Israel Matzav

UN General Assembly votes to commemorate Durban conference

On Tuesday night, the United Nations General Assembly voted 121-19 with 35 abstentions to 'commemorate' the 10th anniversary of the 'Durban Conference Against Racism' as part of the 2011 General Assembly meeting in September. The original conference turned into one of the worst Jew and Israel bashing sessions in human history.

Israeli officials voiced concern that next year’s conference would become a forum for anti-Israel bashing, just as the original one had.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor responded to the vote by saying that it was “unfortunate there are those who want to deflect from the fight on racism for anti-Israeli propaganda purposes.”

By so doing, they were “harming the real struggle” against racism, he said.

Palmor noted that most of the world’s democratic countries had either voted against the resolution or abstained.

Officially known as the World Conference against Racism 2001, Durban I was marred by dramatic displays of anti-Semitism and attacks on Israel’s right to exist. Last year’s Durban II showcased Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s tirades against Israel, as well as his denial of the Holocaust.

Among those voting against the intended commemoration were Israel, the United States, Italy, Australia, Germany, Canada, Sweden, the Netherlands, Poland and Romania.

The US, in a statement by Deputy Representative to the UN’s Economic and Social Council John Sammis, expressed its disapproval of the commemoration in an accompanying explanation of its vote.

“My delegation regrets that this resolution contains elements that require us to vote no, and we hope to work together to find common ground on concrete approaches that both protect freedom of expression and combat all forms of racism and racial discrimination,” Sammis said, adding that the US was “deeply troubled by the choice of time and venue for the 10th anniversary commemorative event.

“Just days earlier, we will have honored the victims of 9/11, whose loved ones will be marking a solemn 10-year anniversary for them and the entire nation,” Sammis said.

“It will be an especially sensitive time for the people of New York, and a repeat of the vitriol sadly experienced at past Durban-related events risks undermining the relationship we have worked hard to strengthen over the past few years between the United States and the UN.”

Fiamma Nirenstein, a former journalist and now vice president of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, this week recalled covering the initial Durban conference.

“Those were just the days before the attack on the Twin Towers and never was a hate scenario better laid,” Nirenstein wrote. “Durban was the premise to Ground Zero.

While from the podium speakers heaped on the US and Israel all the sins of the world and demanded that they pay the penalty, Jews wearing kippahs had to protect themselves against the demonstrators touting portraits of [Osama] bin Laden (which at the time I saw and reported on) and hounding the Jews.”

Recalling that Jewish centers in Durban had been stormed and closed, and that an Israeli press conference had been violently interrupted, Nirenstein wrote that Israel had been compared to Nazism and accused of apartheid at Durban, while it was demanded that Americans “handsomely recompense Africa for damages from slavery.

“The Durban declaration that they now want to resurrect and celebrate again singles out Israel as a racist state, without naming any other country in the world.

The myriad types of ethnic and religious discrimination that infest the world, for the declaration, does not exist and it doesn’t even say a word about the thousands of massacres that have bloodied the globe for reasons of the color of one’s skin or beliefs,” Nirenstein wrote.

“Re-approving the Durban document means rekindling, with the elephantine power of the UN General Assembly, a whole series of institutional initiatives giving rise to cultural and economic boycotts, discrimination against athletes, artists and scholars and proliferating the accusations of war crimes to any Israeli official in sight,” Nirenstein said.

“It means reviving manifestations of hate in which the swastika and the Star of David overlap and the hunting season on Jews is declared open, the result being an exponential growth in anti-Semitic incidents. This makes many people happy, very happy.”

The Anti-Defamation League, meanwhile, called the UN resolution to commemorate the conference “outrageous and shameful.”

Fox News adds from Eye on the UN's Anne Bayefsky:

Contrary to some suggestions, the event will not be a quiet commemoration with minimal political design. Amendments made to the resolution late in the day decide that the meeting should “consist…of an opening plenary, consecutive round tables/thematic panels and a closing plenary meeting.” And then the meeting will adopt a final “political declaration.”

Lest anyone be delusional about which country is intended to be the first course at Durban III, the resolution pinpoints only one theme of the Declaration as the meeting’s focal point, namely, “Victims of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerances: Recognition, Justice and Development.” The carefully crafted Durban Declaration lists Palestinians as “Victims of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.”

Of course, as history has demonstrated time and again, the meal never ends with the Jews. The Dutch representative valiantly spelled out to the General Assembly committee a bigger picture: “The fight against racism and discrimination is of such importance that we cannot support any effort to redirect our attention towards different agendas. Unfortunately, the Durban Declaration and…Review Conference did so…by elevating the protection of religion above the protection and promotion of human rights and by placing unnecessary restrictions on the freedom of expression…”

In addition, in the resolution the UN puts out a call for help from the world of rabble-rousers who masquerade as human rights enthusiasts. Despite being fully aware of the violent extremism characterizing the NGO Forum at Durban I, the resolution asks “civil society, including NGOs” “to organize and support” 10th anniversary initiatives “with high visibility.”

The United States ought to tell the UN to hold its hatefest elsewhere, but with Obama in power, that's not likely to happen. The Obama administration professes concern about Durban III, but not enough concern to lead the opposition or to tell the UN to take its conference elsewhere.

The Obama administration is clearly worried about the effects of Durban III on its policy of embracing the UN and its human rights apparatus. U.S. representative John Sammis spelled out their concerns, lamenting to the UN committee that the event “risks undermining the relationship we have worked hard to strengthen over the past few years between the United States and the UN.”

Indeed it does.

The question now is which countries will ensure that their heads of state and of government will not participate in such an outrage. The United States and Israel walked out of Durban I in disgust.

Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, Germany, Israel, Italy, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, and the United States refused to participate in Durban II.

With 19 votes against and another 35 democracies concerned enough to abstain, it is time to send an even more powerful and permanent message to the UN about Durban and its progeny.

Last night U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the Ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, called on the Obama administration to “announce publicly, right now, that we will stay away from Durban III, deny it U.S. taxpayer dollars, and oppose all measures that seek to facilitate it. And we should encourage other responsible nations to do the same.”

Unfortunately, comments made by U.S. representative Sammis last evening suggest that the Obama administration will again refuse to take a leadership role in denying legitimacy to the Durban agenda. At Durban II, President Obama pulled out less than 48 hours before the event, ruining chances of building a larger coalition of like-minded states.

Sammis said only: “The poor choice of time and venue for the 10th anniversary commemorative event places a premium on the need for all participants to put forth genuine, good-faith efforts to ensure that this event focuses on the substantive issues at stake in the global fight against racism, and that it does not become a forum for politicization, or efforts that run counter to mutual respect and fundamental human rights.”

The problem with this conference isn't time and venue. The problem is that it is taking place at all.

What could go wrong?

Labels: 9/11, Durban III, General Assembly, New York City

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:31 PM