Today marked the beginning of the Durban review conference in Geneva. Dubbed Durban 2, it has followed the path set by the previous anti-Racism conference in Durban 2000, which turned into an anti-Semitic hate-fest.
| One of the many hateful posters on display at the World Conference against Racism in Durban in 2001. Will Durban 2 be a repeat? (Photo from Eye on the UN) |
Like its predecessor, this conference will hijack time that should be focused on discussing solutions to the very real problems of racism in the world in order to delegitimise and demonise Israel. Once again, the real problems of the world need to be set aside so the Palestinian lobby can have their day in the sun lying and seething about the Jewish state.
This time however, the Jew haters haven’t had everything exactly their way. This is honesty just too brilliant...in a move now being referred to as an exceptional coup d’état, UN Watch managed to expose the septic state of UN hypocrisy whereby, in the words of UN Watch “the chief organisers of a world ‘anti-racism’ conference are themselves the worst perpetrators of racism and discrimination".
UN Watch managed to organise a Palestinian doctor who has been a victim of Libya’s discrimination to confront the Durban Review Conference’s Chairperson, Libyan Najjat Al-Hajjaj, on Libya’s brutal torture and scapegoating of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor. The video clip has been viewed around the world.
Click here for the full briefing from UN Watch.
Yesterday, Barak Obama pulled the US out of the conference due to the failure of the review panel to address the concerns that the US had with the excessive focus on Israel. The US joins Israel, Canada, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Italy, Germany, the Czech Republic and Australia who will all be boycotting the conference.
South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) National Director Wendy Kahn is attending the conference and has offered us a unique insider view into the conference with an exclusive series of daily updates from Geneva. The SAJBD has lobbied long and hard to try and convince African states that the conference should focus on real racism and avoid a repeat of the anti-Semitic hatred that marred the initial conference.
In addition to the SAJBD’s updates we have a friend at the conference who has also agreed to send through updates of what she hears and sees. We will collate the two into a “Live from Durban 2” series.
The first update, from the SAJBD, appears below:
Today is the beginning of the Durban Review Conference to be held in Geneva.
The SA Jewish Board of Deputies is attending the Durban Review Conference (DRC) as an accredited NGO and also as part of the International Jewish Caucus, in which we have been very active.
Over the next week, I will do my best to update you on recent developments.
For today I will give you a few developments, although this will of course only reach you tomorrow (Monday). Please note that this is a summary of numerous lengthy documents.
- There is a parallel conference (160 people) taking place in a Geneva Hotel called `Israel Review Conference: United Against Apartheid, Colonialism and Occupation, Dignity & Justice for the Palestinian People’.
It’s been organised by the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, the International Coordinating Network on Palestine and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Committee.
They presented a 300 page report on Israel’s Practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the International Legal Prohibition on Apartheid.
Topics included lawyers speaking about bringing Israel to the International Criminal Court and European Court of Justice for War Crimes, workshops on campaigns against the JNF, debates on Israeli Apartheid with credit to Carter’s book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid and political experience in the trade union movement in the combat against South Africa. The concept was vaunted as a valuable tool for political mobilization and solidarity. Campaigns were proposed to launch international measures to reclaim Palestinian property and also countermeasures against those attempting to criminalise the boycott. “The world stopped Nazism, we’ll stop Zionism”.
Posters included, “Shopping can kill....made in Israel”, “Boycott Israeli Dates”, “Don’t buy Israeli Apartheid”, “Sionisme=Apartheid”. (Information supplied by Simon Wiesenthal Centre).
- The following countries have as of today withdrawn from the DRC conference: Israel, the US, Canada, the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, Poland, Germany and Italy.
- SA Foreign Minister Dr Dlamini-Zuma will be addressing the conference today.
- UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband has been urged by Denis MacShane MP (former no. 2 in the Foreign Office) to remove the UK from the Durban Review Conference (DRC) if Iran’s president Ahmadinejad and other governments use the event to increase anti-Semitic hate in the world. “At the first sign of hate against Jews and Israel from the podium or in any manifestations connected with the conference I hope the UK delegation will publicly withdraw and stand in solidarity with our friends in the US and Canada rather than provide cover for the Jew- and Israel-haters in the world whose record of xenophobia, discrimination and contempt for secular democracy are well-known” MacShane writes. Circulated by Jeremy Newmark, Chief Executive – the Jewish Leadership Council (UK)
- Re Australia’s decision not to participate in the DRC. “Australia has taken this decision with regret as Australians are a people committed to eliminating racism and racial discrimination. Australia however cannot support a document which reaffirms the 2001 Durban Declaration and Program of Action in its entirety – as is the currently the case. The 2001 Declaration singled out Israel and the Middle East. Australia expressed concerns at the time and continues to have these concerns. Regrettably we cannot be confident that the Review Conference will not again be used as a platform to air offensive views including anti-Semitic views.” Extracts from press statement by Hon Stephen Smith MP, Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs.
- Israeli Officials are upset over a planned meeting between Iranian leader Ahmadinejad and the Swiss President Hans Rudolf Merz. “there is no reason in the world to meet with Holocaust denier, exporter of terrorism and anti-Semitism” The Iranian leader is scheduled to deliver a speech at the DRC on Monday. The official added that Ahmadinejad manifestly rejects the State of Israel’s very existence, while representing everything the international community should be shunning. Ynet News 18/04/09 Update – The meeting did take place and in response Israel has recalled its ambassador – more here.
- Ahmadinejad spoke at the conference today at lunch time and 23 EU delegates walked out as he called for an end to Zionism – details here.
We’ll get further updates as the conference proceeds.
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