A leading official of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith has denounced a United Nations-sponsored conference on “the Racist-Fascist Alliance between South Africa and Israel” as another of the UN’s “periodic exercises in hypocrisy and disinformation directed at Israel.”
Abraham Foxman, the ADL’s associate director, noted, in his denunciation, that the conclave in Vienna was supported by the UN Committee on Apartheid, using UN facilities, documentation and financing, even through “technically it was a conference of Non-Governmental Organizations accredited to the UN.”
He added that “two well-known Soviet front groups, ” the World Peace Council and the Afro-Asian Solidarity Organization, took leading roles in the July 11-13 conference.
Asserting that “the agenda and the outcome” of the conclave “were a foregone conclusion,” Foxman declared that “Israel was pilloried for diplomatic, trade and military ties with South Africa” and that, in its final declaration, the conference declared its purpose was to “analyze relations between Israel and South Africa and consider necessary actions to ensure that the authorities in Israel desist forthwith in such collaboration.”
Foxman added that the delegates did not specify what actions the conference had in mind except to make “a vague reference” to UN machinery for dealing with such issues.
“To appreciate the magnitude of hypocrisy involved, one should examine Israeli-South African trade, which amounts to a miniscule .4 percent of South Africa’s external trade,” Foxman said. “Sizeably involved in the remaining 99.6 percent of South Africa’s trade are none other than the Soviet bloc, Arab states and Black African nations.”
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
