Members of the United Nations;
Here, we see, in action, yet another example of the pervasive anti-Semitism which riddles certain Arab nations - seeking to justify their hatred and their own aggression through high-minded lies. Let us not forget the ardent policy of the Arab world towards our nation as set out in the Khartoum Resolution: "no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel". This is the position from which they seek to disarm us, and have the audacity to call Israel a 'threat to peace'. Our offers of peace, of negotiation, have all been rejected. They desire only our death and extermination.
Nearly four years ago, the nation of the Jewish people survived the second attempt at genocide wrought upon them by the Arab states. More than half a million troops, a thousand military aircraft, and twenty-five hundred soldiers were massed upon Israel's borders, expelling the peaceful observers of the United Nations Emergency Force to ensure that they would not witness the massacres they planned to inflict upon us - and even, spitting further in the face of the cause of peace, used these now-vacated United Nations peacekeeper positions to set up an illegal blockade, closing the Straits of Tiran and using these positions to fire upon peaceful Israeli shipping. Through only the valour and skill of the Israeli people at arms, without outside aid and faced with the prospect of invasion from all sides, our nation was saved through a pre-emptive strike by our Air Force - our only means of survival, alone, a country of three million against nations of over fifty million, their governments seeking our extermination.
Israel is a peaceful country, and we are a peaceful people, a people seeking only to live in a country of our own, free from those who desire our destruction. This can be seen in the way in which we defend ourselves: other than a few professionals, who stand guard at all times, our soldiers are our factory workers, our teachers, our lawyers, our farmers, from the humblest to the most priveleged, from all walks of life - and from all faiths, with Jews, Christians, Muslims and others serving side by side. They do not take up arms in aggression, nor do they stand, rifle in hand, seeking to control others and impose their will upon them, as do those militants who seize refugee camps and make misery even more miserable. No. Our soldiers go about their daily lives, in peace, hoping never to be required to defend their homes, their families, and their country from annihilation - but ever on guard against the hatred of those who wish to see them dead. As those who wish to see them dead are threatened by armies of aggression, whose members have the sole job of fighting and killing, this system is not only wise, but necessary for our survival.
If you were to take a tour of the military inventories of Syria, of Egypt, of Iraq, you will see vast numbers of foreign arms, acquired in a continual and unending state of military build-up since 1948. If the Arab states claim to desire the end of force of arms as a means of settling disputes, they should, perhaps, reduce their military spending, and cease importing armaments with which to threaten Israel. Simply put, this resolution aims to carry on allowing arms to be supplied to nations seeking the elimination of another nation, while seeking to prevent the target of this aggression defending itself. It goes without saying, as well, they should not attempt invasions of their 'friendly neighbours' in support of terrorists, or indeed, funding and arming those terrorists, as we have seen so recently in the example of the defeated Syrian invasion of Jordan. It is hypocrisy and folly to make the claims that the Iraqi representative makes, particularly as his own nation was one of those that deployed tanks to our border in 1967 as part of the preparations for invasion.
On the question of recent settlements in the named territories: the State of Israel does not condone such settlements, nor grant them support nor permission. All new
aliyah arrivals in Israel, barring those with family connections whom are joining their loved ones, are being housed by the state in the areas of Lachish, Ashkelon, Negev and Galilee, which are entirely undisputed and uncontroversial. Israel will not, however, take a position on 'lawful occupants', as we are not in position at this time - and indeed, neither is the world - to decide which inhabitants of these areas may be lawful, or indeed, which laws should be applied. For the hatred and prejudice of the Arab governments is not only against Jews and Israelis, but against Druze, Bedouins, Circassians, and all others who do not fit in with their expansionist fantasies of a homogenous 'unified Arab state', or with the fundamentalist religious views of segments their populations. While the nations of the world may be led by the Iraqi representative, and others, into believing that a vote in favour of 'restoring the territories to their lawful civilian occupants' is a simple act of justice, they would, instead, be participating in an effort towards ethnic and religious 'cleansing' of minorities which some Arab governments consider undesirable. Yet the Iraqi representative claims that we, the only democracy in the region and which has extended citizenship to all of its inhabitants, are repressive.
As should, by now, be obvious, we vote
no, though this resolution is so ill-founded upon reality, and steeped in prejudice, that we believe it does not deserve even to be brought to a vote before this body.
-Yosef Tekoah, Permanent Representative of the State of Israel to the United Nations
