NEW YORK, The Unite Nations, (Islamweb & News Agencies)- A 1975 UN resolution equating Zionism with racism was repealed in 1991 after strong opposition from the US and Israel, but recent violence in the Middle East has led to calls for its revival.(Read photo caption below).
Zionism is the political movement which emerged in the late 19th century which successfully sought to establish a Jewish state in Palestine - the so-called Jews' homeland in antiquity.
As expected the United States is again coming in in force to bail Israel out of international condemnation for its brutality against the people of Palestine.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said on Friday the US would fight any moves by "Third World nations" to "hijack a conference that should be aimed at combating racism."He said: "The conference should not equate Zionism with racism... and if they do, the United States will not go."
The US would also boycott the conference, Mr Fleischer said, if organisers included calls for reparations to be paid to African countries by western nations that had benefited from slavery and colonisation.
Ironically, the United States supports reparations being paid for Jews that suffered from Nazism.
"This conference, " Fleischer unashamedly went on to say, " should be focused on the future," he said. "Such looks back into a very tangled and complicated issue that's 200 years old will detract (from) the ability of this conference to focus on the here and now."
Washington boycotted two previous UN racism conferences in 1978 and 1983 because of the Zionism issue. Obviously, the United States this time is not only protecting Israel but it is also protecting itself.
Writing for Newsweek, Ellis Cose, says the meeting, scheduled for the end of August in Durban, South Africa, is supposed to do for racial and ethnic minorities what the 1995 Beijing women’s conference did for women. That conference put women’s issues squarely on the international agenda and energized reform efforts around the globe. But what Mr. Cose deliberately omits in his review of the problems plaguing the Durban confrence is that in Beijing, the United States and Israel were not in spotlight on women as they are now on Zionism and Slavery.
What was to have been the final preparatory meeting ended a month ago with delegates miles apart on language for the main conference documents.
       They will reconvene at the end of July

       According to political observers, some of the difficulties were inevitable, for the subject requires countries, particularly the United States and Israel, to look into their “dark corners”?a task they would rather avoid. It also raises thorny questions not just of diplomacy but of history, philosophy, morality and law.
PHOTO CAPTION:
Mid-East clashes have renewed interest in the 1975 resolution.
A 1975 UN resolution equating Zionism with racism was repealed in 1991 after strong opposition from the US and Israel, but recent Israeli brutalities in the Middle East and the failure of the United States to reign in its unruly strategic ally in the region has led to calls for its revival.