Learn about the history of the Palestinian struggle for freedom, equality and justice by exploring major events in the history of their oppression on this day of the year.
10 November
On this day in 1975, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 3379 stating “that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination” and noting “the unholy alliance between South African racism and Zionism”. Ambassador Herzog countered falsely that Zionism had led to “hundreds of thousands of Arabs from all over the Middle East crowding the cities of Israel every year [and] the peaceful coexistence which has developed [means that] Arabic is an official language in Israel on a par with Hebrew”.
10 نوفمبر
في مثل هذا اليوم من عام 1975 ، أصدرت الجمعية العامة للأمم المتحدة القرار رقم 3379 الذي ينص على أن "الصهيونية هي شكل من أشكال العنصرية والتمييز العنصري" وأشار إلى "التحالف غير المقدس بين عنصرية جنوب إفريقيا والصهيونية".ورد السفير هرتسوغ بالقول إن الصهيونية أدت إلى "تدفق مئات الآلاف من العرب من جميع أنحاء الشرق الأوسط لمدن إسرائيل كل عام [و] التعايش السلمي الذي تطور [يعني] اللغة العربية هي لغة رسمية في إسرائيل على قدم المساواة مع العبرية ”.
Israel's Irish-born UN ambassador Herzog, responded to Resolution 3379 with a bizarre speech claiming that "Hitler would have felt at home" in the UN General Assembly and that criticism of Zionism "constitutes an assault in the United Nations on Judaism... Zionism is to the Jewish people what the liberation movements of Africa in Asia have been to their own people."
He then claimed against evidence available to all that in the land which he had helped to cleanse of its Palestinian Arab natives,
"Jew and Arab live together with such a degree of harmony(1) in which the dignity and rights of man are observed before the law... Even movements which are opposed to our national aims are represented in our Parliament(2) ."
Herzog invented an Israeli reality where he claimed he could point to
"hundreds of thousands of Arabs from all over the Middle East crowding the cities of Israel every year;(3) to the thousands of Arabs from all over the Middle East coming for medical treatment to Israel;(4) to the peaceful coexistence which has developed;(5) to the fact that Arabic is an official language in Israel on a par with Hebrew;(6) to the fact that it is as natural for an Arab to serve in public office in Israel(7) 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's fantasy is reproduced in "Great Speeches of the 20th Century" by Bob Blaisdell)
Notes:
1. Adalah’s Discriminatory Laws Database (DLD) is an online resource comprising a list of over 65 Israeli laws that discriminate directly or indirectly against Palestinian citizens in Israel and/or Palestinian residents of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) on the basis of their national belonging.
2. Parties and individuals can be disqualified if they reject Israel as a Jewish and democratic state,
3. Israel has always viewed Palestinians and Arabs as a 'demographic threat' and has openly tried to shed as many as possible.
4. Israel's medical cruelty: responsible for at least 54 Palestinian deaths last year as it rejected hundreds of medical permit requests it received from Gaza residents seeking treatment outside the besieged strip, rights groups have said.
5. According to Jonathan Cook, the