Boycotting Geneva
Germany, New Zealand and Holland joined the league of the good guys who are boycotting the UN World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, known as Durban II, that started Monday in Geneva. They join Israel, the US, Canada, Poland, Italy and Australia, to make the "righteous ones" who stayed away. Britain and France are present, but represented by low level diplomats, a poor compromise. The main functions of the Conference are to attack Israel and defend Islam.
Having a country like Libya as Chair of such a Conference is tantamount to having the fox guarding the chicken coop, and Cuba as the Vice-Chair of the Conference is absurd! The first head of state who addressed the conference was appropriately, that leader of human rights, Pres. Ahmedinejad of Iran! During his talk in which he called Israel "a racist State," the EU and many other delegations walked out, including Morocco. The only Western European country that remained and applauded his talk was Norway (so much for neutrality).
The Durban I Conference in 2001 became an anti-Semitic hate-fest against Israel and was so overtly anti-Semitic that both Israel and the US walked out. This time the new US Obama Administration gave them a second chance, and said that if they came up with an acceptable draft Conference statement then the US might reconsider its decision not to attend. But, although under pressure the 50 or so Muslim countries that are controlling the Conference did remove several nasty references to Israel (supposedly oppressing the Palestinians in an "apartheid" way), they did not change the anti-Western slant to the draft statement, and did not change the emphasis on Islamophobia being the most important form of racism, that replaced human rights as the focus of the Conference proceedings. Also, women's rights got short shrift, as you'd expect from the Muslims and of course, no human rights for gays! They also re-endorsed the Statement of the Durban I Conference that was replete with anti-Israel and anti-Semitic content.
Holland specifically objected to the protection of religious expression (and particularly Islamic expression) being more important than universal human rights, which should be the sine qua non of all UN anti-racism gatherings. The rights of the nonreligious, antireligious and polytheists (as opposed to monotheists) are not protected at Durban II. Since the Holocaust was one of the main events that lead to the formation of the UN, and was one of the main motivations for the UN charter on human rights, it is derisory that such a Conference should be under Muslim control and have a fascist dictator such as Quaddafi in control.
It is characteristic of the UN and a measure of how far below its original conception the UN has fallen. It is about time that the democratic countries banded together to try to defeat the stranglehold that the Islamic countries have on the UN, that results in the passsing of multiple anti-Israel resolutions that bear no relationship to reality, while real human rights abuses, such as in Sudan/Darfur, Tibet/China, Sri Lanka and elsewhere are ignored.
Even countries that have peace treaties with Israel, namely Egypt and Jordan, participate in the passing and formulating of virulently hostile anti-Israel resolutions, and Islamic countries with no other conceivable reason to castigate Israel, automatically support such resolutions without any basis in reality. It is this nonsense that makes a farce of the workings of the UN and drives away from such a warped body those who would naturally have an interest in actually supporting human rights.
Having a country like Libya as Chair of such a Conference is tantamount to having the fox guarding the chicken coop, and Cuba as the Vice-Chair of the Conference is absurd! The first head of state who addressed the conference was appropriately, that leader of human rights, Pres. Ahmedinejad of Iran! During his talk in which he called Israel "a racist State," the EU and many other delegations walked out, including Morocco. The only Western European country that remained and applauded his talk was Norway (so much for neutrality).
The Durban I Conference in 2001 became an anti-Semitic hate-fest against Israel and was so overtly anti-Semitic that both Israel and the US walked out. This time the new US Obama Administration gave them a second chance, and said that if they came up with an acceptable draft Conference statement then the US might reconsider its decision not to attend. But, although under pressure the 50 or so Muslim countries that are controlling the Conference did remove several nasty references to Israel (supposedly oppressing the Palestinians in an "apartheid" way), they did not change the anti-Western slant to the draft statement, and did not change the emphasis on Islamophobia being the most important form of racism, that replaced human rights as the focus of the Conference proceedings. Also, women's rights got short shrift, as you'd expect from the Muslims and of course, no human rights for gays! They also re-endorsed the Statement of the Durban I Conference that was replete with anti-Israel and anti-Semitic content.
Holland specifically objected to the protection of religious expression (and particularly Islamic expression) being more important than universal human rights, which should be the sine qua non of all UN anti-racism gatherings. The rights of the nonreligious, antireligious and polytheists (as opposed to monotheists) are not protected at Durban II. Since the Holocaust was one of the main events that lead to the formation of the UN, and was one of the main motivations for the UN charter on human rights, it is derisory that such a Conference should be under Muslim control and have a fascist dictator such as Quaddafi in control.
It is characteristic of the UN and a measure of how far below its original conception the UN has fallen. It is about time that the democratic countries banded together to try to defeat the stranglehold that the Islamic countries have on the UN, that results in the passsing of multiple anti-Israel resolutions that bear no relationship to reality, while real human rights abuses, such as in Sudan/Darfur, Tibet/China, Sri Lanka and elsewhere are ignored.
Even countries that have peace treaties with Israel, namely Egypt and Jordan, participate in the passing and formulating of virulently hostile anti-Israel resolutions, and Islamic countries with no other conceivable reason to castigate Israel, automatically support such resolutions without any basis in reality. It is this nonsense that makes a farce of the workings of the UN and drives away from such a warped body those who would naturally have an interest in actually supporting human rights.
posted by Jack Cohen at 8:51 PM
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