President Raul Alfonsin and Foreign Minister Dante Caputo told Nathan Perlmutter, national director of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, that their country’s recent vote at the United Nations meeting in Geneva condemning Israel for human rights violations was “a mistake” and not consistent with Argentina’s policy of depoliticizing its votes on human rights issues.
Alfonsin received Perlmutter, Rabbi Morton Rosenthal, director of ADL’s Latin American Affairs Department, and Elias Strum, a member of ADL’s National Executive Committee, who are leading a 10-member delegation on a mission to Latin America. They were accompanied by Isaac Frankel, vice president of B’nai B’rith International, and leaders of B’nai B’rith in Argentina.
The President told the ADL delegation that his government, with the support of the Argentine people, will hold aloft the banner of morality and ethics and will not vote against its conscience.
After the meeting with Alfonsin, members of the delegation met with Caputo, who elaborated upon the President’s statements. Caputo said that the vote “was a mistake and that future votes at the UN will show that.” He added that if Israel is guilty of human rights violations, we will say so, but we will not relate our position to political relations between Israel and the Arab nations.
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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.
