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"Zionism is Racism" not on Durban Agenda: UNHCHR
GENEVA, Aug 27 (News Agencies) - U.N. human rights chief Mary Robinson said Monday that U.N. delegates had agreed to keep wording that equates Zionism with racism off the agenda of the World Conference on Racism, Xenophobia and Related Intolerances, opening this week in South Africa.
Robinson, who is the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said delegates were showing flexibility in talks on difficult subjects to be addressed by the World Conference against Racism.
"One thing I would like to reaffirm is that there is a clear understanding that the formulation Zionism-equals-racism has been done away with," the former Irish president and secretary-general of the conference said.
Her comments came in a written statement released in Johannesburg and Geneva before a meeting with South African President Thabo Mbeki. She added that she believed the Durban conference would produce a breakthrough.
"Flexibility is being shown in the search for language on the questions of addressing the past including slavery and colonialism and the Middle East," Robinson said.
She also called for all countries to attend "at the highest level possible" to help in the fight against racism.
But, U.S. concerns about "anti-Israeli language" proposed by Arab and Islamic states will keep U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell away from the August 31-September 7 conference, a U.S. official said.
A decision on whether to send a lower level delegation to the conference, however, has not yet been taken, the senior State Department official said on Monday on the condition of anonymity.
Israel is also likely to boycott the conference, a senior Israeli official said Monday.
The Arab-Israeli conflict and calls for an apology and compensation for the past wrongs of slavery and colonialism have proved by far to be the most controversial issues in pre-conference negotiations.
Robinson said intensive discussions were continuing and that progress had been made.
"There is still a lot of work to be done. We want the final document of the conference to be a sort of Magna Carta in the fight against racism," she said.
"I firmly believe Durban can mark a historic breakthrough."
The notorious U.N. resolution equating Zionism with racism was adopted at a time of Cold War division and lasted until the first stirrings of peace efforts 16 years later.
Secretary General Kofi Annan has described the resolution - passed by the General Assembly on November 10, 1975 - as a "lamentable" expression of anti-Semitism marking the low-point in relations between Israel and the United Nations.
Speaking to the Israel Foreign Relations Council in Jerusalem more than six years after the resolution was revoked on December 16, 1991, he said, "Its negative resonance even today is difficult to overestimate."
But, he also pointed out that the grievances of Israel's adversaries "do not come out of a clear blue sky."
He reminded his hosts that, "in the view of the great majority of U.N. member states," Israel had not abided by Security Council resolutions requiring it to withdraw from Arab territories occupied in the wars of 1967 and 1973.
At the time, Israel also still occupied a swath of south Lebanon in defiance of another Security Council resolution, passed in 1978. Israel finally pulled out last year.
The adoption of the "Zionism is racism" resolution followed a year of activity at the U.N. during which the rights of the Palestinians were recognized with increasing vigor.
In 1974, the General Assembly invited the Palestine Liberation Organization to participate in its proceedings via observer status.
In November of that year, the Assembly reaffirmed the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination, national independence and sovereignty, and the right to return to their homes and property.
Those rights have been reaffirmed every year since and have remained unfulfilled by Israel.
The resolution, consisting of a single operative paragraph declaring, "Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination," was adopted by 72 votes to 35, with 32 abstentions, in a reflection of prevailing Cold War divisions.
By 1991, the Cold War was over, and re-adjustment of the foreign policies of the major powers was keenly felt in the Middle East.
Peace negotiations resumed in earnest in October 1991, with the convening of the historic Madrid conference under the twin chairmanship of the United States and the Soviet Union.
The following month, the General Assembly adopted a one-sentence resolution revoking its 1975 statement on Zionism and racism.
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