In 1975, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 3379 by a decisive 72‑vote majority. For many countries, it was not a controversy but a clear stand against inequality and racial discrimination. Titled “Elimination of all forms of racial discrimination: Zionism as racism,” the resolution declared Zionism a form of racism. It echoed a core postwar principle: that any doctrine of racial differentiation or superiority is scientifically false, morally condemnable, socially unjust, and dangerous. In that moment, the resolution embodied a genuine postwar commitment to move beyond hierarchy and toward equality—a statement that all human beings deserve to be seen through the same lens: as equals, and nothing less.

For sixteen years, the resolution stood. It did not trouble the people and institutions it named nearly as much as it bothered those who insisted on denying the reality it exposed. And then, in 1991, it was revoked. But what changed? Did racism or supremacism suddenly disappear? Did the Palestinians achieve liberation? No. The repeal came not in a time of peace, but during the first Intifada, when Palestinians across historic Palestine—women, men, children, teachers, peasants, and others—had broken through fear and risen up against the Israeli occupation with the means available to them: stones and Molotov cocktails. When Israel could not contain the uprising, Israeli defense minister at the time (Nobel Peace Prize winner and Israeli prime minister later) Yitzhak Rabin ordered the infamous “breaking bones” policy in 1988. A policy bearing that name reveals everything:

So what actually happened in 1991? The Soviet Union was collapsing, and many newly dependent states were pushed into political and economic alignment with the United States. In that climate, George H. W. Bush assembled the votes needed to repeal the resolution through Resolution 46/86. Later that year, Arab governments entered the Madrid Conference with Israel—but only after Israel made clear that revoking the resolution was a precondition for its participation. It is hard to imagine a more cynical condition for “peace” than one in which the oppressed are expected to negotiate while the language naming their oppression is erased first.

So what do we learn?

Palestinians, and oppressed people everywhere, cannot afford to place blind faith in institutions built within a world order designed by the powerful. The United Nations may speak the language of universal equality, but its history reminds us that some lives are still treated as more negotiable than others. It is like playing a game where those who wrote the rules, and who referee the match, are the very ones cheating to hold onto power. Of course, international institutions can sometimes reflect pressure from below, and sometimes they even admit truths they would rather avoid. But they cannot be the sole foundation of liberation.

Any day that Resolution 46/86 remains in place is a day the world refuses to take a stand again. That silence protects injustice. It is time to repeal the repeal.