Israeli Statement in Response to "Zionism Is Racism" Resolution
(November 10, 1975)
Mr. President,
It is symbolic that this debate, which may well prove to be a
turning point in the fortunes of the United Nations and a decisive
factor in the possible continued existence of this organization, should
take place on November 10. Tonight, thirty-seven years ago, has gone
down in history as Kristallnacht, the Night of the Crystals. This was
the night in 1938 when Hitler's Nazi storm-troopers launched a
coordinated attack on the Jewish community in Germany, burned the
synagogues in all its cities and made bonfires in the streets of the
Holy Books and the Scrolls of the Holy Law and Bible. It was the night
when Jewish homes were attacked and heads of families taken away, many
of them never to return. It was the night when the windows of all
Jewish businesses and stores were smashed, covering the streets in the
cities of Germany with a film of broken glass which dissolved into the
millions of crystals which gave that night its name. It was the night
which led eventually to the crematoria and the gas chambers, Auschwitz,
Birkenau, Dachau, Buchenwald, Theresienstadt and others. It was the
night which led to the most terrifying holocaust in the history of man.
It is indeed befitting Mr. President, that this debate, conceived
in the desire to deflect the Middle East from its moves towards peace
and born of a deep pervading feeling of anti-Semitism, should take
place on the anniversary of this day. It is indeed befitting, Mr.
President, that the United Nations, which began its life as an
anti-Nazi alliance, should thirty years later find itself on its way to
becoming the world center of anti-Semitism. Hitler would have felt at
home on a number of occasions during the past year, listening to the
proceedings in this forum, and above all to the proceedings during the
debate on Zionism.
It is sobering to consider to what level this body has been dragged
down if we are obliged today to contemplate an attack on Zionism. For
this attack constitutes not only an anti-Israeli attack of the foulest
type, but also an assault in the United Nations on Judaism -- one of
the oldest established religions in the world, a religion which has
given the world the human values of the Bible, and from which two other
great religions, Christianity and Islam, sprang. Is it not tragic to
consider that we here at this meeting in the year 1975 are
contemplating what is a scurrilous attack on a great and established
religion which has given to the world the Bible with its Ten
Commandments, the great prophets of old, Moses, Isaiah, Amos; the great
thinkers of history, Maimonides, Spinoza, Marx, Einstein, many of the
masters of the arts and as high a percentage of the Nobel Prize-winners
in the world, in the sciences, in the arts and in the humanities as has
been achieved by any people on earth? . . .
The resolution against Zionism was originally one condemning racism
and colonialism, a subject on which we could have achieved consensus, a
consensus which is of great importance to all of us and to our African
colleagues in particular. However, instead of permitting this to
happen, a group of countries, drunk with the feeling of power inherent
in the automatic majority and without regard to the importance of
achieving a consensus on this issue, railroaded the UN in a
contemptuous maneuver by the use of the automatic majority into
bracketing Zionism with the subject under discussion.
I do not come to this rostrum to defend the moral and historical
values of the Jewish people. They do not need to be defended. They
speak for themselves. They have given to mankind much of what is great
and eternal. They have done for the spirit of man more than can readily
be appreciated by a forum such as this one.
I come here to denounce the two great evils which menace society in
general and a society of nations in particular. These two evils are
hatred and ignorance. These two evils are the motivating force behind
the proponents of this resolution and their supporters. These two evils
characterize those who would drag this world organization, the ideals
of which were first conceived by the prophets of Israel, to the depths
to which it has been dragged today.
The key to understanding Zionism is in its name. The easternmost of
the two hills of ancient Jerusalem during the tenth century B.C.E. was
called Zion. In fact, the name Zion, referring to Jerusalem, appears
152 times in the Old Testament. The name is overwhelmingly a poetic and
prophetic designation. The religious and emotional qualities of the
name arise from the importance of Jerusalem as the Royal City and the
City of the Temple. "Mount Zion" is the place where God dwells.
Jerusalem, or Zion, is a place where the Lord is King, and where He has
installed His king, David.
King David made Jerusalem the capital of Israel almost three
thousand years ago, and Jerusalem has remained the capital ever since.
During the centuries the term "Zion" grew and expanded to mean the
whole of Israel. The Israelites in exile could not forget Zion. The
Hebrew Psalmist sat by the waters of Babylon and swore: "If I forget
three, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning." This oath
has been repeated for thousands of years by Jews throughout the world.
It is an oath which was made over seven hundred years before the advent
of Christianity and over twelve hundred years before the advent of
Islam, and Zion came to mean the Jewish homeland, symbolic of Judaism,
of Jewish national aspirations.
While praying to his God every Jew, wherever he is in the world,
faces towards Jerusalem. For over two thousand years of exile these
prayers have expressed the yearning of the Jewish people to return to
their ancient homeland, Israel. In fact, a continuous Jewish presence,
in larger or smaller numbers, has been maintained in the country over
the centuries.
Zionism is the name of the national movement of the Jewish people
and is the modern expression of the ancient Jewish heritage. The
Zionist ideal, as set out in the Bible, has been, and is, an integral
part of the Jewish religion.
Zionism is to the Jewish people what the liberation movements of
Africa and Asia have been to their own people.
Zionism is one of the most dynamic and vibrant national movements
in human history. Historically it is based on a unqiue and unbroken
connection, extending some four thousand years, between the People of
the Book and the Land of the Bible.
In modern times, in the late nineteenth century, spurred by the
twin forces of anti-Semitic persecution and of nationalism, the Jewish
people organized the Zionist movement in order to transform their dream
into reality. Zionism as a political movement was the revolt of an
oppressed nation against the depredation and wicked discrimination and
oppression of the countries in which anti-Semitism flourished. It is no
coincidence that the co-sponsors and supporters of this resolution
include countries who are guilty of the horrible crimes of
anti-Semitism and discrimination to this very day.
Support for the aim of Zionism was written into the League of
Nations Mandate for Palestine and was again endorsed by the United
Nations in 1947, when the General Assembly voted by overwhelming
majority for the restoration of Jewish independence in our ancient
land.
The re-establishment of Jewish independence in Israel, after
centuries of struggle to overcome foreign conquest and exile, is a
vindication of the fundamental concepts of the equality of nations and
of self-determination. To question the Jewish people's right to
national existence and freedom is not only to deny to the Jewish people
the right accorded to every other people on this globe, but it is also
to deny the central precepts of the United Nations.
As a former Foreign Minister of Israel, Abba Eban, has written:
"Zionism is nothing more -- but also nothing less -- than the
Jewish people's sense of origin and destination in the land linked
eternally with its name. It is also the instrument whereby the Jewish
nation seeks an authentic fulfillment of itself. And the drama is
enacted in twenty states comprising a hundred million people in 4 1/2
million square miles, with vast resources. The issue therefore is not
whether the world will come to terms with Arab nationalism. The
question is at what point Arab nationalism, with its prodigious glut of
advantage, wealth and opportunity, will come to terms with the modest
but equal rights of another Middle Eastern nation to pursue its life in
security and peace."
The vicious diatribes on Zionism voiced here by Arab delegates may
give this Assembly the wrong impression that while the rest of the
world supported the Jewish national liberation movement the Arab world
was always hostile to Zionism. This is not the case. Arab leaders,
cognizant of the rights of the Jewish people, fully endorsed the
virtues of Zionism. Sherif Hussein, the leader of the Arab world during
World War I, welcomed the return of the Jews to Palestine. His son,
Emir Feisal, who represented the Arab world in the Paris Peace
Conference, had this to say about Zionism:
"We Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with deepest
sympathy on the Zionist movement.... We will wish the Jews a hearty
welcome home.... We are working together for a reformed and revised
Near East, and our two movements complement one another. The movement
is national and not imperialistic. There is room in Syria for us both.
Indeed, I think that neither can be a success without the other."
It is perhaps pertinent at this point to recall that when the
question of Palestine was being debated in the United Nations in 1947,
the Soviet Union strongly supported the Jewish independence struggle.
It is particularly relevant to recall some of Andrei Gromydo's remarks:
"As we know, the aspirations of a considerable part of the Jewish
people are linked with the problem of Palestine and of its future
administration. This fact scarcely requires proof.... During the last
war, the Jewish people underwent exceptional sorrow and suffering.
Without any exaggeration, this sorrow and suffering are indescribable.
It is difficult to express them in dry statistics on the Jewish victims
of the fascist aggressors. The Jews in the territories where the
Hitlerites held sway were subjected to almost complete physical
annihilation. The total number of Jews who perished at the hands of the
Nazi executioners is estimated at approximately six million....
"The United Nations cannot and must not regard this situation with
indifference, since this would be incompatible with the high principles
proclaimed in its Charter, which provides for the defense of human
rights, irrespective of race, religion or sex....
"The fact that no Western European State has been able to ensure
the defence of the elementary rights of the Jewish people and to
safeguard it against the violence of the fascist executioners explains
the aspirations of the Jews to establish their own State. It would be
unjust not to take this into consideration and to deny the right of the
Jewish people to realize this aspiration."
How sad it is to see here a group of nations, many of whom have but
recently freed themselves of colonial rule, deriding one of the most
noble liberation movements of this century, a movement which not only
gave an example of encouragement and determination to the peoples
struggling for independence but also actively aided many of them either
during the period of preparation for their independence or immediately
thereafter.
Here you have a movement which is the embodiment of a unique
pioneering spirit, of the dignity of labor, and of enduring human
values, a movement which has presented to the world an example of
social equality and open democracy being associated in this resolution
with abhorrent political concepts.
We in Israel have endeavored to create a society which strives to
implement the highest ideals of society -- political, social and
cultural -- for all the inhabitants of Israel, irrespective of
religious belief, race or sex.
Show me another plualistic society in this world in which despite
all the difficult problems, Jew and Arab live together with such a
degree of harmony, in which the dignity and rights of man are observed
before the law, in which no death sentence is applied, in which freedom
of speech, of movement, of thought, of expression are guaranteed, in
which even movements which are opposed to our national aims are
represented in our Parliament.
The Arab delegates talk of racism. What has happened to the 800,000
Jews who lived for over two thousand yeras in the Arab lands, who
formed some of the most ancient communities long before the advent of
Islam. Where are they now?
The Jews were once one of the important communities in the
countries of the Middle East, the leaders of thought, of commerce, of
medical science. Where are they in Arab society today? You dare talk of
racism when I can point with pride to the Arab ministers who have
served in my government; to the Arab deputy speaker of my Parliament;
to Arab officers and men serving of their own volition in our border
and police defense forces, frequently commanding Jewish troops; to the
hundreds of thousands of Arabs from all over the Middle East crowding
the cities of Israel every year; to the thousands of Arabs from all
over the Middle East coming for medical treatment to Israel; to the
peaceful coexistence which has developed; to the fact that Arabic is an
official language in Israel on a par with Hebrew; to the fact that it
is as natural for an Arab to serve in public office in Israel as it is
incongruous to think of a Jew serving in any public office in an Arab
country, indeed being admitted to many of them. Is that racism? It is
not! That, Mr. President, is Zionism.
Zionism is our attempt to build a society, imperfect though it may
be, in which the visions of the prophets of Israel will be realized. I
know that we have problems. I know that many disagree with our
government's policies. Many in Israel too disagree from time to time
with the government's policies ... and are free to do so because
Zionism has created the first and only real democratic state in a part
of the world that never really knew democracy and freedom of speech.
This malicious resolution, designed to divert us from its true
purpose, is part of a dangerous anti-Semitic idiom which is being
insinuated into every public debate by those who have sworn to block
the current move towards accommodation and ultimately towards peace in
the Middle East. This, together with similar moves, is designed to
sabotage the efforts of the Geneva Conference for peace in the Middle
East and to deflect those who are moving along the road towards peace
from their purpose. But they will not succeed, for I can but reiterate
my government's policy to make every move in the direction towards
peace, based on compromise.
We are seeing here today but another manifestation of the bitter
anti-Semitic, anti-Jewish hatred which animates Arab society. Who would
have believed that in this year, 1975, the malicious falsehoods of the
"elders of Zion" would be distributed officially by Arab governments?
Who would have believed that we would today contemplate an Arab society
which teaches the vilest anti-Jewish hate in the kindergartens?... We
are being attacked by a society which is motivated by the most extreme
form of racism known in the world today. This is the racism which was
expressed so succinctly in the words of the leader of the PLO, Yassir
Arafat, in his opening address at a symposium in Tripoli, Libya: "There
will be no presence in the region other than the Arab presence...." In
other words, in the Middle East from the Atlantic Ocean to the Persian
Gulf only one presence is allowed, and that is Arab presence. No other
people, regardless of how deep are its roots in the region, is to be
permitted to enjoy its right to self-determination.
Look at the tragic fate of the Kurds of Iraq. Look what happened to
the black population in southern Sudan. Look at the dire peril in which
an entire community of Christians finds itself in Lebanon. Look at the
avowed policy of the PLO, which calls in its Palestine Covenant of 1964
for the destruction of the State of Israel, which denies any form of
compromise on the Palestine issue and which, in the words of its
representative only the other day in this building, considers Tel Aviv
to be occupied territory. Look at all this, and you see before you the
root cause of the twin evils of this world at work, the blind hatred of
the Arab proponents of this resolution, and the abysmal ignorance and
wickedness of those who support them.
The issue before this Assembly is neither Israel nor Zionism. The
issue is the fate of this organizaiton. Conceived in the spirit of the
prophets of Israel, born out of an anti-Nazi alliance after the tragedy
of World War II, it has degenerated into a forum which was this last
week described by [Paul Johnson] one of the leading writers in a
foremost organ of social and liberal thought in the West as "rapidly
becoming one of the most corrupt and corrupting creations in the whole
history of human institutions ... almost without exception those in the
majority came from states notable for racist oppression of every
conceivable hue." He goes on to explain the phenomenon of this debate:
"Israel is a social democracy, the nearest approach to a free
socialist state in the world; its people and government have a profound
respect for human life, so passionate indeed that, despite every
conceivable provocation, they have refused for a quarter of a century
to execute a single captured terrorist. They also have an ancient but
vigorous culture, and a flourishing technology. The combination of
national qualities they have assembled in their brief existence as a
state is a perpetual and embittering reproach to most of the new
countries whose representatives swagger about the UN building. So
Israel is envied and hated; and efforts are made to destroy her. The
extermination of the Israelis has long been the prime objective of the
Terrorist International; they calculate that if they can break Israel,
then all the rest of civilisation is vulnerable to their assaults....
"The melancholy truth, I fear, is that the candles of civilisation
are burning low. The world is increasingly governed not so much by
capitalism, or communism, or social democracy, or even tribal
barbarism, as by a false lexicon of political cliches, accumulated over
half a century and now assuming a kind of degenerate sacerdotal
authority.... We all know what they are...."
Over the centuries it has fallen to the lot of my people to be the
testing agent of human decency, the touchstone of civilization, the
crucible in which enduring human values are to be tested. A nation's
level of humanity could invariably be judged by its behavior towards
its Jewish population. Persecution and oppression have often enough
begun with the Jews, but it has never ended with them. The anti-Jewish
pogroms in Czarist Russia were but the tip of the iceberg which
revealed the inherent rottenness of a regime that was soon to disappear
in the storm of revolution. The anti-Semitic excesses of the Nazis
merely foreshadowed the catastrophe which was to befall mankind in
Europe....
On the issue before us, the world has divided itself into good and
bad, decent and evil, human and debased. We, the Jewish people, will
recall in history our gratitude to those nations who stood up and were
counted and who refused to support this wicked proposition. I know that
this episode will have strengthened the forces of freedom and decency
in this world and will have fortified the free world in their resolve
to strengthen the ideals they so cherish. I know that this episode will
have strengthened Zionism as it has weakened the United Nations.
As I stand on this rostrum, the long and proud history of my people
unravels itself before my inward eye. I see the oppressors of our
people over the ages as they pass one another in evil procession into
oblivion. I stand here before you as the representative of a strong and
flourishing people which has survived them all and which will survive
this shameful exhibition and the proponents of this resolution.
The great moments of Jewish history come to mind as I face you,
once again outnumbered and the would-be victim of hate, ignorance and
evil. I look back on those great moments. I recall the greatness of a
nation which I have the honor to represent in this forum. I am mindful
at this moment of the Jewish people throughout the world wherever they
may be, be it in freedom or in slavery, whose prayers and thoughts are
with me at this moment.
I stand here not as a supplicant. Vote as your moral conscience
dictates to you. For the issue is neither Israel nor Zionism. The issue
is the continued existence of this organization, which has been dragged
to its lowest point of discredit by a coalition of despots and racists.
The vote of each delegation will record in history its country's
stand on anti-Semitic racism and anti-Judaism. You yourselves bear the
responsibility for your stand before history, for as such will you be
viewed in history. We, the Jewish people, will not forget.
For us, the Jewish people, this is but a passing episode in a rich
and event-filled history. We put our trust in our Providence, in our
faith and beliefs, in our time-hallowed tradition, in our striving for
social advance and human values, and in our people wherever they may
be. For us, the Jewish people, this resolution based on hatred,
falsehood and arrogance, is devoid of any moral or legal value.
Sources: Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs |