UN Committee’s Postponement of Vote on Resolution Condemning Zionism Seen As Setback for Arabs

Chaim Herzog, Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, declared yesterday that the action by the Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee (Third Committee) to postpone a vote to include Zionism in a resolution condemning apartheid, racism and colonialism “confirms the fact that there is a growing reaction to the Arab attempts to dictate to others.”

The Third Committee agreed yesterday to postpone the vote “for a number of days” at the request of Somalia, one of the sponsors of the resolution condemning Zionism. The Somalian request was supported by Cameroon, Sierra Leone and Ghana, Four other African countries had asked for a postponement last week.

The postponement yesterday took place after the U.S. and the European Economic Community, which had earlier announced opposition to including Zionism in the resolution were joined yesterday by the Scandinavian countries. Australia, New Zealand and Austria. The Soviet Union and other Communist countries supported the amendment but there was a split among Latin American countries. However, the most extensive split occurred among the African nations.

“The Western countries who abstained during the International Women’s Year Conference in Mexico, when the only two countries to vote against the resolution (Identifying Zionism with colonialism and imperialism and calling for their abolition) were the United States and Israel, made it quite clear this time to the Arabs that they cannot be taken for granted, and would vote against.” Herzog said.

“The African group have begun to realize that the Arabs are ignoring the true interests of Africa and what happened (yesterday) is an expression of the awakening of some Africans to the true state of affairs.”

MOYNIHAN ATTACKED, DEFENDED

Meanwhile, African and Arab delegates yesterday denounced American Ambassador Daniel P. Moynihan in the General Assembly for calling President Idi Amin of Uganda a “racist murderer.” Tiamiou Adjibade of Dahomey, speaking for the 46-member African bloc, said if Moynihan confused his work at the UN with defending Zionism, he should “go to Israel as soon as possible.”

Mansur R. Kikia of Libya speaking for the Arab League, said Moynihan, in his speech before the AFL-CIO convention in San Francisco, has violated traditional diplomatic courtesy. Kikia charged that “What has really occurred reconfirms the deep relationship between the establishment in American and Zionism, particularly the sensitivity of the American authorities as far as what may affect the Zionist sensitivity.”

Clarence Mitchell, Jr., a member of the American delegation, responded in Moynihan’s absence by charging that Amin’s address to the UN General Assembly last week was “an affront to millions of citizens of the United States.”

“We fought a long and costly war against one kind of racism, inflicted upon the world by a dictator who exterminated millions of humans because they were not members of what he called the master race.” Mitchell said, stressing he was speaking for the U.S. government. “If we had been less courteous with that dictator in the beginning, immense human suffering and loss would have been avoided.”

Mitchell, who is director of the Washington Bureau of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said Amin used words like those that were used to persecute minorities and especially Jews for centuries. “We will raise our voices against such attacks on any of our people, whether they be Jews, Arabs, Blacks, whites or Asians–whatever their color, whatever their creed,” he said.

Moynihan, at a reception given by the United Nations Association of the U.S.A., said later yesterday that Amin’s speech had “slandered” all the American people by saying the U.S. was “run by Zionists.” He added, “We are not here to hear totalitarian dictators lecture us on how to run a democracy.”