Fifty years after the United Nations passed its infamous 1975 resolution equating Zionism with racism, Elie Wiesel’s words remain as piercing and prophetic as ever. In this essay—originally published in the aftermath of that moral outrage—Wiesel warns that the resolution was not merely a political maneuver, but a continuation of the oldest hatred in history: the attempt to isolate the Jewish people and deny their right to dignity, identity and nationhood. His defense of Zionism as a human, moral and spiritual movement stands as both a rebuke to the cynicism of the UN and a call to conscience for every generation.
Reproaches, condemnations, indictments by other nations—the plot is clear. It leads to public humiliation, the forced isolation of a people whose suffering is the oldest in the world.
Arrests, decrees, Nuremberg laws—do you remember? That was how it all began. The victims were designated, then legally expelled from so-called civilized society, forcing them into helplessness, then resignation and, finally, death.
To prepare “solutions” to the “Jewish problem,” the first step was to divorce the Jew from mankind. The process is not new; it has endured for some two thousand years. We hear again and again, in explanation of outrages rife in many places, that there are the Jews and there are the others; the Jews are never entirely innocent, nor are the others ever entirely guilty. Object and non-subject of history, the Jew has been at the mercy of a society in which persecuting him first and murdering him later has at times led to sainthood or power.
This is why the United Nations’ infamous resolution comparing Zionism to a form of racism is shocking and revolting. It must be viewed in a context of chilling horror.
As always, where the Jewish people is concerned, the problem is more relevant to history than to politics. This is not the first time the enemy has accused us of his own crimes. Our possessions were taken from us, and we were called misers; our children were massacred, and we were accused of ritual murder. To weaken us they tried to make us feel guilty. To condition us they attempted to distort our self-image. No, the process is not new.
We are told that this is not about Jews, this is about Zionists. That, too, is hardly new. They try to divide us, to pit us one against the other after having pitted us against the world.
There was a time when the Jews of Germany were told: We have nothing against you, our resentment is directed solely against the Jews of Poland, who refuse to be assimilated. Later the Jews of France were told: You have nothing to fear, our measures are aimed only at German Jews, they are too assimilated. Later the Hungarian Jews were reassured: We are not interested in you but in your coreligionists in France; they are making trouble there.
It was all a lie, and now we know it. They meant all of us, everywhere and always. Jewish history is here to prove it. Whenever one Jewish community is threatened, all others are in danger. A separation of Israel from the people of Israel would inevitably result in even greater solitude for both. It has been tried in the past, and, to our shame, with occasional success. Not anymore. Now we know the situation, and Israel will remain united. Whosoever attacks Israel is attacking the entire Jewish people. The resolution on Zionism offends us all.
Racists, we? How malicious and also how ignorant one must be to make such a statement. Messianic movement? Yes, Judaism is that. A movement of spiritual, national and political rebirth? Yes, that too. But racist, no—Judaism excludes racism. All men and all women of all colors and all origins are accepted as equals. If there is a tradition that is generous and hospitable toward the stranger, it is the Jewish tradition.
I have never been a Zionist, not in the formal sense of the word. I have never belonged to a political organization. But faced with the anti-Zionist attacks by those who corrupt language and poison memory, I have no choice but to consider myself a Zionist. To do otherwise would mean accepting the terms of reference used by Israel’s enemies. I wish our non-Jewish friends would do the same, and claim Zionism as a badge of honor.
This article was originally published in Elie Wiesel’s A Jew Today (pp. 33-35). Random House, Inc.
