The Knesset, with virtual unanimity, angrily condemned the anti-Zionist resolution adopted by the General Assembly’s Third Committee last Friday, urged its defeat in the Assembly’s plenary and expressed appreciation to the 29 nations which voted against the draft in the Humanitarian, Social and Cultural Committee. A Knesset resolution adopted after a debate yesterday on the UN action, reaffirmed that Zionism is the movement for the reconstruction and liberation of the Jewish people.
Only the four-member pro-Moscow Rakah Communist faction voted against the Knesset resolution. The five-member Aguda bloc was absent. President Ephraim Katzir and Leon Dulzin, acting chairman of the Jewish Agency and World Zionist Organization Executives, attended the Knesset meeting which was the first of its winter session.
DIFFICULT CAMPAIGNS AHEAD
Foreign Minister Yigal Allon, opening the session on behalf of the government, said that despite the fact that the passage of the anti-Zionist draft in the Third Committee was “not with an impressive majority.” there were difficult campaigns ahead. Allon did not rule out the possibility that the General Assembly plenary might adopt the resolution “perhaps even at a worse balance of votes.”
He observed, however, that “if the General Assembly adopts the committee’s resolution, it will be backing a negative resolution and the day will come when many of its supporters will regret backing it and just like other distorted resolutions of the General Assembly, this too will end up in the garbage heap of history.”
Allon added that Israel and the Jewish people should not underestimate the intentions behind the besmirching of Zionism. “Joining an anti-Zionist resolution means joining anti-Semitism.”
Likud leader Menachem Beigin claimed that Egypt was among the initiators of the anti-Zionist draft (the original sponsors were Cuba and nine Arab states not including Egypt) and declared: “We should not apologize, but rather accuse those who raised their hands for this disgraceful resolution.”
Beigin said the resolution represented anti-Judaism rather than anti-Semitism because the Arabs too are Semites. He also assailed Egyptian President Anwar Sadat for allegedly saying he retained the “military option” only weeks after he had committed himself not to resort to force under the Sinai interim accord.
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