Israel Matzav

Celebrating the 10th anniversary of 9/11, UN style

The United Nations is planning a very special celebration for the 10th anniversary of 9/11. They are going to hold a third Durban conference to incite against Israel... in New York City.

Timing Durban III for the annual opening of the General Assembly is meant to guarantee the extensive involvement of presidents and prime ministers, most of whom eluded organizers of Durban I and II.

The U.N. will now be marking the 10th anniversary of Durban I at the same time and place as the 10th anniversary of September 11, 2001. Durban I, the platform for violent, pro-terrorist, and anti-Semitic rhetoric that included such speakers as Yasser Arafat and Fidel Castro, ended just three days before 9/11.

The intergovernmental working group charged with preparing next year’s commemoration session just wrapped up its first planning meeting in Geneva. It adopted a series of “conclusions and recommendations” and indicated that Durban III is intended to “reaffirm that the DDPA provides the most comprehensive UN framework for combating racism.” The U.N. General Assembly is now occupied with the delicate matter of finalizing “the modalities” of Durban III, and New York-based diplomats are hard at work negotiating the details.

The DDPA is the infamous Durban Declaration and Programme of Action, which was produced at Durban I and which names only Israel and no other state as 'racist.'

The United States and Israel walked out of Durban I in disgust, while Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic, Germany, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland and the United States boycotted Durban II. Even though these states were not represented, U.N. officials have continued to claim that the Durban Declaration was achieved by consensus, despite the fact that consensus clearly eluded both the Durban Declaration and the final product of the Durban Review Conference, which reaffirmed the Declaration. But at last October’s Geneva planning session, the European Union walked backwards. It agreed as a whole to recommend to the General Assembly that Durban III produce an “outcome,” knowing full well that the pressure will now be on to manufacture a new statement of unanimous support for the Declaration and the effort to further demonize and isolate Israel.

The Libyan representative in Geneva let slip a few more details about the intentions behind the 10th anniversary event, including drawing attention to the alleged “escalation of Islamophobia,” citing such affronts as the Danish cartoons and threats to burn books in Florida.

Though the Obama administration did not send a formal representative to the Geneva planning meeting, the administration’s ideological embrace of the U.N. has fueled speculation that the U.N. process of attrition may also affect U.S. attitudes towards Durban III. The Bush administration, represented by Congressman Tom Lantos, not only left Durban I – it consistently voted against the twelve General Assembly and Human Rights Commission resolutions dedicated to Durban follow-up that it confronted over the years. When Durban II was in the planning stages, the Bush administration refused to participate.

By contrast, the Obama administration sent a delegation to Geneva to figure out how to get into the Durban II act, and didn’t pull the plug on U.S. participation until a mere 48 hours before the conference, when the administration realized they couldn’t sell support. American fence-sitting was the key stumbling block in efforts to build a large coalition of democracies prepared to boycott Durban II, a dangerous tool for tolerating the intolerant. And last June at the Human Rights Council, the United States decided for the first time not to cast a vote against the Durban follow-up resolution, even though the resolution promoted two celebrations of the 10th anniversary of the original conference: in June 2011 at the Council and in September 2011 at the General Assembly. The resolution also urged widespread participation by civil society in the festivities.

Read the whole thing.

Will the Obama administration go along with Durban III? Or will it announce now (ha!) that it won't participate?

What could go wrong?

Labels: 9/11, Durban conference, United Nations, United Nations Human Rights Council, Zionism

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:54 AM