The nine members of the European Economic Community (EEC), Canada, Australia and New Zealand walked out of the final session of the United Nations-sponsored World Conference to End Racism yesterday in protest over the inclusion in the concluding resolution of statements attacking Israel for economic and military support of South Africa and charging it with racial discrimination against the Palestinians.
The document was adopted by an 88-4 vote with Austria, Sweden, Switzerland and Finland voting against it. San Marino and Malawi abstained. The United States and Israel had not participated in the two-week conference because it included the 1975 General Assembly resolution equating Zionism with racism.
The resolution, which was drafted by African delegates who were supported by the Arab and East European blocs who had earlier wanted a stronger condemnation of Israel, said the conference “proclaims its solidarity with the Palestinian people in their struggle for liberation and against racial discrimination.”
West Germany, which spoke for the EEC countries, said they could not support a charge of racism against Israel. Bonn also stressed that the EEC had made it clear even before the conference started that it would participate only if irrelevant matters were not raised.
ISRAEL DENOUNCES CONFERENCE
The Israeli Mission to the UN here issued a statement calling the conference “a scandalous spectacle” in which a UN body “was manipulated by the Arab-communist coalition and became a captive audience to reckless anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic instigation.” Israel said, “Medieval calumnies as well as falsifications taken lock, stock and barrel from the Nazi propaganda arsenal have been resurrected here” by countries such as Saudi Arabia, the Soviet Union, Uganda, Iraq, Syria and Libya.
“In the upside down world of the conference, these regimes, notorious for their callous disregard for humanity, have been allowed to put on the ill-fitting garments of the prosecutor,” the Israeli statement said. “At the same time, Israel, the Zionist movement and the Jewish people–the eternal victims of racial hatred and bigotry–have been singled out for the hideous and grotesque charge of racial discrimination.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
