Behind the Headlines: Repeal of U.N. Decree on Zionism May Be a ‘matter of Time’ Away

Israeli and American diplomats as well as American Jewish leaders say that many of the countries that supported the 1975 United Nations General Assembly resolution equating Zionism with racism would not support it today.

But most also agree that there is not yet a majority to repeal Resolution 3379.

In an acrimonious session on Nov. 10, 1975, exactly 12 years ago, the General-Assembly reached what is considered by many U.N.-watchers an unprecedented peak in the ongoing assault against the Jewish state. It adopted the Arab-sponsored resolution declaring that “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.”

The vote was 72 in favor, 35 against with 32 abstentions and three absent. The Arabs and their allies in the Communist bloc and developing world rejoiced.

The results would no doubt be different today. Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that a number of countries that voted for the resolution have pledged to vote in favor of any new resolution that would repeal the Zionism-is-racism declaration. He declined to name any of them.

The Israeli envoy said that in recent years Israeli diplomats have carried the campaign a against the resolution to the capitals of many countries in an effort to convince their governments of the urgency Israel attaches to combating the anti-Zionism resolution.

U.S. HAS PLAYED MAJOR ROLE

A major ally in that effort is the United States. Only a few days ago, President Reagan sent a letter to Morris Abram, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, pledging the United States would continue the fight against the resolution “until it is repealed.”

“I know that the day will come when the United Nations rights the wrong that it committed,” the president assured Abram.

Vernon Walters, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, disclosed recently that he is “considering the idea of introducing a resolution that will repeal the Zionism-is-racism resolution.”

Walters told the JTA that he has sent a letter to U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar at the beginning of each session of the General Assembly in September protesting the resolution.

Diplomats, scholars and Jewish leaders point out that the resolution is extremely harmful to Israel and the Jewish people as a whole. According to Philip Lax, chairman of the International Council of B’nai B’rith, the resolution became “the centerpiece of a campaign to delegitimize the policies of the state of Israel and, beyond those policies, the very right of the Jewish people to have a state at all.”

Harris Schoenberg, director of B’nai B’rith’s U.N. department, contends that “by equating the political aspirations and achievements of the Jewish people (Zionism) with the qualities deemed most repugnant in U.N. circles (racism), Zionism’s detractors managed to bring the Jewish ideology of redemption into disrepute with states and peoples far removed from the Arab conflict with Israel.

“This was particularly true in black Africa, but 3379 also had an effect on other shores. In Europe, it served as a counterthrust to Holocaust memories. As played out in the United States, the Zionism-is-racism resolution was calculated to drive a wedge between Jews and blacks.”

WILLINGNESS TO CHANGE POSITION

Schoenberg told JTA that several countries that abstained in 1975 have indicated their willingness to change their position in favor of Zionism if a resolution to repeal 3379 were introduced in the General Assembly.

In Schoenberg’s view, diplomatic efforts should continue in order to convince the governments of the countries which abstained in 1975 to join the U.S.-Israeli camp. He mentioned Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Greece, Japan, Peru, Singapore, Togo, Trinidad and Zaire, among others, as countries likely to reverse their position on the resolution and vote for its repeal.

Diplomats note that the Arab countries, although still powerful at the United Nations, have lost much of their clout in the last decade In 1975, shortly after the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the oil crisis, the Arabs exerted their power over African countries and others, demanding that they break off their diplomatic relations with Israel.

They did, but many have resumed those ties with Israel in recent years and others have maintained commercial ties.

EGYPT WOULD NOT NOW SUPPORT 3379

In addition, a major Arab country, Egypt, signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979. Egypt has indicated it would not now support 3379. In fact, Egypt was a major force at the U.N. conference on women in Nairobi in July 1985 in killing attempts to criticize Zionism in the conference’s final document.

On the 12th anniversary of the adoption of Resolution 3379, the Jewish community has been mobilizing its forces the world over with the final goal of repealing the resolution.

Abram of the Presidents Conference believes that by next fall, when the 43rd session of the General Assembly convenes here, it will be time to introduce a resolution to repeal Resolution 3379.

Diplomats are more cautious. They agree with what one says: that “we must be absolutely positive that such a resolution will not be defeated. It probably will take just more than a year or two to come up with a resolution rescinding 3379.”

But most diplomats, Jewish leaders and U.N. officials are optimistic: It is only a question of time until the Zionism-is-racism resolution is repealed.