United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379

Jewish nationalism in Palestine In July 1920, at the San Remo conference, a Class "A" League of Nations mandate over Palestine was allocated to the British. The preamble of the mandate document declared: Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have also agreed that the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2nd, 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country. UN Partition Plan for Palestine On 29 November 1947, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution recommending "to the United Kingdom, as the mandatory Power for Palestine, and to all other Members of the United Nations the adoption and implementation, with regard to the future government of Palestine, of the Plan of Partition with Economic Union" as Resolution 181 (II). The plan contained a proposal to terminate the British Mandate for Palestine and partition Palestine into "independent Arab and Jewish States and the Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem." On 14 May 1948, the day on which the British Mandate over Palestine expired, the Jewish People's Council gathered at the Tel Aviv Museum, and approved a proclamation which declared the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel, to be known as the State of Israel. On 11 May 1949, Israel was admitted to membership in the United Nations. == Text of Resolution 3379 ==

The full text of Resolution 3379: == Votes of Resolution 3379 ==

Israel In his address to the United Nations General Assembly the same day, 10 November 1975, Israeli Ambassador Chaim Herzog stated: Herzog ended his statement, while holding a copy of the resolution, with these words: As he concluded his speech, Herzog tore the resolution in half. The name of the "UN Avenue" in Haifa, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv was switched to the "Zionism Avenue" as a response to the UN's decision. United States Before the vote, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, warned that, "The United Nations is about to make anti-Semitism international law." He delivered a speech against the resolution, including the famous line, "[The United States] 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." American president Gerald Ford condemned the resolution as "deplorable" and "wholly unjustified," saying that it "undermines the principles on which the UN is based." In Campbell, California, in the United States, a group of high school students attempted to solicit signatures on the premises of a local shopping center for a petition against Resolution 3379. The result was the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins (1980) that supported states' rights to expand the exercise of free speech, which California held was legal in what were considered public areas of a shopping mall. Over 100 000 people attended a demonstration in New York City organised by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations protesting the resolution. Speakers at the demonstration included civil rights activists Bayard Rustin and Percy Sutton, feminist Betty Friedan, Bishop of New York Paul Moore Jr., senator Jacob Javits, former Hadassah leader Faye Schenk, and Leah Rabin. The United Farm Workers also issued a statement condemning the resolution, noting that it would "encourage the latent anti-Semitism that has been a blot on world history and which continues to stain the conscience of mankind." Europe The resolution was widely condemned by western European governments and civil society. Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Max van der Stoel described the resolution as "a danger for the United Nations itself." French newspaper Le Monde published a front-page editorial decrying the resolution, saying that "morally, it is shocking that the people who has suffered most as a consequence of racism should be charged with this offense." Both Soviet state broadcaster TASS and East German state broadcaster Allgemeiner Deutscher Nachrichtendienst issued statements in support of the resolution. Mexico's vote in favor of the resolution led some United States Jews to organize a tourism boycott of Mexico. This ended after Mexican foreign minister Emilio Óscar Rabasa made a trip to Israel (Rabasa shortly afterward was forced to resign). == Revocation ==

United Nations General Assembly Resolution 46/86, adopted on 16 December 1991, revoked Resolution 3379's designation of Zionism as a form of racism and racial discrimination. The vote on Resolution 46/86 was held shortly after the Gulf War with sponsorship by 88 countries, including the overwhelming majority of both the First World and the Second World, and was chiefly supported by many African countries. The Arab League, most Muslim-majority countries, and four other countries (Cuba, North Korea, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam) voted against it. In total, the motion to revoke Resolution 3379 received 111 votes in favour, 25 votes against, and 13 abstentions. Motion by the United States Resolution 46/86 was raised under pressure from the United States, and American president George H. W. Bush personally introduced the motion to revoke Resolution 3379 with the following statement: Text of Resolution 46/86 The full text of the revocation was simply: "The General Assembly decides to revoke the determination contained in its resolution 3379 (XXX) of 10 November 1975." Votes of Resolution 46/86 == Legacy ==

On 21 June 2004, while inaugurating the first United Nations conference on the issue of antisemitism, the Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan stated that "the actions of the United Nations on the issue of antisemitism have not always been worthy of its ideals. It is deplorable that the General Assembly adopted in 1975 a resolution which assimilated Zionism with racism and I welcome that it later came back on its position". == See also ==