Moynihan’s Moment: America’s Fight Against Zionism as Racism, by Gil Troy (Oxford University Press), is one of the most important books to appear in recent times.
Using his vast erudition of modern American politics and especially of the institution of the American presidency, Prof. Troy shines a penetrating and highly illuminating light on a watershed moment at the United Nations on Nov. 10, 1975.
By a vote of 72 to 35 with 32 abstentions, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 3379 that stated “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.”
Troy places the adoption by the UN of that infamous resolution under the microscope of his careful research, razor-sharp analytical abilities and superb, pinpoint writing. He achieves what mere microscopes cannot. He conveys an image of exhaustive, meticulously precise detail within a wider panoramic sweep of time, human endeavour and international affairs.
The centrepoint of the slide on which Troy has fixated was the very large presence of the American ambassador to the UN, Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
Moynihan led the charge against the adoption of Resolution 3379. He did so, boldly, aggressively, in language and behaviour that was emphatically non-diplomatic, in the conventional understanding of the term. And he did so, as Troy methodically chronicles, mostly against the wishes of the decision-makers in the State Department, especially the secretary of state, Henry Kissinger.
After the vote in the General Assembly, Moynihan condemned the result and the UN itself with language that will resonate throughout time as crystal clarions of integrity and honesty.
Near the beginning of his response, he proclaimed, “The United States rises to declare before the General Assembly of the United Nations and before the world, that it does not acknowledge, it will not abide by, it will never acquiesce in this infamous act.”
He continued, “There will be time enough to contemplate the harm this act will have done the United Nations. Historians will do that for us, and it is sufficient for the moment only to note the foreboding fact: a great evil has been loosed upon the world.
“The abomination of antisemitism – as this year’s Nobel Peace laureate Andrei Sakharov observed in Moscow just a few days ago – has been given the appearance of international sanction.”
Moynihan’s response was a substantive refutation of the repulsive, hate-laden proposition against Israel.
He concluded as he began, “The United States of America declares that it does not acknowledge, it will not abide by, it will never acquiesce in this infamous act.”
Troy points out that Moynihan’s essential motive in defending Israel was Moynihan’s rock-solid resolve to defend democracy and decency. His “patriotic indignation,” as Troy adroitly calls Moynihan’s uncompromising commitment to oppose the bullying and thuggery of the dictators, tyrants, despots and anti-democratic hooligans who were directing the discussion at the UN, became a rallying cry for many Americans who were disgusted at the large-scale perversion of morality and truth that emanated from the UN and which was directed obsessively and primarily at Israel and to a lesser extent, at the United States, too.
Like a drill cutting through multi-layers of time and information, Moynihan’s Moment is ostensibly a work of political history. But it is – deliberately – far more.
Troy has brilliantly interconnected American political history, with social and intellectual history, international relations, biography and Middle East history.
“I wanted to explore the impact of his [Moynihan’s] stand in the UN in November 1975, on American politics, democracy, human rights, the Cold War, the UN itself, the continuing conflict around Israel’s existence and the enduring friendship between the U.S. and Israel,” Troy explains in the book.
Despite the fact that the resolution was repealed in 1991, the “libel” still lives on. This book is Troy’s latest courageous and principled denunciation of that libel. He exposes it as a vile lie and its propagators as vile liars.
Moynihan’s Moment is essential reading for the generation that lived through and still remembers Moynihan’s moment at the UN, for the generation born after Nov. 10, 1975, and for the generations still to be born for whom the defence of truth, democracy and decency – we hope – will be as cherished a cause as it is to us, Troy and Moynihan. – MBD
