The U.N. Human Rights Commission condemned Israel on Wednesday for alleged violations of human rights in southern Lebanon, and ordered it to withdraw completely from that territory.
The resolution was adopted by a vote of 41-1. The United States cast the sole negative vote. Swaziland abstained.
It followed by a day the opening of a U.S. campaign to rescind the 1975 U.N. resolution equating Zionism with racism.
The American ambassador, Morris Abram, branded it a “disgrace” and a “blight” on the world organization “and each of its sponsors.”
Abram noted that “in the modern era, Zionism became the name for the national movement of the Jewish people.
“The modern State of Israel is the realization of the Zionist idea,” Abram explained. “Whatever its failings, it cannot be branded racist.”
The issue was also raised by Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Yitzhak Lior. He said that “one of the few criteria that distinguish right from wrong in international relations is the attitude to the Jewish people.
“The infamous ‘Zionism-racism’ resolution demonstrates to what depth the level of international morality has sunk, only 45 years after the end of the second World War.”
The resolution was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in New York in Nov. 10, 1975, and it would be up to that forum to rescind it.
The Human Rights Commission resolution on Lebanon accused Israel of the arbitrary detention of civilians in southern Lebanon, the destruction of their homes, bombardment of villages and the expulsion of civilians from the occupied areas.
The resolution demanded “the immediate, total and unconditional withdrawal of Israel from all Lebanese territory and respect for the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Lebanon.”
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