The renewal of the mandate of UNIFIL provided the Arab states with an opportunity to repeat their claims that Israel was responsible for the various woes that afflicted Lebanon. The Arab spokesmen in the Council focused their attacks on Israeli support for the Christian militia forces of Major Saad Haddad in southern Lebanon. They, of course, disregarded the role of the Syria forces in Lebanon and the P.L.O. terrorist operations against Israel. Following are the responses of Ambassador Blum to the allegations. Excerpts:
STATEMENT OF 12 JUNE
The crucial question before this Council in the present context is whether once and for all the use of Lebanese territory for acts of aggression against Israel will be ended and to what extent UNIFIL will be instrumental in this. In this context, attention has been drawn to the terrorist PLO's "reaffirmation" of its so-called commitment not to initiate any action from inside the UNIFIL area of operation and not to shell Israel Defence Forces or the local Lebanese forces in the south from Lebanese territory "unless they are attacked first" as the Secretary-General's report of 8 June 1979 has it (S/13384, para. 38).
Members of the Council should not be hoodwinked. This so-called commitment is carefully phrased so as not to apply to civilians, the traditional and almost exclusive target of PLO barbarity. Moreover, the PLO has never honoured such a "commitment", and indeed was in the process of violating it in south Lebanon at precisely the same time as it was supposedly "reaffirming it" through United Nations channels in Beirut. On the night of 4 to 5 June, PLO terrorists made an unprovoked attack on the village of Bint Jebel in the Irish sector of UNIFIL's area of operation. Then, on the morning of 8 June, the very day that the Secretary-General's report was being prepared, PLO terrorists attacked Lebanese militiamen near the village of Taibe. They were beaten off, leaving behind arms and bazooka rockets. A group belonging to the so-called Popular Front - a constituent of the PLO - has boasted of its responsibility for both these incidents.
Moreover, on 8 June 1979, there was an attempt at infiltration at Ras al-Beide in the western sector of UNIFIL's area of operation. On 9 June 1979, UNIFIL apprehended a truck full of PLO terrorists, once again in the western sector of its area of operation. On 11 June 1979, three PLO terrorists were caught by Fijian soldiers and three others by Dutch soldiers. All six were taken out of UNIFIL's area and conveyed to the Tyre pocket.
As if this were not enough with regard to UNIFIL's area of operation, the PLO has also broken its so-called commitment not to initiate hostilities across the border, for, again on 8 June, it shelled civilian targets in northern Galilee.
All this corroborates the notice I gave the Council in my statement on 31 May 1979, when I mentioned that lately Israel had received information, from reliable sources, that a decision had been taken to step up violence by the terrorist PLO in southern Lebanon.
I feel bound to refer at this point to another attempt at diversion carried out with a view to making political capital by confusing the issues. I have in mind the misleading references to the Israel-Lebanon Armistice Agreement of 1949, contained in the Lebanese memorandum (S/13361), an agreement that was drawn to the attention of members by the Lebanese representative in his statement before the Council on 31 May 1979.
The sudden interest of the Lebanese representative in that Armistice Agreement and his professed attachment to it at this late stage rings hollow, to say the least. The Lebanese representative surely does not believe that the Council's memory is so short or its members so ill-informed that they are not aware of the fact that in 1967 the Government of Lebanon renounced the Armistice Agreement with Israel.
As members will recall, on 8 June 1967, the third day of the Arab-Israel war of that year, the Israel representative on the Israel-Lebanese Mixed Armistice Commission (ILMAC) requested at Rosh Hanikra a meeting with the Lebanese representative within the framework of the Commission. The Lebanese reply was that Lebanon would not agree to such a meeting "in view of the state of war". That position was consonant with that taken by the Foreign Minister of Lebanon in this very chamber on 30 May 1967 when he expressed unlimited support for the acts of war being committed against Israel and announced that
"The Government and people of Lebanon would fulfill their commitments under the charter of the League of Arab States and the Arab Treaty of Mutual Defence." (Security Council Official Records, 1344th meeting, p. 2)
Not only did Lebanon declare that it was in a state of war with Israel but it also took active part in the war by sending its aircraft to bomb Israeli territory. Thus, by these declarations and actions, the Government of Lebanon made it clear that it considered that the Armistice Agreement had come to an end.
There are fundamental facts which cannot be sidestepped or distorted in any circumstances or in any context. The Israel-Lebanon Armistice Agreement of 23 March 1949 was a bilateral instrument between our two countries, which were the only parties to it. It is totally inadmissible for the Lebanese Ambassador to try, as he did in his aforementioned memorandum, to make others party to it.
Moreover, the essence of the Israel-Lebanon Armistice Agreement was a commitment to putting an end to all hostilities and acts of aggression between Israel and Lebanon. This was summed up in article III of the Agreement, which inter alia prohibited terrorists from operating on or from the territories of both parties. Paragraph 2 of that article laid down that no "paramilitary forces", including "non-regular forces"
"shall commit any warlike or hostile act against the military or paramilitary forces of the other Party, or against civilians in territory under the control of that Party." (S/1296/Rev. 1, p. 3)
This obligation under the Armistice Agreement was merely a reiteration of the fundamental obligation of all States under general international law to prevent the use of their territory for acts of aggression against another State.
Lebanon has for years - and not just since the massive entry of the PLO into its territory in the early 1970s - ignored these obligations flowing from both the Armistice Agreement and general international law. As long as these fundamental obligations are not respected - and assurances are not forthcoming that they will be respected -reference to the Armistice Agreement and the frameworks established under it can scarcely be meaningful.
The position of Israel vis-a-vis Lebanon remains unchanged.
Israel supports the national sovereignty and territorial integrity of Lebanon within its internationally recognized boundaries.
The Government of Israel wants peace in and with Lebanon.
Moreover, despite Lebanon's ongoing problems and their complexity, Israel believes that the time has none the less come to exert all efforts to move towards a negotiated peace between Israel and Lebanon. In keeping with this primary objective of Israel's foreign policy, Prime Minister Begin in the Knesset on 7 May 1979 addressed a direct appeal to the President of Lebanon, inviting him to a meeting with a view to reaching a negotiated peace treaty between Israel and Lebanon.
On 31 May 1979, in this chamber, I drew the attention of the Lebanese representative to that proposal to make peace. The Government of Israel still awaits the response of Lebanon to this proposal.
STATEMENT OF 14 JUNE
This is the eighth time in the course of the last 15 months that the Security Council has discussed the situation in southern Lebanon. However, thus far we have been treated to a very selective reading of the situation. As on previous occasions, an undisguised attempt has been made by some participants to gloss over the real issues relating, to Lebanon and instead to focus their comments on Israel almost exclusively, in a highly mischievous and diversionary manner.
All of us here are painfully aware that Lebanon's problems did not begin with the events that led to the establishment of UNIFIL and are by no means confined to the area of its operation. In their present form, Lebanon's problems began in the early 1970s, when the terrorist PLO injected itself in large numbers into Lebanon and set up a State within a State there, particularly in the area of the south of that country, which was dubbed Fatahland. Then, during the civil war that began in 1974, Syria exploited the opportunity to invade Lebanon on the pretext of aiding the Government of Lebanon against the PLO and of restoring peace. Having ruthlessly massacred Palestinians in Tel al-Zaatar and elsewhere, it then turned upon the -Christians and in the process not only laid the country bare but also tore it apart.
Members of the Council are more than familiar with these facts, and there is no need to elaborate upon them here. What should be stressed, however, is that the situation now prevailing in the south of Lebanon is a direct outcome of the situation in other parts of that deeply troubled country, and in particular in Beirut and its environs.
When the Council met in March 1978 to deal with the question of southern Lebanon, it was well aware of these facts. Thus the Council took cognizance of the problem of Lebanon as a whole, fully understanding that the presence of thousands of armed PLO terrorists and the presence of up to one third of the Syrian army on Lebanese soil constituted major barriers to the establishment of international peace and security and to the reassertion thereafter of Lebanon's authority over its territory.
With those considerations in mind, in its resolution 425 (1978), the Council called for
"strict respect for the territorial integrity, sovereignty political independence" - and I stress political independence -"of Lebanon within its internationally recognized boundaries".
UNIFIL was established not only for the purpose of confirming the withdrawal of the Israeli Defence Forces, but also for the purpose of
"restoring international peace and security and assisting the Government of Lebanon in ensuring the return of its effective authority in the area." (Resolution 425 (1978), para. 3)
In order to achieve that purpose, UNIFIL was ordered to prevent the infiltration of armed personnel into the areas under its control, an instruction aimed at preventing the PLO from returning to the region - this being a necessary condition for the establishment of international peace and security.
In recent months we have witnessed a distinct tendency to ignore essential elements of that resolution. Indeed, the truncation of UNIFIL's mandate may even be inferred from the subsection entitled "Guidelines and terms of reference" which has appeared in the last three reports prepared by the Secretary-General in anticipation of the periodic renewals of UNIFIL's mandate. On that interpretation, UNIFIL's function would be confined (a) to confirming Israel's withdrawal - which was done on 13 June 1978; I refer members to the Secretary-General's report of the same date: document S/12620/Add.5; and (b) to the establishment and maintenance of an area of operations.
Somehow, attention seems to have been diverted from the centrality of the other inseparable components of UNIFIL's mandate, which are, first, the restoration of international peace and security - and, I should point out, "international peace and security" is a two-way street; and, secondly, assistance to the Government of Lebanon in ensuring the return of its effective authority in the area - that is, only after restoring international peace and security.
Israel's concern in these matters derives from a direct and vital security interest. What happens in southern Lebanon directly affects the daily lives and safety of our people who live in the towns and villages throughout Israel, and in particular in the north of our country. The speedy return of PLO terrorists to southern Lebanon as a base for operations against civilian targets in Israel, as it had been for several years in the past, is therefore a matter of deep concern.
As I pointed out in my letter of 9 May 1979 (S/13312 and Corr.1), the PLO made no attempt to hide its intentions. Shortly after UNIFIL was established, Abu Iyyad, one of Yasser Arafat's leading henchmen, indicated in an interview with the Swiss newspaper Tagesanzeiger in April 1978 that the PLO would return to its bases in southern Lebanon.
The PLO moved quickly to carry out its threat, and within months of the establishment of UNIFIL, about 2,000 of its armed terrorists found their way south of the River Litani. Some 1,500 of them are located in and around the area of Tyre, which reaches within eight miles of Israel - an area which was originally conceived as part of UNIFIL's area of operation and which UNIFIL was prevented from entering by PLO terrorists who did not hesitate to use armed force and to kill and wound UNFIL soldiers.
To make matters worse, there are also today several hundred other armed terrorists inside UNIFIL's area of operation, whom the Force allows to receive supplies on a regular basis.
Moreover, as indicated in paragraph 21 of the Secretary- General's latest report, in recent months there have been increased efforts by PLO terrorists to infiltrate the area under UNIFIL's control. The Secretary-General speaks of "40 major infiltration attempts involving 140 armed elements" - "armed elements" being the euphemistic term adopted here for PLO terrorists. Those involved "were escorted out of the area" - presumably still in possession of their weapons and no doubt to try their luck on another occasion.
This is by no means the end of the story, for there are another 10,000 to 12,000 armed terrorists in areas of Lebanon north of the Litani.
In the first few months of UNIFIL's existence, the PLO maintained a relatively low profile, especially with regard to the Force. However, as the Secretary-General indicated in paragraph 19 of his report of 19 April 1979 (S/13258) and then stated emphatically in paragraph 24 of his latest report:
"The number of incidents involving Palestinian and Lebanese armed elements and UNIFIL has increased during the period under review. The majority of these incidents involved attempts at infiltration of armed personnel into the UNIFIL area of operation which were successfully prevented by UNIFIL. ...The most serious of these incidents occurred on 3 February in the Fijian battalion headquarters area at Qana, which resulted in the death of two Fijian soldiers and the wounding of four others. On that occasion, four Norwegian medical personnel aboard a UNIFIL, helicopter that had been dispatched to evacuate one of the wounded Fijian soldiers were also killed as the craft accidentally hit an overhead electric cable and crashed (S/13256, para. 16)". (S/13384, para. 24)
This list given by the Secretary-General is, as he himself indicated, by no means complete.
Let me remind members of the Council that in the last six months, and in particular since the signing of the Israel-Egypt peace treaty on 26 March 1979, the PLO has once again activated southern Lebanon as a base for indiscriminate attacks on civilian centres in northern Israel. In my letter of 9 May, document S/13312, I gave an extensive list of terrorist attacks launched by the PLO by land and sea from Lebanese territory against civilian centres in the north of Israel.
I shall not go into the gory and brutal details. These have been described in the letters submitted by me, as the worst of the atrocities have occurred. I shall only remind members that in the last six months some 20 major outrages have been perpetrated or attempted against Israel by PLO terrorists setting out from Lebanon.
Moreover, as pointed out by the Secretary-General at the beginning of this debate and in his latest report, these attacks by land and sea from Lebanese territory are not isolated acts. They are part of a much wider pattern and must be seen as such. Hence, during the same period, that is in the last six months, there have been over 30 other major acts of PLO terror in Israel.
In sum, the criminal activities of the PLO over the last six months have resulted in 19 fatalities and the injury of 232 people in Israel. All the casualties have been civilians, and many of them children.
The PLO, as is its wont, has openly boasted of its responsibility for all these acts. Moreover, in almost every case it was through its news agency in Beirut and on its radio station broadcasting from Lebanon that the PLO bragged of this responsibility. Members of the Council will find ample evidence of this phenomenon with regard to the outrages in my letters of the last six months circulated as official documents.
All the recent incidents have one thing in common. They aim at the murder of civilians. This has been the consistent pattern of the PLO's activities throughout its existence. This is not the work of a national liberation organization, as the PLO incongruously purports to be. It is the work of international criminals of the worst kind bent on the indiscriminate mass murder of civilians. That is the true character and the true face of the terrorist PLO.
Moreover, the PLO has also stressed its intention of continuing its criminal activities, particularly in connexion with the signing of the Israel-Egypt peace treaty of 26 March 1969. Thus, on 12 March 1979, Yasser Arafat was quoted by Associated Press in Beirut as saying:
"Carter, Begin and Sadat should understand that we will burn everything... Our people will continue to fuel the torch of the revolution with rivers of blood..."
On 2 April 1979, Farouk Kaddoumi, another of Arafat's henchmen, openly said in an interview with the Kuwaiti newspaper al-Rai al-'Amm that the PLO would escalate its activities against Israel.
That then is a true reflection of the PLO's intentions - despite its so-called "renewed commitment" not to shell Israel Defence Force or the local Lebanese force targets "unless ... attacked first", and not to launch attacks across the Lebanese border. As I said in my statement on Tuesday, the PLO was in fact in the process of violating that "commitment" in southern Lebanon at precisely the same time as it was supposedly "reaffirming" it through United Nations channels in Beirut.
It is difficult to grasp how some members of the Council can ignore the fact that UNIFIL is now being blatantly used as a cover behind which PLO terrorists can shelter whilst planning and launching their attacks and then hide their tracks after carrying out their criminal acts. It is equally difficult to grasp how in the fight of this wholly reprehensible record of direct challenges to and abuse of UNIFIL, the PLO can be portrayed here in a favourable fight and requested merely to continue its over-all cooperation as an essential condition for the effective discharge by UNIFIL of its duties. What is really called for is a forthright condemnation of the PLO's flagrant violation of UNIFIL's mandate.
As I said in my statement in the Council on 19 January 1979, a new element in the PLO's tactics has emerged in recent months. Previously they hid behind a shield of refugees and villagers. Now they are trying to hide also behind a shield of United Nations peace-keeping forces. That surely is wholly inadmissible and can only be regarded as what it is - the total abuse of international peace-keeping.
In the attempt on the guest house at Ma'alot on 13 January 1979, reported in my letter circulated as document S/13028*, it was clear that the three PLO terrorists involved crossed through UNIFIL's lines on the way to carrying out their criminal act. The same holds true for a group of six PLO terrorists encountered and eliminated on 16 April 1979 by the Israel Defence Forces near the village of Zar'it near the northern border of Israel, as reported in my letter circulated as document A/34/204-S/13261. The background to the PLO terrorist attack on Kibbutz Manara on the border with Lebanon on 9 May 1979, reported in document S/13312 is equally disquieting. In that incident an Israel Defence Forces patrol wounded and captured one terrorist. He disclosed that the group had set out from Tyre. They entered UNIFIL's area of operation from the north and proceeded through UNIFIL's lines to the village of Shakra which is well within UNIFIL's area of operation. At the village they received weapons and instructions about their operation before crossing the border into Israel. Their orders were to carry out mass murder of Israeli civilians. After an exchange of fire with the Israel Defence Forces patrol, the terrorists who were not wounded fled to Lebanon in the direction of Mis al-Jebel and from there they backtracked to Shakra.
Peace-keeping operations can be a double-edged sword. They can contribute towards creating the political climate for the making of peace and for the advancement of international security. But there is also a danger that they can be used, or rather abused, by those bent on subverting peace, while behind the cover of the peace-keeping forces the ground is being prepared for resumed hostilities and further threats to international peace and security. That danger must be recognized and all effective steps must be taken to avert it.
In striking at the terrorist bases from which the PLO's murder gangs launched their criminal missions against the civilian population in Israel, my government is exercising its inherent right of self-defence, a right enjoyed by every sovereign State, a right which has found expression in Article 51 of the Charter.
I must reiterate that, statements to the contrary notwithstanding, a state's right to take the measures necessary to halt and to foil terrorist activities emanating from across its boundaries is a principle well recognized by international law and international practice alike. What is more, the very toleration by a state on its territory of armed bands engaged in hostile activities against another state is considered a breach of international law on the part of the state tolerating the presence of such bands on its territory, irrespective of whether it is unwilling or unable to curb such activities. In Oppenheim-Lauterpacht's authoritative treatise on international law, volume I, eighth edition, pages 292-293, it is explicitly stated that:
"States are under a duty to prevent and suppress such subversive activity against foreign Governments as assumes the form of armed hostile expeditions, or attempts to commit common crimes against life or property."
Another foremost authority on international law, Hans Kelsen, stated in very similar terms in his book, Principles of International Law, second edition, pages 205-206:
"...States are obliged by general international law to prevent certain acts injurious to other States from being committed on their territories, and, if prevention is not possible, to punish the delinquents and force them to repair the damage caused by the delict. Such injurious acts are, for example, ... hostile expeditions organized in the territory of the State and directed against the territorial integrity of a foreign State...".
In the course of this debate the representative of Lebanon has repeatedly relied on the Israel-Lebanon Armistice Agreement of 23 March 1949. However, as I have already pointed out, that Agreement was brought to an end by Lebanon in June 1967. This conclusion is warranted by the fact that the Lebanese attack on Israel during the Six Day War of 1967 was in the nature of a "material breach" of the Israel-Lebanon General Armistice Agreement, article I, paragraph 2, of which had provided that:
"No aggressive action by the armed forces - land, sea, or air- of either Party shall be undertaken, planned, or threatened against the people or the armed forces of the other." (S/1296/Rev. 1, p. 2)
And it is an accepted principle of international law, which has now also found expression in the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, that:
"a material breach of a bilateral treaty by one of the parties entitles the other to invoke the breach as a ground for terminating the treaty or suspending its operation in whole or in part."
I might add that subsequent to June 1967 the Government of Lebanon also repeatedly demonstrated that it no longer considered the Agreement in force by concluding a series of agreements with the terrorist PLO that were totally incompatible with its basic obligations under the Armistice Agreement.
We have heard much about the local Lebanese forces in the south. While Israel is not responsible for their attitudes and actions, it cannot be indifferent to the fate of the villagers in the south. The PLO terror is aimed equally at them, and they act accordingly in what they judge to be a matter of their own survival.
What seems to be forgotten is that the local forces in the south are Lebanese, and that their perceptions and responses are conditioned in the context of Lebanon as a whole. They are in continual contact with the north. Day by day, they receive detailed reports about what is happening there. That is what influences and determines their actions. This is acknowledged in paragraph 39 of the Secretary-General's latest report, and even more explicitly in paragraph 37 of the Secretary-General's report of 12 January 1979 which states that:
"... the situation in south Lebanon cannot be divorced from the situation in the rest of the country and to a lesser extent in the region as a whole. This factor unquestionably plays an important role in determining the attitude of the various parties to UNIFIL, an attitude which is strongly influenced by their perception and ,interpretation of developments in Lebanon and in the region as a whole. It is important to remember that UNIFIL is not acting in isolation in south Lebanon...". (S/13026, para. 37)
To detach the question of southern Lebanon from the situation in Lebanon as a whole will not enhance the cause of peace. It is Israel's view that peace cannot be restored in Lebanon while a Syrian occupation army trains its gunsights on the civilian population of Beirut and while armed PLO terrorists are allowed free rein on Lebanese soil.
As we heard from the representative of Syria this morning, the Syrian army of occupation continues to masquerade in Lebanon as an "Arab deterrent force". But, as is well known, all the other national contingents of that force, whose task it was to cover up the true character of the Syrian occupation, have since been withdrawn. The Syrian representative can thus no longer hide behind such a transparent fig leaf.
Israel appeals to the Security Council to face the fundamental problems of Lebanon with realism. Until the nettle of restoring international peace and security is grasped, there can be no real prospect of restoring Lebanese sovereignty in its international boundaries.
Let me repeat that the position of Israel vis-a-vis Lebanon remains consistent: Israel supports the national sovereignty and territorial integrity of Lebanon within its internationally recognized boundaries. The Government of Israel wants peace with Lebanon, and made a formal proposal to that effect last month.
On 31 May 1979, and again on 12 June 1979 in this chamber, I drew the attention of the Lebanese representative to that proposal to make peace between our two nations. The Government of Israel still awaits the response of Lebanon to this proposal. A quotation from an American newspaper, as offered by the Lebanese representative two days ago, cannot be regarded as an adequate response.