Zionism and Racism: A Suppressed Chapter in UN History

We have previously noted how rarely it is acknowledged in contemporary discourse that Israel’s recognition by the United Nations was mainly secured through coercion and political pressure. Similarly, another often-overlooked fact is that the UN officially recognized Zionism as a form of racism for several years, until American pressure primarily forced a reversal.

In 1975, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 3379, declaring that “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.” Many countries from the Global South and the Soviet bloc supported this resolution. The rationale was that Zionism, as a political ideology advocating for a Jewish state in Palestine, inherently entailed the dispossession and displacement of the indigenous Palestinian population, functioning, therefore, as an ethnically or racially exclusivist doctrine.

Sixteen years later, in 1991, this resolution was revoked by Resolution 46/86, but only after intense diplomatic pressure, especially from the United States, which had emerged as the world’s sole superpower following the collapse of the Soviet bloc. The U.S. made Israel’s participation in the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference conditional upon the repeal of Resolution 3379. American officials, most notably President George H.W. Bush and Secretary of State James Baker, reportedly linked diplomatic recognition, foreign aid, and participation in key international forums to support for the revocation. This raises a crucial question: Was the repeal a genuine moral reassessment or a calculated geopolitical maneuver?

Once again, such historical facts must be brought to light. They serve as a vital reminder that Israel’s acceptance on the world stage was not grounded in broad moral consensus but was instead the product of sustained pressure and diplomatic blackmail.