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July 20, 2001/Tamuz 29, 5761, Vol. 53, No.41
Conference could bash Israel
MATTHEW E. BERGER
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
WASHINGTON - Lawmakers and Jewish activists are working to block a U.N. panel from bringing back the infamous declaration that "Zionism is racism."
The current draft of a resolution for next month's U.N. Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa notes "with deep concern the increase in racist practices of Zionism." The conference's proposed declaration also minimizes the importance of the Holocaust by writing it with a small "h," and notes the "ethnic cleansing of the Arab population in historic Palestine."
"It's a sinister attempt to hijack the whole conference," said Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. "They are turning it into a political forum for private agendas."
The Durban conference appears to be not an isolated event but merely one strand in a widening net of Arab attempts to paint Israel as a pariah in the international community.
"This is a watershed event," Hoenlein said of the Durban conference, as the Arab states are trying to build "a body of evidence that says Israelis are war criminals."
Most notably, a group of 28 Palestinians recently filed suit in Belgium accusing Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of war crimes for his role in the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacres in Lebanon. Sharon, who theoretically could be arrested if he sets foot in Belgium, canceled a planned visit during his European trip earlier this month.
Rabbi Andrew Baker, director of international Jewish affairs at the American Jewish Committee, said Arab countries see the United Nations as a place where their voice is as powerful as those of Israel and its allies, and where - given their numerical superiority - they can easily pass anti-Israel resolutions. Only a U.S. veto in the Security Council, or the threat of such, has forestalled several hostile broadsides against Israel in recent years.
With the breakdown of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks last year and the outbreak of violence, the racism conference "came about at the right time," giving the Arab world an opportunity to bash Israel, Baker said.
Considering the rising hostilities between Israel and the Palestinians, the revival of anti-Israel animus at the United Nations "flows naturally," Baker said.
The resolution equating Zionism with racism first passed in the United Nations in 1975, largely on the strength of the Arab and Soviet voting blocs. It was repealed in 1991 after President George Bush, said reversing the language would enhance the U.N.'s credibility.
"Zionism is not a policy, it is an ideal that led to the creation of a home for the Jewish people, to the State of Israel," Bush said. "And to equate Zionism with the intolerable sin of racism is to twist history and to forget the terrible plight of Jews in World War II and, indeed, throughout history."
The phrase returned to the international lexicon last year, when Arab states inserted it into a regional draft for the racism conference at around the time the violent Palestinian uprising began in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Jewish officials say there is a significant chance that the "Zionism is racism" sentiment could make it into the report's final version. If so, it would be a "rocket booster" to those who wish to delegitimize Israel and justify violence and terror against the Jewish state, Hoenlein said.
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