Imagine standing in the Great Hall of the United
Nations General Assembly. It's November 10th,
1975. Right. And the air in the room is just
thick with this incredibly uncomfortable tension.
A man walks up to the iconic green marble podium.
He is holding an official UN resolution. I mean,
we're talking about the absolute highest standard
of international diplomacy here. Yeah, the real
deal. He looks out at the gathered delegates.
delivers this blistering speech, and then, with
the eyes of the entire world watching, he takes
that official document and physically tears it
in half. I mean, it's just the stunning, visceral
image, right? And it's one you almost never see
in that room. No, definitely not. Because, you
know, we are conditioned to expect diplomacy
to be this arena of carefully worded statements,
polite handshakes, quiet abstentions. Lots of
decorum. Exactly. The United Nations is built
on decorum. So ripping up an international declaration
right there on the assembly floor. It is a raw,
unvarnished rejection of the institution's authority.
Wait, hold on. You're telling me an ambassador
literally ripped up an official declaration on
the floor of the UN. You really did. That feels
completely contrary to the whole point of the
United Nations. I thought the entire system was
built to prevent that kind of overt hostility.
You would think so. And that single torn piece
of paper is exactly what we are jumping into
today. Welcome to the deep dive. We've got a
massive stack of historical sources today detailing
United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379.
It's a fascinating one. Our mission is to explore
what has to be one of the most unusual and dramatic
arcs in the history of international law. We
are looking at how the UN officially defined
a member nation's founding ideology as a form
of racism in 1975. Right. And then in a historically
rare, almost unprecedented move, completely revoke
that exact same decision 16 years later. But
before we get into the mechanics of how all this
happened, we really need to set the parameters
for this conversation. Yes, absolutely. Good
point. Because if you're listening to this and
wondering how we are going to navigate the incredibly
charged, deeply sensitive political history involving
Israel, Zionism, and the UN, Here is the deal.
We have to be very clear about this. We are looking
at one of the most polarizing moments in modern
history. And as your guides, our job today isn't
to take a political stance, left wing or right
wing. No, not at all. We aren't here to endorse
any of the ideologies debated on that assembly
floor or, you know, to tell you who was morally
right or wrong. Exactly. Our job is just to show
you the raw mechanics of how international law
is formed, how it is wielded as a diplomatic
weapon and, well, how it can be dismantled. Right.
We are impartially reporting the factual events,
the historical speeches, and the global reactions
exactly as they appear in the source material.
Nothing more. That is the perfect lens for this.
Because to understand why a document was violently
torn in half in 1975, we first have to understand
the diplomatic foundation the UN had already
built. regarding Israel. Yeah, and it didn't
start with hostility. It actually started with
creation. Right, so let's unpack this. To understand
the shockwave of that 1975 vote, where do we
start? You really have to look at the architectural
blueprints of the Middle East from the early
20th century. The source material traces the
international groundwork all the way back to
July 1920. Oh wow, 1920, so way before the UN
even existed. Exactly. At the San Remo conference,
this is where the League of Nations, which, you
know, was the predecessor to the UN. A precursor.
Yeah. They officially allocated a mandate over
Palestine to the British government. And crucially,
the preamble of that mandate didn't just hand
over administrative control. What did it do?
It explicitly favored the establishment of a
national home for the Jewish people in Palestine,
while also strictly stating, this shouldn't prejudice
the civil and religious rights of existing non
-Jewish communities. OK. So the international
legal framework for a Jewish homeland. was essentially
codified by global powers decades before the
UN was even a thing. Yes. And when the UN was
formed, it picked up that exact mantle. So we
move forward to November 29, 1947. Right after
World War II. Right. The UN General Assembly
adopts Resolution 181. You might know this as
the famous Partition Plan. Right, I've heard
of that. The UN proposed terminating the British
mandate and partitioning the land into independent
Arab and Jewish states. With Jerusalem being
placed under this special international regime,
that UN vote directly provided the international
legitimacy for the Jewish People's Council to
declare the establishment of the state of Israel
on May 14th, 1948. And by May 1949, Israel was
officially admitted as a full member state of
the United Nations. Okay. I mean, if you're listening
to this and wondering how the exact same organization
that voted to partition the land and formally
establish Israel could turn around and condemn
its founding national ideology, you are not alone.
It's a massive shift. It's a geopolitical earthquake.
We go from the UN admitting Israel in 1949 to
November 10th, 1975, where the UN passes resolution
3379. Yeah. And this resolution linked Zionism
to apartheid and imperialism. Yeah. It culminated
in this one definitive sentence. It determines
that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.
So in just under 30 years, the UN went from the
architect of the partition to its harshest critic.
How does the diplomatic math change that fast?
I mean, how did the actual text of 3379 justify
this massive pivot? Well, to understand how this
passed, you really have to look at UN voting
mathematics and the geopolitical reality of 1975.
OK, set the scene for me. The Arab League wanted
to pass a resolution condemning Israel's ideology,
right? But they didn't have anywhere near the
sheer numbers to pass a General Assembly resolution
on their own. Oh, because it requires a majority.
Exactly. They needed to build a massive coalition.
And the text of the resolution itself reveals
how they did it. How so? They didn't just make
the claim about Zionism in a vacuum. They built
a framework by citing a series of other international
declarations that had just taken place. Oh, clever.
Yeah, carefully linking Zionism to the biggest
geopolitical trigger words of the era. What kind
of trigger words are we talking about, like Cold
War rhetoric? Exactly. So the resolution cited
the Declaration of Mexico on the equality of
women, which had recently called for the elimination
of Zionism alongside colonialism and apartheid.
Wow, okay. It also cited an organization of African
unity resolution from Kampala, Uganda. That one
linked the regimes in Palestine, Zimbabwe, and
South Africa as having a common, quote, imperialist
origin. I see where this is going. And it cited
a conference of non -aligned countries in Lima,
Peru that condemned Zionism as a threat to world
peace. So by framing Zionism as a form of imperialism
and colonialism, the sponsors of the bill successfully
pitched the resolution to two massive voting
blocks. Exactly. Let me guess. the Soviet Bloc
because they wanted to oppose anything backed
by the United States. Yep. And newly independent
African nations who are obviously highly sensitive
to anything labeled as colonialism or apartheid.
You hit the nail on the head. It was an absolute
master class in coalition building. Because if
the resolution just said, you know, we oppose
Israel, it failed. Let's get the votes. Right.
But by equating Zionism with the apartheid regime
in South Africa, suddenly. Every newly independent
African nation feels this profound moral obligation
to vote yes. Wow. And the Soviet Union and its
satellite states, they vote yes as part of their
broader Cold War strategy to align with Arab
states and undermine American influence in the
Middle East. So what was the final tally? When
the vote came down, it passed with 72 votes in
favor, 35 against, and 32 abstentions. OK, so
a clear majority. Yeah. The in favor votes were
the Arab League, Muslim majority countries, the
Soviet Bloc, and many African nations. The against
votes were chiefly the United States, Western
Europe, and Israel. It's fascinating how the
language of the resolution was engineered specifically
to capture those exact votes. But, you know,
a declaration of this magnitude doesn't just
sit quietly in year -end filing cabinet. No,
not at all. Which takes us right back to that
opening image on the assembly floor. Here's where
it gets really interesting. Yes. On the very
day of the vote, November 10th, 1975, Israeli
Ambassador Chaim Herzog delivered a deeply impassioned
address. Because he knew what was coming. Exactly.
He knew the math. He knew the resolution was
going to pass. So he didn't just argue obscure
points of international law, he argued the lived
mechanical reality of his country to counter
the specific charge of racism. What did he say?
He pointed to Arab ministers serving in the Israeli
government. He pointed to Arab deputy speakers
in the Israeli parliament and Arab officers commanding
troops in the defense forces. Oh, I see. He noted
that Arabic was an official language of the country
on par with Hebrew. So he was laying out empirical
evidence of civic integration to dismantle the
whole premise of the resolution. Exactly. According
to the historical text we have here, he lists
these examples and then says to the assembly,
is that racism? It is not. That is Zionism. And
that leads to the theatrical crescendo. Herzog
held up the resolution. He declared that for
the Jewish people, the document was based on
hatred and falsehood, that it was completely
devoid of any moral or legal value. He called
it no more than a piece of paper. And as he finished
his speech, he physically tore it in half at
the podium. See, I have to push back on this
for a second. We have an ambassador tearing up
a piece of paper on television. It's incredibly
dramatic. Sure. But does ripping paper actually
impact international law, or is it purely symbolic
theater? Well, that question gets to the core
tension of what the United Nations General Assembly
actually is. Okay, how so? Unlike the UN Security
Council, which can, you know, authorize military
action or binding economic sanctions. Like real
teeth. Yeah, exactly. General Assembly resolutions
are largely declarative. They establish international
norms and reflect the consensus of the global
community, but they aren't enforceable statutes
like a law in a domestic court. I see. So, in
this arena, the symbols are the substance. Tearing
the paper was his way of visually demonstrating
to the world that Israel would not grant the
resolution the legitimacy of compliance. He was
attacking the norm itself. And that visual act
of defiance resonated immediately. I mean, back
in Israel, major cities like Haifa, Jerusalem
and Tel Aviv literally changed their municipal
infrastructure. Oh, yeah. The street names. Yeah.
Streets that were historically named U .N. Avenue
were immediately unscrewed and switched to Zionism
Avenue. It was just a complete total rejection
of the UN's moral authority. And the pushback
from the West was just as fierce. Daniel Patrick
Moynihan, the United States ambassador to the
UN, delivered a famous warning right before the
vote. What did he say? He said the UN was about
to make anti -Semitism international law. Wow.
That's heavy. Very. And after the vote passed
he took the floor again and stated the U .S.
would never acquiesce to this infamous act, declaring
that a great evil has been loosed upon the world.
Strong words. U .S. President Gerald Ford called
it deplorable and wholly unjustified. And it
wasn't just politicians reading prepared statements
either. The sources show this massive wave of
outrage from intellectuals in Europe. Right,
the cultural response. Yeah, you had the French
newspaper Le Monde running a front page editorial
saying it was morally shocking that the Jewish
people who had suffered the most horrific consequences
of racism in the 20th century were now being
charged with it by the international community.
The list of luminaries who condemned it is actually
staggering. You had existentialist philosophers
like Jean -Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir
signing an open letter calling the resolution
a forgery of historical truth. Wow. Sartre weighed
in. Yes. You even had Andrei Sakharov, the famous
Soviet physicist and dissident, signing that
same letter, which, by the way, was incredibly
dangerous for him to do. Though we should note
state broadcasters in the Soviet Union and East
Germany fully supported the resolution. They
broadcast it as a huge victory against West imperialism.
But the craziest part to me isn't what happened
in New York or Europe. It's the bizarre chain
reaction that's triggered out in the real world.
The ripple effect. Yeah the mechanics of this
UN vote started affecting daily life in domestic
economies. I mean you have a hundred thousand
people protesting in the streets of New York
City joined by civil rights icons like Bayard
Rustin and feminist leaders like Betty Frieden.
The United Farm Workers Union issued a statement
condemning the resolution and in One of the strangest
diplomatic twists, because Mexico voted in favor
of the resolution, US Jewish organizations launched
a massive tourism boycott of Mexico. That's right.
It was so economically devastating that it forced
the Mexican foreign minister to resign. It just
highlights how intertwined international diplomacy
and domestic economics really are. Like a vote
in a room in New York directly impacted hotel
bookings in Acapulco, which then toppled a foreign
minister. It's wild. But the wildest, most mechanical
butterfly effect has to be what happened in California.
And I really want to spend a minute on this because
it perfectly shows how international law bleeds
into domestic law. Go for it. So a group of high
school students in Campbell, California, went
to their local shopping mall to set up a card
table. They were gathering signatures for a petition
protesting UN Resolution 3379, hoping to send
it to the White House. Just a very standard grassroots
political action. Exactly. Just teenagers with
a petition. Yeah. But the mall security guards
came over and kicked them out, citing a strict
mall policy against public petitions. So the
students sued the mall. OK. Now, under the U
.S. Constitution's First Amendment, your right
to free speech generally only protects you from
government censorship, right? Not a private property
owner like a mall. Right. The mall is private
property. But these high schoolers argued that
because the modern shopping mall had essentially
replaced the traditional public town square,
they should have speech rights there under the
broader California state constitution. And that
legal battle escalated all the way to the United
States Supreme Court. Yes. It became the landmark
1980 case of prunard shopping center v robbins
the supreme court ruled in favor of the students
They established that individual states could
expand free speech rights in public areas of
private shopping malls So, a UN resolution about
Zionism and racism directly provided the spark
for a foundational mechanical ruling on free
speech and private property in American constitutional
law. It is incredible how these things connect,
like invisible threads. It really is. But despite
all of this, the Supreme Court cases, the protests,
the boycotts, the torn paper, the resolution
stood. It didn't go away. No. International law
isn't immune to gravity, but it is deeply resistant
to change. Resolution 3379 remained on the books,
officially representing the will of the General
Assembly for 16 years. So the resolution just
sat there, acting as the official UN stance.
But eventually, the geopolitical tectonic plate
shifted, which brings us to 1991 and a historically
rare attempt to force the UN to eat its own words.
So how do you unring that bell? Well, we jump
forward to the end of 1991 and the global landscape
looks completely different than it did in 1975.
Right. Totally different era. The Cold War is
rapidly ending. The Soviet Union is in its final
days literally fracturing into independent republics.
The Gulf War has just concluded with the U .S.-led
coalition pushing Saddam Hussein's Iraqi forces
out of Kuwait. So those geopolitical alliances
that pushed Resolution 3379 through specifically
that powerful voting bloc of Arab States and
the Soviet Union have fundamentally devolved.
And Israel recognizes this massive shift in global
power and they see a window to use their leverage.
So how do they pull it off? In the immediate
aftermath of the Gulf War, U .S. President George
H .W. Bush wants to capitalize on the unprecedented
coalition he had just built, which included several
Arab states. He wants to use that momentum to
finally launch a comprehensive Middle East peace
conference. This would eventually become the
historic 1991 Madrid conference. OK, so the U
.S. is motivated. desperate even for a major
foreign policy win. But Israel had immense negotiating
leverage here. They looked at the United States
and basically said, we will not sit at a negotiating
table hosted by an international community that
officially brands our national existence as a
form of racism. They made it an absolute strict
condition for their participation. They would
not attend Madrid unless the UN formally revoked
Resolution 3379. So they essentially held the
peace process hostage to force a retraction.
Exactly. And because the U .S. needed the conference
to happen and Arab nations needed continued U
.S. support post -Gulf War, the geopolitical
math suddenly flipped. Precisely. The United
States threw its full diplomatic weight behind
the repeal. President George H .W. Bush personally
introduced the motion at the U .N. General Assembly.
What was his argument? His statement was incredibly
direct. He argued that equating Zionism with
racism mocks the foundational principles of the
United Nations. He said it twists history and
forgets the terrible plight of Jews throughout
the century. It's very direct. Yeah. He essentially
told the General Assembly, you cannot claim to
seek peace in the Middle East while simultaneously
challenging a member state's fundamental right
to exist. And the resulting vote perfectly illustrates
how those tectonic plates had shifted. The draft
Resolution 46A6. And what's wild to me about
the text of this new resolution is how stark
it is. Oh, it's so brief. Yeah. The 1975 resolution
had this long philosophical preamble, citing
conferences in Mexico and Africa to justify its
stance. The 1991 revocation is basically one
sentence. Yep. It just says, the General Assembly
decides to revoke the determination contained
in its resolution 3379. Just a swift bureaucratic
delusion. And the vote was a landslide reversal.
It saw 111 votes in favor of revocation, 25 against,
and 13 abstentions. It was sponsored by 88 different
countries. The overwhelming majority of the first
and second worlds, including the former Soviet
states, voted to revoke it. along with many of
the African nations that had originally supported
it in 1975. Complete flip. Yeah, the against
votes were now largely isolated to the Arab League
and nations like Cuba and North Korea. So what
does this all mean? The UN officially unrings
the bell. But, you know, revoking a UN resolution
after 16 years is like trying to put toothpaste
back into the tube on a global scale. Or recalling
a defective blueprint after the skyscrapers have
already been built. Exactly. The original document
might be voided. But the political alliances,
the rhetoric and the narratives built on top
of it, are already part of the skyline. So I
have to ask, is a one -sentence revocation actually
enough to erase 16 years of international law?
Or does the original resolution leave a permanent
scar on the institution? The source material
heavily suggests it leaves a lasting legacy.
A scar, if you will, even within the halls of
the UN itself. Really? How so? We can look to
2004, when UN Secretary -General Kofi Annan inaugurated
the first UN conference specifically dedicated
to anti -Semitism. In his keynote speech, he
explicitly addressed this difficult history.
Whoa, you brought it up. He did. He stated that
the UN's actions hadn't always been worthy of
its founding ideals, and he formally called the
1975 resolution deplorable. Wow. He welcomed
the fact that the UN had later reversed its position.
But, you know, the mere fact that the head of
the UN address a repealed resolution nearly three
decades later shows that the diplomatic echoes
of 1975 haven't entirely faded. Right. The blueprint
was recalled, but the building is still there.
It is a truly fascinating journey. We've traced
the entire life cycle of Resolution 3379. We
saw its polarizing creation in 1975, engineered
by Cold War divisions and regional alliances.
We looked at the dramatic explosive global backlash
it sparked from torn paper on the U .N. floor
to landmark free speech rulings in the U .S.
Supreme Court. And finally, we examined its historically
rare repeal in 1991, brought on by the collapse
of the Soviet Union and the leverage of the Madrid
Peace Conference. And this story matters to you,
the listener, because it completely lifts the
curtain on how international bodies actually
function mechanically. It really does. We are
often taught to think of international law as
this fixed moral compass, right? An immovable
set of universal truths handed down from on high.
But this history shows that the UN is an arena
for ideological warfare. It proves that geopolitical
truths aren't absolute. They can literally be
written into law, physically torn into pieces,
and then completely rewritten as global power
dynamics shift. It really forces you to look
at international diplomacy in a completely new
light. Which brings us back to that initial visceral
image of Ambassador Herzog at the podium. It
leaves us with a final thought to mull over as
we wrap up today's deep dive. If a major international
body can legally declare a nation's founding
ideology to be one specific horrifying thing,
and then completely revoke that exact same declaration
16 years later based entirely on new voting math,
if international truth is just a matter of who
has the votes in a given decade, how should that
affect our trust in the permanence and the ultimate
authority of the treaties and international laws
being debated in the world right now?