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

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“When President Nasser speaks in August 1969, a few weeks ago, of the necessity to "purify" Palestine by armed force, he proves that his mind is still faithful to the concepts by which he disrupted the Middle Eastern structure in May 1967—"to purify Palestine". He talks as though he is appointed by destiny to cleanse the Middle East from some defilement. Where does that language come from? Where have we heard it before? What memories does it evoke? 183. The military and diplomatic consequences of such virulent ideas are now evident. The military results have been the denunciation of the cease-fire. The indulgence and support of attacks by irregular units have resulted in the transference of the fighting to the soil of other countries.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“When a million of our children were murdered two and a half decades ago, that was held to be the ultimate enormity. Today we see a new refinement: the training of children to be murderers in a cause remote from their understanding and judgement. 181. So at the worst moments of rancour and alienation, we and others have hoped vainly for a future better than the past. We now find Arab leaders projecting their belligerency into the coming generation; a violent anti-Jewish racialism now dominates the Arab educational movement and it spills over into every street. 182. I stress these points because wars have their origin in the soil of ideas.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“Thirdly, the repudiation of the cease-fire and the growth of terrorist activity have been crowned by a recent innovation: hostility to Israel has burst out of the limits which have restricted the techniques of war in all but the most hideous and extreme conflicts. After all, war with all its cruelty and inhumanity is unfortunately the work of human beings. It has only in rare cases been conducted without any inhibition. Today we find Arab organizations, supported by Governments, destroying these civilized restraints. They carry out revolting public hangings in Baghdad streets. They maintain an unbridled religious incitement worthy of the most bigoted phases of the Middle Ages. They involve neutral States in their own savagery and they add a new element by allotting a role to children.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“If anything, Israel’s resolve never to change the cease-fire lines except by permanent peace and in favour of agreed boundaries becomes more passionate than ever. 179. What is threatened is not the existence of Israel but the prospect of peace. The ideal and objective of these organizations is that peace must be banished from the life and prospect of the Middle East. What they do is consistent what they want. Their mission is not liberation but the destruction of the liberty which a small nation has already won and the enslavement of the Middle East to a destiny of hate and war. 180.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“The nature and quality of these groups are revealed by the methods which they employ: a bomb is thrown into a supermarket filled with housewives doing their shopping; a hand-grenade is diabolically placed in a university cafeteria; a car laden with dynamite is introduced into a crowded market place where-humble people transact the simple business of their lives; civilian aircraft are kidnapped or attacked on the ground in exploitation of their incomparable vulnerability. All this activity has no durable political effects. Israel’s existence is not affected by it. Not a single inch of the cease-fire territory changes hands as a result of it. Thus the murder of innocent men, women and children becomes not a means to an end, but an end in Itself-a dead-end leading nowhere except to bitterness and rancour.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“The six-day war has not ended. The two-year war, the three-year war, the four-year war has begun." 178. Secondly, the Arab Governments which have not denounced the cease-fire consider themselves in some cases entitled to pursue armed conflict through the terrorist organizations. The actions of terrorist groups are not a consequence of the 1967 war; they were one of its main causes. The problem has nothing essentially to do with the fact that Israel is administering large areas under a cease-fire arrangement. The terrorist assaults came before the June 1967 war, and they would be renewed with far more devastating and perhaps fatal results if Israel were to move from the cease-fire lines before and without the establishment of peace, which, of course, it is under no obligation to do.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“So after these 28 months, I come back to repeat with increased conviction what I said to the Arab Governments at this rostrum in June 1967: “You have chosen repeatedly to meet us in the arena of battle. You cannot refuse to meet us at the negotiating table.” 177. The absence of negotiation, of course, during the past 12 months is only the symptom of a wider alienation. Organized hostility towards Israel has been methodically intensified. It has taken three forms: first, the cease-fire concluded in pursuance of the Security Council’s resolution of 6 June 1967 [233 (1967)] has been constantly violated and subsequently denounced. The formal denunciation took place in the address by President Nasser on 23 July this year, when he said: "The cease-fire cannot be eternal... and we now have to fight. We are now beginning the work of liberation.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“Instead of arguing about theory, why should we not look to the experience of the past 28 months? Every possible substitute for normal negotiating procedure has been tried: special sessions of the General Assembly, regular sessions of the General Assembly, meetings of the Security Council, separate encounters of the United Nations Special Representative with some Middle Eastern Governments, talks between four permanent members of the Security Council, consultations between two permanent members of the Security Council—all these techniques and devices have been tried— and nothing has moved forward. Surely if those involved in all this activity have not found an effective substitute for negotiation, it is not through lack of perseverance or skill; it is simply because no such substitute exists.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“In November 1967 the United Kingdom representative said that the resolution that he was presenting to the Security Council was not a call for "a temporary truce or a superficial accommodation". He said that it reflected a refusal "to be associated with any so-called settlement which was only a continuation of a false truce" [1379th meeting]. He stated further that the "action to be taken must be within the framework of a permanent peace, and withdrawal must be to secure boundaries" [1381st meeting]. It was made clear in the Security Council that secure and recognized boundaries have never existed in the Middle East or in any of the engagements of the parties towards each other. Therefore, they must be fixed by the parties themselves as part of the peace-making process. 176. Experience exists in order that men may learn something from it.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“The fact is that the moon has once been attained by mortal man, whereas peace without negotiation has never in all history been achieved at all. 174. The principles formulated by the Security Council in November 1967 [see resolution 242 (1967)] cannot have meaning or utility unless they are interpreted and given precision by negotiation. When the original sponsors and supporters of that resolution commended it to us as a framework for Ambassador Jarring’s mission, they stated to us categorically that it was a negotiating framework. It was drafted, as the United States representative said a year ago, as a skeleton of principles on which peace could be erected. It was not meant to be self-executing. 175.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“We carry this lesson forward into our future history and policy. 173. To these considerations of principle we must add those of effectiveness. It is only in the context of negotiation that the parties at interest will see the augury of a new era in their relations. It is only then that the discussion will pass from the rhetorical and polemical phase to the concrete, detailed formulation of specific positions on all the matters at issue. Refusal to negotiate creates a tense, suspicious and sceptical atmosphere. Agreement to negotiate would open currents of thought and efforts of imagination utterly different from anything that we have known or that we can now conceive. I would not be overstating the case if I were to say that the idea of passing from war to peace without negotiation is far less realistic than that of flying to the moon.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“It expresses its highest ends only when it serves as a bridge, not as a wedge. There is no parallel in international life for the refusal of States to recognize another State, except for the purpose of exercising a state of war against it, The alternative to a directly negotiated settlement would, at best, be the formulation of vague, ambivalent, unchecked arrangements open to contrary interpretations—like the arrangements of 1957 which fell down like a house of cards within a few hours in 1967. The collapse of the 1957 arrangements had much to do with the fact that Egyptian responsibility was never directly affirmed or contractually engaged in 1957. We also learned a stark and unforgettable lesson in 1967 about the fragility of international guarantees and Security Council safeguards in the present state of the world’s power balance.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“How can a transition from prolonged belligerency to peaceful co-existence be carried out on the basis of diplomatic boycott and ostracism? Never, never in the history of our times have two States passed from a state of war to a state of peace on the basis of a refusal by one to meet the other. There are apparently laws in international life, just as there are laws in nature and in society. A refusal to negotiate implies the lack of any common political or juridical ground from which the parties can advance towards the harmonization of their interests. 172. In particular, it is an error to regard the United Nations as a substitute for direct settlement; that is the opposite of what this Organization is meant to be. The United Nations is an instrument for ending conflicts, not an arena for waging them.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“But, unfortunately, the Arab policies in the past 12 months have been designed to close such horizons from view. If we ask ourselves why there has been no progress towards peace in the past year, we come back to the simple fact that there has been no negotiation. In international disputes the existence of negotiations does not ensure success; but the absence of negotiations is an iron guarantee of failure. The principle "no negotiation with Israel" proclaimed at Khartoum in 1967, repeated ever since and maintained with total obduracy stands out as an insuperable barrier to peace. 171. The emphasis that any Government places on negotiation is not an obsession with procedure. It is the heart and centre of the problem. For a refusal to negotiate is inherently identical with a refusal to establish peace.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“Since then representatives of diverse traditions and cultures have raised their voices in favour of a new and stable regional order; against the vision that there could be changes in the cease-fire line except in the context of peace; in favour of establishing agreed permanent boundaries and other arrangements ensuring security from terror and war; against the ambiguities of an obsolete armistice; in favour of a permanent peace to be duly agreed and contractually confirmed. 169. This then is our position. The road back to the explosive and fragile armistice situation is closed, but the path leading forward to peace is wide open. Our business is to ensure that a new story of co-operation and progress never heard or told before, shall now be enacted in the history of the Middle East. 170.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“An African statesman, the Foreign Minister of the Ivory Coast, summarized the issue in three short sentences: “...to advocate a political status quo in the region is to seek escape from an ugly situation only to be brought face to face with it once again ... the conflict between Israel and the Arab world can be resolved only by means of negotiation... Let but the dialogue begin, and the solutions will follow.” [1540th meeting, paras. 47 and 49.] 168.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“It refused to condemn the righteous resistance by which Israel has pulled itself pack from the threshold of destruction. It repeatedly dismissed by its votes the ridiculous Soviet and Arab charge that Israel’s refusal to perish should be defined as "aggression"; and it rejected all proposals for restoring the situation which had led to one war and which would, if reproduced, lead inexorably to another. 167. Thus, the discussions held here two years ago amounted to an implied but incisive criticism of the Arab hostility which had beset Israel for two decades—and which has still not been renounced. World opinion rejected solutions based on a return to the explosive situation of early June 1967. Voices from all continents echoed that rejection.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“After all, a people which still remembers its revolts against ancient tyrannies is not likely to forget the sharper danger and the larger deliverance which it lived two and a half years ago. It is a moment that will linger and shine in the national memory forever—an incomparable moment that will move all Israel to its ultimate generations; and from that memory flows duty and resolve. It is our duty and our resolve to ensure that such perils never recur. Never can we return to the political anarchy and the physical and territorial vulnerability which nearly brought about our doom. 166. Now two years and three months ago the United Nations, which had not been able to give Israel aid in its predicament, did rally its moral energies in order to give judgement on three central issues. It was a negative judgement, but of great significance.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“We recall the silence and apathy with which the Security Council, between one adjournment and the next, calmly observed the only attempts in modern history to wipe a sovereign State off the map of the earth. We shall not forget how the declarations, hopes, expectations, understandings, promises, commitments on which Israel had sometimes been advised to rely for its security proved, in the event, fragile and illusory. We shall, of course, remember how the conscience of free men everywhere was roused on Israel’s behalf in deep anguish of spirit—but in total impotence. And with the memory of the dark long shadows there will go the recollection of how, in desperate valour and perfect rectitude, we tore the strangling fingers from our throats. 165.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“To forget them is to renounce all understanding of the Middle Eastern reality today. Israel will preserve an eternal and unfading image of the peril and solitude in which it then stood. We live intimately with that recollection. We brood upon it day and night. For it was only by an exceptional vigilance, by independent responsibility and cruel sacrifice that we avoided a disaster which would have ended our people’s historic journey and weighed forever on the conscience of mankind. Whenever the summer months come by we shall remember how everything that we loved and cherished seemed likely to be swept into the flames of war and massacre, We knew that without victory there would be no survival.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“163. It is especially in the Middle East during the past year that the roar of guns has been constant and no calm dialogue has been heard. Nothing has gone as rational men expected. In September 1967 the Arab Governments took a united decision to refuse negotiation, to withhold recognition, to reject peace and to avoid the determination of secure and agreed boundaries with Israel. This graceless policy has since been maintained and reiterated with a tenacity worthy of a higher end. Indeed, there has not yet been any conceptual or political retreat by President Nasser from his attempt in May 1967 to bring about Israel’s destruction by strangling encirclement and sudden blockade. 164. Those dramatic events of the summer of 1967 should not be lost from international memory.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“I suggest that United Nations Day, which falls on 24 October, should this year be proclaimed as a day of universal cease-fire. On that day armed action should be halted all over the world; in Viet-Nam and in Nigeria; along the Soviet-Chinese border; in all parts of Africa and across all the cease-fire lines in the Middle East. When all the guns are silent, the leaders of nations will be able, in that solemn and unparalleled tranquillity, to hear the urgent voice of mankind yearning for a world of peace. Of course, a cease-fire does not in itself solve complex issues. But once a moment of serenity has for the first time been lived universally across the world, there may be a reluctance to give it up; and the hard, long, indispensable road towards negotiated settlements can be taken everywhere without the savage discord of bombs and shells.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“The difficulty can be overcome only by resolutely and consistently seeking a consensus including the interested parties. The United Nations role should be to encourage agreement between the Governments at issue, not to sharpen the differences which separate them. The United Nations, in short, should adopt a diplomatic rather than a parliamentary approach to its work. It is built for the conciliation of views and interests, not for adjudication between them —still less for enforcement. And beyond this, it should strive to express the common aspirations of mankind. 162. Cannot this session of the General Assembly, for example, give dramatic form to the central interests and yearnings of the peoples for whom we speak?”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“One third of the Security Council’s members are States whose diplomatic relations and sentimental predilections are exclusively confined to one side of the Middle Eastern dispute; yet this is the only dispute with which the Council deals. 161. Political deadlocks and military escalation mark many of the great conflicts of today, and the causes often lie outside the power and will of the United Nations; but this does not absolve us from the duty of self-appraisal. One salient defect comes to mind, It was frankly expounded by the late President Arenales in closing the twenty-third session [1752nd meeting]. Resolutions are adopted in a rhetorical spirit and by fortuitous majorities without regard to their equity or prospect of fulfilment. It is no wonder that they lack moral or judicial force.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“It has done nothing yet about the growth of piracy in the air. It has been silent about the macabre gallows on which scores of victims have been publicly throttled in the streets of Baghdad; it has had to listen indulgently to the effort of some Arab States to launch an outrageous campaign of religious incitement, reminiscent of the dark ages, in gleeful exploitation of the deplorable Al Aqsa fire. It has been willing, it has been able, as in previous years, to adopt resolutions about the Middle East, and this on two conditions alone: that the texts are acceptable to the Arab States, and that they contain no word of specific criticism about the policies or actions of Arab Governments which have led to the murder of our citizens and an overt threat to assassinate our State.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“Since the summer of 1968, peace and freedom have been convulsed in Europe by the flagrant invasion of Czechoslovakia; in South-East Asia by the continued fighting in Viet-Nam; in North-East Asia by ominous lightning flashes on the Russian-Chinese border; in the Middle East by the formal and effective Egyptian denunciation of the cease-fire; in Africa by the agony of millions in the Biafran region of Nigeria. 160. Now, the Security Council was able to do nothing about the invasion of Czechoslovakia; it has had nothing to say about the war in Viet-Nam; it has not addressed itself to the misery of millions of West Africans caught up in a fate of bloodshed and starvation. It has been silent on the open repudiation by the United Arab Republic of its own cease-fire resolution in the Middle East.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“A community of sovereign nations united in a covenant of law and peace is the highest vision that the political imagination of men has been able to conceive. But there is a vast gap between the vision and the reality; and it grows wider year by year. 159. The truth is that the effective currents of action and discourse amongst nations now flow mostly outside these United Nations walls. This emerges clearly from the record of the United Nations organ which represents us throughout the year in the quest for peace and security.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“Any serious effort by the United Nations to serve the human cause must take its starting point from an attitude of criticism. We have lived a year of frustration and deadlock. There has been no advance in the solution of conflicts; and the United Nations has receded still further towards a marginal role in world affairs. Its resonance has diminished; and its flame is burning low. Yet there was never an age which cried out so plainly for institutions designed to express a planetary spirit. The forces which draw mankind together in a single destiny demand that we maintain a unitary framework for international relations in addition to the normal flow of bilateral and regional contacts. There is nothing obsolete, there is nothing premature in the Charter’s central idea.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“156. Madam President, the Government and people of Israel, to whom you are well known, rejoice at your elevation to the presidency of the General Assembly. We see your election as a moving tribute to Africa, to its first sovereign Republic, Liberia, and to your personal distinction. I do not doubt that you will guide our labours with a firm and experienced hand. 157. We heard with grief of the passing of your eminent predecessor, Mr. Emilio Arenales, the Foreign Minister of Guatemala, whose loss will be sharply felt by his countrymen and by the entire international community. 158. Madam President, in your opening words to the Assembly [1753rd meeting], you expressed a constructive disquiet. No other mood befits the realities which we have come here to discuss.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“In the long run nations can prosper only by recognizing what their common interest demands. The hour is ripe for the creative adventure of peace.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“When the parties have reached agreement, it would be natural for their agreement to receive international endorsement and support. 127. To the Arab States we say: “For you and us alone the Middle East is not a distant concern, or a strategic interest, or a problem of conflict, but the cherished home in which our cultures were born, in which our nationhood was fashioned and in which we and you and all our posterity must henceforth live together in mutuality of interest and respect.” 128. It may seem ambitious to talk of a peaceful Middle Eastern design at this moment of tension and rancour. But there is such a thing in physics as fusion at high temperatures. In political experience too the very intensity of peril often brings about a thaw in frozen situations.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“There is nothing unrealistic about a negotiated peace inspired by a sense of innovation and constructed by prudent and flexible statecraft. Indeed, all other courses are unrealistic. The idea of a solution imposed on the parties by a concert of Powers is perhaps the most unrealistic of all. The positions of the Powers have not moved any closer in the last fifteen months than have the positions of the parties themselves. A close study of how the commitments of certain Powers and maritime States were interpreted in May 1967 does not encourage excessive confidence in this formula. Moreover, and above all, the Middle East is no longer an international protectorate. It is an area of sovereign States which alone have the duty and responsibility of determining the conditions of their coexistence.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“Nothing is less fruitful than an attempt to give separate identity or precedence to any single principle of international policy, thus destroying its over-all delicate balance. 125. Moreover, the obligations of Israel and the Arab States to each other are not exhausted by any single text. They are also governed by the United Nations Charter, by the traditional precepts of international law, by constructive realism, and by the weight of human needs and potentialities. 126. Lest Arab Governments be tempted out of sheer routine to rush into impulsive rejection, let me suggest that tragedy is not what men suffer but what they miss. Time and again these Governments have rejected proposals today — and longed for them tomorrow. The fatal pattern is drawn across the whole period since 1947 — and before.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“Behind our proposals lie much thought and planning which will bear fruit when our minds and hearts interact with those of neighbouring States. 122. We ask friendly Governments outside the region to appraise the spirit as well as the content of the ideas which I have here outlined. We urge the Arab Governments to ponder them in a deliberate mood and to explore their detailed implications with us in the normal and appropriate frameworks. 123. The solutions which I have outlined cover all the matters mentioned in the Security Council resolution and would constitute the effective fulfilment of its purpose, which is to inaugurate a new era of just and lasting peace. 124. We base ourselves on the integral and interdependent character of the points at issue.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“They have done so before. What is new and unprecedented is President Nasser’s principle of “no negotiation”. 120. But in the meantime we are ready to exchange ideas and clarifications on certain matters of substance, through Ambassador Jarring, with any Arab Government willing to establish a just and lasting peace with Israel. There can be a preliminary stage. 121. I have expounded our views on peace in more detail than is perhaps usual in General Assembly debates. On each of these nine points we have elaborated detailed views and ideas which we would discuss with neighbouring States in a candid exchange of views, in which we should, of course, consider comments and proposals from the other side. No Arab spokesman has yet addressed himself to us in similar detail on the specific and concrete issues involved in peace-making.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“The peace discussion should include an examination of a common approach to some of the resources and means of communication in the region, in an effort to lay the foundations of a Middle Eastern community of sovereign States. I expressed some ideas on this subject in an address to the Council of Europe in September 1967. 119. So much for the content of a peace. The process of exploring peace terms should follow normal precedents. There is no case in history in which conflicts have been liquidated or a transition effected from a state of war to a state of peace on the basis of a stubborn refusal by one State to meet another for negotiation. There would be nothing new in the experience of the Middle East or in the relationship of Israel and the Arab States for them to meet officially to effect a transition in their relationships.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“Our policy is that the Christian and Moslem Holy Places should come under the responsibility of those who hold them in reverence. 117. The eighth principle refers to the acknowledgement and recognition of sovereignty, integrity and right to national life. This principle, inherent in the Charter and expressed in the Security Council resolution of November 1967, is of immense importance. It should be fulfilled through specific contractual engagements to be made by the Governments of Israel and of each Arab State, to each Other, by name. It follows logically that Arab Governments will withdraw all the reservations which they have expressed on adhering to international conventions, about the non-applicability of their signatures to their relations with Israel or about the non-existence of Israel itself. 118. Ninth, regional co-operation.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“(3) As an interim measure, my Government has decided, in view of the forthcoming winter, to intensify and accelerate action to widen the “uniting of families" scheme, and to process “hardship cases” amongst refugees who had crossed to the East Bank during the June 1967 fighting. Moreover, permits for return which had been granted and not used can be made available to other refugees who meet the same requirements and criteria as the original recipients. 116. The seventh principle refers to Jerusalem. Israel does not seek to exercise unilateral jurisdiction in the Holy Places of Christianity and Islam. We are willing in each case to work out a status to give effect to their universal character. We would like to discuss appropriate agreements with those traditionally concerned.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“On this problem I propose: (1) A conference of Middle Eastern States should be convened, together with the Governments contributing to refugee relief and the specialized agencies of the United Nations, in order to chart a five-year plan for the solution of the refugee problem in the framework of a lasting peace and the integration of refugees into productive life. This conference can be called in advance of peace negotiations. (2) Under the peace settlement, joint refugee integration and rehabilitation commissions should be established by the signatories in order to approve agreed projects for refugee integration in the Middle East, with regional and international aid.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“Interference with navigation in the international waterways in the area has been the symbol of the state of war and, more than once, the immediate cause of hostilities. The arrangements for guaranteeing freedom of navigation should be unreserved, precise, concrete and founded on absolute equality of rights and obligations between Israel and other littoral States, and indeed all members of the maritime community. 115. Sixthly, refugees. The problem of displaced populations was caused by war and can be solved by peace.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“When agreement is reached on the establishment of peace with permanent boundaries, the freedom of movement now existing in the area, especially in the Israel-Jordan sector, should be maintained and developed. It would be incongruous if our peoples were to intermingle in peaceful contacts and commerce only when there is a state of war and cease-fire—and to be separated into ghettos when there is peace. We should emulate the open frontier now developing within communities of States, as in parts of Western Europe. Within this concept we include free port facilities for Jordan on Israel’s Mediterranean coast and mutual access to places of religious and historic associations. 114. The fifth principle concerns navigation.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“The majority of the United Nations have recognized that the only durable and reasonable solutions are agreed solutions serving the common interests of our peoples. The new peace structure in the Middle East, including the secure and recognized boundaries, must be built by Arab and Israeli hands. 112. The third principle: security agreements. In addition to the establishment of agreed territorial boundaries, we should discuss other agreed security arrangements designed to avoid the kind of vulnerable situation which caused a breakdown of the peace in the summer of 1967. The instrument establishing peace should contain a pledge of mutual non-aggression. 113. The fourth principle is the principle of an open frontier.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“Within the framework of peace, the cease-fire lines will be replaced by permanent, secure and recognized boundaries between Israel and each of the neighbouring States and the disposition of forces will be carried out in full accordance with the boundaries under the final peace. We are willing to seek agreement with each Arab State on secure and recognized boundaries within the framework of a permanent peace. 111. It is possible to work out a boundary settlement compatible with the security of Israel and with the honour of Arab States. After twenty years, it is time that Middle Eastern States ceased to live in temporary “demarcation lines” without the precision and permanence which can come only from the definitive agreement of the States concerned.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“If there had previously been peace between the States of our area and temporary hostilities had erupted, it might have been sufficient to terminate belligerency and to return to the status quo ante bellum, to the previously existing peace. But the Arab-Israel area has had no peace. There is nothing normal or legitimate or established to which to return. The peace structure must therefore be built from its foundations. The parties must define affirmatively what their relations shall be, not only what they will have ceased to be. The Security Council too called for the establishment of peace and not for any intermediate or ambiguous or fragmentary arrangement such as that which had exploded in 1967. 110. The second principle refers to secure and recognized boundaries.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“Peace is not a mere absence of fighting. it is a positive and clearly defined relationship with far-reaching political, practical and juridical consequences. We propose that the peace settlement be embodied in treaty form. It should lay down the precise conditions of our coexistence, including an agreed map of the secure and recognized boundary. The essence of peace is that it commits both parties to the proposition and the consciousness that their twenty-year old conflict is at a permanent end. Peace is more than what is called “non-belligerency”. The elimination of belligerency is one of several conditions which compose the establishment of a just and lasting peace.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“We for our part intend to make a new effort in the coming weeks to co-operate with Ambassador Jarring in his task of promoting agreement on the establishment of peace. 108. It is important to break out of the declaratory phase in which the differences of formulation are secondary and in any case legitimate, in order to give tangible effect to the principles whereby peace can be achieved in conformity with the central purposes of the United Nations Charter, with the Security Council’s resolution, and with the norms of international law. Instead of a war of words, we need acts of peace. 109. I come to enumerate the nine principles by which peace can be achieved: First, the establishment of peace. The situation to follow the cease-fire must be one of just and lasting peace, duly negotiated and contractually expressed.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“107. In these conditions my Government has given intensive consideration to the steps that we should now take. Our conclusion is this. Past disappointment should not lead to present despair. The stakes are too high. While the cease-fire agreements offer important security against large-scale hostilities, they do not represent a final state of peace. They must of course be maintained and respected until there is peace. They must be safeguarded against erosion by military assault and murderous incursion. But we should not be content with this. The exploration of a lasting peace should be constant, unremitting, resilient and, above all, sincere. My Government deems the circumstances and atmosphere afforded by our presence here as congenial for a new attempt.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“When the parties accept a basis for settlement, their least duty is to clarify what they mean by their acceptance. To make identical and laconic statements with diametrically opposed motives and interpretations would come dangerously close to international deceit. All parties must say what they mean; and mean what they say. And the heart of the problem is not only what we say, but what we do. The construction of a peaceful edifice requires sustained action in order to bring the vital interests of the parties into an acceptable harmony. There is no such thing as peace by incantation. Peace cannot be advanced by declarations accompanied by a refusal to negotiate viable agreements. The Security Council’s resolution has too often been used mot as an instrument for peace. It has been invoked as an obstacle or alibi to prevent its attainment.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“In discussing the reason for the lack of substantive progress, we cannot fail to perceive that the discussion of peace has revolved too much around semantic expressions, too little around the solution of contentious issues. There is no instance in history in which a stubborn and complex conflict has ever been brought to an end by the mere recitation of texts without precise agreements on the issues of which the conflict is composed. Israel, as I have said, has accepted the Security Council’s resolution for the establishment of a just and lasting peace and declared its readiness to negotiate agreements on all the principles mentioned therein. We hold that it should be implemented through negotiation, agreement and the joint signature and application of appropriate instruments. 106.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)
“He said: “The following principles of Egyptian policy are immutable: (1) no negotiations with Israel; (2) no peace with Israel; (3) no recognition of Israel; (4) no transactions will be made at the expense of Palestinian territories or the Palestinian people.” No negotiation, no peace, no recognition, no transactions. 103. How one can build peace out of such negative and immutable principles, how one can build bricks with straw such as this, defeats the imagination. 104. I have taken the General Assembly into the knowledge of our initiatives and proposals. I leave it to my fellow representatives to judge whether their complete rejection was justified or compatible with a sincere attempt to reach agreement on the establishment of peace. 105.”
1968-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 23 (1968)