1 must mention the tire of the Aksa Mosque and the disfiguration of many of the monuments, which are both historic and religious in character. Jerusalem with its religious history and its spiritual values, bears witness to the future. It is proof of our eternal presence, of our civilization, of our human values. It is therefore not surprising that under its skies the three religions were born and that under that sky these three religions shine in order to enlighten mankind so that it might express the tribulations and hopes of humanity, and that it might mark out the road of the future with its hopes.
The small number of Palestinian Arabs who were not uprooted by the Zionists in 1948 are at present refugees in their own homeland. Israeli law treats them as second-class citizens-and even as third class citizens since Oriental Jews are second-class citizens-and they have been subject to all forms of racial discrimination and terrorism after confiscation of their land and property. They have been victims of bloody massacres such as that of Kfar Kassim, they have been expelled from their villages and denied the right to return, as in the case of the inhabitants of Rait and Kfar-Birim. For 26 years, our population has been living under martial law and was denied the freedom of movement without prior permission from the Israeli military governor, this at a time when an Israeli law was promulgated granting citizenship to any Jew anywhere who wanted to emigrate to our homeland. Moreover, another Israeli law stipulated that Palestinians who were not present in their villages or towns at the time of the occupation were not entitled to Israeli citizenship.
The record of Israeli rulers is replete with acts of terror perpetrated on those of our people who remained under occupation in Sinai and the Golan Heights. The criminal bombardment of the Bahr-al-Bakar School and the Abou Zaabal factory are but two such unforgettable acts of terrorism.5 The total destruction of the Syrian city of Kuneitra is yet another tangible instance of systematic terrorism. If a record of Zionist terrorism in South Lebanon were to be compiled, the enormity of its acts would shock even the most hardened : piracy, bombardments, scorched-earth, destruction of hundreds of homes, eviction of civilians and the kidnapping of Lebanese citizens. This clearly constitutes a violation of Lebanese sovereignty and is in preparation for the diversion of the Litani River waters.
Need one remind this Assembly of the numerous resolutions adopted by it condemning Israeli agGREssions committed against Arab countries, Israeli violations of human rights and the articles of the Geneva Conventions, as well as the resolutions pertaining to the annexation of the city of Jerusalem and its restoration to its former status ?
The Only description for these acts is that they are acts of barbarism and terrorism. And yet, the Zionist racists and colonialists have the temerity to describe the just struggle of our people as terror. Could there be a more flagrant distortion of truth than this ? We ask those who usurped our land, who are committing murderous acts of terrorism against our people and are practicing racial discrimination more extensively than the racists of South Africa, we ask them to keep in mind the United Nations General Assembly resolution that called for the one-year suspension’ of the membership of the Government of South Africa from the United Nations. Such is the inevitable fate of every racist country that adopts the law of the jungle, usurps the homeland of others and persists in oppression.
For the past 30 years, our people have had to struggle against British occupation and Zionist invasion both of which had one intention, namely the usurpation of our land. Six major revolts and tens of popular uprisings were staged to foil these attempts, so that our homeland might remain ours. Over 30,000 martyrs the equivalent in comparative terms of 6 million Americans, died in the process.
When the majority of the Palestinian people was uprooted from its homeland in 1948, the Palestinian struggle for self-determination continued under the most difficult conditions. We tried every possible means to continue our political struggle to attain our national rights, but to no avail. Meanwhile, we had to struggle for sheer existence. Even in exile we educated our children. This was all a part of trying to survive.
The Palestinian people produced thousands of physicians, lawyers, teachers and scientists who actively participated in the development of the Arab countries bordering on their usurped homeland. They utilized their income to assist the young and aged amongst their people who remained in the refugee camps. They educated their younger sisters and brothers, supported their parents and cared for their children. All along, the Palestinian dreamt of return. Neither the Palestinian’s allegiance to Palestine nor his determination to return waned ; nothing could persuade him to relinquish his Palestinian identity or to forsake his homeland. The passage of time did not make him forget, as some hoped he would. When our people lost faith in the international community which persisted in ignoring its rights and when it became obvious that the Palestinians would not recuperate one inch of Palestine through exclusively political means, our people had no choice but to resort to armed struggle. Into that struggle it poured its material and human resources. We bravely faced the most vicious acts of Israeli terrorism which were aimed at diverting our struggle and arresting it.
In the past 10 years of our struggle, thousands of martyrs and twice as many wounded, maimed and imprisoned were offered in sacrifice ; all in an effort to resist the imminent threat of liquidation, to regain our right to self-determination and our undisputed right to return to our homeland. With the utmost dignity and the most admirable revolutionary spirit, our Palestinian people has not lost its spirit in Israeli prisons and concentration camps or when faced with all forms of harassment and intimidation. It struggles for sheer existence and it continues to strive to preserve the Arab character of its land. Thus it resists oppression, tyranny and terrorism in their ugliest forms.
It is through our popular armed struggle that our political leadership and our national institutions finally crystallized and a national liberation movement, comprising all the Palestinian factions, organizations, and capabilities, materialized in the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Through our militant Palestine national liberation movement, our people’s struggle matured and grew enough to accommodate political and social struggle in addition to armed struggle. The Palestine Liberation Organization was a major factor in creating a new Palestinian individual, qualified to shape the future of our Palestine, not merely content with mobilizing the Palestinians for the challenges of the present.
The Palestine Liberation Organization can be proud of having a large number of cultural and educational activities, even while engaged in armed struggle, and at a time when it faced increasingly vicious blows of Zionist terrorism. We established institutes for scientific research, agricultural development and social welfare, as well as centers for the revival of our cultural heritage and the preservation of our folklore. Many Palestinian poets, artists and writers have enriched Arab culture in particular, and world culture generally. Their profoundly humane works have won the admiration of all those familiar with them. In contrast to that, our enemy has been systematically destroying our culture and disseminating, racist, imperialist ideologies, in short, everything that impedes progress, justice, democracy and peace.
The Palestine Liberation Organization has earned its legitimacy because of the sacrifice inherent in its Pioneering role, and because of its dedicated leadership of the struggle. It has also been granted this . legitimacy by the Palestinian masses, which in harmony with it have chosen it to lead the struggle according to its directives. The Palestine liberation Organization has also gained its legitimation . by representing every faction, union or group as well as every Palestinian talent, either in the National Council or in people’s institutions. This legitimacy was further strengthened by the support of the entire Arab nation, and it was consecrated during the last Arab Summit Conference, which reiterated the right of the Palestine Liberation Organization in its capacity as the . sole representative of the Palestinian People, to establish an independent national State on all liberated Palestinian territory.
Moreover, the Palestine Liberation Organization’s legitimacy was intensified as a result of fraternal support g movements and by friendly, like-minded nations that stood by our side, encouraging and aiding us in our struggle to secure our national rights.
Here 1 must also warmly convey the gratitude of our revolutionary fighters and that of our people to the non-aligned countries, the socialist countries, the Islamic countries, the African countries and friendly European countries, as well as ail our other friends in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
The Palestine Liberation Organization represents the Palestinian people, legitimately and uniquely. Because of this, the Palestine Liberation Organization expresses the wishes and hopes of its people. Because of this, too, it brings these very wishes and hopes before you, urging you not to shirk a momentous historic responsibility towards our just cause.
For many years now, our people has been exposed to the ravages of war, destruction and dispersion. It has paid in the blood of its sons that which cannot ever be compensated. It has borne the burdens of occupation, dispersion, eviction and terror more uninterruptedly than any other people. And yet all this has made our people neither vindictive nor vengeful. Nor has it caused us to resort to the racism of our enemies. Nor have we lost the true method by which friend and foe are distinguished.
For we deplore ail those crimes committed against the Jews, we also deplore all the real discrimination suffered by them because of their faith.
I am a rebel and freedom is my cause. 1 know well that many of you present here today once stood in exactly the same resistance position as I now occupy and from which 1 must fight. You once had to convert dreams into reality by your struggle. Therefore you must now share my dream. 1 think this is exactly why I can ask you now to help, as together we bring out our dream into a bright reality, our common dream for a peaceful future in Palestine’s sacred land.
As lie stood in an Israeli military court, the Jewish revolutionary, Ahud Adif, said : “I am no terrorist ; I believe that a democratic State should exist on this land.” Adif now languishes in a Zionist prison among his co-believers. To him and his colleagues 1 send my heartfelt good wishes.
And before those same courts there stands today a brave prince of the church, Bishop Capucci. Lifting his fingers to form the same victory sign used by our freedom-fighters, he said : “What 1 have done, 1 have done that all men may live on this land of peace in peace.” This princely priest will doubtless share Adif’s grim fate. To him we send our salutations and greetings.
Why therefore should 1 not dream and hope ? For is not revolution the making real of dreams and hopes ? So let us work together that my dream may be fulfilled, that 1 may return with my people out of exile, there in Palestine to live with this Jewish freedom-fighter and his partners, with this Arab priest and his brothers, in one democratic State where Christian, Jew and Moslem live in justice, equality, fraternity and progress.
Is this not a noble dream worthy of my struggle alongside all lovers of freedom everywhere ? For the most admirable dimension of this dream is that it is Palestinian, a dream from out of the land of peace, the land of martyrdom and heroism, and the land of history, too.
Let us remember that the Jews of Europe and the United States have been kmown to lead the struggles for secularism and the separation of Church and State. They have also been known to fight against discrimination on religious grounds. How then can they continue to support the most fanatic, discriminatory and closed of nations in its policy ?
In my formal capacity as Chairrnan of the Palestine Liberation Organization and leader of the Palestinian revolution 1 proclaim before you that when we speak of our common hopes for the Palestine of tomorrow we include in our perspective all Jews now living in Palestine who choose to live with us there in peace and without discrimination.
In my formal capacity as Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization and leader of the Palestinian revolution I call upon Jews to turn away one by on from the illusory promises made to them by Zionist ideology and Israeli leader ship. They are offering Jews perpetual bloodshed endless war and continuous thraldom.
We invite them to emerge from their moral isolation into a more open realm of free choice, far from their present leadership’s efforts to implant in them a Massada complex.
We offer them the most generous solution, that we might live together in a framework of just peace in Our democratic Palestine.
In my formal capacity as Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, I announce here that we do not wish one drop of either Arab or Jewish [blood] to be shed ; neither do we delight in the continuation of killing, which would end once a just peace,9 based on Our people’s rights, hopes and aspirations had been
In my formal capacity as Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization and leader of the Palestinian revolution I appeal to you to accompany Our people in its struggle to attain its right to self-determination. This right is consecrated in the United Nations Charter and bas been repeatedly confirmed in resolutions adopted by this august body since the drafting of the Charter. I appeal to you, further, to aid Our people’s return to its homeland from an involuntary exile imposed upon it by force of arms, by tyranny, by oppression, so that we may regain Our property, Our land, and thereafter live in Our national homeland, free and sovereign, enjoying all the privileges of nationhood. Only then can we pour all our resources into the mainstream of human civilization. Only then car Palestinian creativity be concentrated on the service of humanity. Only then will Our Jerusalem resume its historic role as a peaceful shrine for all religions.
I appeal to you to enable Our people to establish national independent sovereignty over its own land.
Today I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter’s gun. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand. I repeat : do not let the olive branch fall from my hand.
