unitex@rubbs.fidonet.org (unitex) (10/03/89)
UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY. GENERAL DEBATE With a single market soon to be achieved, with economic and monetary union in sight, and with political unification and a common foreign and security policy among its aims, the European Community endeavoured to become an increasing factor of stability, peace and co-operation in the world, even more so in Europe, he declared. Europe wished to be a magnet and a model for progress which generated freedom and happiness for its citizens. "This Europe of the Twelve is not a power, it is an enabling force." He stressed that a strengthened European Community could make an important contribution to the establishment of genuine co-operation between East and West in such a way that the scars left by the Second World War could finally be healed. A common European house was only conceivable as a truly democratic house, where every citizen was free to enjoy fundamental political and economic freedoms. The world must support the countries that effectively implement reform policies based on those values. That was the reason for the present aid and co-operation with countries such as Poland and Hungary, he stated. The common European house did not have to result in a Europe of uniformity. It could contain numerous rooms in which each people organized itself as a State under its right to self-determination. But it was obvious that such a European house was unthinkable as long as a Berlin wall continued to divide Europeans, he concluded. MOSHE ARENS, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Israel, said the United Nations had been founded by the nations that had fought and won the most terrible war mankind had known: a war against racism, fascism, and man's inhumanity to man. That war was forever associated with the Holocaust of the Jewish people. The murder of six million by Nazi Germany and its henchmen, the abandonment of the Jews by the rest of the world, remained engraved forever in the heart and soul of mankind, he stated. In November 1947, the Holocaust still a vivid memory, the United Nations General Assembly had reaffirmed a decision taken by the League of Nations 26 years earlier. Then the League had given international recognition to the Zionist movement and its goal the establishment of the Jewish State in Palestine. In 1947, the United Nations called for the establishment of the Jewish State in a fraction of the territory originally designated for this purpose by the League of Nations. The United Nations resolution of 1947 was today part of Israel's history, an expression of support for zionism; the right of the Jewish people to their own State in their ancient homeland. "But in 1975", he went on to say, "the General Assembly, greatly enlarged but unfortunately not grown in moral stature, adopted the 'zionism is racism' resolution, that makes a sham of the United Nations resolution adopted 28 years earlier, and that continues to this day to be a stain on the record of this Organization. As long as this resolution is not revoked, no moral authority can accompany United Nations decisions, and an air of hypocrisy continues to envelop its debates". Israel had learned to be in the minority at the United Nations, Mr. ARENS said, just as it had learned to exist in the dangerous environment of the Middle East. "We live in a constant state of alert, allocating a great part of our resources to defence, determined to fight terrorism and ward off aggression." The Arab armies surrounding Israel maintained an inventory of modern weaponry; tanks, aircraft, missiles, artillery; larger than all the weaponry of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). During the past decade, military equipment valued at some $100 billion was purchased by the countries of that area. "We have already experienced five wars", he said, "we have already lost thousands of our sons in Israel's defence. We see around us a Middle East that is brutal and fanatic, where no mercy is shown even to civilians". A million soldiers were killed in the Iraqi-Iranian war, he continued, where the most modern weapons of mass destruction were applied, including chemical warfare used on a massive scale by the Iraqi army. "Is it then paranoia when Israel, in this environment and under these circumstances, feels itself threatened?" he asked. And yet Israel, embattled and beleaguered, continued in the quest for peace. Many of the Arab rulers seemed to have no desire for peace with Israel, no matter what the conditions. Worse yet, it was the aim of those rulers to prevent others from making peace with Israel. The Foreign Minister of Israel, Mr. ARENS, then said that in May of 1983, Israel had signed an agreement with Lebanon that would have normalized relations between the two countries and that entailed the withdrawal of the Israeli Defence Forces from southern Lebanon. But that agreement was scuttled by Syrian interference. "They had other plans for Lebanon. Six years have passed and the Lebanese tragedy continues. Southern Lebanon is still a staging-ground for terrorist attacks by the PLO and the Hizbullah against the towns and villages on Israel's northern border." Israel's four-point peace initiative, he said, included a call for a common Israeli-Egyptian effort to build on the foundations of the Camp David accords towards a comprehensive peace for the Middle East. He called on the 20 Arab countries, presently in a state of war with Israel, to cease hostile propaganda and economic boycott and begin a process of normalizing their * Origin: UNITEX --> Toward a United Species (1:107/501) --- Patt Haring | United Nations | FAX: 212-787-1726 patth@sci.ccny.cuny.edu | Information | BBS: 201-795-0733 patth@ccnysci.BITNET | Transfer Exchange | (3/12/24/9600 Baud) -=- Every child smiles in the same language. -=-