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BY VICTOR M. BIENSTOCK
Special to The Jewish News

James R. Buckley, the United
States delegation head, spent
many hours in unsuccessful ef-
forts to torpedo the Arab proposal,
first on the grounds that it was
entirely irrelevant to the popula-
tion issue and then because the
population conference was not
qualified to deal with the complex
issues involved.
The discussions and arguments
on this issue delayed the confer-
ence by at least a full day. When
he failed to win majority support

DANCERS

D.J.

OBSERVATIONS

The sport of Israel-bashing, as
practiced at international as-
semblies by an unholy cabal of
Arab, Soviet and docile Third
World states and helplessly
tolerated by the Western world,
may have reached its apogee at
the recent International Confer-
ence on Population at Mexico
City.
For the first time since the
cabal succeded in putting the
United Nations General Assem-
bly on record in 1975 as equating
Zionism with racism, there has
been substantial criticism of the
conversion of every international
assembly into an anti-Israel
forum, indicating the prospect
that the Western nations will no
longer passively tolerate the
abuse and that more Third World
countries will no longer join in the
bashing.
The Mexico City conference had
been convened for one function: to
adopt a program to implement the
policies for world population
growth control adopted at
Bucharest ten years ago. The
United States delegation threw
the first hooker into the confer-
ence by trying to commit it to the
principle that free enterprise re-
sulting in economic growth was
the best means to achieve this.
The Soviet Union responded to
this attack on socialism by push-
ing a recommendation calling for
an end to military conflicts and
the arms race, thus permitting
redirection of the resources they
consumed to social and economic
programs which could cope with
the population explosion.
These two moves had, at least, a
relationship to the main objec-
tives of the conference even
though they introduced a disputa-
tions factors. The Arab move,
however, clearly fell outside the
conference framework and was
extraneous and divisive. Among
the 91 recommendations the con-
ference was expected to ratify was
one to the effect that population
policy should be consistent with
the Geneva Convention restric-
tions against "individual or mass
forcible transfers from an occu-
pied territory" or the transfer by
the occupying power of its own na-
tionals to the occupied territory.
The Arabs pressed an amend-
ment to this recommendation di-
recting it specifically against Is-
rael and its role on the West Bank.
The amendment singled out "the
Israeli occupation of Palestinian
and Arab territories" and con-
demned Israeli settlement activi-
ties as "contrary to international
law and the above-mentioned
Geneva Conventions."

OLIJEWISii NEWS • FTiday# SMIterAbetiktil9f 34

to kill both the Arab and Soviet
resolutions, Buckley asked the
White House for permission to
abstain from voting on the confer-
ence's final document. He was in-
structed, hoWever, to vote for its
adoption.
Speaking to reporters in Mexico
City, Buckley deplored the time-
consuming controversies as "a sad
waste of the time and talents" of
the experts on population control
who had travelled to Mexico City
from 149 countries. In most of
these, population growth is an
immediate, major problem. But
this conference ran true to form
for United Nations parleys; what-
ever the agenda, no matter how
restricted and technical its na-

The time-consuming
controversies were "a
sad waste of the time
and talents" of the
experts on population
control who had
travelled to Mexico
City from 149
countries.

ture, unrelated political issues
and the Arab vendetta usurped
time and attention.
This time, however, there were
audible signs of dissent and a
noticeable increase in sentiment
supporting the American effort to
eliminate extraneous issues
(more evident), perhaps, in off-
the-record comment than in the
voting). A representative of
Jamaica, a country currently
benefitting from an Israeli ag-
ricultural and marketing pro-
gram, was one of those who pub-
licly deplored the sidetracking of
conference business by irrelevant
political issues. "Our foreign
ministers are better-equipped to
handle" such questions.
For the first time, important
elements of the West German
press were strongly critical of the
Arab maneuvers and some, like
the national daily, Die Welt, took
the West German delegation to
task for failing to speak up.
"The American delegate con-
fronted the assembled polemicists
with courage and honesty," Die
Welt declared. "The Germans re-
mained carefully silent. How
would it be if, for once, the Ger-
mans spoke up at such a confer-
ence and pointed out that over-
population and hunger have noth-
ing to do with the question of how
the Israelis face the threat of war?
And they could say that those who
at such occasions drag in similar
themes by the hair only unmask
their own lack of seriousness and
thier disinterest in the difficulties
of the Third World."

The Berlin newspaper Der
Tagesspiegel complained that
"politicians, ideologues and dog-
matists were all over the world

population conference. Their
suggestions were aimed more at
serving their own view of the
world and not at the solution of
the problem of the growing birth
rate."
In the past, conscious of Ger-
man dependence on Arab oil and
of the fact that Saudi Arabia and
the Arab states are a major Ger-
man trading and financial part-
ner, the Germans have been
guarded in their expressions of
criticism. In international
forums, they, like most of the
Western nations, have played it
safe by abstaining rather than
voting in opposition on Arab
anti-Israel moves.
The next major United Nations
conference is the UN Conference
on Women to be held in Nairobi
next year. This organization went
on record at its last meeting, ten
years ago in Mexico City, as over-
whelmingly endorsing the Arab-
sponsored resolution equating
Zionism and racism. President
Reagan has assured Jewish lead-
ers that the United States would
consider cancelling its participa-
tion in the Nairobi session if it
adopted a similar resolution.

Ironically, the chorus of criti-
cism of the abuse of international
forums and of the United Nations
and its agencies for attacks on Is-
rael has been joined by the Kurt
Waldheim, the former Secretary
General of the United Nations,
who strongly supported the Pales-
tinian cause and failed to use his
authority to prevent the abuse of
UN agencies. It was during Wal-
dheim's tenure that the UN spon-
sored an "International Day of
Solidarity with the Palestinian
People" in 1978, that a UN Com-
mittee on Palestinian Rights was
established and a unit set up in a
Waldheim's secretariat to serve
the committee.

Waldheim, who left office in
1981, now concedes that the
exploitaton of UN forums for ex-
traneous issues is damaging to
the institution and destructive of
its efffectiveness. Writing in the
Fall issue of Foreign Affairs, the
quarterly of the Council on
Foreign Relations, Waldheim as-
serts that "the United Nations
has fallen upon hard days. It goes
through its paces in a workaday
routine that is increasingly ig-
nored or condemned and that
threatens to become increasingly
irrelevant in the real world."

The former Secretary General
now warns of the danger he ig-
nored while in office of "extreme
and unbalanced measures" such
as the 1975 resolution equating
Zionism and racism which he now
admits, "put the future of the
world organization at risk."
He still believes firmly that
"the legitimate rights of Palestine
Arabs" must be recognized. While
in office, he described these as in-
cluding the right of self-
determination, including state-
hood. He remains critical of what
he calls "sweeping Israeli expan-
sionism" on the West Bank and
Israel's annexation of East
Jerusalem.

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