YouSaid · the spoken record

Charles MALIK

lines on the record: 121
first: 1953-09-24
most recent: 1957-09-24
sittings or episodes: 2
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

“No nation would dare let history convict it of responsibility for the failure of the disarmament talks. 13. Nor is this the only identity of view that the thoughtful student of this question perceives. Nothing is more striking in the literature of this subject than that both sides express throughout the same thoughts and often express them in the same language. 14. Thus both disclaim any intention of rearming for aggressive war. Both say they are rearming only for defence. Both emphasize that they most certainly want to disarm. Both say that agreement on disarmament would be possible if only the other side were more reasonable and less selfish. Each says it took a step but that the other took no step or took the wrong step. Both seem to be speaking of "partial steps in the field of disarmament" or of "a partial or first-stage agreement".”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“All these years of discussion have not brought forth a single agreement to scrap one gun or tank or bomb or to discharge one soldier. People all over the world, who know little of world politics, know this disheartening fact, yet it is in response to their will to peace that we continue to seek a solution." [687th meeting, para. 15] 12. I am not suggesting that Mr. Gromyko plagiarized Mr. Wadsworth in this reflection; I have quoted these statements only to show that in their wistful moments the two major Powers come to the same sense of futility about disarmament. And yet the United Nations may not sink into despair, for as Mr. Casey, the Foreign Minister of Australia, told us the other day, [687th meeting] "in dealing with a matter of such far-reaching... importance, despair is something that none of us can allow ourselves to entertain".”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“No, we are all fully aware that such weapons are constantly increasing in number and in destructive power. Were any international agreements concluded which have given the world one less division, one less regiment or one less soldier? No, no such agreement as yet exists." [681st meeting, para. 94]. 11. When I heard this statement, I at once remembered an almost identical statement made by the representative of the United States three years before. Addressing the First Committee on 12 October 1954, on the subject of disarmament, the representative of the United States, Mr. Wadsworth, said: "The First Committee of the General Assembly is entering its ninth year of activity and its ninth year of hard work on the stubborn problem of disarmament.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“The Prime Minister of Canada estimates that the world is spending some $85,000 million per year on arms; if agreement is reached on disarmament, and half or one-fourth or even one-tenth of this amount is saved and turned to the just development of the under-developed countries, think of how much then all of us will benefit. For all these reasons, we are all radically implicated in this question and we must each do our little bit in at least sharing the responsibility of thinking about it. 10. Mr. Gromyko in his speech on 20 September made the following statement: "... the negotiations [concerning disarmament] that have been in progress in the United Nations for over ten years have proved fruitless... Is there actually one less atomic bomb in the world today…?”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“No matter how insignificant we might be from the point of view of arms and therefore of disarmament, no matter how preoccupied we might otherwise be with our internal economic or political or even security problems, the challenge of the question of disarmament hits us all with almost equal hardness. 9. The climate of frustration and dread which failure in this field spreads throughout the world affects us all. A nuclear holocaust would pulverize to smithereens big and small alike. Some sections of the globe, such as the Middle East, could become principal battlefields in a nuclear war.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“These five nations have had, concretely, directly and continuously, for several years now, to wrestle with this problem on behalf of the world community, and they constitute the Sub-Committee of the Disarmament Commission, which is only the Security Council turned into a committee of the whole, plus Canada, to deal with the question of disarmament. 8. When, therefore, no agreement supervenes in that Sub-Committee, and when every member thereof expresses his deep concern over this fact as well as his alarm at the unabated arms race, then the rest of us must realize that we are face to face with something exceedingly serious and ultimate.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“This is a worthy hope, for the breathless arms race into which the world is plunged, and therefore the problem of disarmament, are the crux of the question of peace. 7. Hardly a representative has spoken who has not referred to the urgency of this matter. Besides the Prime Minister of Canada, statements of the deepest concern were made, among others, by Mr. Dulles, Mr. Gromyko, Mr. Lloyd, and Mr. Georges-Picot, all representing countries which are members of the Sub-Committee of the Disarmament Commission.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“For, as we speak in the presence of one another, we are all acutely conscious not only of our problems, not only of our rights, not only of our rightful aspirations, but also of the bearing of others upon us, of the essential limitations imposed upon these problems, rights and aspirations by our membership in the world community. It is then as we develop the habit of seeing ourselves as organic parts of a whole, and as we act in accordance with this mode of seeing, that the community aspect of our association gradually comes into its own. 6. The Prime Minister of Canada expressed the hope [683rd meeting] that this session, after its conclusion, would merit the title of "the Disarmament Assembly".”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“In the war of giants the limits of the possible and impossible in national policy are carefully delineated for the eyes of the world to see, and the smaller nations are afforded a chance to air their views, to set forth their concerns, and even to strike a posture with respect to the war of giants itself. 5. What do I want? What can I do? Where do I stand vis-a-vis others? These are the three questions which each of us has to face at the beginning of each session. And as we pause for a moment to engage in this process of self-searching here at the United Nations, we come closest to the realization of a genuine world community.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“Two new nations now hold their destiny in their hands, and the cause of peace and concord is advanced by so much. We pray that all peoples everywhere may attain or regain their freedom; then will the same cause of peace and concord, in so far as it is served by national freedom, be advanced to the utmost. 4. The general debate at the beginning of each session can be indifferently looked upon as a general discussion on the Secretary-General's annual report or on the agenda for the session, or as a series of statements of policy by the Governments of Member States on the basic international issues preoccupying their minds. The general tone of the session is thereby determined and the basic framework of possibility set.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“Two new Members have joined the United Nations this year, Ghana last March and the Federation of Malaya at the beginning of this session. My country extends its heartiest congratulations to the peoples of Ghana and Malaya upon their attainment of national independence. Empiricism, as taught by Locke and his successors, may not be the best philosophy; but for their empirical wisdom in dealing with dependent peoples in these and many previous instances the British are among the teachers of the world. We rejoice as much for the exercise of this wisdom as for the benefit it has conferred upon its worthy beneficiaries. We do not doubt that the political and cultural equipment of these two new Members, one in West Africa and one in South-East Asia, will make unique contributions to the functioning of our Organization. 3.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“May I be permitted, first of all, to extend to Sir Leslie Munro, on behalf of the Government and delegation of Lebanon, as well as on my own personal behalf, our sincere congratulations on his election to the presidency of the twelfth session of the General Assembly. As I had occasion to state before, we know this session, in so far as it depends upon him, will prove a great success. The practically unanimous vote with which he has been elected assures him the necessary sense of authority and support for the wise and fruitful guidance of Our proceedings. Such wisdom and such fruitful intent are, we know, in Sir Leslie's nature. I want to assure him again that he can count on our unstinting support and co-operation to the end. 2.”
1957-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 12 (1957)
“Peace is the fruit of goodwill illuminated by understanding, but without some identity of vision, and indeed vision of the good, all understanding is but a snare and a delusion.”
1953-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 8 (1953)
“Vyshinsky announces, not that they have mastered the atomic and hydrogen bombs, but that Soviet textbooks have been radically altered with respect to the necessity of war and revolution, the ultimacy of the class struggle, the development of human society, the laws of history, the place of the economic process, the nature and place of government, the nature and destiny of man, the existence of objective truth, the power of the mind to grasp it, the dignity of the human soul, the glory and necessity of freedom and the character of whatever ultimate reality there is, when Mr. Vyshinsky tells us that profound modifications of doctrine are taking place in Soviet textbooks with respect to these ultimate themes, then the world may relax and look forward to the possibility of a new dawn.”
1953-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 8 (1953)
“The greatest need, therefore, is for an attempt at settlement in the spiritual order, an attempt in which not only the communist diplomats and statesmen meet and argue with their Western colleagues, but the communist scientists and theoreticians accept the challenge of conferring at length with the most responsible thinkers of the non-communist world. When Mr.”
1953-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 8 (1953)
“Therefore what is needed is a theoretical and spiritual overcoming of Karl Marx. When Marxism-Leninism undergoes the fundamental revolution of overcoming itself, then we may hope for real and lasting peace. Physical olive branches are important and should never be despised, but when, year in and year out, millions of young minds the world over are moulded in schools and universities according to the unregenerate tenets of dialectical materialism, pray tell me in all honesty, how is peaceful co-existente in a contracted world really possible in the long run ? 82.”
1953-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 8 (1953)
“One need only comprehend the elements of physics and astronomy to appreciate what it involved in the possibility of creating artificial moons around the earth. Where, then, does disarmament begin and where does it end? The astounding technological revolution that is in full swing in this field complicates immeasurably the process of reaching any agreement. 81. Above and beyond any difficulty in the political and disarmament fields, and ultimately conditioning every such difficulty, is the great estrangement in the realm of the mind and spirit. For you may settle every political problem and you may disarm to the bone, still if distrust persists and if there is a fundamental contradiction in idea and outlook, there will be no peace. It happens that dialectical materialism teaches precisely that such contradiction is of the essence.”
1953-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 8 (1953)
“The inherent difficulty with respect to one or another of these matters may be almost insuperable, but when considered together they seem to present on several sides room for accommodation, even though this accomodation might take years to mature or to bring about. At least real progress can be made immediately on some of these issues. Thus the military-political issues of today’s world do not appear to be unmanageable. 80. The questions relating to disarmament, I think, are more complex. One of the most decisive factors in the world situation — perhaps the most decisive factor — is the technological revolution proceeding apace with respect to instruments of war. I am not thinking only of the nuclear weapons, but of the other well-nigh infinite possibilities of modern warfare.”
1953-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 8 (1953)
“The communist and non-communist worlds seem to be in the mood of probing each other for a more interesting mode of existence than the cold war. 78. There are three general orders of disagreement that must be tackled: the military-political order, the disarmament order, and the ideological order. 79. On the military-political side, no one who has carefully studied the pronouncements of responsible leaders, communist as well as non-communist, during the last ten months, with respect to Korea, the Far East, Southeast Asia, Germany, Austria and Eastern Europe, and with respect to bases on foreign soil, can fail to see that, with sustained goodwill and a reasonable degree of readiness to compromise, positive elements of agreement can be worked out on all these issues.”
1953-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 8 (1953)
“Incontestably we behold a will to find out if honest and honourable agreement on the outstanding issues is possible. It is the duty of every one of us to undergird and nourish this will. 77. The leaders of the Soviet Union and the leaders of the Western world have repeatedly gone on record during recent months that a way to the peaceful settlement of all disputes is not out of the question at the present moment. This view is shared by leaders throughout Asia, particularly by Mr. Nehru. We are entering, therefore, a historic period of fundamental negotiation, whether this negotiation takes place through ordinary diplomatic channels, or through debates m the United Nations, or through conferences about the Far East or Europe, or through informal exchange of ideas at the dinner table.”
1953-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 8 (1953)
“For depending on how these crucial issues will work out, the fate of all of us — in the Near East, in North Africa, everywhere — will be relentlessly determined. 75. People are grateful the world over that the shooting in Korea has stopped and that high statesmanship will surmount all the difficulties still besetting the holding of the conference, and that after and through the conference a unified, free, democratic and secure Korea will emerge. 76. There is a distinctly new tone in the international atmosphere these days. By comparison with past years, we have seen so far in this session only sweetness and light. There is a conscious attempt not only to avoid provocative language but to try to understand something of the other point of view.”
1953-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 8 (1953)
“The world therefore faces three ultimate problems: how the strong can live together in peace in a world shrunk to a neighbourhood, how the weak can live in dignity and equality with the strong in a world in which security can come about only through collective security, and how the few fundamental cultures of the world can develop freely interacting and mutually enriching and respectful relations among themselves. The history of our epoch will be written by these three problems. 74. Incomparably more important than the problems of the Near East or of North Africa, or even of the revision of the Charter — not perhaps for the peoples directly concerned, but for the world at large — are the problems of war and peace at the present turn of history.”
1953-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 8 (1953)
“It may thus turn out, if this tendency triumphs, that the first ten years of the existence of the United Nations were a kind of honeymoon, and were exceptional so far as the real freedom of the small and helpless and dependent to aid their grievances before some world forum was concerned. 72. This is a battle for which we should all be prepared. The issue of the veto is most important. Certainly the strong and powerful have every right to assume primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. But they should not grudge the weak and helpless at least the right to talk, to bring their real or imagined grievances to the attention of world public opinion, to feel the burden of moral responsibility, to seek active spiritual community with the like-minded. 73.”
1953-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 8 (1953)
“Attempts will doubtless be made to strengthen Article 2, paragraph 7, so as to limit the scope of Articles 10 and 11. Nations then will be asked to sacrifice to a large extent their cultural affinity with other nations in the name of a more or less atomistic, mechanical conception of international existence. The scope of debate in the General Assembly may then be curtailed, and cases like Tunisia or Morocco, or like the question of human rights in Hungary a few years ago, which can now be placed on our agenda in all propriety, may be prevented by the Charter from being brought before the world organization.”
1953-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 8 (1953)
“Strict internationalism is thus clearly breaking down into interculturalism in the United Nations. One is not therefore dealing with sixty distinct, indifferently related units; one is dealing with six or seven fundamental cultural groupings. The Atlantic community, which acts fairly consistently together, constitutes such a grouping; so does, to a large extent, the so-called Asian-African bloc. And therefore the problem of international relations is not so much how to regulate the relations of some eighty distinct, sovereign States, as how to adjust the far more complex relationships among the half a dozen fundamental cultural groupings of the world. 71. In the gathering battle for revision, strict legalistic internationalism is going to clash with interculturalism.”
1953-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 8 (1953)
“It raises a profound question, the question of sovereign equality and of whether the notion of nation-State should not be reconsidered in this amazingly contracted world. For what we are witnessing in the United Nations, as for instance with respect to North Africa, is the breakdown of strict legalism in international relations. The fifteen nations that keep urging the United Nations to do something about North Africa have no political ambitions in that area, and hardly any of them have any economic relations with it whatsoever. Nor is it strategy or geographical propinquity that determines their interest. What is it then that prompts them to bring this matter to the attention of the United Nations? 70. It is a certain fundamental cultural community with North Africa.”
1953-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 8 (1953)
“Some of the middle Powers which have never liked the veto will also join in the engagement. And it is also clear that India, which, as I said at the beginning, enjoys today a much greater international status than it did in 1945, will play a vigorous role in the determination of the issue. The battle of the veto may be characterized as relating to the adjustment of power among the nations that make the greatest difference for the maintenance of international peace and security in the world. 69. But there is a second battle that is already clear in its outline. This is precisely the battle for Articles 10, 11, and 18 and therewith, of course, for Article 2, paragraph 7. It is the battle for the powers of the General Assembly and for the relative w ng weight of its members.”
1953-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 8 (1953)
“It has to do with the revision of the Charter. We all know that there is a movement today to begin reflecting upon this matter from now, so that ideas and texts and attitudes will ripen by the time the United Nations takes up the task of revision two years hence. In fact, items 70 and 72 of our agenda have this process in view. In my opinion this is a healthy process worthy of all encouragement. 68. But already two big battles loom on the horizon of revision, and it would be well to be clear on that point from now. There is, first, the battle of the veto. This relates to Article 27, and will be joined in by the permanent members of the Security Council. In fact, already in this session the Soviet representatives have given us a foretaste of the character o' tips battle.”
1953-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 8 (1953)
“Thus, so long as the voting system of Article 18 is in force, any Member of the United Nations can bring before the Assembly any question failing within the scope of the Charter and, if he can muster the necessary votes, he will have that question both included in the agenda and discussed. Whether we like it or not, such is the structure of the United Nations that, if there is sufficiently strong feeling about any matter within the scope of the Charter — and this scope, as we all know, is practically all- embracing — then no legalistic protestations on the basis of Article 2, paragraph 7, can possibly prevent its full discussion by the General Assembly. 67. Why have I gone into such detail about this constitutional matter? It is because I want to lead up to one of the most important things I propose to say in this speech.”
1953-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 8 (1953)
“.” Article 11, paragraph 2, says, in part: “The General Assembly may discuss any questions relating to the maintenance of international peace and security brought before it by any Member of the United Nations . . .” And Article 18, paragraph 1, stipulates: “Each member of the General Assembly shall have one vote.” 66. Now, questions of dependent or Non-Self-Governing Territories, as, for instance, North Africa, certainly fall within the scope of the Charter, as do questions of human rights. Therefore the General Assembly certainly may discuss them, whether or not they relate to the maintenance of international peace and security, and it can all the more discuss them if they actually so relate.”
1953-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 8 (1953)
“The representative of the United Kingdom the other day [443rd meeting] invoked Article 2, paragraph 7, in connexion with the South African item, and Mr. Eden said last year [393rd meeting] that the habit of disregarding this provision endangered the very foundation of the United Nations. And it is, of course, the patent contention of the French delegation, as Mr. Schumann told us on 25 September [445th meeting], that the General Assembly has nothing to do with North Africa. 65. Those who invoke Article 2, paragraph 7, appear conveniently to forget three other relevant articles of the Charter. I refer to Articles 10, 11, and 18. Article 10 says, in part: “The General Assembly may discuss any questions or any matters within the scope of the present Charter . .”
1953-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 8 (1953)
“Thus the domestic jurisdiction clause is limited not only, as indeed it expressly says at the end of its text, by the enforcement measures of Chapter VII of the Charter, but also by the provisions for the pacific settlement of disputes under Chapter VI, and in particular by Article 34. No nation can do just what it pleases under its own laws if such action really endangers, or is likely to endanger, the maintenance of international peace and security. 64. But the argument is revived even with respect to the General Assembly. Representatives of the United States have said, in and outside the United Nations, that they disapprove of the tendency to clutter up the United Nations with issues that touch upon the internal jurisdiction of States.”
1953-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 8 (1953)
“It is argued by some that, under Article 2, paragraph 7, of the Charter, the North African question is one of essential domestic jurisdiction, and therefore cannot be taken up by any of the organs of the United Nations. I had occasion last month to refute this thesis so far as the Security Council was concerned. For it is obvious that questions of international peace and security override every question of domestic jurisdiction and that no nation can create with impunity, even within its own internal jurisdiction, a “situation which might lead to international friction or give rise to a dispute”, and then take shelter under Article 2, paragraph 7, of the Charter.”
1953-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 8 (1953)
“It seems to me quite clear that the fifteen Asian and African nations will keep bringing this matter to the attention of the United Nations until considerable progress towards real self-government is made in North Africa. I beg and appeal to the distinguished representatives of France in this Assembly to allow us to reason with them on this matter. If they agree, we shall all do our best to maintain the debate on as high and dignified a plane as possible. In the long run, only good can come from a honest and free discussion of grave issues, provided the spirit be one of real understanding and friendship. 63. The second point I want to touch upon under this heading is the constitutional question of competence.”
1953-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 8 (1953)
“Thirdly, increasing political responsibility should be given to Tunisian and Moroccan leadership under a representative constitutional system to be worked out freely between the French authorities and this leadership within two years. Fourthly, this freely elaborated constitutional system should include adequate safeguards for the rights of France and of French nationals in the two territories. Fifthly, a declaration should be made by France affirming complete self-government as the ultimate aim, specifying as much as possible the stages according to which transfer of responsibility is to take place, and setting a time-limit for the completion of this process. 62. I believe these suggestions are practical and positive. I assure the French delegation that they proceed from a basis of complete goodwill to France.”
1953-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 8 (1953)
“The first is again to face the charge that we are only negative in our approach. I believe that here again positive" elements of a reasonable and just solution can be gleaned. For the ultimate aim is complete self- government, an aim both vouchsafed by the Charter and allowed by France. To that end, therefore, we suggest five steps that can be taken at once for both Tunisia and Morocco. First, a general political amnesty should be granted, permitting the leaders, whether in prison or exiled or dispersed all over the world, to return home and function normally under the laws of their country. Secondly, existing emergency or extraordinary measures should be removed with a view to granting the people the ordinary liberties of association and expression.”
1953-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 8 (1953)
“Tunisia and Morocco are again on the agenda of this session of the General Assembly Resolutions were adopted by the Assembly last year with respect to these two questions [resolutions 611 (VII) and 612 (VII)), but the situation in both territories has, if anything, deteriorated in the meantime. We feel that the United Nations must once again be seized of the North African problem with a view to taking the necessary measures. I shall not enter into any detailed examination of this complex matter; that must be left to the committee stage. Besides, a few weeks ago I had the honour of presenting the Moroccan case before the Security Council [619th meeting] and thus the views of the delegation of Lebanon on this matter are already on record. But there are two questions of fundamental principle that I want to raise in this debate. 61.”
1953-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 8 (1953)
“59. But obviously things will not happen — and it is not fair to expect them to happen — so long as there is boundless ambition and arrogance; so long as there is hardness of heart and no sign of humility; so long as every concession is expected to come from the Arabs, and their fate in Palestine, if not also in the Near East, is quite openly conceived on the pattern of the fate of certain native races that were conquered and became extinct; and so long as the strong possibility persists that every two years and at most every four years Israel will have an exceptional opportunity of strengthening itself internationally as well as vis-a-vis the Arabs. I suggest that all these things must be fairly taken into account if a new era of peace and prosperity for all concerned is to be ushered in in the Near East. 60.”
1953-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 8 (1953)
“Thus, if there is a serious determination by the United Nations to implement its decisions with respect to Palestine; if the Israelis agree now — as, in point of fact, they did agree in May, 1949, in Lausanne — to negotiate on the basis of these decisions; if there is an absolute assurance by the great Powers that territorial encroachment by Israel upon the Arabs will never be allowed; if Israel, for the sake of peace, desists from aggravating the dangerous disequilibrium between population and the absorptive capacity of the land, by putting an end to its present policy of immigration; and if the Arabs are actively helped to strengthen themselves and if no obstacles are put in the way of their developing the closest natural ties among themselves, then, if these conditions are fulfilled — and they are not only eminently positive but they all fall within the bounds of reason, justice and possibility — I believe things will begin to happen with respect to Palestine.”
1953-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 8 (1953)
“But between the two radical extremes, unmurmuring acceptance of the stark fait accompli and its total effacement, certainly there is a whole gradation of possibilities which may be explored and which people of good will everywhere must help us explore. 57. In fact, in the thinking of the Arabs there are positive elements that may be gathered together by those who care. The difficulty is not really with the Arabs; the difficulty, I fear, is with certain world forces and with certain tendencies in Zionism which conceive of the continuance of an unsettled state of affairs in the Near East as to their advantage. And now I ask: what are the positive elements in the thinking of the Arabs? They stem for the most part from the standing decisions of the United Nations. 58.”
1953-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 8 (1953)
“But when people speak disparagingly of the negative attitude of the Arabs, they should in all fairness remember that if what befell the Arabs in Palestine had befallen any other people, this people would have been even more negative than the Arabs have been. 56. But the Arabs are not only negative. They are negative — and rightly so — with respect to one tiling, namely, acquiescence in the fait accompli as the final unalterable decree of history. What people usually mean by “being positive” is that the Arabs should now accept the fait accompli and move forward from there. In this false sense the Arabs cannot be positive.”
1953-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 8 (1953)
“It has been often remarked — by friends as well as by foes, kindly or unkindly — that the Arabs are only negative, that they do not know what they want, that they do not come forward with positive proposals, and that if only they, would “make peace” with Israel, all would go well with them, and in particular they would be able to strengthen themselves militarily, to develop their own countries much faster than they are able to do at present, and to receive substantial economic assistance from abroad, especially from the United States. This is an important challenge which I propose now to take up. 55. The Arabs are indeed negative.”
1953-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 8 (1953)
“Those of them who choose not to return to their homes, or who, after returning, decide, for one reason or another, to emigrate again, should be peacefully resettled elsewhere. Their frozen moneys should be unfrozen and adequate compensation should be given those who wish to relinquish their property in Palestine. Their present demoralization is beyond description and the rancour that their continued existence and their unspeakable plight generate in their hearts as well as in the hearts of all Arabs in the Near East against the West and against Israel is daily deepening. They form a matrix of despair wherein all manner of subversion and radicalism develops. That they should remain a source of misery and danger to themselves and to their immediate world is in the interest of nobody, least of all Israel. 54.”
1953-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 8 (1953)
“Secondly, if Arab and Israeli cannot live in peace and concord in the same political fold, if within the same national political system they cannot demonstrate that they need not subvert one another, how may we hope that the Israel State and the Arab states will one day establish relations of peace and concord among themselves? There is, after all, a larger political system in the Near East called the Arab world, and Israel lies at the heart of it. If Arabs within Israel are suspect, would not Arabs in this larger system be perfectly justified in suspecting Israel within them? 53. The Arab refugees are the key to practically every issue relating to Israel. The solemn resolutions of the General Assembly with respect to them should be honoured.”
1953-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 8 (1953)
“And here also there are disregarded United Nations resolutions according to which these unfortunate people, whose plight is worsening daily, are to be given the option of returning to their homes and living peacefully there. Israel says there is no room for them, and even if there were, it could not take them because Arabs living in Israel — especially returning Arab refugees — might become subversive. But it is fair to ask two questions. First, is it that there is no room when already Israel has, since its foundation, admitted hundreds of thousands of Jews from all over the world into its territory, and when we hear of plans for admitting two to three million more?”
1953-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 8 (1953)
“Whether we have regard to obvious strategic considerations, or to the interest of peace and reconciliation in the Near East, or to the dynamic character of Zionism, or to the fact that Jerusalem is holy to three world religions, or to the one obvious act whereby the real goodwill and impartiality of the great Powers, and especially of the United States, can be demonstrated, or to the fact that it is not a wall here, or a garden yon, or a tomb yonder, that is holy in Jerusalem, but the entire area as carefully demarcated by the United Nations — however we consider the matter, we arrive at one and the same inescapable conclusion, namely, that Jerusalem must be politically neutralized. 52. The Palestinian Arab refugees are once again on our agenda.”
1953-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 8 (1953)
“The only way of averting this eventuality — which, I assure the Assembly, will have far-reaching consequences, and not primarily for political reasons — is from now on to place the entire area of Jerusalem under effective international supervision. 51.”
1953-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 8 (1953)
“Third, politically, strategically and ideologically, Israel will never be satisfied with the New City as its capital. Nobody who has meditated profoundly upon the nature of Zionism and who has read with some care the pronouncements of Zionist leaders can have any doubt that the real Jerusalem is the Old City, the site of the Temple. Therefore dynamic Zionism will never rest until it has secured the Old City. It follows that whoever wills today the New City as the capital of Israel is therewith and thereby willing — consciously or unconsciously — for the Old City to fall one day in the hands of Israel.”
1953-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 8 (1953)
“The intention of the original 29 November 1947 resolution of the United Nations — a resolution repeated and voted several times since — was to set up an international enclave of Jerusalem, stretching in a ten-mile radius to the Holy City of Bethlehem, as ‘a convenient and effective means of ensuring both the desired international supervision and the political, economic and social well-being oi me population of Jerusalem’, “Neither ‘functional internationalization’ nor ‘indirect internationalization’ should be substituted for true internationalization, which, despite allegations to the contrary, can never be ‘out of date’.” These words, coming as they do from a Catholic organization in the United States concerned with the affairs of the Near East and headed by Cardinal Spellman, seem to me to be very significant. 50.”
1953-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 8 (1953)
““The Catholic body throughout the world” — and this is very strong language — “as is evidenced by the repeated statements of their leader, Pope Pius XII, will not be contented with a mere internationalization of the Holy Places in Jerusalem.”
1953-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 8 (1953)