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1)Today marks the 45th anniversary of @UN General Assembly resolution 3379 equating Zionism and racism and Resolution 3376 creating the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (CEIRPP) ( @UNISPAL).
2)3379 was over a decade in the making. In 1965, the U.S. proposed an amendment to include anti-Semitism as a form of racism to be condemned. https://www.jta.org/1965/10/15/archive/russia-asks-u-n-to-condemn-zionism-along-with-anti-semitism-nazism
3)Instead, the USSR proposed the UN “condemn anti-Semitism, Zionism, Nazism, neo-Nazism and all other forms of the policy and ideology of colonialism, national and race hatred and exclusiveness.”
4)In November 1974, PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat addressed the UN plenum with a gun in his holster and called for “a world free of colonialism, imperialism, neo-colonialism and racism in each of its instances, including zionism.” https://unispal.un.org/unispal.nsf/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/a238ec7a3e13eed18525624a007697ec?OpenDocument
5)Drawing on the attempt to label Zionism as racism, at the UNGA in October 1975, Ugandan dictator Idi Amin called for the “expulsion of Israel from the United Nations and the extinction of Israel as a state.”
6)Res. 3379 took note of the first UN conference on women’s rights, held in Mexico City during the summer of 1975, whose concluding declaration called for the elimination of Zionism and linked it to apartheid and racial discrimination.
7)In its operative paragraph, Resolution 3379 “Determines that zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.”
8)U.S. Ambassador to the UN Daniel Patrick Moynihan declared that the U.S. “does not acknowledge, it will not abide by, it will never acquiesce in this infamous act. ... A great evil has been loosed upon the world.” https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/danielpatrickmoynihanun3379.htm
9)Moynihan also warned, “The United Nations is about to make anti-Semitism international law.” Res. 3379 fell under the current IHRA definition of anti-Semitism as an attempt to deny the Jewish people their right to self-determination. https://www.holocaustremembrance.com/resources/working-definitions-charters/working-definition-antisemitism
10)Israeli Ambassador to the UN Chaim Herzog responded, “For us, the Jewish people, this resolution based on hatred, falsehood and arrogance, is devoid of any moral or legal value. For us, the Jewish people, this is no more than a piece of paper and we shall treat it as such.”
11)Herzog also noted that the resolution came on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, when Hitler’s troops launched a coordinated pogrom on German Jewry, a precursor to the Holocaust. Herzog then ripped a copy of the resolution in half.
12)In 1991, under American pressure and in the context of the peace process, the UNGA repealed Res. 3379, erasing the stain of “Zionism is racism.” However, the Palestinian committee created on the same day as 3379 and with the same momentum remains.
13)In 1977, the UNGA created the Division for Palestinian Rights (DPR) to support the CEIRPP. The DPR, the only UN dept. devoted to a specific people, has an annual budget of ~$3 million. This excludes the UN Department of Public Information's budget, which promotes DPR material.
14)The DPR uses this money to organize meetings and conferences, maintain UNISPAL, a repository of pro-Palestinian information, produce anti-Israel reports and resolutions and coordinate with NGOs.
15)Among the NGOs working with the DPR are the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, the PFLP terrorist group's agricultural arm, as well as several groups allegedly tied to the PFLP.
16) The DPR also organizes the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people, a day replete with UN-sponsored anti-Israel events. Solidarity day occurs around November 29, the anniversary of the partition plan in 1947.
17) Jewish leadership at the time accepted the plan, while Arab leadership rejected it. Had it been implemented, 70 years of bloodshed could have been prevented. Some Palestinian extremist groups view the selection of Nov. 29 as a rejection of Israel’s right to exist.
18)Though the UN repealed Res. 3379, Zionism is Racism, Res. 3376, which created a pro-Palestinian propaganda arm remains in effect. The CEIRPP and DPR are part of a UN infrastructure that indulges maximalist Palestinian positions and hinders peace. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/united-nations-not-thrilled-about-middle-eastern-nations-uniting
