UN General Assembly
1970

204. Let me refer, in conclusion, to one of the most tragic problems of our day, a problem for which the United Nations bears a responsibility and which is a blot on the United Nations record. A few months ago I had occasion to visit some of the refugee camps in the Middle East. Here the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East and other humanitarian organizations are performing a heroic mission with severely limited resources. Those who contribute towards the maintenance of these according to reliable estimates more than a million refugees deserve our warmest thanks and appreciation. But that is no answer and gives the United Nations no absolution. Here are the human remnants of a people who once had a country of their own the British mandated Territory of Palestine. It was created at the end of one war only to be destroyed after the next. Their experience is without parallel even in the shabbiest records of the human race. They have been condemned to live in squalid shacks and tattered tents in a wasteland of ruined hopes and empty dreams, most of them for almost 22 years. They are without a State, without a community and without an organization in which they can lead a decent human existence, rear their children as other humans rear theirs and rise above the degrading necessity of living on an international dole.