Opposition Mounting to Resolution Equating Zionism with Racism

The United States and the nine member nations of the European Common Market indicated in the General Assembly’s Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee (Third Committee) today that they would not support a resolution condemning apartheid and colonialism even if it was separated from one condemning Zionism.

At the same time, the International League for the Rights of Man sent telegrams to the representatives of several African states urging them to dissociate themselves from any resolution equating Zionism with racism.

Roberta Cohen, executive director of the League, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the telegrams protested against an amendment to the resolution against racism and colonialism that equated Zionism with those practices. The African delegates were told that such an amendment would be “counter-productive” and in effect would weaken the resolution against apartheid.

Nine Arab countries–not including Egypt–and Cuba have been seeking support in the Third Committee for a condemnation of Zionism either in the anti-apartheid resolution or in a separate form. The latter stratagem was resorted to because of unexpected resistance by some African states to the anti-Zionist clause in the resolution condemning racism and colonialism.

A United Kingdom spokesman said today that Britain and the other Common Market countries would not support the anti-apartheid draft even if separated from an anti-Zionist resolution because the two would be linked together and presented as one item to the General Assembly plenary.

A vote on the resolution condemning racism and colonialism has been postponed three times in the past 11 days because of Arab attempts to insert the anti-Zionist text. It was expected that a vote might be taken late today.