November 10, 1975
The United Nations General Assembly passes Resolution 3379, which defines Zionism as a form of racism and racial discrimination, by a vote of 72-35 with 32 abstentions. Arab, Muslim and Soviet bloc states support the resolution.
The Soviet Union originated the idea of equating Zionism with racism in the 1960s during the debate in the U.N. leading to the passage of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which was published in 1965 and went into effect in 1969. During that debate, the United States and Brazil wanted to include in the convention a clause denouncing antisemitism. The Soviets, fearful that such a clause could be used to rebuke them for their persecution of Jews, introduced a counterproposal: “State parties condemn anti-Semitism, Zionism, Nazism, neo-Nazism and all other forms of the policy and ideology of colonialism, national and race hatred and exclusiveness” (Gil Troy, Moynihan’s Moment: America’s Fight Against Zionism as Racism, New York: Oxford University Press, 2013, p. 75). Neither clause was included in the convention.
Israel’s victory in the June 1967 Six-Day War strengthened the resolve of the U.S.S.R. and its Arab allies to battle politically against Israel. They created propaganda and pushed for resolutions that equated Israel with the Nazis and Israeli policy with the apartheid practices of South Africa. Throughout the early 1970s, both the Palestinians and the Soviet Union increasingly tied the Palestinian opposition to Israel to the struggle of other countries, mostly African ones, in their nationalist battles against European imperialism.
In 1974, the Party Central Committee of the Soviet Union put together a seven-point plan to strengthen anti-Zionist propaganda as part of an initiative to improve patriotic feelings among the youth of the nation.
Upon the passage of Resolution 3379, American Ambassador to the United Nations Daniel Patrick Moynihan addresses the U.N. General Assembly, saying in part: “The United States rises to declare before the General Assembly of the United Nations, and before the world, that it does not acknowledge, it will not abide by, it will never acquiesce in this infamous act. … The lie is that Zionism is a form of racism. The overwhelmingly clear truth is that it is not.”
The resolution is finally revoked in December 1991 after Israel made the reversal a condition of its participation in the Madrid Middle East Peace Conference.
