Statement by Dr. Bunche to the Security Council

This elaborated and explained the nature of the armistice agreements, in the following terms:

I have very little to add in elaboration of the statements set forth in my report of 26 July 1949 to the Security Council contained in document S/1357. I am fully at the disposal of the Security Council, however, for such additional information or views as its members may require of me, but I think that a few remarks in clarification of my report might prove useful at this stage.

In summary, the crux of the present situation, as I see it, is as follows. The Security Council called for a truce in the fighting in Palestine and the parties complied. This truce was more than a simple cease-fire, for it involved certain specific injunctions as regards the importation of war materials and the introduction of fighting personnel and men of military age. It also involved an elaborate system of United Nations truce supervision. Subsequently, the Security Council called upon the parties to take a further step towards peace in Palestine, the conclusion of armistice agreements in "the transition to permanent peace in Palestine", to use the language of the resolution [S/10801].

The parties have now fully complied with this request. It follows inescapably that the Security Council truce resolutions have been rendered obsolete by the conclusion of the Armistice Agreements [S/1264, S/1296, S/1302/Rev.1 and S/13531]. These resolutions continue in force, however, and they will remain in force until the Security Council takes appropriate action concerning them. They are not self-terminating, and if they are not cancelled, they will lead only to confusion and misunderstandings.

Practically speaking, despite the Armistice Agreements, by the terms of the existing Security Council resolutions I am still obligated under the resolution of 15 July 1948 [S/902] "to supervise the observance of the truce and ... to deal with breaches" of the truce, again to use the language of the resolution. But I may confide in the Security Council that I have borne this responsibility rather like a loose garment since the conclusion of the Armistice Agreements. In any event, the provisions of the Armistice Agreements, which are the product of voluntary negotiations by the disputing parties, are stronger than the provisions of the truce - stronger by virtue of the fact that they are agreements voluntarily arrived at. They carry the strongest possible moral force, for they represent voluntary agreement on the part of the disputants.

The Armistice Agreements are not the final peace settlement, but the only possible interpretation of their very specific provisions is that they signal the end of the military phase of the Palestine situation. The objective now clearly should be to restore normal conditions of peace to the fullest possible extent. There can be little doubt that both sides desire to be freed from the many burdensome restrictions and interferences which were imposed under the truce. The entire heritage of restrictions which developed out of the undeclared war should be done away with. There should be normal access, restrictions on importation and immigration should be eliminated, there should be free movement for legitimate shipping, and no vestiges of the wartime blockade should be allowed to remain as they are inconsistent with both the letter and the spirit of the Armistice Agreements.

In my opinion, great care should be taken to avoid any action which would in any way weaken the force of the Armistice Agreements or tend to discredit them, or which would appear to question the good faith of the parties signatory to them. In the fourth paragraph of the memorandum which I have attached to my report as an annex, I suggest that the Security Council might indeed wish merely to reaffirm the simple cease-fire order set forth in its resolution of 15 July 1948. This suggestion is based on the assumption that despite the Armistice Agreements, the Security Council might wish to maintain its basic injunction against any fighting, pending the final peace settlement. As I interpret the Security Council's previous action in this matter, the basic approach has been an order against resort to military action. That is an unconditional cease-fire, the implementation of which was by means of a truce carrying specific terms and obligations. Practically speaking, it would probably be the reaffirmation of a simple cease-fire incorporated in a new resolution by this Council; in the event of any renewed fighting in Palestine, the matter would be quickly brought to the attention of the Security Council in any case, and the Council presumably would issue a desist order.

The suggestion is that only the injunction against resort to military action, that is to say, the cease-fire order in the 15 July resolution, should be reaffirmed and that the rest of the resolution should be considered henceforth as inapplicable. In view of the Armistice Agreements, such an injunction is not indispensable, but it would perhaps have the value of keeping the hand of the Security Council on the Palestine situation, pending its definitive settlement - although the representative of France has just suggested another way of doing that, by keeping the item on the agenda. In view of the great influence on the progress towards a solution which has thus far been exerted by this Council, I would consider it highly desirable that the Council should not prematurely detach itself completely from the Palestine situation.

Sub-paragraph 2(c) of the General Assembly's resolution of 11 December 1948 [194(III)] provides for the transfer to the Conciliation Commission of functions assigned to the United Nations Mediator on Palestine by resolutions of the Security Council. The resolution of 11 December transferred to the Conciliation Commission all the functions previously assigned to the Mediator under General Assembly resolutions. Since 11 December, therefore, my functions as Acting Mediator have consisted of truce supervision and armistice negotiations, both under Security Council resolutions. Since the Armistice Agreements are concluded and since they render any continued truce supervision unnecessary, in my view there are in fact no functions remaining to me now, and therefore none to transfer to the Conciliation Commission. The truce supervision personnel has been drastically reduced; at the present time the Observer Corps consists of only thirty-five officers and thirty-four enlisted men. This number can still be reduced, since it is estimated that no more than thirty or forty observers at the outside need to be retained to assist the parties, at their request, in the supervision of the terms of the four Armistice Agreements. This is United Nations assistance which the parties themselves request in the Armistice Agreements, and which the United Nations should of course grant. It must, however, be emphasised that the parties themselves have devised their own agreements for joint supervision of the terms of the voluntary agreements, and the United Nations therefore has no general responsibility for the supervision of the Armistice Agreements.

In other words, in conclusion, in response to urging by the Security Council, the disputing parties have made very great strides towards peace. The Armistice Agreements, all but one of which have now been in effect for several months, are proving very effective. There is certainly no basis whatsoever for questioning the good faith of the parties to those Agreements or their future intentions as regards their observance. They should be commended for having gone thus far along the road to peace, and they should be encouraged to continue along that road in a spirit of good-will and mutual trustfulness. The more recent news from Lausanne is encouraging; it gives support to my belief, often reiterated, that all outstanding obstacles to permanent peace in Palestine, including the problem of the Arab refugees who now suffer most from this unfortunate conflict, can and will be overcome by a mutual spirit of conciliation and by reciprocal concessions by the parties.

Source: Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs