United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379

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Allied Powers have also agreed that the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2nd, 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national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.^[2]

El 29 de noviembre de 1947, la Asamblea General de las Naciones Unidas adoptó una resolución que recomendaba «al Reino Unido, como Potencia Mandataria de Palestina, y a todos los demás Miembros de las Naciones Unidas la adopción e implementación, con respecto al futuro gobierno de Palestina, del Plan de Partición con Unión Económica» como Resolución 181 (II) . ^{[ 3 ]} El plan contenía una propuesta para poner fin al Mandato Británico de Palestina y dividir Palestina en «Estados árabes y judíos independientes y el Régimen Internacional Especial para la Ciudad de Jerusalén». El 14 de mayo de 1948, día en que expiró el Mandato Británico sobre Palestina, el Consejo del Pueblo Judío se reunió en el Museo de Tel Aviv y aprobó una proclamación que declaraba el establecimiento de un Estado judío en Eretz Israel , que se conocería como el Estado de Israel . ^{[ 4 ]}

El 11 de mayo de 1949, Israel fue admitido como miembro de las Naciones Unidas. ^{[ 5 ]}

En su discurso ante la Asamblea General de las Naciones Unidas ese mismo día, 10 de noviembre de 1975, el embajador israelí Chaim Herzog declaró: ^{[ 9 ]}

"I can point with pride to the Arab ministers who have served in my government; to the Arab deputy speaker of my Parliament; to Arab officers and men serving of their own volition in our border and police defense forces, frequently commanding Jewish troops; to the hundreds of thousands of Arabs from all over the Middle East crowding the cities of Israel every year; to the thousands of Arabs from all over the Middle East coming for medical treatment to Israel; to the peaceful coexistence which has developed; to the fact that Arabic is an official language in Israel on a par with Hebrew; to the fact that it is as natural for an Arab to serve in public office in Israel as it is incongruous to think of a Jew serving in any public office in an Arab country, indeed being admitted to many of them. Is that racism? It is not! That ... is Zionism."

Herzog ended his statement, while holding a copy of the resolution, with these words:

"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."

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.^[10]

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."^[11] 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."^[12] American president Gerald Ford condemned the resolution as "deplorable" and "wholly unjustified," saying that it "undermines the principles on which the UN is based."^[13]

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.^[14]

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.^[15] 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."^[16]

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."^[17] 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."^[17] An open letter condemning the resolution as "a forgery of historical truth" was signed by a wide range of prominent French scientists, philosophers, and politicians, including Jean-Paul Sartre, Pierre Mendès France, Simone de Beauvoir, François Mitterrand, René Cassin, François Jacob, Alfred Kastler, André Michel Lwoff, as well as by Soviet physicist Andrei Sakharov.^[18]

Both Soviet state broadcaster TASS and East German state broadcaster Allgemeiner Deutscher Nachrichtendienst issued statements in support of the resolution.^[17]

The Canadian House of Commons voted unanimously to condemn the resolution.^[19]

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).^[20][21]

La Resolución 46/86 se elevó bajo presión de los Estados Unidos, ^{[ 23 ]} y el presidente estadounidense George H. W. Bush presentó personalmente la moción para revocar la Resolución 3379 con la siguiente declaración:

La Resolución 3379 de la Asamblea General de la ONU, la llamada resolución que afirma que "el sionismo es racismo", se burla de este compromiso y de los principios sobre los que se fundaron las Naciones Unidas. Por ello, pido su derogación. El sionismo no es una política; es la idea que condujo a la creación de un hogar para el pueblo judío, el Estado de Israel. Equiparar el sionismo con el intolerable pecado del racismo es distorsionar la historia y olvidar la terrible situación de los judíos durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial y, de hecho, a lo largo de la historia. Equiparar el sionismo con el racismo es rechazar al propio Israel, miembro de pleno derecho de las Naciones Unidas. Este organismo no puede pretender buscar la paz y, al mismo tiempo, cuestionar el derecho de Israel a existir . Al derogar esta resolución incondicionalmente, las Naciones Unidas fortalecerán su credibilidad y servirán a la causa de la paz. ^{[ 23 ]}

El texto completo de la revocación era simplemente: ^{[ 24 ] [ 25 ]}

"La Asamblea General decide revocar la resolución contenida en su resolución 3379 (XXX) del 10 de noviembre de 1975."