and stability throughout the Near Fast, the Israel Government, though beset by grave financial problems of its own, had decided to contribute to the United Nations Relief For Palestine Refugees, to reunite Arab families separated by war, and also to undertake a specific commitment for facilitating a solution by a measure of repatriation to be carried out in the context of peaceful relations and as part of a regional programme of resettlement. 195. Israel had made those offers before a single one of the Arab States had undertaken any commensurate responsibility. It had done so in the hope, thus far unfulfilled, of eliciting a similar response among other Governments in the Near East.”
1949-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 4 (1949)
“Had resolution 194 (III) adopted on 11 December 1948 laid greater emphasis on the principle; of wide regional responsibility, it might have been possible for Israel and the Aral States to find a common approach at Lausanne. 194. The humanitarian issues involved in the refugee problem were undoubtedly tragic and grave.”
1949-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 4 (1949)
“It had not changed its view on the initial responsibility for that great human catastrophe; surely those who decided to initiate military operations could not wash their hands of all responsibility for helping to dispel the suffering thus created. For that reason the Israel delegation felt it to be both unrealistic and inequitable to require a solution of the problem by exclusive concentration on Israel alone. The Israel Government was gratified to observe a growing consciousness that all the States of the Near Fast must bend their efforts, each to the limits of its genuine capacity, to contribute towards a rapid solution.”
1949-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 4 (1949)
“It might be of some value for the General Assembly to explore whether such principles of conciliation under neutral and mutually accepted auspices might not be applied anew during the current session towards tire solution of such acute problems as the relations between the States of the Balkans and the overriding issue of atomic control. 192. Among the residual problems of the Palestine conflict, two were still in the forefront of international interest. 193. During the second part of the third session, the Israel delegation had put forward the view that the refugee problem created by the attack upon Israel could find its solution only in a co-operative regional effort on the part of all the Governments concerned.”
1949-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 4 (1949)
“It was Israel’s hope that the United Nations would make it its main resolve to promote that objective. It had become generally recognized that the Arab States and Israel needed a maximum of contact and a minimum of intervention in order to settle the political problems still outstanding between them. 191. The fact that such a savage and inveterate conflict could have been brought to an end and healed by methods of pacific settlement could not be without significance for the treatment of other conflicts which had so far baffled the Organization. The mediation which had brought about the armistice had been patient, impartial, detached from the predilections of individual Governments and assiduously addressed to the maintenance of contact between the parties.”
1949-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 4 (1949)
“The United Nations might well find satisfaction in the end of hostilities and the assumption, by the Governments concerned themselves, of full responsibility for a final settlement to be attained by peaceful means. 190. Mr. Eban pledged his Government to continue with zeal and perseverance its efforts to reach such a settlement in direct negotiation with the Arab Governments concerned. The lesson of the past year had been concisely expressed by Mr. Bunche to the Security Council when he had stated that "once the parties could be brought together, they could, with United Nations assistance, be led to reasonable and honourable agreement. Recent experience had convinced the Israel Government that it was only by coming together that the parties were likely to evolve the provisions of a new agreement.”
1949-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 4 (1949)
“During the previous month the Security Council had been able to endorse the armistice agreements concluded between Israel and its four neighbours with the aid of the United Nations Acting Mediator. A pattern of normal and orderly life had grown out of those agreements. The armistice lines did not merely separate armed forces; they marked clearly defined areas of full civil jurisdiction. The Government, the courts, the legislatures, the security authorities of each respective State operated smoothly and unchallenged up to the appropriate armistice line. The agreements themselves committed all their signatories to abide firmly by that provisional settlement until new and final agreements were reached by further negotiation.”
1949-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 4 (1949)
“It did not impede the work of the Organization in developing international co-operation in the economic field, with the objective of full employment and technical assistance; it in no way affected the capacity of the General Assembly to reach binding decisions on questions such as that of the former Italian colonies, in which its jurisdiction had been accepted in advance by the parties. It did not hamper the work of the specialized agencies. Above all, it did not diminish, but powerfully increased, the need for United Nations efforts in the field of mediation and conciliation. 189. The Government of Israel had had opportunities of intimate contact with the work of the United Nations in that field.”
1949-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 4 (1949)
“Seen in that light, the principles of the universality of the United Nations and an equitable geographical distribution of its organs assumed a primary and urgent importance. Those two principles would guide the Israel delegation in its approach to the discussion of the problems of applications for membership, the future of the Interim Committee and other constitutional questions. 188. The lack of agreement among the great Powers had rendered the enforcement provisions of the Charter inoperative so far; yet if would be wrong to conclude that the lack of a capacity of enforcement doomed the United Nations to ineffectiveness. For that deficiency did not prevent the United Nations from promoting the advance of subject peoples towards independence.”
1949-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 4 (1949)
“That was not the question which multitudes of anxious peoples all over the world were asking; they were asking whether Governments with different and opposing interests could achieve a point of mutual tolerance, above their differences and above their opposition. They were asking whether divergent and contrasting political doctrines could live together in peace, side by side. The main issue was the co-existence of different ways of life within a common allegiance to a single international code. 187. That was an issue which could be decided only in the General Assembly — that unique forum where alone all the factors of world power and opinion were represented as equals.”
1949-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 4 (1949)
“Mr. EBAN observed that the General Assembly was approaching its labours in the fourth session under the critical and expectant gaze of the world. The instinct among peace-loving peoples everywhere to identify the prospects of peace with the success of the United Nations was accurate and sound. It was true that the international scene was rich with many other groupings and coalitions of States united in the pursuit of common objectives and ideals. Yet they did not claim to answer the crucial question which faced the contemporary world. To say that Governments and States founded on similar political doctrines and kindred cultures could achieve close co-operation was to affirm something that stood in no need of proof.”
1949-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 4 (1949)