WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.520 Imagine standing in the Great Hall of the United 00:00:02.520 --> 00:00:05.839 Nations General Assembly. It's November 10th, 00:00:05.839 --> 00:00:10.240 1975. Right. And the air in the room is just 00:00:10.240 --> 00:00:12.699 thick with this incredibly uncomfortable tension. 00:00:13.400 --> 00:00:16.920 A man walks up to the iconic green marble podium. 00:00:18.160 --> 00:00:21.120 He is holding an official UN resolution. I mean, 00:00:21.120 --> 00:00:23.140 we're talking about the absolute highest standard 00:00:23.140 --> 00:00:25.219 of international diplomacy here. Yeah, the real 00:00:25.219 --> 00:00:27.500 deal. He looks out at the gathered delegates. 00:00:28.100 --> 00:00:30.600 delivers this blistering speech, and then, with 00:00:30.600 --> 00:00:33.000 the eyes of the entire world watching, he takes 00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:35.380 that official document and physically tears it 00:00:35.380 --> 00:00:37.619 in half. I mean, it's just the stunning, visceral 00:00:37.619 --> 00:00:39.479 image, right? And it's one you almost never see 00:00:39.479 --> 00:00:41.539 in that room. No, definitely not. Because, you 00:00:41.539 --> 00:00:43.939 know, we are conditioned to expect diplomacy 00:00:43.939 --> 00:00:46.799 to be this arena of carefully worded statements, 00:00:47.119 --> 00:00:50.060 polite handshakes, quiet abstentions. Lots of 00:00:50.060 --> 00:00:52.020 decorum. Exactly. The United Nations is built 00:00:52.020 --> 00:00:55.119 on decorum. So ripping up an international declaration 00:00:55.119 --> 00:00:57.560 right there on the assembly floor. It is a raw, 00:00:57.979 --> 00:01:00.259 unvarnished rejection of the institution's authority. 00:01:00.579 --> 00:01:02.799 Wait, hold on. You're telling me an ambassador 00:01:02.799 --> 00:01:05.299 literally ripped up an official declaration on 00:01:05.299 --> 00:01:08.140 the floor of the UN. You really did. That feels 00:01:08.140 --> 00:01:10.480 completely contrary to the whole point of the 00:01:10.480 --> 00:01:13.019 United Nations. I thought the entire system was 00:01:13.019 --> 00:01:15.840 built to prevent that kind of overt hostility. 00:01:16.060 --> 00:01:18.459 You would think so. And that single torn piece 00:01:18.459 --> 00:01:21.260 of paper is exactly what we are jumping into 00:01:21.260 --> 00:01:25.019 today. Welcome to the deep dive. We've got a 00:01:25.019 --> 00:01:28.079 massive stack of historical sources today detailing 00:01:28.079 --> 00:01:31.620 United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379. 00:01:31.900 --> 00:01:34.909 It's a fascinating one. Our mission is to explore 00:01:34.909 --> 00:01:37.469 what has to be one of the most unusual and dramatic 00:01:37.469 --> 00:01:40.790 arcs in the history of international law. We 00:01:40.790 --> 00:01:43.090 are looking at how the UN officially defined 00:01:43.090 --> 00:01:45.730 a member nation's founding ideology as a form 00:01:45.730 --> 00:01:49.390 of racism in 1975. Right. And then in a historically 00:01:49.390 --> 00:01:52.810 rare, almost unprecedented move, completely revoke 00:01:52.810 --> 00:01:55.810 that exact same decision 16 years later. But 00:01:55.810 --> 00:01:58.010 before we get into the mechanics of how all this 00:01:58.010 --> 00:01:59.810 happened, we really need to set the parameters 00:01:59.810 --> 00:02:01.810 for this conversation. Yes, absolutely. Good 00:02:01.810 --> 00:02:03.829 point. Because if you're listening to this and 00:02:03.829 --> 00:02:07.090 wondering how we are going to navigate the incredibly 00:02:07.090 --> 00:02:10.189 charged, deeply sensitive political history involving 00:02:10.189 --> 00:02:14.379 Israel, Zionism, and the UN, Here is the deal. 00:02:14.539 --> 00:02:16.500 We have to be very clear about this. We are looking 00:02:16.500 --> 00:02:18.620 at one of the most polarizing moments in modern 00:02:18.620 --> 00:02:21.539 history. And as your guides, our job today isn't 00:02:21.539 --> 00:02:24.060 to take a political stance, left wing or right 00:02:24.060 --> 00:02:26.099 wing. No, not at all. We aren't here to endorse 00:02:26.099 --> 00:02:28.199 any of the ideologies debated on that assembly 00:02:28.199 --> 00:02:30.479 floor or, you know, to tell you who was morally 00:02:30.479 --> 00:02:33.479 right or wrong. Exactly. Our job is just to show 00:02:33.479 --> 00:02:35.860 you the raw mechanics of how international law 00:02:35.860 --> 00:02:38.840 is formed, how it is wielded as a diplomatic 00:02:38.840 --> 00:02:42.800 weapon and, well, how it can be dismantled. Right. 00:02:42.990 --> 00:02:45.830 We are impartially reporting the factual events, 00:02:46.090 --> 00:02:48.430 the historical speeches, and the global reactions 00:02:48.430 --> 00:02:50.689 exactly as they appear in the source material. 00:02:51.189 --> 00:02:53.509 Nothing more. That is the perfect lens for this. 00:02:53.830 --> 00:02:56.169 Because to understand why a document was violently 00:02:56.169 --> 00:03:00.110 torn in half in 1975, we first have to understand 00:03:00.110 --> 00:03:02.189 the diplomatic foundation the UN had already 00:03:02.189 --> 00:03:04.539 built. regarding Israel. Yeah, and it didn't 00:03:04.539 --> 00:03:06.659 start with hostility. It actually started with 00:03:06.659 --> 00:03:09.759 creation. Right, so let's unpack this. To understand 00:03:09.759 --> 00:03:12.840 the shockwave of that 1975 vote, where do we 00:03:12.840 --> 00:03:15.199 start? You really have to look at the architectural 00:03:15.199 --> 00:03:17.180 blueprints of the Middle East from the early 00:03:17.180 --> 00:03:20.099 20th century. The source material traces the 00:03:20.099 --> 00:03:22.500 international groundwork all the way back to 00:03:22.500 --> 00:03:26.120 July 1920. Oh wow, 1920, so way before the UN 00:03:26.120 --> 00:03:28.419 even existed. Exactly. At the San Remo conference, 00:03:28.580 --> 00:03:30.400 this is where the League of Nations, which, you 00:03:30.400 --> 00:03:33.080 know, was the predecessor to the UN. A precursor. 00:03:33.199 --> 00:03:35.759 Yeah. They officially allocated a mandate over 00:03:35.759 --> 00:03:38.379 Palestine to the British government. And crucially, 00:03:38.800 --> 00:03:40.900 the preamble of that mandate didn't just hand 00:03:40.900 --> 00:03:42.919 over administrative control. What did it do? 00:03:43.180 --> 00:03:45.699 It explicitly favored the establishment of a 00:03:45.699 --> 00:03:48.120 national home for the Jewish people in Palestine, 00:03:48.580 --> 00:03:51.500 while also strictly stating, this shouldn't prejudice 00:03:51.500 --> 00:03:54.000 the civil and religious rights of existing non 00:03:54.000 --> 00:03:56.580 -Jewish communities. OK. So the international 00:03:56.580 --> 00:04:00.300 legal framework for a Jewish homeland. was essentially 00:04:00.300 --> 00:04:03.400 codified by global powers decades before the 00:04:03.400 --> 00:04:06.180 UN was even a thing. Yes. And when the UN was 00:04:06.180 --> 00:04:09.060 formed, it picked up that exact mantle. So we 00:04:09.060 --> 00:04:11.979 move forward to November 29, 1947. Right after 00:04:11.979 --> 00:04:14.719 World War II. Right. The UN General Assembly 00:04:14.719 --> 00:04:17.660 adopts Resolution 181. You might know this as 00:04:17.660 --> 00:04:19.800 the famous Partition Plan. Right, I've heard 00:04:19.800 --> 00:04:22.560 of that. The UN proposed terminating the British 00:04:22.560 --> 00:04:24.959 mandate and partitioning the land into independent 00:04:24.959 --> 00:04:27.939 Arab and Jewish states. With Jerusalem being 00:04:27.939 --> 00:04:31.100 placed under this special international regime, 00:04:31.639 --> 00:04:34.420 that UN vote directly provided the international 00:04:34.420 --> 00:04:37.000 legitimacy for the Jewish People's Council to 00:04:37.000 --> 00:04:39.079 declare the establishment of the state of Israel 00:04:39.079 --> 00:04:44.160 on May 14th, 1948. And by May 1949, Israel was 00:04:44.160 --> 00:04:46.180 officially admitted as a full member state of 00:04:46.180 --> 00:04:48.000 the United Nations. Okay. I mean, if you're listening 00:04:48.000 --> 00:04:50.439 to this and wondering how the exact same organization 00:04:50.439 --> 00:04:52.560 that voted to partition the land and formally 00:04:52.560 --> 00:04:55.379 establish Israel could turn around and condemn 00:04:55.379 --> 00:04:58.550 its founding national ideology, you are not alone. 00:04:58.670 --> 00:05:00.589 It's a massive shift. It's a geopolitical earthquake. 00:05:01.089 --> 00:05:04.290 We go from the UN admitting Israel in 1949 to 00:05:04.290 --> 00:05:07.029 November 10th, 1975, where the UN passes resolution 00:05:07.029 --> 00:05:11.269 3379. Yeah. And this resolution linked Zionism 00:05:11.269 --> 00:05:14.209 to apartheid and imperialism. Yeah. It culminated 00:05:14.209 --> 00:05:16.810 in this one definitive sentence. It determines 00:05:16.810 --> 00:05:19.389 that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination. 00:05:19.709 --> 00:05:23.439 So in just under 30 years, the UN went from the 00:05:23.439 --> 00:05:25.980 architect of the partition to its harshest critic. 00:05:27.040 --> 00:05:29.480 How does the diplomatic math change that fast? 00:05:29.579 --> 00:05:33.459 I mean, how did the actual text of 3379 justify 00:05:33.459 --> 00:05:36.680 this massive pivot? Well, to understand how this 00:05:36.680 --> 00:05:39.240 passed, you really have to look at UN voting 00:05:39.240 --> 00:05:43.120 mathematics and the geopolitical reality of 1975. 00:05:43.279 --> 00:05:45.540 OK, set the scene for me. The Arab League wanted 00:05:45.540 --> 00:05:48.199 to pass a resolution condemning Israel's ideology, 00:05:48.439 --> 00:05:50.959 right? But they didn't have anywhere near the 00:05:50.959 --> 00:05:53.420 sheer numbers to pass a General Assembly resolution 00:05:53.420 --> 00:05:55.319 on their own. Oh, because it requires a majority. 00:05:55.620 --> 00:05:57.879 Exactly. They needed to build a massive coalition. 00:05:58.319 --> 00:06:00.560 And the text of the resolution itself reveals 00:06:00.560 --> 00:06:02.699 how they did it. How so? They didn't just make 00:06:02.699 --> 00:06:05.240 the claim about Zionism in a vacuum. They built 00:06:05.240 --> 00:06:07.839 a framework by citing a series of other international 00:06:07.839 --> 00:06:10.319 declarations that had just taken place. Oh, clever. 00:06:10.399 --> 00:06:12.800 Yeah, carefully linking Zionism to the biggest 00:06:12.800 --> 00:06:15.100 geopolitical trigger words of the era. What kind 00:06:15.100 --> 00:06:16.920 of trigger words are we talking about, like Cold 00:06:16.920 --> 00:06:20.069 War rhetoric? Exactly. So the resolution cited 00:06:20.069 --> 00:06:22.149 the Declaration of Mexico on the equality of 00:06:22.149 --> 00:06:24.529 women, which had recently called for the elimination 00:06:24.529 --> 00:06:27.569 of Zionism alongside colonialism and apartheid. 00:06:27.589 --> 00:06:30.949 Wow, okay. It also cited an organization of African 00:06:30.949 --> 00:06:35.240 unity resolution from Kampala, Uganda. That one 00:06:35.240 --> 00:06:38.100 linked the regimes in Palestine, Zimbabwe, and 00:06:38.100 --> 00:06:41.699 South Africa as having a common, quote, imperialist 00:06:41.699 --> 00:06:43.939 origin. I see where this is going. And it cited 00:06:43.939 --> 00:06:46.459 a conference of non -aligned countries in Lima, 00:06:46.459 --> 00:06:49.639 Peru that condemned Zionism as a threat to world 00:06:49.639 --> 00:06:53.079 peace. So by framing Zionism as a form of imperialism 00:06:53.079 --> 00:06:56.759 and colonialism, the sponsors of the bill successfully 00:06:56.759 --> 00:06:59.439 pitched the resolution to two massive voting 00:06:59.439 --> 00:07:02.259 blocks. Exactly. Let me guess. the Soviet Bloc 00:07:02.259 --> 00:07:03.920 because they wanted to oppose anything backed 00:07:03.920 --> 00:07:06.579 by the United States. Yep. And newly independent 00:07:06.579 --> 00:07:09.939 African nations who are obviously highly sensitive 00:07:09.939 --> 00:07:12.579 to anything labeled as colonialism or apartheid. 00:07:12.660 --> 00:07:14.500 You hit the nail on the head. It was an absolute 00:07:14.500 --> 00:07:17.040 master class in coalition building. Because if 00:07:17.040 --> 00:07:19.240 the resolution just said, you know, we oppose 00:07:19.240 --> 00:07:21.959 Israel, it failed. Let's get the votes. Right. 00:07:22.360 --> 00:07:25.519 But by equating Zionism with the apartheid regime 00:07:25.519 --> 00:07:29.379 in South Africa, suddenly. Every newly independent 00:07:29.379 --> 00:07:33.060 African nation feels this profound moral obligation 00:07:33.060 --> 00:07:36.480 to vote yes. Wow. And the Soviet Union and its 00:07:36.480 --> 00:07:39.279 satellite states, they vote yes as part of their 00:07:39.279 --> 00:07:41.980 broader Cold War strategy to align with Arab 00:07:41.980 --> 00:07:44.300 states and undermine American influence in the 00:07:44.300 --> 00:07:46.699 Middle East. So what was the final tally? When 00:07:46.699 --> 00:07:49.759 the vote came down, it passed with 72 votes in 00:07:49.759 --> 00:07:53.139 favor, 35 against, and 32 abstentions. OK, so 00:07:53.139 --> 00:07:55.790 a clear majority. Yeah. The in favor votes were 00:07:55.790 --> 00:07:58.310 the Arab League, Muslim majority countries, the 00:07:58.310 --> 00:08:01.269 Soviet Bloc, and many African nations. The against 00:08:01.269 --> 00:08:03.589 votes were chiefly the United States, Western 00:08:03.589 --> 00:08:06.170 Europe, and Israel. It's fascinating how the 00:08:06.170 --> 00:08:08.230 language of the resolution was engineered specifically 00:08:08.230 --> 00:08:10.810 to capture those exact votes. But, you know, 00:08:10.850 --> 00:08:12.850 a declaration of this magnitude doesn't just 00:08:12.850 --> 00:08:15.110 sit quietly in year -end filing cabinet. No, 00:08:15.250 --> 00:08:17.110 not at all. Which takes us right back to that 00:08:17.110 --> 00:08:18.709 opening image on the assembly floor. Here's where 00:08:18.709 --> 00:08:20.689 it gets really interesting. Yes. On the very 00:08:20.689 --> 00:08:23.689 day of the vote, November 10th, 1975, Israeli 00:08:23.689 --> 00:08:26.790 Ambassador Chaim Herzog delivered a deeply impassioned 00:08:26.790 --> 00:08:29.009 address. Because he knew what was coming. Exactly. 00:08:29.029 --> 00:08:31.430 He knew the math. He knew the resolution was 00:08:31.430 --> 00:08:34.289 going to pass. So he didn't just argue obscure 00:08:34.279 --> 00:08:37.580 points of international law, he argued the lived 00:08:37.580 --> 00:08:40.259 mechanical reality of his country to counter 00:08:40.259 --> 00:08:43.159 the specific charge of racism. What did he say? 00:08:43.419 --> 00:08:46.200 He pointed to Arab ministers serving in the Israeli 00:08:46.200 --> 00:08:49.389 government. He pointed to Arab deputy speakers 00:08:49.389 --> 00:08:52.289 in the Israeli parliament and Arab officers commanding 00:08:52.289 --> 00:08:54.750 troops in the defense forces. Oh, I see. He noted 00:08:54.750 --> 00:08:56.950 that Arabic was an official language of the country 00:08:56.950 --> 00:09:00.029 on par with Hebrew. So he was laying out empirical 00:09:00.029 --> 00:09:03.269 evidence of civic integration to dismantle the 00:09:03.269 --> 00:09:05.970 whole premise of the resolution. Exactly. According 00:09:05.970 --> 00:09:08.190 to the historical text we have here, he lists 00:09:08.190 --> 00:09:10.190 these examples and then says to the assembly, 00:09:10.809 --> 00:09:14.370 is that racism? It is not. That is Zionism. And 00:09:14.370 --> 00:09:17.169 that leads to the theatrical crescendo. Herzog 00:09:17.169 --> 00:09:19.909 held up the resolution. He declared that for 00:09:19.909 --> 00:09:22.289 the Jewish people, the document was based on 00:09:22.289 --> 00:09:24.750 hatred and falsehood, that it was completely 00:09:24.750 --> 00:09:28.029 devoid of any moral or legal value. He called 00:09:28.029 --> 00:09:30.909 it no more than a piece of paper. And as he finished 00:09:30.909 --> 00:09:33.370 his speech, he physically tore it in half at 00:09:33.370 --> 00:09:35.379 the podium. See, I have to push back on this 00:09:35.379 --> 00:09:37.659 for a second. We have an ambassador tearing up 00:09:37.659 --> 00:09:39.539 a piece of paper on television. It's incredibly 00:09:39.539 --> 00:09:42.759 dramatic. Sure. But does ripping paper actually 00:09:42.759 --> 00:09:46.440 impact international law, or is it purely symbolic 00:09:46.440 --> 00:09:49.419 theater? Well, that question gets to the core 00:09:49.419 --> 00:09:51.779 tension of what the United Nations General Assembly 00:09:51.779 --> 00:09:54.919 actually is. Okay, how so? Unlike the UN Security 00:09:54.919 --> 00:09:57.299 Council, which can, you know, authorize military 00:09:57.299 --> 00:10:00.460 action or binding economic sanctions. Like real 00:10:00.460 --> 00:10:03.240 teeth. Yeah, exactly. General Assembly resolutions 00:10:03.240 --> 00:10:06.799 are largely declarative. They establish international 00:10:06.799 --> 00:10:08.700 norms and reflect the consensus of the global 00:10:08.700 --> 00:10:11.379 community, but they aren't enforceable statutes 00:10:11.379 --> 00:10:14.639 like a law in a domestic court. I see. So, in 00:10:14.639 --> 00:10:17.409 this arena, the symbols are the substance. Tearing 00:10:17.409 --> 00:10:19.450 the paper was his way of visually demonstrating 00:10:19.450 --> 00:10:21.929 to the world that Israel would not grant the 00:10:21.929 --> 00:10:24.809 resolution the legitimacy of compliance. He was 00:10:24.809 --> 00:10:26.990 attacking the norm itself. And that visual act 00:10:26.990 --> 00:10:29.370 of defiance resonated immediately. I mean, back 00:10:29.370 --> 00:10:32.289 in Israel, major cities like Haifa, Jerusalem 00:10:32.289 --> 00:10:35.289 and Tel Aviv literally changed their municipal 00:10:35.289 --> 00:10:37.830 infrastructure. Oh, yeah. The street names. Yeah. 00:10:38.429 --> 00:10:40.769 Streets that were historically named U .N. Avenue 00:10:40.769 --> 00:10:43.850 were immediately unscrewed and switched to Zionism 00:10:43.850 --> 00:10:47.350 Avenue. It was just a complete total rejection 00:10:47.350 --> 00:10:50.529 of the UN's moral authority. And the pushback 00:10:50.529 --> 00:10:53.110 from the West was just as fierce. Daniel Patrick 00:10:53.110 --> 00:10:55.029 Moynihan, the United States ambassador to the 00:10:55.029 --> 00:10:57.730 UN, delivered a famous warning right before the 00:10:57.730 --> 00:11:00.169 vote. What did he say? He said the UN was about 00:11:00.169 --> 00:11:03.250 to make anti -Semitism international law. Wow. 00:11:03.679 --> 00:11:06.879 That's heavy. Very. And after the vote passed 00:11:06.879 --> 00:11:08.940 he took the floor again and stated the U .S. 00:11:09.019 --> 00:11:12.019 would never acquiesce to this infamous act, declaring 00:11:12.019 --> 00:11:14.639 that a great evil has been loosed upon the world. 00:11:14.879 --> 00:11:17.639 Strong words. U .S. President Gerald Ford called 00:11:17.639 --> 00:11:20.639 it deplorable and wholly unjustified. And it 00:11:20.639 --> 00:11:22.820 wasn't just politicians reading prepared statements 00:11:22.820 --> 00:11:25.679 either. The sources show this massive wave of 00:11:25.679 --> 00:11:27.809 outrage from intellectuals in Europe. Right, 00:11:27.950 --> 00:11:30.370 the cultural response. Yeah, you had the French 00:11:30.370 --> 00:11:32.769 newspaper Le Monde running a front page editorial 00:11:32.769 --> 00:11:35.330 saying it was morally shocking that the Jewish 00:11:35.330 --> 00:11:37.909 people who had suffered the most horrific consequences 00:11:37.909 --> 00:11:40.529 of racism in the 20th century were now being 00:11:40.529 --> 00:11:42.590 charged with it by the international community. 00:11:43.049 --> 00:11:45.610 The list of luminaries who condemned it is actually 00:11:45.610 --> 00:11:48.679 staggering. You had existentialist philosophers 00:11:48.679 --> 00:11:52.179 like Jean -Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir 00:11:52.179 --> 00:11:54.740 signing an open letter calling the resolution 00:11:54.740 --> 00:11:57.960 a forgery of historical truth. Wow. Sartre weighed 00:11:57.960 --> 00:12:01.279 in. Yes. You even had Andrei Sakharov, the famous 00:12:01.279 --> 00:12:04.159 Soviet physicist and dissident, signing that 00:12:04.159 --> 00:12:06.759 same letter, which, by the way, was incredibly 00:12:06.759 --> 00:12:09.240 dangerous for him to do. Though we should note 00:12:09.240 --> 00:12:11.519 state broadcasters in the Soviet Union and East 00:12:11.519 --> 00:12:13.659 Germany fully supported the resolution. They 00:12:13.659 --> 00:12:16.889 broadcast it as a huge victory against West imperialism. 00:12:17.409 --> 00:12:19.409 But the craziest part to me isn't what happened 00:12:19.409 --> 00:12:23.049 in New York or Europe. It's the bizarre chain 00:12:23.049 --> 00:12:25.049 reaction that's triggered out in the real world. 00:12:25.129 --> 00:12:27.529 The ripple effect. Yeah the mechanics of this 00:12:27.529 --> 00:12:30.330 UN vote started affecting daily life in domestic 00:12:30.330 --> 00:12:33.250 economies. I mean you have a hundred thousand 00:12:33.250 --> 00:12:35.370 people protesting in the streets of New York 00:12:35.370 --> 00:12:38.169 City joined by civil rights icons like Bayard 00:12:38.169 --> 00:12:40.690 Rustin and feminist leaders like Betty Frieden. 00:12:40.789 --> 00:12:42.990 The United Farm Workers Union issued a statement 00:12:42.990 --> 00:12:47.240 condemning the resolution and in One of the strangest 00:12:47.240 --> 00:12:50.860 diplomatic twists, because Mexico voted in favor 00:12:50.860 --> 00:12:54.080 of the resolution, US Jewish organizations launched 00:12:54.080 --> 00:12:57.580 a massive tourism boycott of Mexico. That's right. 00:12:57.919 --> 00:13:00.779 It was so economically devastating that it forced 00:13:00.779 --> 00:13:03.639 the Mexican foreign minister to resign. It just 00:13:03.639 --> 00:13:06.419 highlights how intertwined international diplomacy 00:13:06.419 --> 00:13:08.940 and domestic economics really are. Like a vote 00:13:08.940 --> 00:13:11.879 in a room in New York directly impacted hotel 00:13:11.879 --> 00:13:15.139 bookings in Acapulco, which then toppled a foreign 00:13:15.139 --> 00:13:18.539 minister. It's wild. But the wildest, most mechanical 00:13:18.539 --> 00:13:20.840 butterfly effect has to be what happened in California. 00:13:21.159 --> 00:13:22.860 And I really want to spend a minute on this because 00:13:22.860 --> 00:13:25.100 it perfectly shows how international law bleeds 00:13:25.100 --> 00:13:27.639 into domestic law. Go for it. So a group of high 00:13:27.639 --> 00:13:29.899 school students in Campbell, California, went 00:13:29.899 --> 00:13:31.799 to their local shopping mall to set up a card 00:13:31.799 --> 00:13:34.360 table. They were gathering signatures for a petition 00:13:34.360 --> 00:13:38.679 protesting UN Resolution 3379, hoping to send 00:13:38.679 --> 00:13:41.360 it to the White House. Just a very standard grassroots 00:13:41.360 --> 00:13:43.639 political action. Exactly. Just teenagers with 00:13:43.639 --> 00:13:45.820 a petition. Yeah. But the mall security guards 00:13:45.820 --> 00:13:48.379 came over and kicked them out, citing a strict 00:13:48.379 --> 00:13:51.720 mall policy against public petitions. So the 00:13:51.720 --> 00:13:54.779 students sued the mall. OK. Now, under the U 00:13:54.779 --> 00:13:57.460 .S. Constitution's First Amendment, your right 00:13:57.460 --> 00:13:59.940 to free speech generally only protects you from 00:13:59.940 --> 00:14:02.799 government censorship, right? Not a private property 00:14:02.799 --> 00:14:04.720 owner like a mall. Right. The mall is private 00:14:04.720 --> 00:14:07.299 property. But these high schoolers argued that 00:14:07.299 --> 00:14:09.519 because the modern shopping mall had essentially 00:14:09.519 --> 00:14:11.679 replaced the traditional public town square, 00:14:12.279 --> 00:14:14.399 they should have speech rights there under the 00:14:14.399 --> 00:14:16.860 broader California state constitution. And that 00:14:16.860 --> 00:14:19.259 legal battle escalated all the way to the United 00:14:19.259 --> 00:14:21.899 States Supreme Court. Yes. It became the landmark 00:14:21.899 --> 00:14:25.320 1980 case of prunard shopping center v robbins 00:14:25.320 --> 00:14:27.700 the supreme court ruled in favor of the students 00:14:27.700 --> 00:14:30.620 They established that individual states could 00:14:30.620 --> 00:14:33.220 expand free speech rights in public areas of 00:14:33.220 --> 00:14:36.460 private shopping malls So, a UN resolution about 00:14:36.460 --> 00:14:39.360 Zionism and racism directly provided the spark 00:14:39.360 --> 00:14:41.820 for a foundational mechanical ruling on free 00:14:41.820 --> 00:14:44.480 speech and private property in American constitutional 00:14:44.480 --> 00:14:47.320 law. It is incredible how these things connect, 00:14:47.600 --> 00:14:50.539 like invisible threads. It really is. But despite 00:14:50.539 --> 00:14:52.899 all of this, the Supreme Court cases, the protests, 00:14:53.100 --> 00:14:55.840 the boycotts, the torn paper, the resolution 00:14:55.840 --> 00:14:58.389 stood. It didn't go away. No. International law 00:14:58.389 --> 00:15:00.929 isn't immune to gravity, but it is deeply resistant 00:15:00.929 --> 00:15:05.570 to change. Resolution 3379 remained on the books, 00:15:05.909 --> 00:15:07.710 officially representing the will of the General 00:15:07.710 --> 00:15:11.169 Assembly for 16 years. So the resolution just 00:15:11.169 --> 00:15:13.690 sat there, acting as the official UN stance. 00:15:14.350 --> 00:15:16.990 But eventually, the geopolitical tectonic plate 00:15:16.990 --> 00:15:20.789 shifted, which brings us to 1991 and a historically 00:15:20.789 --> 00:15:23.549 rare attempt to force the UN to eat its own words. 00:15:24.029 --> 00:15:26.309 So how do you unring that bell? Well, we jump 00:15:26.309 --> 00:15:29.269 forward to the end of 1991 and the global landscape 00:15:29.269 --> 00:15:31.889 looks completely different than it did in 1975. 00:15:32.070 --> 00:15:33.769 Right. Totally different era. The Cold War is 00:15:33.769 --> 00:15:36.750 rapidly ending. The Soviet Union is in its final 00:15:36.750 --> 00:15:39.970 days literally fracturing into independent republics. 00:15:40.129 --> 00:15:42.230 The Gulf War has just concluded with the U .S.-led 00:15:42.230 --> 00:15:44.909 coalition pushing Saddam Hussein's Iraqi forces 00:15:44.909 --> 00:15:48.570 out of Kuwait. So those geopolitical alliances 00:15:48.570 --> 00:15:52.570 that pushed Resolution 3379 through specifically 00:15:52.570 --> 00:15:55.320 that powerful voting bloc of Arab States and 00:15:55.320 --> 00:15:57.879 the Soviet Union have fundamentally devolved. 00:15:58.440 --> 00:16:01.299 And Israel recognizes this massive shift in global 00:16:01.299 --> 00:16:04.340 power and they see a window to use their leverage. 00:16:04.799 --> 00:16:06.919 So how do they pull it off? In the immediate 00:16:06.919 --> 00:16:09.559 aftermath of the Gulf War, U .S. President George 00:16:09.559 --> 00:16:12.080 H .W. Bush wants to capitalize on the unprecedented 00:16:12.080 --> 00:16:14.860 coalition he had just built, which included several 00:16:14.860 --> 00:16:17.679 Arab states. He wants to use that momentum to 00:16:17.679 --> 00:16:19.919 finally launch a comprehensive Middle East peace 00:16:19.919 --> 00:16:22.399 conference. This would eventually become the 00:16:22.399 --> 00:16:25.659 historic 1991 Madrid conference. OK, so the U 00:16:25.659 --> 00:16:28.169 .S. is motivated. desperate even for a major 00:16:28.169 --> 00:16:30.990 foreign policy win. But Israel had immense negotiating 00:16:30.990 --> 00:16:33.149 leverage here. They looked at the United States 00:16:33.149 --> 00:16:35.730 and basically said, we will not sit at a negotiating 00:16:35.730 --> 00:16:37.970 table hosted by an international community that 00:16:37.970 --> 00:16:40.110 officially brands our national existence as a 00:16:40.110 --> 00:16:43.070 form of racism. They made it an absolute strict 00:16:43.070 --> 00:16:45.450 condition for their participation. They would 00:16:45.450 --> 00:16:48.450 not attend Madrid unless the UN formally revoked 00:16:48.450 --> 00:16:51.870 Resolution 3379. So they essentially held the 00:16:51.870 --> 00:16:54.269 peace process hostage to force a retraction. 00:16:54.399 --> 00:16:57.000 Exactly. And because the U .S. needed the conference 00:16:57.000 --> 00:17:00.039 to happen and Arab nations needed continued U 00:17:00.039 --> 00:17:03.120 .S. support post -Gulf War, the geopolitical 00:17:03.120 --> 00:17:05.980 math suddenly flipped. Precisely. The United 00:17:05.980 --> 00:17:08.700 States threw its full diplomatic weight behind 00:17:08.700 --> 00:17:12.039 the repeal. President George H .W. Bush personally 00:17:12.039 --> 00:17:14.200 introduced the motion at the U .N. General Assembly. 00:17:14.460 --> 00:17:16.990 What was his argument? His statement was incredibly 00:17:16.990 --> 00:17:19.690 direct. He argued that equating Zionism with 00:17:19.690 --> 00:17:22.269 racism mocks the foundational principles of the 00:17:22.269 --> 00:17:24.950 United Nations. He said it twists history and 00:17:24.950 --> 00:17:26.990 forgets the terrible plight of Jews throughout 00:17:26.990 --> 00:17:29.529 the century. It's very direct. Yeah. He essentially 00:17:29.529 --> 00:17:32.190 told the General Assembly, you cannot claim to 00:17:32.190 --> 00:17:34.630 seek peace in the Middle East while simultaneously 00:17:34.630 --> 00:17:36.869 challenging a member state's fundamental right 00:17:36.869 --> 00:17:39.410 to exist. And the resulting vote perfectly illustrates 00:17:39.410 --> 00:17:42.170 how those tectonic plates had shifted. The draft 00:17:42.170 --> 00:17:45.619 Resolution 46A6. And what's wild to me about 00:17:45.619 --> 00:17:48.220 the text of this new resolution is how stark 00:17:48.220 --> 00:17:52.000 it is. Oh, it's so brief. Yeah. The 1975 resolution 00:17:52.000 --> 00:17:55.140 had this long philosophical preamble, citing 00:17:55.140 --> 00:17:57.920 conferences in Mexico and Africa to justify its 00:17:57.920 --> 00:18:01.079 stance. The 1991 revocation is basically one 00:18:01.079 --> 00:18:03.220 sentence. Yep. It just says, the General Assembly 00:18:03.220 --> 00:18:05.539 decides to revoke the determination contained 00:18:05.539 --> 00:18:10.119 in its resolution 3379. Just a swift bureaucratic 00:18:10.119 --> 00:18:13.190 delusion. And the vote was a landslide reversal. 00:18:13.670 --> 00:18:17.950 It saw 111 votes in favor of revocation, 25 against, 00:18:17.990 --> 00:18:22.109 and 13 abstentions. It was sponsored by 88 different 00:18:22.109 --> 00:18:24.809 countries. The overwhelming majority of the first 00:18:24.809 --> 00:18:27.049 and second worlds, including the former Soviet 00:18:27.049 --> 00:18:29.779 states, voted to revoke it. along with many of 00:18:29.779 --> 00:18:31.759 the African nations that had originally supported 00:18:31.759 --> 00:18:34.859 it in 1975. Complete flip. Yeah, the against 00:18:34.859 --> 00:18:37.299 votes were now largely isolated to the Arab League 00:18:37.299 --> 00:18:39.839 and nations like Cuba and North Korea. So what 00:18:39.839 --> 00:18:41.680 does this all mean? The UN officially unrings 00:18:41.680 --> 00:18:44.380 the bell. But, you know, revoking a UN resolution 00:18:44.380 --> 00:18:47.019 after 16 years is like trying to put toothpaste 00:18:47.019 --> 00:18:49.380 back into the tube on a global scale. Or recalling 00:18:49.380 --> 00:18:51.779 a defective blueprint after the skyscrapers have 00:18:51.779 --> 00:18:54.500 already been built. Exactly. The original document 00:18:54.500 --> 00:18:57.210 might be voided. But the political alliances, 00:18:57.650 --> 00:18:59.430 the rhetoric and the narratives built on top 00:18:59.430 --> 00:19:02.230 of it, are already part of the skyline. So I 00:19:02.230 --> 00:19:05.589 have to ask, is a one -sentence revocation actually 00:19:05.589 --> 00:19:07.990 enough to erase 16 years of international law? 00:19:08.490 --> 00:19:10.809 Or does the original resolution leave a permanent 00:19:10.809 --> 00:19:12.970 scar on the institution? The source material 00:19:12.970 --> 00:19:15.710 heavily suggests it leaves a lasting legacy. 00:19:16.609 --> 00:19:19.269 A scar, if you will, even within the halls of 00:19:19.269 --> 00:19:22.299 the UN itself. Really? How so? We can look to 00:19:22.299 --> 00:19:26.400 2004, when UN Secretary -General Kofi Annan inaugurated 00:19:26.400 --> 00:19:29.019 the first UN conference specifically dedicated 00:19:29.019 --> 00:19:32.259 to anti -Semitism. In his keynote speech, he 00:19:32.259 --> 00:19:34.279 explicitly addressed this difficult history. 00:19:34.319 --> 00:19:36.700 Whoa, you brought it up. He did. He stated that 00:19:36.700 --> 00:19:38.740 the UN's actions hadn't always been worthy of 00:19:38.740 --> 00:19:40.920 its founding ideals, and he formally called the 00:19:40.920 --> 00:19:44.420 1975 resolution deplorable. Wow. He welcomed 00:19:44.420 --> 00:19:47.220 the fact that the UN had later reversed its position. 00:19:47.660 --> 00:19:49.440 But, you know, the mere fact that the head of 00:19:49.440 --> 00:19:52.170 the UN address a repealed resolution nearly three 00:19:52.170 --> 00:19:54.630 decades later shows that the diplomatic echoes 00:19:54.630 --> 00:19:58.069 of 1975 haven't entirely faded. Right. The blueprint 00:19:58.069 --> 00:20:00.049 was recalled, but the building is still there. 00:20:00.250 --> 00:20:03.549 It is a truly fascinating journey. We've traced 00:20:03.549 --> 00:20:07.369 the entire life cycle of Resolution 3379. We 00:20:07.369 --> 00:20:10.730 saw its polarizing creation in 1975, engineered 00:20:10.730 --> 00:20:13.049 by Cold War divisions and regional alliances. 00:20:13.269 --> 00:20:16.549 We looked at the dramatic explosive global backlash 00:20:16.549 --> 00:20:19.599 it sparked from torn paper on the U .N. floor 00:20:19.599 --> 00:20:21.980 to landmark free speech rulings in the U .S. 00:20:22.019 --> 00:20:25.240 Supreme Court. And finally, we examined its historically 00:20:25.240 --> 00:20:28.140 rare repeal in 1991, brought on by the collapse 00:20:28.140 --> 00:20:31.019 of the Soviet Union and the leverage of the Madrid 00:20:31.019 --> 00:20:34.039 Peace Conference. And this story matters to you, 00:20:34.039 --> 00:20:36.160 the listener, because it completely lifts the 00:20:36.160 --> 00:20:38.180 curtain on how international bodies actually 00:20:38.180 --> 00:20:40.339 function mechanically. It really does. We are 00:20:40.339 --> 00:20:42.140 often taught to think of international law as 00:20:42.140 --> 00:20:44.940 this fixed moral compass, right? An immovable 00:20:44.940 --> 00:20:47.440 set of universal truths handed down from on high. 00:20:47.680 --> 00:20:50.059 But this history shows that the UN is an arena 00:20:50.059 --> 00:20:53.559 for ideological warfare. It proves that geopolitical 00:20:53.559 --> 00:20:55.779 truths aren't absolute. They can literally be 00:20:55.779 --> 00:20:57.920 written into law, physically torn into pieces, 00:20:58.299 --> 00:21:00.819 and then completely rewritten as global power 00:21:00.819 --> 00:21:03.539 dynamics shift. It really forces you to look 00:21:03.539 --> 00:21:06.359 at international diplomacy in a completely new 00:21:06.359 --> 00:21:09.759 light. Which brings us back to that initial visceral 00:21:09.759 --> 00:21:12.599 image of Ambassador Herzog at the podium. It 00:21:12.599 --> 00:21:14.759 leaves us with a final thought to mull over as 00:21:14.759 --> 00:21:18.589 we wrap up today's deep dive. If a major international 00:21:18.589 --> 00:21:20.890 body can legally declare a nation's founding 00:21:20.890 --> 00:21:24.049 ideology to be one specific horrifying thing, 00:21:24.190 --> 00:21:27.589 and then completely revoke that exact same declaration 00:21:27.589 --> 00:21:30.549 16 years later based entirely on new voting math, 00:21:31.210 --> 00:21:33.269 if international truth is just a matter of who 00:21:33.269 --> 00:21:35.930 has the votes in a given decade, how should that 00:21:35.930 --> 00:21:38.089 affect our trust in the permanence and the ultimate 00:21:38.089 --> 00:21:39.990 authority of the treaties and international laws 00:21:39.990 --> 00:21:41.490 being debated in the world right now?