Zionism and the U.N.

Hundreds of world leaders, scientists and Nobel laureates, by petition, and thousands in and around the New York headquarters of the United Nations, in a mass demonstration, have appealed for recision of the infamous resolution of the U.N. General Assembly that declared in 1975 that “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.”

The resolution was opposed by 35 nations, and 32 more abstained, but 72 nations voted approval--enough to write the egregious definition in the history books of the world organization. And today, 10 years later, it remains there--a symbol of how easily, in the heat of emotion, the principles of an organization can be corrupted. It was put to a vote in that period of growing frustration between the 1973 war that Egypt and Syria had launched against Israel and the 1978 agreement at Camp David that brought peace between Israel and Egypt. And it was part of a political package that also put the world organization on record as favoring the Palestine Liberation Organization and affirming the right of Palestinians to a homeland of their own. Soviet diplomats teamed with Arab militants to marshal the vote.

Obviously, a majority of U.N. member states cannot rewrite history or redefine world issues with the stroke of a pen. Zionism is not racism. Rather, it is a commitment to a Jewish homeland, justified in history. “In fact, Zionism is a movement of national liberation and self-determination,” Vernon Walters, the U.S. representative to the United Nations, affirmed at the protest meeting. Not one of the Islamic and Communist nations that crafted the ugly resolution has a record of rights and freedoms for all its citizens to rival those in Israel, for Arab as well as Jew.

Nothing has been accomplished by the declaration except the encouragement of intransigence. It continues, obviously, to please Arabs who cannot bring themselves to abide by other resolutions of the world organization recognizing the legitimacy of the state of Israel. It pleases Israelis who are all too ready to dismiss all U.N. resolutions and who reject the Security Council peace plan for ending the Israeli occupation of Arab lands taken in the 1967 war.

But the same fierce passions that inspired the resolution a decade ago are in place, which makes recision unlikely. That measures the terrible difficulty in constructing peace in the Middle East. And it measures a weakness of the United Nations, corrupted by the flagrant untruth of the resolution--a corruption that will eat at the organization until a majority musters the courage to set the record right.