Israel today voted with the vast majority of the United Nations, when the General Assembly’s Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee adopted unanimously a final draft of a Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination but expressed disappointment over the fact that the document failed to include specifically a condemnation of anti-Semitism.
Judge Hadassah Ben-Ito, Israel’s representative in the Committee congratulated the 117-member body for successful conclusion of the long deliberations regarding the draft convention. However, she told the Committee, “we were disappointed by the exclusion of any specific mention of the phenomenon of anti-Semitism in this convention and by the fact that the amendment submitted to the Committee on this subject was not even put to the vote.”
In a plenary session of the General Assembly, Israel voted today in favor of imposition of economic sanctions against South Africa because of the latter country’s policy of apartheid. The vote on the resolution was 80 in favor, including Israel, with Portugal and South Africa against and 16 abstentions.
Israel joined the majority also in voting in favor of a companion resolution, authorizing the establishment of a trust fund to aid sufferers from the apartheid policy. On this resolution, 95 members voted in favor, with only South Africa in the negative and with Portugal abstaining.
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