Israel Matzav

Europe has red lines?

The 'Durban II' conference is just around the corner. In February of this year, French President Nicolas Sarcozy said

“[T]he Durban conference in 2001 led to intolerable excesses from certain states and numerous NGOs that turned the conference into a forum against Israel, and no one has forgotten,” said President Sarkozy in February, promising to disengage from the process “if ever our legitimate demands are not taken into account.”

It looks like the time has come for Europe to fish or cut bait. The "draft outcome document" for Durban II was published this week, and it's appalling - but probably not all that surprising - just how anti-Semitic it is.

The shocking text of the "Draft Outcome Document" to be adopted at the UN's so-called anti-racism conference, Durban II, has just been released. It features:

* accusations that Israel is guilty of apartheid, crimes against humanity and genocide
* allegations that Palestinians are victims of Israeli racism
* the accusation that Zionism is racism by referring to a "racially based law of return"
* claims of a right of return that would end the Jewishness of the state of Israel
* an effort to end Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem
* an attempt to strangle free speech by demands that states "encourage objective and balanced portrayals of people, events and history, especially in the media"
* a demand that states adopt laws to invade public and private life for the purposes of "preventing and punishing expressly and specifically contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance in public and private life"
* an insistence that the world media be governed by "a code of ethical conduct with a view to prohibiting the proliferation of ideas of superiority and the justification of racial or religious hatred"
* an effort to tarnish "counterterrorism or national security" efforts with the accusation that they "hamper...progress in the collective struggle against racism"
* trumped-up accusations of global Muslim victimhood - including the claim that "the most serious manifestations of defamation of religions are the increase in Islamophobia and the worsening of the situation of Muslim minorities around the world"- a blatant effort by states sponsors of terrorism to turn attention away from their own heinous behavior by reinventing themselves as victims
* demands for broad new laws that would undercut democratic rights and freedoms in the name of religious sensibilities: "take firm action against negative stereotyping of religions and defamation of religious personalities, holy books, scriptures and symbols."

During the week of October 13, 2008, democratic states led by the European Union are sitting down to conduct a second reading of this outrageous "anti-racism" document.

The US, Canada and Israel have all declined to participate in Durban II. Will the Europeans also stay home behind their 'red lines'? Or will they issue milquetoast statements of condemnation and go on with business as usual? Here's betting on the latter.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:09 PM