Sen. Daniel Moynihan (D. N. Y.) warned of increasing anti-Semitism throughout the globe and called on Jewish community leaders “to realize the intent of those who would destroy us before it is too late. Democratic leaders were silent in the 1930s,” he said, “and must not be silent today under any circumstances.”
Speaking to more than 500 Jewish leaders at the United Jewish Appeal Southwest Regional Conference, Moynihan recalled the infamous United Nations General Assembly resolution declaring Zionism to be a form of racism. Reminding the audience that some 70 votes had been mustered against that 1975 resolution, he stressed the fact that, in the recent General Assembly vote in favor of boycotting Israel, only 21 nations declared their opposition.
Moynihan also cited the UN Resolution of March I, 1980, holding Israel in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. He emphasized the outrageousness of that action by explaining that the fourth Geneva Convention makes Auschwitz a crime … and only Israel has ever been found guilty of genocide under that code.
As further evidence of this “Orwellian inversion of meaning,” he noted that “Arab League Ambassador Clovis Maksoud has charged Israel with ‘trying to paralyze the United Nations like the League of Nations was paralyzed by Nazi Germany’s … annexation and expansionist policies.'” In the face of this, Moynihan asked how the democracies of the world could be so silent in 1982.
Moynihan was the keynote speaker at the recent three-day conference which drew Jewish leaders, from Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas and Wichita, Kansas to examine major issues faced by the worldwide Jewish community and to stimulate the 1982 UJA/Federation fundraising campaign.
A special session of the conference was devoted to the acceptance and signing of a covenant — a proclamation of “One People Indivisible” — by those present, pledging the American Jewish community “to express an ongoing commitment to the unity, strength and continuity of the Jewish people.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
