The three-week meeting here of the governing conference of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) ended Thursday night and narrowly avoided a split on the issue of Zionism. The controversy was over a recommendation that FAO should extend food aid to liberation movements recognized by the UN General Assembly and the Organization of African Unity (OAU) which were “struggling against foreign domination or racism.”
The United States. Israel and 25 other countries opposed inclusion of the term “racism” in the text. A compromise was reached when they agreed to the report with the reservation that “racism” should not be understood as referring to Zionism.
The biennial conference approved increasing the FAO’s net budget to $167 million for 1976-77, a 50 percent hike, to provide better agricultural programs in developing countries as an essential first step toward solving the world food crisis. Israel’s budget contributions for 1976-77 were assessed at more than $250,000, more than three times that of Saudi Arabia and nearly twice as much as that of Libya which earlier called for the expulsion of Israel from the FAO.
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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.
