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Subject Israel to boycott UN conference on human rights and racism

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[quote:Anonymous Coward 357467:MV81MTA0MjNfNzg2NzM5MV81ODYxQTI3Mg==]
[b]Senator: U.S. to boycott UN anti-racism meet due to anti-Israel agenda [/b]

A U.S. senator says the United States has decided not to attend next year's follow-up to the 2001 United Nations World Conference on Racism because the panel seems certain to repeat anti-Semitic and anti-Israel positions of the original gathering.

The United States and Israel walked out of that conference, which ended two days before the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States. A State Department spokesman, Karl Duckworth, said Wednesday no decision had been made whether to stay away from the second conference.

Word that the United States would reject the conference again came from Republican U.S. Senator Norm Coleman. In a news release, Coleman said the decision came in response to a letter he and 26 fellow senators wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. 
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"The U.S. walked out of this conference after the anti-Semitism and anti-Israeli activities reached such an intolerable level that it was beyond repair," the letter said. It called the conference "yet another example of a seemingly noble UN agenda item being hijacked by member states to spew anti-Semitism."

Canada already announced it is boycotting the conference, known as Durban II for the South African city hosting it. In announcing the decision last month, Canada's secretary of state for multiculturalism and Canadian identity, Jason Kenney, said, "We'll attend any conference that is opposed to racism and intolerance, not those that actually promote racism and intolerance."

The Bush administration showed its distaste for the conference in December by refusing to accept a consensus vote on a preliminary UN budget for 2008-2009 and demanding a recorded vote. The vote was 141 to 1, the no vote coming from the United States.

A separate recorded vote on including the Durban II language in the budget also passed, but the United States, Canada and 38 other countries voted against it. Iceland, Japan, Liechtenstein, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland abstained.

In the letter, Coleman and the others had particularly bitter words for governments and people being appointed to run Durban II. "Libya was appointed to chair the Executive Committee of the Preparatory Committee; a vice chairman is Iran, despite the fact that this country's leader has called for the destruction of Israel and been a leader on one of the most despicable forms of racism - Holocaust denial."

In 2001, Rice, then President George W. Bush's national security adviser, explained on television why the Americans and Israelis had walked out: Participants spent far too much time trying to condemn Israel and single it out, and I think the United States made the right decision to leave.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/952157.html
[/quote]

Original Message Israel will boycott the United Nations "Durban II" conference on human rights, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni announced Sunday in Jerusalem at the annual meeting of the Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism.

The decision followed an assessment by the Foreign Ministry, and other Western governments, that it will be impossible to prevent the conference from turning into a festival of anti-Israeli attacks.

South Africa hosted the first Durban conference in the summer of 2001 under the auspices of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. It was titled "The World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance," but most of the discussions revolved around Israel's treatment of the Palestinians.

The United States and Israel responded by lowering the level of their diplomatic representation and eventually quit the conference, which culminated in a resolution equating Zionism and racism.

That conference also provided a framework for a global convention of non-governmental organizations, which became a platform for delegitimizing Israel.

For the past few months, a coalition of Israeli and global Jewish organizations, together with government representatives, tried to prepare a joint policy for the follow-up conference, which is scheduled to take place in early 2009 at a still undecided venue. Among other things, there were talks with the foreign ministries of other countries and pressure on NGOs to guarantee that no anti-Semitic resolutions would be passed.

However, it became clear there is little chance of effecting a change, among other reasons because the UN Human Rights Commission is chaired by Libya.

Livni said Sunday that Israel had intended to try and influence the discussion "from within," by taking an active role in international forums "and cooperating with those leaders and countries that don't have a hidden agenda, and who truly want to promote human rights. But that policy is sometimes misinterpreted, and there are mistakes one must not repeat. Therefore I wish to make clear that Israel will not participate and will not grant legitimacy to the UN conference on racism unless there is proof that the conference will not become a platform for more anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic activity."

Livni called on the international community to boycott the conference, or else risk "legitimizing hatred, extremism and anti-Semitism under the guise of combating racism."

[link to www.haaretz.com]

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