Israel Matzav

Hudson Institute and Touro College running anti-Durban conference

Hudson Institute and Touro College running a conference on September 22 - the day of the Durban III conference - between 9:00 am and 6:00 pm. The conference is entitled The Perils of Global Intolerance: the United Nations & "Durban III" and will take place at the UN Millenium Plaza Hotel.

The Hudson Institute and the Touro College Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust today announced an historic conference targeting manifestations of racism, anti-Semitism and other forms of intolerance at the United Nations. The conference will coincide with the highly controversial UN event known as “Durban III.” Organizers were galvanized, according to Anne Bayefsky, a Senior Fellow of the Hudson Institute and Director of the Touro College Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust, after learning that “Americans will be mourning the 10th anniversary of September 11, 2001 at the same time as the United Nations will appear to be legitimizing the kind of intolerance that drives terrorism itself.”

"Durban III" is intended to "commemorate" the 10th anniversary of the UN-sponsored anti-Semitic hatefest that took place in Durban, South Africa in 2001. The final product of that conference – the Durban Declaration – charged Israel with racism, the only one of the UN's 192 state members so accused. Led by Congressman and Holocaust survivor Tom Lantos, the United States – along with Israel – walked out of Durban I in disgust.

According to conference organizer, Anne Bayefsky, a Senior Fellow of the Hudson Institute and Director of the Touro College Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust, "The Durban conference legitimized hate speech on a global scale." At the widely-perceived racist "anti-racism" conference, the streets were filled with signs such as "for the liberation of Quds machine guns based on faith and Islam must be used," and handouts with Hitler's photo read "What if I had won? The good things: there would be no Israel..." Durban I ended three days before 9/11. The Durban Review Conference, or Durban II, was held in Geneva in 2009, and the only world leader to attend was Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Organizers of the "Perils of Global Intolerance" conference were galvanized, Bayefsky said, after learning that "Americans will be mourning the 10th anniversary of September 11, 2001 at the same time as the United Nations is legitimizing the kind of intolerance that drives terrorism in the first place."

The one-day conference will be a call to action. "Given the events that Durban III is intended to commemorate," Bayefsky noted, "the UN will sadly serve as a global platform to promote the inverse of its original purposes and principles. It is imperative to deny legitimacy to prejudice and the Durban Declaration."

A Speakers List of International Prominence

The conference has gathered an impressive array of distinguished speakers from three continents, including Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Elie Wiesel, former US UN Ambassador John Bolton, former Governor Mike Huckabee, world-renowned scholar Bernard Lewis, Ronald Lauder is the current President of the World Jewish Congress, Academy-award winning actor Jon Voight, former New York City Mayor Ed Koch, Harvard Professor and best-selling author Alan Dershowitz, a psychologist named one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people in the world Wafa Sultan, Sudanese human rights activist Simon Deng, former Israeli UN Ambassador Dore Gold, Harvard Professor and National Humanities Medal recipient Ruth Wisse, veteran award-winning journalist Khaled Abu Toameh, Hoover Institution Fellow and National Humanities Medal recipient Shelby Steele, bestselling author and award-winning UK journalist Douglas Murray, and President of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy Zuhdi Jasser.

Political and other leaders who have a genuine interest in combating xenophobia will be provided a crucial forum to speak with passion about their concerns, and to distance America and decent people everywhere from a multilateralism divorced from fundamental freedoms and inalienable rights.

Read the whole thing. If any of you (especially fellow bloggers) are planning to go, please let me know via email. Yes, I would love to go....

Labels: Alan Dershowitz, Anne Bayefsky, Dore Gold, Durban III, Ed Koch, John Bolton, Khaled Abu Toameh, Mike Huckabee, Wafa Sultan

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:28 AM