Skip to content

Results:

1 - 10 of 15

Documents

November 13, 1974

United Nations General Assembly Official Records, 29th Session : 2282nd Plenary Meeting, Agenda Item 108, 'Question of Palestine (continued)'

As other documents in this collection on Moroccan nationalists in 1947 and 1950 have exemplified, the United Nations was an important arena in decolonization struggles for Arabs, as it was for Asians and Africans as e.g. Alanna O’Malley’s The Diplomacy of Decolonisation: America, Britain, and the United Nations during the Congo crisis, 1960-1964 (2018) has shown. In this regard, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which was founded in 1964 and taken over by the Fatah movement in 1969, was no exception.

To be sure, Palestinian organizations including Fatah and the PLO decried key UN actions. One was the UN Palestine partition plan of 1947; another was UN Security Council resolution 242 of November 1967. Calling upon Israel to withdraw “from territories occupied” during the Six-Day War in June and calling for the “acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace,” it did not mention Palestine or the Palestinians. Even so, the PLO sought to get access to the UN and UN recognition. A crucial landmark on this road was the address to the UN in New York in November 1974 by Yassir Arafat (1929-2004), a Fatah co-founder in 1959 and from 1969 PLO chairman.

Arafat did not speak at the Security Council, which was and is dominated by its five veto-carrying permanent members Britain, China, France, the United States, and the USSR/Russia. Rather, he addressed the UN General Assembly (UNGA), where from the 1960s Third World states were in the majority; his speech was the first time that the UNGA allowed a non-state representative to attend its plenary session. The UNGA invited the PLO after having decided, in September, to begin separate hearings on Palestine (rather than making Palestine part of general Middle Eastern hearings), and after the PLO was internationally recognized as the sole representative of the Palestinian people, a landmark accomplishment for the organization. The UNGA president who introduced Arafat, Abdelaziz Bouteflika (1937-2021), was the Foreign Minister of Algeria, which since its independence in 1962 had supported the Palestinian cause organizationally, militarily, and politically. Arafat spoke in Arabic; the below text is the official UN English translation. Arafat did not write the text all by himself; several PLO officials and Palestinians close to the PLO, including Edward Said, assisted, as Timothy Brennan has noted in Places of Mind: A Life of Edward Said (2021). Later in November 1974, the UNGA inter alia decided to give the PLO observer status and affirmed Palestinians’ right to self-determination.

1950

Signatures of Pacifists

Photograph of pacifist petition regarding the manufacture of atomic weapons.

1994

Iraqi Cabinet Meeting with Saddam Hussein and the Atomic Energy Committee

Saddam and his ministers discuss the reorganization and rebuilding of the Iraqi nuclear program.

1991

Meeting between Saddam Hussein and Top Political Advisors about a United Nations Air Survey Request

Rolf Ekeus, head of the UN inspection committee on nuclear weapons, requested the United Statesprovide him with an aircraft so he could do an aerial survey of Iraqi lands.

October 16, 2000

Training Documentation Pertaining to Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Threats to the Republican Guard and Iraq

Training, instructions, procedures, and precautionary measures against threats.

June 19, 1995

Saddam Hussein Meeting with Ba’ath Party Members to Discuss the Results of the UN Inspectors’ Mission to Look for WMDs

Saddam, General Amir, and Party members speculate on various motivations behind a UN plan for monitoring the status of WMD's in Iraq. Saddam states that Iraq possesses no biological, chemical, or nuclear weapons, but he is informed that a "traitor" had falsely reported to the UN that Iraq was in the possession of a certain number of missiles. They discuss possible UN conclusions and assumptions regarding WMD's in Iraq.

February 5, 1995

Meeting between Saddam Hussein and His Security Council Regarding Iraqi Biological and Nuclear Weapons Program

Saddam and his Security Council discuss Iraqi biological and nuclear weapons program. Focusing primarily on the biological file, they consider possible interpretations by Ekeus, director of the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq, as well as potential UN reactions.

January 25, 1995

Meeting between Saddam Hussein and Political Advisors Regarding Hostilities with Israel, Iraqi Defense Capabilities, and Iraqi-Syrian Relations

Saddam and political advisors discuss hostilities with Israel, Iraqi defense capabilities, and Iraqi-Syrian relations. American position as well as the position of many Arab nations are also discussed.

1994

Meeting between Saddam Hussein and Top Political Advisors to Discuss a Visit by Prime Minister Tariq Aziz to the United Nations

Iraqi Prime Minister Tariq Aziz reports on his visit to the United Nations and progress of UN inspections of Iraq's WMD projects.

1993

Meeting between UN Biological Inspectors and Iraqi Officials Including Dr. Rihab Taha

Iraqi officials and United Nations inspectors discuss the history of Iraq's biological weapons development.

Pagination