Anti-zionist Draft Denounced by Jewish, Non-jewish, Black Leaders

The proposed resolution equating Zionism with racism came under attack this weekend from diverse sources as the United Nations General Assembly prepared to vote on this issue early this week. Among those attacking the resolution were New York City’s five borough presidents, Black American scholars, the American Civil Liberties Union, Daniel P. Moynihan, the U.S. Ambassador to the UN, General Assembly President Gaston Thorn, seven Jewish NGO officials, and Rabbi Alexander Schindler, Union of American Hebrew Congregations president.

The borough presidents–Robert Abrams, of the Bronx; Robert Connor, of Staten Island; Sebastian Leone, of Brooklyn; Donald Manes, of Queens; and Percy Sutton of Manhattan–met Friday at the Isaiah Wall, across from the UN, and denounced the resolution as “a blatant power play on the part of some Arab nations” which they warned could launch “a new era of anti-Semitism.”

The borough presidents also urged New Yorkers to attend a massive rally against the resolution in Manhattan’s garment center at noon Tuesday sponsored by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. They termed the Zionist movement “the expression of the historic aspiration of the Jewish people for national liberation and self-determination.”

BLACK SCHOLARS URGE DRAFT’S DEFEAT

In an appeal to the General Assembly, 28 Black American scholars, educators and other intellectual leaders urged that the anti-Zionist resolution be rejected because “The prospects of a concerted United Nations drive against African apartheid has been effectively thwarted by an amendment which introduces an extraneous issue to a worthy United Nations undertaking,” The statement said that “Unfortunately, concern for the anti-Semitic implications of this amendment, however legitimate, will heavily compromise African hopes of expunging apartheid from the world conscience.”

The United Nations Association of the United States of America has also sent a statement to UN delegates warning that approval of the “offensive” text would damage the UN’s support in the United States. The American Civil Liberties Union in a letter to Moynihan said the equation of Zionism with racism “threatens to undermine the entire struggle against racism.”

Moynihan in an interview on Israel Television Friday night, said the resolution might be passed by the General Assembly despite the opposition of the U.S. and others. He said if this happens “we will be faced with the terrible choice of taking seriously–as we would like to take seriously–UN resolutions, or accepting a pronouncement which we think is untruthful, morally wrong and destructive.” But he added, “If it is between accepting that doctrine and supporting the United Nations, we will never accept this doctrine.”

In another development, Gaston Thorn, president of the General Assembly, warned that approval of the anti-Zionist measure would mean “trouble for the United Nations.” He stressed he was speaking as Prime Minister of Luxembourg, not as the Assembly’s president.

JEWISH NGO LEADERS WRITE TO THORN

Meanwhile, the leaders of seven Jewish bodies which have consultative status in the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) as Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), said that they would not be able to participate in the United Nations program for the Decade for Action to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination if the General Assembly adopts the anti-Zionist draft.

In a letter to Thorn, the NGOs declared: “The intrusion of the Middle East conflict into the United Nations program for the Decade for Action to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination places us in an agonizing predicament. We are committed to the original purposes of the Decade, but we would violate our conscience and our deepest convictions if we were to subscribe to a program of which the draft resolution…is an integral part.”

The signers and their organizations are Dr. Isaac Lewin, chairman, American section of the world executive, Agudas Israel World Organization: Rene Cassin, honorary president, Consultative Council of Jewish Organizations: David M. Blumberg, co-chairman, Coordinating Board of Jewish Organizations; Dr. Rose S. de Herczog, president, international Council of Jewish Women; Lord Nathan, chairman, International Council of Jewish Social and Welfare Services; Raya Jaglom, president, Womens international Zionist Organization; and Philip M. Klutznick, chairman, governing body, World Jewish Congress.

“WE ARE ALL OF US ZIONISTS’

In Dallas, Rabbi Alexander Schindler, president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, told the opening session of the UAHC biennial assembly that if the General Assembly adopts the anti-Zionist account, it would be “the beginning of the end of a beautiful dream, for we will witness the moral collapse of the United Nations.” He termed the draft “a canard, a libel not just of Israel but of the Jewish people as a whole. It is as though Hitler, Goebbels and Streicher had returned to earth to mock the pitiful remnant of those who survived the holocaust.”

Rabbi Schindler stressed that it would be of no avail. “We are all of us Jews and whether we use a small ‘z’ or a large ‘Z,’ we are all of us Zionists. The lard of Israel which is Zion, and the children of Israel who constitute the Jewish people, and the God of Israel are all bound together in a triple covenant. At no time in our history have we ever stopped working for Zion. We shall continue to do so for the rest of eternity. And against the scheming and the maledictions of our enemies, we will extend our stake in Israel. We Reform Jews, too. We will stay and we will build.”