Representatives of All of Uru Guay’s Political Parties, Jewish Leaders Condemn Zionism-is-racism Res

Representatives of all of Uruguay’s political parties, leaders of the Jewish community and a packed theater of some 1,200 Jews and non-Jews condemned, on the 10th anniversary of its passage, the United Nations General Assembly resolution equating Zionism with racism.

Alfredo Neuburger, assistant director for South America of B’nai B’rith International, reported that the event in Montevideo’s largest theater was organized by the local Zionist Federation and the Central Committee (Uruguay’s Jewish umbrella organization), with special sponsorship of B’nai B’rith’s District 22.

The meeting, last Sunday, was attended by legislators representing the nation’s four major parties: the ruling Colorado, Blanco, the leftist coalition Frente Amplio, and the Christian Union Civica. All made strong statements of support for Zionism and the struggle of the Jewish people for its ancestral homeland.

STATEMENTS BY POLITICAL LEADERS

Senator Pedro Cersosimo of the Colorado Party declared that the UN resolution was supported by “those who want to destroy coexistence, because Zionism is a movement of national reaffirmation which deserves the solidarity of all free men.”

Senator Gonzalo Aguirre of the Blanco Party said that “Zionism is a freedom-seeking movement that achieved the goal of providing a homeland for the Jewish people.” He said the Zionism-racism resolution is “wrong, unjust and we, as Uruguayans identified with a humanistic and pluralistic ideology, repudiate racism and we reject that resolution.”

Socialist Senator Enrique Martinez Moreno, representing the leftist coalition, reminded the audience that Uruguay voted against the resolution in 1975 “not only because it is untrue, but because it goes against all basic principles of co-existence among peoples and tries to deny a humanistic movementlike Zionism.”