Herzog Warns That Adoption of Mexico City Resolution Would Constitute an International Scandal

Israel charged today that endorsement by the General Assembly of the anti-Zionist portions of the International Women’s Year resolutions adopted in Mexico City last summer would constitute “an international scandal of major proportions” and an exploitation of the universal support of women’s rights for “evil” and “sinister” purposes.

The resolution, which was expected to be voted on this evening, contains an operative paragraph which specifically adds Zionism to its condemnation. of racism, colonialism, apartheid, and imperialism. From a procedural approach, this paragraph is expected to be voted on separately from the remainder of the resolution.

Attention here was focussed on how Mexico would cast its ballot in view of President Luis Echeverria’s remarks to American and Canadian Jewish leaders in Mexico City Friday that his government “in no way identified Zionism with racism.” Although there was no formal commitment by the Mexican leader regarding today’s vote, the Jewish group that met with him said they were told that Foreign Minister Emilio Rabasa “is now at the UN to ensure that future votes by Mexico cannot be misinterpreted or misunderstood as equating Zionism with racism or opposing the national aspirations of the Jewish people.”

In remarks prepared for an address to the General Assembly late this afternoon prior to the voting on the draft, Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Chaim Herzog, declared that the original purposes of the International Women’s Year have the full support of Israel and that Israel will continue its policy of “promoting and maintaining the rights of women.”

But, he added, “Even the loftiest principles can be contaminated by sinister allusions. This is what has happened to this resolution as indeed to the resolution concerning the Decade for Action Against Racism” which the General-Assembly adopted Nov. 10 with the addition of a section identifying Zionism as a form of racism.

Herzog declared that Israel would vote against the resolution and urged other delegations to “dissociate themselves from this disgusting stratagem” that “seeks to exploit the universal support of the rights of women by injecting into the texts of the resolutions dangerous, evil and sinister references to the great and noble renaissance of the Jewish people.”