July 27, 2001 Senators Call On U.N. To Keep Inflamatory Anti-Israel Language Out Of Conference Against Racism Senators Denounce Language Equating Zionism with Racism Washington, DC - Today Senators Charles E. Schumer (D-NY), Gordon Smith (R-OR), Richard Lugar (R-IN) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) sent a letter to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan condemning the inclusion of inflammatory anti-Israel language into declarations associated with the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance that will be held next month in Durban, South Africa. On July 31st, the U.N. conference delegations will convene in Geneva to finalize the declaration language. The current U.N. conference draft declaration states: "The World Conference recognizes with deep concern the increase of racist practices of Zionism . . . as well as the emergence of racial and violent movements based on racism and discriminatory ideas, in particular, the Zionist movement which is based on racial superiority." The Senators said that such offensive rhetoric has no place at the U.N. conference and challenged the assertion that Zionism - the national self-determination movement of the Jewish people - is racist. "With the Palestinians and Israelis in the middle of a delicate cease-fire and after months of violence, we believe that gratuitously anti-Israel, anti-Jewish language at a UN forum will serve only to exacerbate existing tensions in the Middle East," the Senators wrote. "It is our hope that the Conference on racism remains only as an opportunity to promote peace and reconciliation among all people, not one to target Israel or Jews." In 1975, U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, then Ambassador to the U.N., led the U.S. opposition to the U.N.-passed resolution that labeled Zionism a form of racism. Moynihan argued that "the United States . . . will never acquiesce in this infamous act …A political lie of a variety well known to the twentieth century and scarcely exceeded in all that annal of untruth and outrage. The lie is that Zionism is a form of racism. The overwhelming truth is that it is not." The U.N. General Assembly repealed the language in 1991, but it resurfaced last year in a draft for the racism conference. In the letter to Secretary Annan, the Senators wrote that such anti-Israeli language "undermines the goals of the conference to eradicate hatred and promote understanding. This meeting of the international community should not be a forum to encourage divisiveness, but a time to foster greater understanding between people of all races, creeds, and ethnicities."