Zionism Equated with Racism: UN Resolution 3379 Passes

The United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 3379 on November 10, 1975, declaring that "Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination." The vote was 72 to 35, with 32 abstentions, and it split the international community along Cold War and post-colonial lines. The resolution was sponsored by Arab and Soviet-aligned states and supported by most of the Non-Aligned Movement, which viewed Zionism through the lens of anti-colonial struggle and solidarity with the Palestinian cause. Israel's ambassador Chaim Herzog tore a copy of the resolution in half at the podium, declaring: "For us, the Jewish people, this resolution based on hatred, falsehood, and arrogance is devoid of any moral or legal value." The United States ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan denounced it as "an infamous act" and warned that the General Assembly was undermining its own legitimacy. The resolution poisoned Arab-Israeli diplomacy for a generation, hardening Israeli positions and providing rhetorical ammunition to those who argued that international institutions were inherently biased against the Jewish state. It also damaged the United Nations itself, reinforcing the perception in Western capitals that the General Assembly had become a forum for bloc voting rather than principled deliberation. The resolution was repealed on December 16, 1991, by Resolution 46/86, in a vote of 111 to 25, as the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union's dissolution removed the diplomatic machinery that had sustained anti-Israel voting blocs. The repeal was a condition that Israel set for participating in the Madrid Peace Conference. The sixteen-year episode remains one of the most contested chapters in United Nations history.