The Uruguayan Jewish community has condemned an anti-Zionist clause contained in the party platform of a political group seeking office in the upcoming national elections, the World Jewish Congress reported today.
Dr. Nahum Bergstein, president of the Central Jewish Committee, the representative body of Uruguayan Jewry and the WJC affiliate here, declared at a press conference that the effort to link Zionism with racism was “intrinsically false, is an insult to our community, disturbs the peaceful coexistence of the citizens of this country, and unleases anti-Semitic feelings.”
The attack on Zionism was included in the political program of a group called the Popular Movement, a splinter faction allied with the Communist Party in a larger coalition of leftwing groupings called the Broad Front. As Uruguay moves towards critical national elections slated for November 25, the various parties and political groupings have begun their electoral campaigns by issuing political manifestoes. That of the Popular Movement equates Zionism with racism in a clause on national liberation.
The clause states: “Uruguay must show full solidarity with the liberation struggle of peoples that are still subjected to political or economic domination. Self-determination of peoples must always be defended. Racism (segregation, Zionism) must be denounced and confronted.”
GOAL OF DEFAMING ZIONISM
Bergstein told the press conference that the defamation of Zionism, “in its goal of deligitimizing Israel, denies the Jews the right of self-determination that all other peoples have and, in this sense, is discriminatory.”
He added: “For years we Jews have had no illusions concerning the true intentions and aims of the anti-Zionist explosion. But the identification of Zionism with racism, forged in the United Nations under the pressure of the Arab countries and the Soviet bloc, is in reality a neo-racism that shows the ugly face of anti-Semitism, which is one of the most despicable manifestations of racism.”
According to the Latin American branch of the WJC, the news conference was carried by nearly all the mass media of Montevideo — press, radio and television.
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.
