Shock Waves from an Infamous Act

When the United Nations General Assembly last month approved an Arab-sponsored resolution denouncing Zionism as a form of racism, U.S. Ambassador Daniel P. Moynihan declared that the U.S. would never accept "this infamous act." Later he described the vote on Zionism as "an obscenity" and called it "a self-inflicted wound from which the reputation and integrity of the General Assembly may not survive in our time." Last week there was plentiful evidence that the shock waves from that Assembly resolution are still having an impact on the world. Items:

>In New York, as the 30th General Assembly session drew to a close, Ambassador Moynihan renewed his verbal assaults on the Zionism vote, albeit obliquely. He told delegates that the session had been "a profound, even alarming disappointment," and that it had been "the scene of acts which we regard as abominations." Moynihan argued that the Assembly "has been trying to pretend that it is a Parliament, which it is not," and acidly (but accurately) observed that "most of the governments represented do not themselves govern by consent of their citizens." He then quoted a plea by dissident Russian Scientist and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Andrei Sakharov for a worldwide amnesty for political prisoners. At this, the Soviet delegate, Yakov Malik strode out in protest.

The response of Afro-Asian delegates who had voted for the Zionism resolution was predictably cold. Pakistan's Iqbal Akhund made the observation that no nation "has a monopoly on righteousness or self-righteousness," while Saudi Arabia's irrepressible Jamil Baroody offered a mock resolution forgiving "the illustrious Daniel Patrick Moynihan for any misconceptions he may have formed about the U.N. during his sojourn."

>In Paris, the U.S., as well as ten Western European nations plus Canada, Israel and Australia, decided to boycott a conference of the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization after it voted 36-22 to include the General Assembly resolution on Zionism in a set of guidelines on the relationship of the press and the state. The conference was originally advanced by the Soviets in 1972, largely as a vehicle for legitimizing government control of the press as it is practiced in the U.S.S.R. The anti-Zionist measure was proposed by Yugoslavia and forced through by a bloc vote of Arab and Eastern European nations.

Some UNESCO officials in New York privately described the Paris vote as the expression of a death wish; they feel that the Arab states and their Communist allies are so intent on pursuing their isolation campaign against Israel that they are willing to destroy UNESCO and perhaps even the United Nations itself.

> In Mexico City, the government of Luis Echeverria Alvarez has been troubled by the prospect of an economic boycott, principally involving the tourist industry, carried out by American Jewish organizations in the wake of Mexico's vote for the Zionism resolution. Faced with a big drop in the country's billion-dollar tourist business, President Echeverria two weeks ago entertained a group of visiting Jewish leaders at a kosher luncheon (lox, roast chicken, white wine). He said that Mexico voted for the measure only because it was trying to prod Israel into a dialogue with the Arabs. He told them that Foreign Minister Emilio Rabasa was en route home from Israel after laying a wreath at the shrine of Theodor Herzl, the father of Zionism, and that he would ensure that future votes by Mexico would not be "misinterpreted or misunderstood" as equating Zionism with racism. Satisfied with Echeverria's explanation, the leaders returned to the U.S., expecting a public statement from the Mexicans that would clarify their position and a no vote the next time any proposed General Assembly measure lumped Zionism together with racism.

The Jewish leaders got the public statement last week when Mexico's U.N. Delegate Aida Gonzalez Martinez declared that if Zionism simply meant "the legitimate national aspirations of the Jewish people," then it should not be equated with "colonialism and apartheid." Immediately afterward, however, the Mexicans cast another vote validating an anti-Zionist resolution, this one embodied in the declaration of the International Women's Year Conference. Across the U.S., Jewish groups and even some non-Jewish ones continued canceling millions of dollars worth of group bookings to Mexico.

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