U.S. to boycott global racism conference over anti-Semitic history

[shira]

WASHINGTON (CNN) – The Obama administration is boycotting the 10-year commemoration of a global conference to combat racism because previous meetings have included what it called "ugly displays of intolerance and anti-Semitism."

The first conference, which took place in 2001 in Durban, South Africa, focused in large measure on Israel's treatment of Palestinians. Delegates produced a draft resolution at the conference that equated Zionism with racism.

The U.S and more than a half-dozen other nations boycotted a subsequent U.N. conference on combating racism held in Geneva in April 2009 over concerns about the treatment of Israel. European delegates at the conference walked out of the conference after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad railed against Israel during his speech, calling it a "repressive, racist regime."

In a letter to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-New York, Acting Assistant Secretary of State Joseph E. Macmanus said the U.S. would boycott the conference. He wrote that the Obama administration had voted against the United Nations resolution establishing the meeting because earlier events "included ugly displays of intolerance and anti-Semitism and we did not want to see that commemorated."

more...
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/01/u-s-to-boycott-global-racism-conference-over-anti-semitic-history/

[shira]

1. From 2001...Jewish Activists Stunned by Hostility, Anti-Semitism at Durban Conference

DURBAN, South Africa, Sept. 5 (JTA) -- As the U.N. World Conference Against Racism lurches toward a conclusion, shell-shocked Jewish officials are lashing out at the parties they hold responsible for the virulent anti- Semitic and anti-Israel attacks here.

The Palestinians and the Arab world would be an obvious target for the Israel-bashing, except that the only surprising thing about their well-orchestrated propaganda campaign was its scope and intensity.

Rather, Jewish politicians and activists are venting their anger at the United Nations, governments, human rights groups and thousands of nongovernmental organizations perceived as complicit in the anti-Israel attacks, either by their support or by their silence.

The incidents are too numerous to count, activists say.

On the grounds of the U.N. conference itself, the Arab Lawyers Union distributed pamphlets filled with grotesque caricatures of hook-nosed Jews depicted as Nazis, spearing Palestinian children, dripping blood from their fangs, with missiles bulging from their eyes or with pots of money nearby. Attempts to have the group's U.N. accreditation revoked were refused.

Under the tent where the final NGO declaration was approved over the weekend -- a document that indicts Israel as a "racist, apartheid state" guilty of genocide and ethnic cleansing -- fliers were found with a photo of Hitler and the following question: "What if Hitler had won? There would be no Israel, and no Palestinian bloodshed."

In a Palestinian-led march with thousands of participants, a placard was held aloft that read "Hitler Should Have Finished the Job." Nearby, someone was selling the most notorious of anti-Jewish tracts, "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion."

http://www.jewishfederations.org/page.aspx?id=2279

[Never Stop Dancin]

2. Thank the Lord

that the US is boycotting this. The ideas spouted at this "conference" are more dangerous than those of Pol Pot and Hitler combined.

[aranthus]

3. The US and every decent country should boycott.

Leaving aside the antisemitism, the entire conference was a sham and a whitewash of the racist intolerance of most countries around the world. Can anyone tell me one concrete achievement of the original conference?

[jimmie]

4. I can think of one...

it keeps the conference focused on bashing israel and not looking at their own hypocritical regimes.

[Never Stop Dancin]

5. The UN

needs to ban this conference permanently.

[Boojatta]

6. Is the work of fiction, sold as fiction, known as "The Satanic Verses" still banned in South Africa?