YouSaid · the spoken record

El-Khouri

THE RECORD WRITES THIS SPEAKER AS EL-KHOURI

lines on the record: 71
first: 1946-09-24
most recent: 1948-09-24
sittings or episodes: 3
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

“In conclusion, the Syrian representative observed that the Palestine question had been one of the most beclouded and most complicated to occupy the attention of both the General Assembly and the Security Council from April 1947 up to the present time. He would not deal with that question at the moment, inasmuch as the item appeared neither on the provisional agenda nor on the supplementary agenda, but he would do so when the item was opened for discussion on the agenda of the General Assembly. However, since the representative of the United States had referred to that question at the present meeting, Mr. El-Khouri wished to remind him that no solution of any problem could be considered final unless it was a just and rightful solution.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“The result of that device of partitioning countries of military value or strategic importance had proved harmful to the fundamental interests of the indigenous population and very dangerous to the political and economic relations between nations. The victors had created centres of controversy and disputes which aggravated the situation. It was earnestly hoped that the deplorable jealousy among certain nations and the unlawful desire for expansion would be eliminated from the political programmes of the great Powers, so as to hasten the conclusion of peace treaties with the principal former enemies on the basis of justice and equity, and so as to restore confidence and good faith among them. Only in that way could permanent peace be substituted for the present state of an uneasy truce.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“One of the paramount impediments to the speedy settlement of world problems subsequent to the Second World War was the outstanding avidity for securing selfish interests in the occupied enemy territories rather than promoting the interest and rights of the local populations; such selfish desires were disguised by the avowal of certain ideological objectives and doctrines of social order. The victors had provisionally applied a device of partnership, by dividing Countries among themselves into zones of occupation, or zones of influence. They had applied that device in Korea, in Germany, in Trieste, and elsewhere.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“The attitude of the Syrian delegation on the matter was that the Commission should continue its work to elaborate a draft treaty which would contain all the provisions of the prohibition and safeguards in their final form and submit it to the Security Council for its approbation. The members of the Security Council would then be called upon to take their respective responsibilities in adopting or frustrating the course of the action. Mr. El-Khouri hoped that the General Assembly would see its way to adopt such a recommendation.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“The majority had anticipated that, if this procedure were adopted, the control system might never be achieved, owing to obstruction by the minority. It had considered that the two instruments were inseparable and should be put into effect concurrently. There were other points of dispute on which no agreement had been reached, such as the ownership of the plants, but the real motive for disagreement, and the real cause, was lack of confidence. As long as the great Powers looked upon one another as adversaries and rivals rather than allies, there could be no hope of a sound peace or dissipation of world anxiety.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“It was true that the majority of the Commission had agreed on all the details of the convention or treaty to govern the objectives of the General Assembly’s resolution for prohibiting the use of atomic bombs or other weapons adaptable to mass destruction. That majority had also agreed on adequate safeguards to be taken against the violation of the General Assembly’s precepts by the proposal to create an international agency, but the minority of the Atomic Energy Commission had always been adamant and would not agree with the resolutions adopted by the majority. The majority had been composed of nine out of eleven members, and the minority of two members out of the eleven. The apparent point of disagreement had been the insistence of the minority on advancing the prohibition convention before establishing the control system.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“In the first part of the first session, held in London early in 1946, the owners of atomic energy activities had proposed to put them at the disposal of the United Nations, and the Atomic Energy Commission had been created. That Commission had had at its disposal the assistance of all the experts and scientists specializing in that field. Nevertheless, the result had been disappointing. It had been a waste of three years, during which time hundreds of meetings had been held and thousands of printed pages of detailed debates and discussions among the members of the Commission had been issued.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“They were eager to see peace established and reigning over the whole world. That overwhelming majority of mankind appealed pitifully to the leaders of the world, and to the fashioners of world policy, to have compassion on them and prevent eventual global destruction. The leaders who had been able to win a tremendous war should not fail to win the peace. The Syrian delegation earnestly hoped that the present session would serve to realize that cherished aim. One of the most important problems which had engaged the United Nations during the past three years was that of atomic energy. It was while attending the San Francisco Conference that representatives had first heard of the horrible effects of the terrifying bomb which had been dropped on Hiroshima. They had been discussing the matter since and had been trying to find a way out.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“Instead of decreasing armaments — or at least freezing the present forces in their fearful magnitude — the great Powers were engaged in an armaments race, in fortifying their military positions and multiplying their forces on an alarming scale. The other Member States were influenced by the example of the great Powers and were trying, so far as they could, to make preparations for self-defence. It was to be regretted that the good peaceful intentions which had inspired those who had laboured on the Charter wore being reversed and made void by the lack of confidence and the spirit of hostile competition adopted by the great Powers, which had brought about the dreadful deterioration in the world outlook. Ninety-nine per cent — and perhaps more — of the world’s population abhorred war and military manoeuvering.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“The Charter advocated the right of every peace-loving nation to join and take part in the privileges and responsibilities of the United Nations. The General Assembly, at the second part of its first session, had recommended to the Security Council that the Security Council should take steps to apply the provisions of Article 11 of the Charter for disarmament and the regulation of armaments entailed in preparations for war and to serve the fundamental principles of the United Nations; namely, preventing the resort to arms in international relations. The Syrian representative recalled that the Security Council had taken up that question from the beginning and had been working on it for the past two years without any concrete results.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“It was earnestly to be hoped, therefore, that the General Assembly, at its third regular session, would find a way to surmount the obstacles which had been set up in the Security Council, at least in the case of those applicants which obtained a legal majority in the Security Council; and at the same time that it would make recommendations in favour of the principle of universality of membership, whenever this was possible. It was unfair and unjust to disappoint sovereign States by denying them their aspiration to join the United Nations, to participate in it, and to contribute to world peace and progress. The United Nations was not a monopoly for its founders. The principles and purposes of the United Nations were defined in the Preamble to the Charter, which covered and included present and succeeding generations of mankind.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“It would be much easier for non-member States to give effect to Article 2, paragraph 6, of the Charter, which read: «The Organization shall ensure that States which are not Members of the United Nations act in accordance with these principles so far as may be necessary for the maintenance of international peace and security. » That task would be more difficult when the applications of States applying for membership were rejected.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“However, since the San Francisco Conference, seven new States had been admitted, bringing the total number of States Members of the United Nations to fifty-eight. The Syrian delegation believed in opening the membership to all independent sovereign States whose independence and sovereignty within their defined borders were not contested or opposed by their neighbours and whose formation or creation was in conformity with the principles of international law, so that the United Nations might include all the rightful States of the world.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“They pleaded for a spirit of conciliation to dissipate that fear. The Syrian representative stated that, contrary to the intent of the Charter embodied in Article A, according to which membership in the United Nations was open to all peace-loving States they found that membership was, on the contrary, closed to them. It had been refused to seven new applicants whose applications had been supported by nine votes out of eleven in the Security Council, but had been blocked by the veto; five of her applications had failed to obtain the necessary seven affirmative votes. Thus, there were twelve States whose applications had not been favoured by the Security Council and whose admission to membership had not been recommended to the General Assembly by the Security Council.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“Unless the rivalry between the leading Powers was stopped, the sublime expectations of the world concept could not be realized. It was indeed distressing to see the wave of disappointment spreading over all the world and the desired freedom from fear still far in the distance. Feelings of anxiety, despondency and even fright prevailed. The world atmosphere was being saturated by that wave which was diffusing among all people a spirit of defeatism, encouraging warmongering States, and leading to colossal preparations for a premeditated struggle on a gigantic scale. The small nations in the meantime had centred their hopes on the United Nations. They looked to the representatives of the peoples assembled at the present session in the city of Paris, where the first spark of liberty and human rights had been struck off.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“It was not certain how the representative of the United States, for instance, would have acted, had he been in the minority, as the representative of the USSR had always been. Was it not likely that in such circumstances he might have secured the objective of his Government by means of the veto? As long as the Security Council was considered a political organ, its members did not feel themselves bound by the principles of justice and international law. They did not consider themselves impartial judges in any cases presented to them. It was to be noted that the USSR representative resorted to the use of the veto because he failed to secure enough votes in support of his wish and always saw the wishes of his opponents prevail.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“El-Khouri remarked that the world, including the United Nations, was at present divided into two hostile blocs. The conflict resulting from that division had been manifest even in the first meeting of the General Committee on 25 April 1945 at San Francisco. The controversy had continued, becoming more and more acrid, as had been reflected in the activities in the Security Council, most of which were at present at a standstill. It might seem strange that only one of the great Powers has practised the privilege of the veto, while the other four had not resorted to that device with the exception of one case only. The Western Powers, however, had never needed the veto to secure their objectives. They had always been able to obtain the seven affirmative votes necessary for the adoption of their proposals.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“Appraising that alternative, they had chosen to include Article 27, together with Articles 108 and 109, which made amendments to the Charter also subject to the veto rule. At that time, however, it had not been anticipated that the privilege might be abused to such a wide extent as to frustrate the essential objectives of the United Nations and to create a deadlock in the conduct of its business, as manifested during the past year in many important issues brought to the attention of the Security Council. Even before the stage of voting had been reached in the Security Council, the work had sometimes been brought to a standstill, as had been the case in the discussions concerning atomic energy and conventional armaments, the application of Article A3 and the activities of the Military Staff Committee. Mr.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“They had anticipated its evil effects on the activities of the Security Council, and had known that the privilege might be abused, that it might actually sterilize the efforts of the Security Council. But they had realized also, from the statements of the great Powers, at that time, that the rule was a necessary prerequisite and condition for the birth of the Organization of the United Nations and its Charter. Representatives at the San Francisco Conference had been told clearly, especially by one of the representatives of the United States, that the defeat of the veto would mean that they should be obliged to return to their respective countries empty-handed, without a charter.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“The only effective safeguard of the honest respect of the treaty was the good faith, fair play, justice and honour of its signatories, together with the necessary justice in the recommendations which might be issued by the General Assembly or the Security Council. The Charter could be violated in different ways. Some of those ways were internal and fell within the scope of the domestic jurisdiction of the State. Some of them were of an external nature, and fell under the provision regarding the Security Council. Mr. El-Khouri recalled that the unanimity rule described as the veto was established in Article 27 of the Charter. The authors of the Charter at the San Francisco Conference had considered it a necessary evil.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“This was so in the case of the Union of South Africa, in connexion with the Palestine problem, the admission of certain nations to membership in the United Nations and with several other issues which might be cited to illustrate the ineptness of recommendations made by the General Assembly. Some naive observers imagined that the General Assembly was a world government or a supreme court of justice empowered to legislate or hand out judgments. That was a wrong conception. The United Nations was only a group of nations united by an international treaty called the Charter. That treaty preserved, untouched, the sovereign prerogatives of its signatories which might not be violated or ignored except with their consent.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“Declining to obey such recommendations did not imply violation of the Charter, nor did it involve sanctions of any kind. Sanctions were to be employed only in cases before the Security Council involving breaches of international peace or acts of aggression. Even then, the Charter granted the power of enforcement to the Security Council alone, and not to the General Assembly. That had been done with a view to reserving to the permanent members, in unanimous agreement, all sanctions and acts of enforcement. Therefore, no compulsory measure of any nature could be taken without being unanimously sponsored by the five great Powers. That safeguard was possible only within the framework of the Security Council. For that reason, in many instances in the past, recommendations of the General Assembly had not been complied with.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“Under the existing conditions some of the resolutions of the Security Council were doomed to remain inert and destined to oblivion. Among them were resolutions on several situations and disputes which had been ignored or disobeyed by the Member States addressed. It had not been possible to take measures of enforcement either because a veto had been exercised or because other obstructions had been placed in the way, or because the means of execution were lacking. The competence of the General Assembly, as defined in Articles 9 to 22 of the Charter, was limited to making recommendations. There was nothing in the text implying the imposition of these recommendations on the parties to whom they were addressed, nor was there any obligation of acceptance and application by the addressees.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“Because of those disagreements, the Security Council had been faced with serious situations having no more means of coping with them at its disposal than had the League of Nations. In view of the existing strained relations between the great Powers, it was to be feared that the Security Council was doomed to remain impotent and helpless far into the foreseeable future, deprived of any adequate armed force with which to give effect to the provisions of Chapter VII of the Charter. Its activities would continue to be confined to mediation and conciliation within the limited scope of the peaceful settlement envisaged in Chapter VI of the Charter. It would continue to rely solely on the moral weight of the prestige of the United Nations.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“It had been presumed that this weakness emanated from the fact that the League of Nations had no armed force available to enforce its resolutions. To redress that shortcoming, Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations had been drafted to provide suitable machinery. That attitude was emphasized in Article 43 of the Charter. During the first two years, the Security Council had worked on the problem with the help of the Military Staff Committee composed of the Chiefs of Staff of the permanent members of the Council. However, no concrete, or even abstract, results had been produced by those efforts. This was primarily due to disagreements among the permanent members.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“It had been a happy idea to hold the present session in Paris, among the liberty-loving French people. In the bright atmosphere of that great capital, it was to be hoped that the present session would prove to be more fruitful than the preceding ones. The essential objective of the United Nations was the maintenance or the restoration of international peace and security. The precedent of the League of Nations had been seriously considered by the authors of the Charter in order to discover and avoid repeating the defects inherent in the Covenant of the League of Nations. It had been discovered that the underlying defect lay in the inability of the League to implement its resolutions for eliminating war or preserving peace.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“Mr. EL-KHOURI stated that the agenda of the third session of the General Assembly contained forty-eight items, besides a supplementary list of about twenty items. Other items might be submitted later. In the general debate at the present session it would not be possible for each delegation to deal with all those items, which would be allotted to the respective Main Committees, where ample time would be given to the representatives to express their views. He would deal very briefly with a few outstanding items, expressing the opinion of his delegation and his own views based on personal experiences in the General Assembly and in the Security Council during the past few years. Four sessions of the General Assembly had already been held in the United States of America and one in London.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“They expect that this great Organization, which was created to maintain peace, may be reminded that justice is the only safeguard of peace. They also earnestly hope and wish that they shall not be compelled by acts of injustice to have no other course but to resort to the sacred right of self-defence.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“United States arms and money are freely sent to other countries to aid a majority against the opposition of a minority within the same nation. But in the case of Palestine, United States arms and' money are willingly sent to aid a minority of intruders against the lawful indigenous majority, and against the mandatory authority itself. It requires a great amount of tolerance and hypocritical courtesy to refrain from denouncing such an equivocal attitude. In conclusion, I must solemnly state that the peace-loving Syrian and Arab peoples squarely oppose the recommendations of the Special Committee, and will never allow a wedge or a foreign hostile bridgehead to be driven into the heart of their fatherland.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“I do not see why the International Refugee Organization has not thought of taking the displaced Jews of Europe to that country to live happily with their co-religionists and save the world from this problem which has given so much annoyance and difficulty to all the Members of the United Nations and the world in general. Finally, in that respect, I should like to state that the Arabs are convinced that the United States of America, whose money finances the widespread Zionist propaganda and their terroristic underground activities, is able, if it wishes, to ' put an end to all these evils, and render, by such an act of justice and fairness, an honest service in support of the principles of the United Nations.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“The USSR gave them a certain area which was vaster than Palestine, and called it the Jewish Socialist Republic of Birobidzhan. Birobidzhan has an area, as I have said, which is more than double the area of Palestine, and already there are about 200,000 Jews who have immigrated there and who are very happy. The country there is sufficient to contain perhaps all the displaced Jews, and more than that number. They say it can contain' about four million people. The soil there is very fertile, and there are rich mineral deposits and virgin forests. They have established textile and other industries there. They are exporting to other countries.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“Why is that? The only reason is the special manner of life which the Jews adopt for themselves and to which they adhere in spite of all the developments and the metamorphoses which have taken place all over the world for all nations. The Jews are all alone, and the United Nations now is faced with the last, but not the least, of these problems. It is as important as any ,of the previous problems. In order to solve this problem, I understand that the Jews wish to have a sovereign State. It would be extraordinary to find judges who would admit that claim and admit also the historical claim for Palestine. It would be very strange to reach that point of view. The USSR prepared a way to satisfy this Jewish aspiration, as it was asserted that they have aspirations which ought to be satisfied.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“There were so many nations that contributed greatly to the civilization of the world and which were stronger and more powerful than the Jewish dynasty. Yet we find none of them in existence now. They were not exterminated; they were assimilated by their invaders and became adapted to the environments in which they found themselves. Of the peoples of antiquity only the Jews maintain their isolation and seclusion, to the dissatisfaction and anger of their compatriots and their neighbours, who never failed to molest and persecute them, on each occasion giving to the world a problem of refugees; a problem of displaced persons. Not a single century in history has been free from such a problem as we now face. The world has always been faced with the problem of Jewish refugees and displaced persons and Jewish persecution at some time or other.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“The name of Palestine is taken from the Philistines of history, of antiquity, who fought against the Jews and strove with them for a very long period, and did not allow them to reach the seacoast. The country now given to the Jews was never occupied by the Jews and the Jews never settled there. It is not a historical principle which has been adopted. It is simply some fantastic dream of the Zionists who wish to have that country for themselves. When the Jews had that dynasty in Palestine, 2,500 years ago, there were many other tribes and nations which flourished at that time. They all disappeared, and do not exist now. There were the Babylonians, the Sumerians, the Akkadians, the Assyrians, the Phoenicians and the Hittites.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“Even the right to property would be proscribed after the lapse of a few years — a maximum of thirty years. But after 2,000 or 2,500 years, what kind of right would be based on historical rights? Everybody knows how the Jews first came to Palestine. They were not the original inhabitants of Palestine. They came from outside as invaders, massacring everybody before them, and killing every living creature in order to take a small part of Palestine on the eastern side in the mountains. Even Jerusalem was not occupied by them until the days of David in the tenth century before Christ. According to the proposal of the majority of the Special Committee, the Jewish State is to be on the seacoast. The seacoast was always held and fought for by the Philistines.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“I do not know what would be the attitude and the reaction of the leaders of United States policy in such a case. There are many religions in the world. The Charter did not recognize the establishment of any State on the basis of religion. States are established on the basis of their existence as nations, irrespective of religion, creed, faith, colour, race, and so on. The Committee assumed the validity of the Jewish claim to Palestine on the basis of historical rights in that country. What are these historical rights? In the report of the Committee, it is stated that the Jews had a dynasty in Palestine two thousand years ago. Everybody knows that all civilized rules of prescription hold that when rights are neglected for such a long time, they are lost.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“None of them in the world is now stateless or without nationality. In their entirety they embrace all the nationalities of the world. Nor are the Jews a race. The Children of Israel today are a very small fraction of the Jewry of the world, for the Jews are composed of all races of mankind from the Negroes to the blond, fair-skinned Scandinavians. Judaism is merely a religion and nothing else. The followers of a certain religious creed cannot be entitled to national aspirations. Suppose the Quakers, who have their majority in the United States, were to rally their congregations and demand that the United States Government should satisfy their national aspirations for a national home and give them some state like Texas, for instance, to be established for them as a sovereign State.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“The Special Committee, in its report, denied to the Arabs the right of independence, alleging that the Arabs had never been an independent separate State in the past. For more than thirteen centuries Palestine has been an integral part of the Arab and Ottoman empires, enjoying all the rights and privileges and bearing all the duties and responsibilities of the other provinces of the empire, including the prerogatives of independence and sovereignty. When any province is detached from an independent State of which it was an integral part, it is unfair to deny it the right of independence on such a flimsy allegation. The Committee assumed that the Jews are a race and a nation entitled to cherish national aspirations. The Jews are not a nation. Every Jew belongs to a certain nationality.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“The Special Committee was not asked to interfere in the functions of that organization. In spite of the fact that the aforesaid constitution adopted by the General Assembly prohibited the re-settlement of refugees in non- self-governing territories without the consent of the indigenous inhabitants or when such contemplated settlement might disturb friendly relations among Member States, the Committee deliberately visited the refugee camps and proposed the admission of a large number of the refugees in these camps into Palestine against the express will and the determined refusal of the great majority of the people of Palestine and against the refusal of the neighbouring States.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“The Arabs never thought that this national home would undergo a metamorphosis which would turn it into a sovereign State. The British Government, on many occasions and by decision of its Parliament, declared that it never intended to give the national home the significance of a State, and the Committee’s majority surpassed in liberality even the gratuities of the Mandate. The Special Committee gave no weight to the explicit promises of His Britannic Majesty’s Government to King Hussein and other Arab officials and organizations in regard to recognizing the independence of Syrian districts, including Palestine. During the second part of its first session, the General Assembly adopted a constitution covering all proceedings for the repatriation and resettlement of refugees and an agency was created for that purpose.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“Moreover, the Special Committee did not confine its liberality towards the Jews within the terms of the Mandate, but went much further, bestowing upon them a sovereign State instead of a national home, which was all that was provided for in the Mandate. Its members took the liberty of giving the term “national home” much wider scope than was intended and interpreted by the authors of the Declaration and the authors of the Mandate themselves. The term “national home” was never construed to mean a sovereign State. The Arabs revolted against the idea of the national home, which was made possible only by the invasion of their fatherland and the settlement upon their soil of foreign immigrants under the protection of the bayonets and armed forces of a great Power.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“They emphasized the contradictory nature of these terms and their violation of and contradiction to the Covenant of the League of Nations, as well as to international law and the sacred rights of peoples. They presented substantial arguments to prove-their points. But the First Committee did not consider this legal aspect at all. It gave it no attention. It overlooked the question of the illegality of the documents which gave birth to this problem. The Committee restricted its efforts to dealing only with the symptoms of the disease rather than with its causes. Had it not been for that Mandate and its exceptional terms and stipulations, and the extravagant imperialistic ambitions of the First World War victors, Palestine would have remained as it used to be for centuries, a province of Syria.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“This right of determining their fate and regime of government should belong to them alone, as well as the right to determine their relations with others. In its terms of reference, the Special Committee was instructed by the General Assembly to study the question of Palestine in all its phases. One of these phases is the legal aspect, which should have been considered the most important, along with the political, social and economic aspects. The Arab States, as well as several other delegations, raised this legal issue before the First Committee and before the General Assembly. They contested the legality of the Balfour Declaration and the exceptional terms of the Palestine Mandate.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“We consider these recommendations are not in conformity with the terms of reference of the Special Committee nor with the Covenant of the League of Nations, nor with the principles of the Charter of the United Nations, nor with the principles of justice, nor with the facts of history and the principles of public rights. The proposal recommended the partition of Palestine into two separate States, granting the lion’s share to the Jews and depriving the rightful owners of the country of their homeland. The majority go so far, in their proposal, as to prepare a draft basis for a constitution, treaties and legislative bills to be forcibly imposed on the people of Palestine. We cannot give weight to such recommendations; they violate one of the fundamental principles of the Charter — namely, the right of self-determination of peoples.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“As a first step, I venture to make a brief analysis of the recommendations presented by seven of the members of the Special Committee, to which the senior representative of the United States of America referred in his speech as worthy of being given “great weight” by the Government of the United States. I do not think he meant that his delegation must necessarily give full support to these recommendations, but hi view of such a statement, I feel it appropriate that the General Assembly should be acquainted with the views of my delegation in this regard.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“The General Assembly in this session is seized with the problem of Palestine, by virtue of the report of the Special Committee constituted during the recent special session. For this purpose, my delegation, being primarily concerned with this subject because of the fact that Palestine is an integral part of Syria, may be allowed to dwell on this point. I feel obliged to explain to the General Assembly in this general debate the attitude of the Syrian Government and people regarding the report of the Special Committee, reserving the right of expanding on the details in the proper Committee.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“The qualifications of applicant States were not always measured by the requirements of the Charter. The idea of strengthening one bloc or weakening another played a principal role in the casting of votes. The Syrian delegation in this matter was actuated by Article 4 and paragraph 6 of Article 2 of the Charter, irrespective of any other responsibility. It would be advisable, in the present circumstances, for the General Assembly to make urgent recommendations to the Security Council to reconsider its resolution on this subject, especially after the ratification of the treaties, which were considered an obstacle and resulted in deferring for another time the consideration of five of the previous applicants.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“On the other hand, and in other cases, in the opinion of the majority, it was used unnecessarily, but in the opinion of the vote-holder himself it was necessary. As long as the vote-holder has that privilege under Article 27 of the Charter, there is no possible way to limit his freedom in exercising that right whenever he deems it useful to his objectives. Many delegations have advocated amending the Charter in respect to Article 27. When this question is discussed in one of the Committees, it must be remembered that such amendments cannot come into force without the concurrent consent of the five big Powers. Care must be taken in that respect for the integrity and solidarity of the United Nations Organization. The admission of new Members has been obstructed by equivocal preconceptions of the permanent member's of the Security Council.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“Another matter which ought to be settled prior to the reduction of armaments is that of fixing the size of forces to be placed by the Member States at the disposal of the Security Council, in implementation of the provisions of Article 43 of the Charter. The Military Staff Committee and the Security Council may be urged to achieve this task without further delay so that the Security Council may proceed to prepare the agreement to that effect and in order that it may possess the capacity to maintain or restore peace wherever and whenever it may be necessary. This sanction is the only efficient way for peace. The veto practice has been exercised on frequent occasions by one or another of the permanent members of the Security Council. I do not deny that this practice has been avoided in some cases by simple abstention.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“One of these matters is the conclusion of the peace treaties with all ex-enemy States on the basis of justice and equity with a view to obtaining a stable readjustment of all pending questions to the satisfaction of all nations concerned, so that they may consider large standing forces no longer necessary, and so that the Security Council will be enabled to fix the size of the force to be kept in each State for the maintenance of internal public order or for self-defence, under Article 51 of the Charter. To realize this end, the General Assembly may make recommendations to the State concerned to expedite the course of work in the peace conferences and to submit the final treaties to be registered in the Secretariat of the United Nations.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)