Momentum for repealing the 1975 U.N. General Assembly resolution denigrating Zionism as racism has been picking up steam, buoyed by President Bush’s recent endorsement.
Sixteen years after it surfaced, the resolution remains on the books at the United Nations as a constant reminder of the challenge to Israel’s very existence.
The Bush administration has been voicing its commitment toward repeal since December 1989. That commitment was reinforced last week, when John Bolton, assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs, said the administration was pushing for a vote during the current General Assembly session.
While Bush called for the repeal in his Sept. 23 address to the General Assembly, he did not specify a timetable for pursuing such action.
In meetings last week with members of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the World Jewish Congress, Bolton said the administration is “ready to go” and is intent on pursuing a repeal before the end of the current session, according to Malcolm Hoenlein, executive director of the conference.
Elan Steinberg, executive director of the WJC, said no “magic date” surfaced, but that Bolton noted the possibility of introducing a repeal resolution on Nov. 10, which would have symbolic meaning in that it is the date the Zionism resolution passed in 1975.
Steinberg said that, according to Bolton, the only factor that would keep the administration from pursuing a repeal this session would be a determination that it did not have the votes to win.
Bolton told the Jewish leaders that the United States is seeking a broad-based geographical group of countries to co-sponsor the measure, including nations that have previously opposed Israel on this topic.
CONCERN OVER EGYPTIAN POSITION
In his remarks before the General Assembly, the president said the standing resolution negates the ability of the United Nations to function as a peace-seeking body.
“To equate Zionism with racism is to reject Israel itself,” Bush said. “This body cannot claim to seek peace and at the same time challenge Israel’s right to exist.”
The resolution, among the most controversial adopted by the General Assembly, characterizes Zionism as “a form of racism and racial discrimination.”
In bilateral meetings during the past few weeks with various world leaders, Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy lobbied — successfully, for the most part — for support of the resolution’s repeal.
Some world leaders taking the rostrum at the General Assembly have followed Bush’s lead in calling for repeal. The Israelis got an additional boost last month when the Soviets announced their support of such an effort.
But Egypt, Israel’s only ally among the Arab states, continues to reject the notion.
When Levy and Egyptian Foreign Minister Amre Moussa emerged together from a meeting at the United Nations on Oct. 3, Moussa was asked about the resolution. He responded that the issue was not yet before the General Assembly.
Moussa said “this is not the time” for Egypt to act on it, reflecting the position he has taken that the confrontational nature of a debate on the resolution could jeopardize the peace process.
In Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir said last week that by opposing the move to rescind the resolution during preparations for a peace conference, Egypt is maintaining an “anti-peace atmosphere.”
And in Los Angeles, the Simon Wiesenthal Center charged that Egypt is “actively working to thwart” efforts to rescind the resolution.
In a telephone interview, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the center’s associate dean, questioned the feasibility of Arab leaders sitting across the negotiating table from Israelis while at the same time supporting a resolution that “legitimizes anti-Semitism.”
The question of support for the resolution’s repeal is a “litmus test” of whether the Arabs are serious about peace, Cooper said.
Cooper maintained that siding with Israel on this issue would cost the Arabs nothing in terms of economics, political standing or negotiating power.
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