UN General Assembly
1971

70. It is true, despite these failures, that the situation in the Middle East today is less explosive than a year ago. The flow of events has not been backward. The cease-fire along the Suez Canal has been effective, with rare and isolated exceptions, for 14 months. Israel does not propose to bring it to an end and Egypt would achieve nothing by violating it. Indeed, the only certainty in the Middle East is that resumed hostilities would serve no interest and advance no settlement. The absence of fighting along the Suez Canal line has released the Middle East and the world from the daily prospect of escalation involving the Soviet forces which were irresponsibly introduced into the' region with the effect of aggravating and enlarging a local tension. There has been a sharp decline in the strength and prestige of the terrorist groups and the pirate organizations that loomed so large a year ago.