President Bush has received high marks from Jewish groups for signing a congressional resolution calling for repeal of the 1975 U.N. General Assembly resolution equating Zionism with racism.
“We continue to work actively for its renunciation,” Bush said in signing the resolution last Friday. “It is long overdue that all of the member states of the United Nations join us in renouncing” the resolution.
Seymour Reich, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, praised Bush’s “vigorous statement repudiating the U.N. action and his pledge of continuing support for the effort to rid the record of this pernicious equation, which was initiated by the enemies of Israel.”
Momentum for a repeal of the infamous U.N. resolution has grown in recent months. Last December, Vice President Dan Quayle called on the Soviet Union and other nations to join the United States in sponsoring a resolution rescinding the 1975 action.
More recently, the legislatures in a host of Latin American countries have adopted statements calling for a repeal. They include Ecuador, Guatemala, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela, according to the World Jewish Congress, which has been encouraging such efforts.
An official at the Israeli Mission to the United Nations confirmed that support for a repeal has been growing in recent months. But the mission could not provide a hard count on the number of countries that have pledged support.
The Bush administration has been engaged in diplomatic efforts of its own to persuade U.N. members to agree to the repeal. While it reportedly has had some success, the United States has not been able to convince the Soviet Union to join the repeal effort.
The administration itself is moving cautiously on the issue, because of uncertainty about the procedure for repealing a resolution, a Jewish official said.
He explained that the administration is concerned that a resolution for repeal could be encumbered by amendments from Arab countries that could make it meaningless.
The resolution in favor of repeal was introduced in the House of Representatives by Rep. Bill Green (R-N.Y.). A similar resolution in the Senate was sponsored by Sens. Rudy Boschwitz (R-Minn.) and Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.).
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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.
