Editorial, Check the Israeli Aggressor. July 1967
… The Israeli Government, by unleashing its aggression against the Arab peoples, has shown once again that it is playing irresponsibly and criminally with the future of its own people. It has sown such hatred among the peoples of the Arab East and the whole world that this must have an effect on the future of Israel. Israeli leaders insist that “they have been waging this struggle for Israel’s survival as a state.” But, if anything could undermine the very basis of its existence, the Soviet Government declared in its statement, “it is the road of reckless adventurism in politics that the governing circles of Israel have chosen.”
The Arabs are peace-loving people. No matter how much US and Israeli propaganda shout about their aggressiveness, they stand for peace and are prepared to safeguard this cause of peace with other nations. The Arab peoples need peace, the more so because many of them have started to tackle most difficult tasks in securing economic independence and implementing deep-going social and economic reforms. The flames of war, kindled by the Tel Aviv militarists, have inflicted heavy material damage on the economy of the Arab countries, and that was also one of the aims of the aggression….
Today, when the Arab countries have become the objective of an Israeli attack carefully prepared by the imperialists, the Soviet Union has shown by the resolute acts that it wants to hold the aggressor and its patrons in check. The Soviet state could not remain indifferent to the fact that a hotbed of war had arisen in the immediate vicinity of its frontiers, and that aggression had been committed against friendly Arab states. The USSR has given the Arabs the broadest political, diplomatic and material help in their just struggle. This country has repeatedly issued serious warnings to the reckless Israeli militarists concerning their responsibility before the world and the grave consequences of their aggressive line. But when it became clear that Tel Aviv was turning a deaf ear to the demands of the Soviet Union and all peace-loving mankind to stop intervention, the Soviet Government broke off diplomatic relations with Israel, in view of Israel’s cynical disregard of international law and gross violations of the UN Security Council’s decision; other socialist states have also broken off diplomatic relations with the aggressor….
The statement issued by the Central Committees of the Communist and Workers’ Parties and Governments of Bulgaria, Hungary, the GDR, Poland, the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia made it quite clear that “unless the Government of Israel stops its aggression and withdraws its troops behind the armistice line, the Socialist states who have signed this statement will do everything necessary to help the peoples of the Arab countries give a decisive rebuff to the aggressor, safeguard their legitimate rights, put out the flames of war in the Middle East and restore peace in the area.”
Israel has been warned and it must be clear about the stand of the peace-loving Socialist states. The aggressors should not forget that they will not evade responsibility for the violation of peace and encroachment on the sovereign rights of the peoples. The Socialist countries will not allow the imperialist forces to have their own way….
Those who hope that their crimes will go unpunished are mistaken, international law is not a mere abstraction, and the peoples will not allow themselves to be addressed in terms of force. The Israeli aggressors and their patrons will have to answer for their crimes against the Arab countries and the whole of mankind.
Source: International Affairs [Moscow: Znanie Pub. House 1955-] (July 1967), pp. 3-5 (excerpts).