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The United Nations has been a forum for unrelenting attacks
on Israel and Jewish nationalism. Draft
language up for adoption
at the U.N. Conference brands Israel's "occupation" as a "crime against humanity" and revives the charge of
Zionism as a "movement which is based on racial superiority."
In 1975, the General Assembly, by a vote of 89 to 67, passed a resolution
declaring that "Zionism is a form of racism." That resolution sat on
the books until 1991 when it was revoked by a vote of 87 to 25.
The 1975 resolution was aimed at denying Israel its political legitimacy by
attacking its moral basis for existence. The resolution was used for decades by
Arab and many third world countries as a way to attack Israel’s international
standing. Each year a campaign was launched to deny Israel its U.N. credentials
and to expel Israel from international agencies.
Although this hostility began to wane at the outset of the Israeli-Arab peace
process in the early 1990s, today the U.N. still has not completely normalized
its relations with the Jewish state. For more information on the history of this
relationship, see the League backgrounder,
Israel
and the United Nations.
There remain, from the last recorded vote, at least 25 states that maintain
the position that Zionism is a form of racism. That formulation was a conscious
attempt to de-legitimize Israel and to deny the Jewish people their right to
self-determination.
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